I'm sure the wad will compress through those tight chokes a lot easier than a shot column will.





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My 28ga Repro Full measures .045 as previously mentioned and now I had my 20ga Full measured and it’s .042. I’m keeping my gunsmith busy.

Exactly, precisely right!! Also depending on the make and vintage of the gun, certain ones LOVE certain shot sizes. I owned 2 Parker 28 gauges, both early Meriden guns, one 26" and the othere 28". They both loved 7 1/2 shot, "liked" #8s, cared less for #9s and hated anything larger than #7s.

A Parker Repro 28 I owned for a while choked SK1 & SK2 didn't particularly "like" any conventional sized shot but would pattern #10 shot handloads I "put up" for railbirds like broadcasting tobacco seeds. An absolutely lovely little R15 Darne 28 gauge I shot for a while with 25" barrels was so deadly using #8s I was invited to "not bring it" on several game farm quail hunts; the same gun would homogenize skeet targets from any station with standard #9 loads.

Now I'm down to one Belgian Browning Superposed 28" Pigeon Grade 28 bored M&F, one 28" Citori 28 with Invector chokes, and one AH Parker 26" 28 (It's a 16 ga. 0 frame Briley full-length tubed to 28 ga with their choke tubes because the Damascus barrels are so rotten inside they're unsafe to shoot). Decisions, decisions........

I have never owned a 28 but I did some pattern work for a friend. It was an Arietta choked ic/mod using RST shells 8 shot. I have done a bunch of pattern testing for my own 20's and I have to say this 28 shell combo was the worst by far of any gun/shell/choke that I have ever worked with. It was and still is the only time I have seen a true donut hole pattern and the bugger would do it shot after shot.

Was it caused by the gun or the load?





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my 8 ga did this I finally figured it out..the the over shot wad was going into the plastic wad cup and staying with the whole wad thus making a slug load out of it....charlie

Dean, I have no idea since we did not have any other shells to try. My friend initiated the request to pattern it because he could not hit any grouse or woodcock with it and he does not shoot clays. He was so disgusted after the patterning work that he sold the gun but I would not be surprised if just changing shells may have yielded different results. Unless you do a bunch of pattern work most shooters do not realize just how fickle shotguns can be.

Bill, why are 28ga Repro's tight and how tight should a 28ga Full be? Is .045" like mine too tight? Ballistically, and in general, do 28ga Full barrels have to be near .045" to be effective?

I think that in order to determine how effective or ineffective .045” choke constriction in a 28 gauge Repro are you’ll need to pattern it with various loads using various shot sizes at realistic yardages for the kind of shooting you intend to do, otherwise it’s mostly guesswork.





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I found a chart online by googling -choke constriction in shotgun gauges that appeared on this forum. It went from 12 to 410 and as the bore got smaller so did the amount of constriction needed to get a particular choke designation. For instance .045 for full in 12 but only .017 for 410
It may be that .045 in a 28 is doing just the opposite of what one would think.
The so called turkey chokes i have tested in some guns shoot a weak mod. pattern
Each is individual to the specific gun and load.