There's a lot of general talk about the RBL on this board, but not much about how they're performing in the field. I just came back from a week in Saskatchewan duck and goose hunting and am glad to report that mine, No. 126, was a terrific gun to shoot there.

I took a 12b along with the RBL, just in case, but enjoyed the latter so much I didn't even uncase the 12. We were shooting over decoys in open fields, from coffin blinds, and the RBL, with IC and Mod tubes was perfect for that. I tried to be careful about "sky busting" and as long as I stayed within sane ranges my birds fell just as dead as any shot with a 3.5" 12. Apart from handling and patterning well, it doesn't show any effects from the rough handling that goes along with a week of that kind of hunting, and there's nary a mark on my shoulder from it even after a week's worth of reclining shooting from that screwy blind.

Incidentally, there were three 20s and one 12 in our party of 4, and we all got our limits each time we went out. Saskatchewan is a great place to hunt, with an enormous bird population and very nice people. Highly recommended! Best,

Jerry Keathley

Thanks for the report, Jerry. What shells were the 20-gauge gunners using, 2 3/4 or three-inch, please?

I have had my RBL just about a year now and hunted about nine days for pheasants and Huns- works very well with one oz Kent Traditional Upland loads.
Have also shot about 500, mostly reloads, at skeet.
Curious as to the configuration of #126, as mine is #127-coin finish, Splinter, straight hand, dbl triggers, 14 3/4 in LOP.

RBLs are chambered for 2 3/4 inch shells. Blooded mine on a couple of Pheasants yeaterday. One ounce Super-X #6. Tony proudly makes the gun in America, and when you sign your warranty card and send it in he sends you a CSMC ballcap made in China!!

King -The other 20b gunners were using 3" steel. Interestingly, though the RBL is touted as able to handle steel shot, I couldn't find a cartridge maker listing 2.75" steel with duck-size shot. So I had to use the high-priced spread: 1-oz #4 Bismuth. They perfomed very well on both ducks, snows and Canada geese shot over decoys.

Keith, No. 126 is DT, splinter, straight-hand, CC, #3 Am walnut.

I have to tell you, there are several people right now who saw how the gun looked and performed and are sorry they didn't order one when I told them to!

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.