I,also, took my RBL to Canada to hunt Ruffed Grouse. It was the backup to my ICD, but, as it turned out, it became my primary gun.
After the first two days of rain, I started to have problems with the safety on my Ithaca. It was binding and I couldn't get it off fast enough to kill birds normally bagged with ease.
I pulled out my RBL and hunted with it the next three days and bagged 3,5, and 5 birds for limits two out of three days. I have plenty of rounds through my gun (#831) but this was the first attempt at the real thing. It is definitely a grouse gun.
My ICD must have picked up some kind of foreign object because, after three days of activitity and some gun oil, it worked fine. I never quit when I'm on a roll, so I stuck with the RBL.
My Ithaca will always be my primary for a couple of reasons: at 5lbs.15oz., it's half a pound lighter, and I shoot it better than any gun I own. Having said this, I like the shooting and handling characteristics of my RBL almost as well.
One of the oddities of my gun is that it came with 2 skeet chokes and lacked an IC. When I called the factory, the only way I could get an IC was to return one of the skeet tubes. I opted to keep the two skeets and hunted with them in the gun.
