On the issue of weight, the popular opinion is that the Ithaca is a clunker. Quite the opposite is true. Seen in hand, it is readily apparent that is quite a small frame - In almost every measure it is shorter, narrower, and not as tall as its contemporaries. Although Ithaca was a mass-marketer, they had the ability to build the guns up or down in weight, to the customer's desires. It's not Ithaca's light guns that surprise me, but the heavy ones.