My first experience with a 28-gauge came, of all places, at a waterhole in South Africa. I was there with my hunting partner, Galen Geer, to shoot some upland birds.
Through a series of misadventures, the 20-gauge Browning Citori I was supposed to be shooting hadn't gotten on the plane with me in the States, and I'd been using a 12-gauge over-and-under owned by our host, Rocco Gioia. But an afternoon of shooting the 12-gauge was enough for me, and when Galen offered me the chance to try his 28-gauge, I readily accepted.
The first thing I noticed about the 28-gauge was its weight. It was noticeably lighter than the double I'd been carrying. When I fired it, I found it much easier to handle than the 12; it was more like a 20-gauge pump I shoot fairly regularly. When I remarked to Galen that I couldn't tell any difference between it and a 20, he pointed out that we were shooting a heavy load because African birds are tough. A lighter load would have reduced my perceived recoil quite a bit.
The 28-gauge is receiving a lot of attention these days. According to Cartridges of the World (Frank C. Barnes, DBI Books, ISBN 0-87349-145-9), it's as old a gauge as either the 12-gauge or the 20-gauge. All three date back more than 100 years, when shotguns were made in every gauge from 32-gauge all the way to 1- or 2-gauge. Obviously, only a few of them have survived, which is undoubtedly a good thing. Choosing between existing gauges and loads is difficult enough as it is!
Because of its popularity as a skeet gun, the 28-gauge is one of those that's lasted. But only in recent years has it begun to achieve the popularity it deserves.
Mary Beverly is a shotgun instructor in Tallahassee, Florida, with more than 10 years' experience teaching both men and women. She's a member of both the National Skeet Hall of Fame and the Florida Skeet Hall of Fame, and has been shooting competitively since 1974. She considers the 28-gauge the ideal shotgun.
"The 28-gauge is the most perfect gauge," she says. "They are wonderful guns. Hunters love them for quail. Most people who shoot clays have at least as good an average with the 28-gauge as they do with the 20 and sometimes better."
Steve Schultz, chief instructor for Federal Cartridge's Wing and Clay Shooting School, agrees.
"The 28-gauge is my favorite gauge, over a 12-gauge and especially over a 20," he says. "It's the most ballistically correct of all shotguns. It's the closest to being perfect."
What makes the 28-gauge so ideal for a woman? It's a lighter gun and is easier to carry and shoot than a heavy shotgun. But it's not so much lighter that increased recoil is a problem, unless you're shooting a very heavy load.
"If you have a bad experience with a 28-gauge it's usually because you have a very small, lightweight, English stock and you're shooting a heavy load," says Schultz. "Then, yes, it's going to have a lot of recoil. But if you took the same style of gun, same weight and everything in 12-gauge, and used a heavy load, it would beat you up something terrible."
Paul Thompson, public relations manager for Browning, calls the little 28-gauge "sweet."
"The neat thing about it is that the recoil is so minimal compared to the other gauges," he says. "It's a neat way to get someone into shooting so she's not turned off by the heavy recoil. It's a little lighter, too, so another plus for a woman is not being given this big bulky gun she can't handle."
In addition, Schultz says, the 28-gauge is superior to the 12-gauge in many ways. He says the two guns perform exactly the same, in terms of both pattern density and range.
"When you pattern them on paper you can't tell them apart," he says. "You get very uniform patterns."
He recommends shooting a 28-gauge exactly like a 12-gauge.
"Probably the only thing you'll really notice is when you load the gun your brain will say, 'Well, this is a lot smaller shell. I'm going to have to be more careful.' That's why most people don't do as well with the smaller gauges. They start thinking about the cartridge instead of the target. Don't worry about the cartridge. Just treat it like a 12-gauge."
Problems with the 28-gauge because of the smaller cartridge are not gun problems and not ammunition problems; they're head problems, Schultz says.
"Seven-eighths of an ounce of shot is seven-eighths of an ounce, no matter what gauge it is."
In shooting, as in life, though, nothing's really perfect. The flaw with the 28-gauge lies in the ammunition. Because it is less popular than the 12-gauge and the 20-gauge, ammunition is both harder to come by, and more expensive, than either of the others. Depending on where you are, you may not be able to find ammunition at all. And if you're a duck hunter, forget it; I can't find anyone who makes a steel waterfowl load.
On the other hand, if you're into reloading, you can get around the ammunition problem easily.
"The hulls are very easy to reload," Schultz says. "Wads are readily available, primers, everything is available for them so you can get the cost way back down. A lot of people get their cost down to that of 12-gauge shells when they reload."
I admit I'm still trying to decide between a 20-gauge and a 28-gauge for my "working" shotgun. The brief experience I had shooting a 28-gauge in Africa intrigued me; I'm looking forward to trying one for more than just an afternoon at a waterhole.
Copyright (c) 1996 Carolee Boyles-Sprenkel. All rights reserved.
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