doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 28 gauge. A viable hunting option????

Jonesy,
I put Miller in for 5 stars and it averaged it to 4. Put him in for 5 more and maybe Miller will get the 5 stars he deserves. Miller has always contributed meaninfully to whatever he steps in. LOL. Just kidding, Miller. You have my respect for digging up some pretty obscure things and always looking for the straight scoop on topics.

Improved Modified - I can speak from experience and say that the 28 gauge with 3/4 oz. loads is more than enough gun for even late season ruffed grouse. The trick is to find a barrel / load combination that will deliver a decent pattern out to the range at which you normally shoot. My 687 with the IM choke tube will deliver a deadly pattern with the Remington Express Long Range shells, #6 shot, out to 35 yards. For some reason that same gun shoots patchy patterns with Kent loads in 7 1/2, even though those loads work well in a Franchi auto. With the 28 gauge some work at the patterning board is advisable.

The major advantage of the diminutive gauge is the light, fast handling guns that use the load. I see no advantage to using 28 gauge for game in a gun much over 6 lb. The explosive flush of a ruffed grouse demands a quick response and a lightweight double allows that.

For larger and longer range birds such as sharptail or pheasant my personal view is that a larger shell is warranted, but a good shot with a good load may disagree.

Anton

Thank you for all of your responses-IM

My skeet average is higher with the 28GA than with anything else. I have a membership in a hunting club that plants birds every Saturday. I have been using a 12 GA but plan on using a 28 next time because even with an open choke I tend to tear those up a little. I think that one would be hard pressed to tell the difference if you were shooting a gun that weighed and balanced the same

Ditto every word that 2-piper wrote. Even Bob Brister, in his very good shotgun book, admitted that while he loved the 28 ga., in a quail hunt competition, he would use his full grown Perazzi 12 guage. The "ballistically efficient" and "square load" is about as meaningless as a dude in a gun store, handling maybe the second(or first) shotgun he's ever had in his hands, tell the clerk "it has a rilly good balance"! Or "nice and light", usually followed by a thoughtful look through the bore, like he's going to see something he recognizes in there.
I also agree with IM's own answer to his question.
I do love the 28 gauge. Currently own two of them both SxS. IMO, they are great on doves, not as good as a 12 on western quail but a lot of fun to shoot at clay target games. In direct response to TT's proposal as to which of the gauges(16,20, or 28) is redundant, my vote would go to the 16. It has no place in skeet, is hard to find components for, seldom on sale and every load usable in the 16 can be produced in a 12 ga., with the infinite variety of wads available. Likewise, the 20 can be loaded up, at least to equal the lighter 16 ga. loads.

I strictly limit my 28 gauge to quail and preserve chukar. I killed 4 preserve pheasants with it today though. Great for in close but you limit your options when they get the jump on you. My all around favorite is the 20 gauge, the 16 comes out for pheasant only hunts. The 12 is reserved for waterfowl.

While ruffed grouse are certainly bigger than quail and woodcock, I've never found them particularly difficult to kill, and shots are often quite close. I don't think there's anything wrong with the 28 as a grouse and woodcock gun, unless maybe you're talking late season, and you're experiencing mostly long chances on grouse. But I would not hype it as a pheasant or prairie grouse gun, for sure.

I agree with 2 Pipers comments.

I also will tell you I for years shot my 28 Repro with the commonly available Winchester 'Max' loads with 1oz. shot. I've since read that 1oz. shot in a 28 is a dreadful load.....which surprises me greatly as numerous birds and clays fell stone dead when I pointed the gun their way and pulled the trigger.

With the heavy loads I have reliably killed plenty of critters heavier than a quail, including a couple very solid jackrabbits on the run, a skunk, and a few differen varieties of large birds.

My experience has been about the same as GregSy. I have shot a 28 ga for 30 years(M870 Rem)as well as a good friend of min that I have hunted with a lot.. Wild Quail
and Dove have never failed to fall DEAD,much more so than my 20 ga with the same choke. I dont think it is imagination that within 30 yds it kills like a 12 ga. I shoot 3/4 and 7/8 oz.

A 28ga weighing in at no more than 5¼ lbs, with first bbl skeet or I/C & 2nd bbl mod, shooting 3/4oz of appropiate shot size for the game at hand will cleanly kill a lot more game than most would give it credit for. Reason, most upland game, at least in the East, is shot inside 30 yds. To me this is the ideal 28. For more shot or a heavier weight, I'll take a bigger hole any day. I have 16ga @ 6lb, why carry a 6lb 28ga?? If a 12ga can be loaded down to 7/8oz surely a 16 could handle 3/4oz just fine. But if need be it can handle 1oz, 1 1/8oz or even 1¼oz assuming modern gun capable of SAAMI loads. Older 28's should likely be limited to 5/8oz loads likewise. In proportion to bore a 1oz 28ga is equal to a 1¼oz load in 20ga, 1 7/16oz load in a 16ga or 1 3/4oz in a 12ga. Note that none of these loads are loaded in standard 2 3/4" hulls. The smaller the hole in the bbl the greater seems to be the tendency to "Overload" them.