Its been a few years, but got fairly anal about patterning the 3" .410 for dove shooting with a Model 42 w/a fixed factory MOD choke. The best I found in factory loads then available were the Fiocchi's in #7.5. That's an 11/16 oz. load, as they all are. No 3" factory .410 actually holds 3/4 oz. of shot, even tho they all used to say 3/4 oz. on the box, back when. You may be able to reload and get that much shot in a 3" hull, but I never have been able to manage it and I have tried. That patterning was done before the ammunition makers were marketing specific loads for Sporting Clays use in the small bore events, so there may be some better ammunition available today. I can't speak to that. There are a number of tournament skeet shooters who use the Remington factory STS rounds in the little gun event, but that's talking ½oz. of shot within the NSSA allowable limit and those rounds were loaded very close to the upper edge, weight wise. That was before Remington closed and again, I can't speak to the new ammo, but imagine they will want to keep that former good reputation.

I don't shoot that 42 much any longer and have not had it out for dove in a number of seasons, but if there was any 'trick' to it, it was keeping the shots well inside about 30 yards and inside the low 20's was even better. Think the distance from stations one through seven on a skeet field to the hoop. That's 21 yards. By 30 yards there is too much pattern bloom with the limited number of pellets to guarantee that you can kill the bird 100% of the time, even if your gun pointing is dead on. Think drawing a driver [a fast hard going away bird]. The cross section of a morning dove's posterior is not very large.. even with its wings extended. Just saying.

Reports I'm getting is that the bird numbers are skinny in E TX and I've not spoken to anyone who has gone out W to shoot yet. Numbers of rain showers have been moving through large parts of the state and it slows and sometimes stops the birds from moving when water is plentiful.