doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Wanted: Suggestions for a 28 ga. O/U

Beretta does make a baby frame 28 ga, but it is pricey (and nice). All of the Ruger 28's are baby frame.

Here is a Rizzini round body with 29" barrels and solid rib, that they claim is 6 lbs.

http://www.impactguns.com/store/RB2874CS.html

I have a Franchi Veloce and love it. Light weight, fast and good looking for the price. Use it in the field and shoot trap with it.

I guess that I should have said not made a true 28ga. frame in any earlier O/U boxlocks. I thot it apparent when I made ref to the AS & BL series guns.

I'm still not positive that the higher grade newer 28ga. guns are all that small, but I don't own one to measure. I do have access to the local Beretta Gallery & their main gunsmith is a friend, so I'll ask him about that next time I get the chance. If someone reading this has one, perhaps they could measure the distance between the firing pin centres & post it.

Now that the subject has come up, it might be fun to measure as many small 20 & 28 ga. O/U's and see where their respective frames sizes fall.

The small frame Miroku/Daly's had 3/4" spacing between the firing pins according to most refs, but I strongly suspect it is actually 19mm since they were JIS mfg. before becoming ISO; both standards being metric. If you are using an inch tape measure 3/4" is what you'll read.

FWIW, placing two 28ga. hulls side by side so that they are touching at their rims, it would appear that 17mm's is the distance between centers; in other words, you can't get any closer than that on the firing pin spacing & still use two 28ga. bbls.

Ruger 28 is one of those guns everyone I lend one to seems to be able to shoot well. Light and trim with decent stocks. You can find one of them for less than a grand in near mint condition. Pull off the stock and make one of your own. Fairly easy to restock as well. Screw in choke tubes without those often seen flared barrel ends. Mine was 6 pounds 2 ounces out of the box with 28" barrels. Found a set of Briley .410 tubes for it for less than $200.00 on Ebay. Nice little preserve gun for quail in either 28 or .410.

I have measured the 28 ga Beretta scaled frame versas the 20 frame and the difference is minimal to where there are no Beretta 28 ga o/u that weigh less than 6#'s and an once or so. The 28 ga on the 20 frame are about 6#'s 7.5oz for the 28" barrel QU Beretta I have.-Dick

Who made the LL Bean New Englander?

Only have one on a true 28 ga. frame and that's a Ruger Red Label. It has Briley made tubes 28" bbls. PG stock and it does everything I ask for a 28. Have not had any problems with it and I really like it. So I agree wholeheartly with KY Jon.

One of the Rizzini's.

Sig made the New Englander for LL Bean.

You guys made me look. Thought I recalled my Beretta 28 went sub-6, so I got it out, put it on the postal scale to double check: 5/15.8. That's a 687 Silver Pigeon V with straight grip. Others I've seen have a PG, which would likely add just enough to put them over 6.

The Red Label 28 is light--which makes it unusual, because they're heavy in 20 or 12ga, at least for field guns (IMO)--but not so light compared to other 28ga OU field guns. A guy at our gun club happened to have his scale one day, when a shooter was remarking on how light his RL 28 was. So he put it on the scale. As I recall, it came in about 6/4 or 6/5. Anyhow, I know for sure it was just a touch heavier than the 12ga Brit boxlock (with 28" barrels) I was shooting that day, which weighs 6/3.

One of the lighter 28ga OU's is the Browning Cynergy Feather. I had one of those, with 28" barrels, as a "field test" gun. Weighed 5 3/4. If you can get past the rest of the Cynergy looks, I think one of those, restocked, might be a very nice gun. They're actually on a 20ga frame, and the 20's are down in the 5 1/2# range (also per the postal scale).