The weight of the gun that one may be holding empirically has very little to do with the true joy of the experience. I carried a 12 ga Savage 311 over miles of BLM land in central Nevada chasing Chukar. Once my Eastern woodland eyes tuned in on the thousands of shades of grays and browns in the Great Basin and I started picking the birds out before they scattered, I was able to put the Old Savage to great use. The last Ruffed Grouse I took fell in the North West corner of Pennsylvania to a 20 ga Winchester 1200. I can still see the bird's flight path through a tangle of grapevines. I ate the leftovers of that bird high on a rock on a snowy opening day of deer season. There are a lot of memories, images, smells, and sounds I can recall. The heft of a game pouch or the feel of rifle slung over the shoulder standout, specific ounces on or not on the shotgun ... pretty inconsequesntial.
