doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com tell me about the 28 Gauge

I have to admit to not have had the stomach to read most of the above after some point. That being said, and please forgive me if it has already been stated in the melee above but with todays tungsten based shot I played with a 3/4 oz load of #5 15G/ccm in a 20ga that could have been easily adapted to 28ga. At 1200fps it was calculating out to have better penetration and pellets on target at 60yds than 1 1/2oz of BBB steel at 1500fps plus.

Patterns and velocity over the chronograph bore most of that out to be true.

Still have a few pellets rolling about but it is very expensive...18g/ccm is or was available too......

Best,
Mark

I use 20ga three-inch l 1/8 ounce Kent Impact No. 5 tungsten at 1360 and in 12ga 2 1/2-inch 30 gram No. 5 Kent Impact tungsten without feeling handicapped on decoyed ducks and geese. There's something to tungsten that isn't in bismuth; they're good loads.

For the record: At this point I dont have a 28, and most likely won't own another one. The "Pawkuh" was once again stolen by my brother and I sold my well used, stone reliable CZ to a quail hunter from Southern Kansas. We start hunting Pheasants here about the 1st of November in Nebraska, which is 12 miles from the home place. Kansas season runs through the end of January. I am sure the possesion limit gets bent once in a while, but many birds get given to hunters who dont shoot well, we put on a feed at the senior center, and we take some to our place in Mexico when we go down for the winter. AND, some days I dont kill a bird, due to my poor shooting or because they wild out. This year, at the end of the season, we were still lifting 50-100 birds/day. This season, barring massive hail, will be even better. Oh yeah, I had a 28 Grulla, which had such open chokes, everything had to get shot twice....When I lived in Iowa, in Marshalltown, twernt no trick to shoot a limit of birds every day. My boys still live in Tama/Toledo and come hunt with me, cuz of few birds...

If we're talking tungsten matrix, assuming the same pellet count you get with lead (and I think that's close), 3/4 oz 5's gives you fewer than 130 pellets. I'd want pretty much all of those in a 30" circle if I wanted to be sure of killing a pheasant--and even with an 80% pattern, you're barely going to have 100 hits at 40 yards. I'm a big fan of the stuff, having killed a mallard at a paced-off 50+ yards with TM 5's. But that was a 1 1/4 oz load.

LD, we lost a lot of good habitat in Iowa when the CRP rules changed under the 96 Farm Bill. That being said, my average was still in the mid-60's per season from 2001-08--but there are far fewer "pheasant hotspots" in Iowa than there used to be, no doubt. Like you, I don't kill a limit every time out--sometimes because of poor shooting, sometimes because I don't see enough birds in range, and sometimes because I'm content to stop a bird or two short. I'd be even less comfortable with a 28ga as my go-to pheasant gun in Iowa now than I was back when we had lots more birds.

Wow looks like I opened up a can of worms asking about 28g!!
well I now have the gun and after measuring up the barrels and chokes barrels are .548" chokes are from cyl to full .002" .007" .018" '031" and .037" haven't had a chance to shoot the gun yet though the chokes seem a little tight for a 28g?

.031 and .037 are WAY tight for a 28ga. More like full in a 12ga. But you might want to take a look on paper and see how they perform.

Wow looks like I opened up a can of worms asking about 28g!!

Want to have fun, try asking about 410g .
Steve

Larry, I use 28 ga for training youngsters, I have another 300 Fiocchi 28 ga hulls on the way here right now for loading.
I tried a 20 ga for the kids but the Wallyworld shells are too snappy.
So the 1100 in 28ga is the ideal gun to start young shooters and their Moms as far as I am concerned. This is just my humble opinion.
Mikey

Seems to be the consensus that mid thirties is too tight, but my Parker Repro has one tube in the thirties and it shoots the 3 or 4 loads I patterned pretty well, albeit tightly.

Mikey, there is now a 3/4 oz 20ga wad available from Claybuster. If you didn't already have the supply of 28ga hulls, reloading 3/4 oz 20's would be a good bit less expensive. I've been shooting those reloads in a 5 3/4# side by side, and it's like a pop gun. I do agree that the cheapo 7/8 oz 20ga loads are not the way to go. They make those pretty hot so they'll work in dirty autoloaders.