This is all very interesting. Now I think I got the picture. The Russians and Americans were experiminting with packing the 12-bore load into a long 20 shell, while the Brits were on the opposite track, building 2-inch 12s.
Dave in Maine, when I said the heavy 20 had "a bit" of following, I meant exactly that - a bit. The absolute majority of Russian hunters used 16 and 12 gauge guns (with a heavy 16 gauge, loaded with 30 gramms of shot in factory shells and up to 34 in reloads, being the most common gun until 1970s, when the 12 took the lead).
AmarilloMike, I don't know about Parker and Fox, but it's certainly not the case with Tula. I don't think they ever had the marketing dept., or have now (what with their making a nice balanced 3.1 kg 12-gauge double and choking it unalternatively Full-XFull). They were and are (like all other Russian gun manufacturors) essentially a military outfit that makes sporting arms as a by-product, to keep the stuff busy between big orders from the Govt. and not meant to make a profit anyway.
There it was obviously a case of one individual making the difference. Ivaschentsev's articles appeared in the 1890s, and the prouction of "Ivaschentsev's Model" began in the early 1900's (I'm not sure about exact dating); and the model reflected his views on guns in more than the bore size - he believed that the underlever was more ergonomical than the toplever, for example, and there you have it. It looks like a few readers were impressed by his articles enough to order a gun exactly as described, and the number of orders was big enough for Tula Armory to put the model on the production line rather than making bespoke guns individually.
I would have to research the issue some more if I were to make any further or more accurate statements about it.
I wonder if there was a gun writer in the US that preached similar views on the subject of heavy 20s around the turn of the centuries.
