Pellet count for Winchester’s Super-X ammo with an ounce of shot is about 34 percent higher than for the standard 3⁄4 ounce loads.

Years ago one of the top product development engineers at a major ammunition company announced to the world that the 28 gauge is the best-balanced shotshell ever designed. His conclusion was based not on rumor, conjecture or the fact that his Uncle Moe shot three rabbits back in 1932 with a 28 gauge Iver Johnson, but on many long hours spent shooting hundreds of patterns.

The 28 gauge will never become as popular among American hunters as the 12 gauge but it does have its share of fans. One fellow I know explains its ability to perform tasks that appear to be far beyond the performance capabilities of its relatively light shot charge as pure magic. Other hunters I know don’t try to explain why they shoot the 28 so well; instead, they just go about the business of doing what they do best.

I have been hunting with the 28 gauge long enough to know that while its performance in the field does seem magical at times, there really is no magic involved. It does what it does because it is so easy to shoot. My wife Phyllis is an excellent shotgunner, but she is not at all bashful about admitting to her sensitivity to recoil.

Give her a gun that pounds her shoulder beyond her tolerance level and she starts missing before firing very many rounds and comes up with a dozen other things she would rather be doing. But give her a light-recoiling gun in 28 gauge and she hits far more often than she misses and can burn up ammo faster than I can produce it with my progressive reloader. This is not at all unusual since most hunters are more accurate more often with a gun they love to shoot than with one they dread shooting.

Another reason the 28 gauge works so well is due to the fact that most upland gamebirds across this great country of ours are taken inside 35 yards and inside that distance the 28 is as effective as the larger gauges. Some hunters like to boast about reaching into the next county and bumping off a pheasant with their favorite scattergun, and while they may occasionally luck out and do just that, the majority of the shots they make are no more than 35 long paces from the toes of their boots…with a very large percentage inside 20 yards.

If none of this convinces you that the 28 gauge shotshell is as effective as the 12 gauge at close to medium ranges, perhaps a look at the scores fired by skeet shooters will change your mind. In that game, most targets are broken inside 30 yards and according to reports published by the National Skeet Shooting Association, most shooters break just as many targets when shooting the 28 as when shooting the 12. A very large percentage break even more with the smaller gauge.

It all has to do with recoil; the less a gun kicks the more we enjoy shooting it and the more we enjoy shooting a gun the better we hit with it. No doubt about it, the 12 gauge with its heavier shot charge enjoys a performance advantage beyond 30 yards but inside that distance the 28 gauge will hold its own with anything you’d want to shoot from your shoulder.