Miller, he does NOT say that the two loads "balance one another". That's your interpretation/assumption. He's not trying to say anything that "equally fits" both loads . . . other than that they both perform very well. A 6 pound gun can be well-balanced, as can an 8 pound gun. Does not mean they balance each other, which obviously they do not.
Nor--going back to your previous post--does he compare anything to a 28ga "special hard shot handload". His photo on p. 65, of an 89% pattern--shot at 35 yards, target speed 40 mph--is clearly marked as a standard Remington factory load. Might have been an even better pattern in a harder shot handload, but that's pretty darned good already--and since string is taken into account in that pattern, there's obviously not a lot of deformation taking place, or if so it's not impacting the pattern very much. His specific reference to using hard shot is aimed at the poorly-performing .410: "Put very hard shot in a .410 and it starts to behave."
The smaller the bore, the more shot deforms--all things being equal. But the standard 3/4 oz load in the 28ga does not seem to deform much shot. Too bad he did not compare it to a 3/4 oz 20ga load along with the .410. But if we're looking just at difference in bore size and "balance", from a mathematical standpoint, consider this: There's a little over twice as much difference in bore diameter between a .410 and a 28ga as there is between a 28ga and a 20ga. Yet the dropoff in Class B skeet averages is only 1% from 20 to 28 . . . but 10% from 28 to .410. Mathematically, it would seem that either the .410 ought to be a good bit closer to the 28 than that, based on relative bore diameters, or else there ought to be more difference between the 20 and the 28. Which would seem to reinforce Brister's point that it takes more than math to explain things, perhaps especially so where the 28ga is concerned.
Last edited by L. Brown; 01/19/11 10:03 AM.
