doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 28 gauge magnum??

Cabela's is advertising Fiocchi 28 gauge shot shells in 3 inch? I was not aware that 28 gauge came in 3 inch shells?

Fiochhi is the only current manufacturer of 3" 28 gauge shells that I know of. I do know that the 28 gauge Benelli Ethos has a 3" chamber. I've handled one but haven't shot it.

Well . . . there's a 3" .410 and a 3" 20ga. Given how well the 28ga performs with its standard 3/4 oz load, I can't quite see the sense of it. But some people will probably go for it.

I never really saw a "Need" for long shells in other than a 12 or 10 gauge. To me when you magnumize the smaller gauges they need to be built heavier to handle the heavier loads as well as to soak up the greater recoil which defeats their purpose.

Many years back, if memory served me correctly, it would have been in the mid-1970's. A gentleman brought a fired hull into a gunshop where I happened to be visiting at the time. It was a Remington SP plastic hull & was a 3" 16 gauge, it had been loaded according to its markings with 1� oz of #7� shot. I do not recall the powder charge but was rather mild, I seem to recall on the order of 3-3� drams equivalent.

Such a load would, in my opinion, be much better handled by a 12. As an admirer of the 16, I am quite happy it didn't catch on. To my knowledge, this load was never placed on the market & was most likely an experimental load. Why it was brought to the mountains of Franklin Co TN I have not the foggiest idea. There were a few ruffed grouse in the area, but in most of it, you couldn't have seen a grouse far enough to have needed 1� oz of shot.

A solution in search of a problem. And I'm an avid 28 gauge shooter, owning four at present.

Winchester 28 ga. 1.0 ounce loads have been available for many years in the 2&3/4 shell.
3" 28ga. is nothing new. I have a paper shell from before the 50's in my collection.

I just bought a Dickinson 28 SxS from CAbela's and noticed when first looking at it that it listed 2.75 AND 3 inch. When I asked the very knowledgeable (yes, that is a joke!!) gun clerk about it he said that 28 does not come in three inch and the Dickinson guns were stamped incorrectly!! Yes, I swear that is the truth!! Oh well. At least his Cabela's uniform shirt was neatly pressed. Thanks for the info. I can't imagine wanting to buy any three inch magnums for either the Dickinson or the Ruger RL 28. I learned my lesson with three inch 20's years ago. I have killed more pheasant with 2.75 20's than anything I shoot.

Could be a marketing response to the current and future bans on lead ammo, trying to get ahead of the curve because steel takes more hull volume than lead for a roughly equivalent load. Problem that I see is that I am not going to lengthen the chambers on any of my current 28s, and I certainly would not buy a 28 for hunting if I knew I would have to use non-tox. That spoils the magic.

There has been 75mm (3 in) 28 and 24 for a long time.

Neither holds much interest for me.

In my youth I got one case of 28�s, 1 ounce of 5�s for my birthday and one case 7 1/2�s 1 ounce for Christmas. Any more than that I had to go into the Western Auto and order them and pay for it hem myself. Funny thing is that back then there was not a big premium for xtra cost for 28�s. And a time or two they just happened to have a full case on hand. Never crossed my mind they just happened to because my father had called ahead a fe days. He knew when my funds were getting close to the cost and how desperate my shell needs for hunting got by the last box.