After 25 years of hunting Gambels for about 95% of my bird hunting, I would make the following observation. First, they are a lot tougher than Bob White's, even with a good dog most will not be shot off point, and if they are not dead in the air they will very often be unrecovered. My favorite load is 3/4oz of 7 shot. It provides full penetration, patterns well from a 20ga and I seldom lose a bird hit with the 7s. Seven and 1/2 shot is almost as good. Eights and smaller produce too many cripples/lost birds. I would think a 410 which patterns 7 1/2s well, choked reasonable tight would work okay with 11/16 oz of shot if the shooter can put the pattern on target. But 5/8oz loads I think too likely to be a crippling load. Pattern work would be the determining factor.
