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I watched that video earlier today. Johnny acts like the 28 and .410 are impossible to shoot. Or he pretends like that to get clicks. Perhaps he is so use to do use to shooting 24, 26, 28, 30, 32 & 36 gram loads in a 12 he forgets payloads are the same in every gauge. Just more room to fit them in a 12 and perhaps more velocity. Physics does limit what you can do. You can push 3/4 ounce a lot faster in a 12 than you can in a .410.
Some of us shoot .410 for most of our early Dove shoots. I can only think of two better .410 shooters than myself on this board but I am no Wayne Mayes. He beat me in a shoot of at Skeet shooting from the hip in the second round of doubles. Point is if you can judge ranges well and limit your shots to those ranges anyone can shoot a .410 well. It takes a lot of practice and discipline.
I shoot more Sporting Clays, Skeet and Trap with a .410 than any other gun. Out to 30-33 yards my .410 will break just as many birds as any gauge and kill just as many Dove as a 12. I just have a very narrow margin of error. A 18” .410 pattern is just as good as the 18” center core of a 12 pattern. It is just that the 12 has another 12” margin on four sides. Pellet energy is the same. I do cheat and use 8’a instead of 7 1/2’s. I find 9’s do nit kill long range birds or clays well.
My primary two Dove guns are full chokes Winchester 42’s. A pigeon grade my kids nicknamed Wing-breaker and a High Grade 42 they nicknamed Death-from-below. Both have served me well, and taken over a thousand Dove each. I short 2 1/2” 1/2 ounce loads at 250-1300 fps. Tried 3” 11/16 and found them less effective due to lower velocity and less desirable patterns.
So I was invited to a shoot and the host came over to see what he thought was my 20 gauge model 12. He was amazed at how far a .410 could kill Dove cleanly. I explained to him good range estimation was half the battle and then figuring out the proper flight line of the bird. I coached him into killing a Dove at an honest 30 yard in the air. He did miss the first two birds because he stopped the gun and measured the lead too much. But once he connected he hit one out of two bird, with a .410 at 30 yards for half a box. The gun and load were dialed in and to be fair he was a good shot, more than I was a good coach. But the next year o hunted with him at my field he was sporting a Browning .410. So a convert I figure.
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