Thanks for taking the time to comment! As a rule of thumb, I usually try to limit my use of instructions to those that are more common than the bit shift instruction. The simpler the program the less experience the person maintaining the system has to have to successfully troubleshoot and maintain the system. I have come accross some programs where it seemed that the programmer felt if there was an instruction available it should be used. That said I will add that your application sounds like the perfect case to use it.