Indeed, Miller, I first mentioned his name. And you first mentioned his claim about the 28's short shot string . . . so I went back, looked, and discovered that those comments were almost entirely in contrast to the 3" .410's long shot string. Certainly no statement that the standard 28ga load has a shorter shot string than, say, a 7/8 oz 20ga or a 1 oz 12ga. Other than in his chapter on string (with the famous moving target tests), his comments on the 28 are mostly in his chapter on small gauges.

As for the quote you quoted . . . yes, it is a direct quote. That's why I put quotation marks around it. I don't normally put them around things I say, because people kinda know I'm saying it if I write it. smile And it's not what I'M saying . . . it's what Brister said. And Don and Miller, I have to "assume" here, since Brister did not add further explanation to his "balanced load" quote (and I purely hate to assume!), but I don't think he's talking balanced mathematically, as you are. He's speaking in terms of the results those loads produce, as evidenced by their patterns.

To add to what tw wrote, I'd point out that it's pretty well-known that Brister lived in a very nice house, purchased with his winnings shooting live pigeons. Thus, he had pretty good credentials as both an experimenter and a practitioner with the shotgun.