Why bother with anything bigger than 410 for skeet?

[Questor]

I shot a round of skeet last week with my new 12 gauge and used Federal promotional 3dram 1 1/8 ounce loads. This light gun gave me quite a bruising after 25 shots. The ranges are so short in skeet I was wondering why anyone would bother to shoot it regularly with a gun much bigger than a 410. It seems like one of the few things you can do with a 410 that actually make sense.

[Graybeard]

Most who have shot skeet regularly and extensively tend to agree that the 28 gauge is the IDEAL skeet gauge. It has enough shot that no one should ever feel the need to blame a miss on the payload even tho some casual shooters still have the mentality that more is always better. Not so really and that 12 does beat folks around and in my opinion for many if not most it's actually a detriment to good shooting.

I do almost ALL of my skeet shooting with the .410 and the 28 and I guess do tend to shoot the .410 more but I do still love the little 28 and am not sure I'd ever completely stop using it. There are at least two of us old farts at the range who shoot the .410 exclusively now and I'm not that far behind them as I sure shoot it more than the 28 and the others pretty much never.

I can't really see a difference in my scores whether I shoot 20, 28 or .410 and really could toss in the 12 except that when I shoot it much my scores actually go down as the recoil works on me and flinches become common place and it tends to make all of my shooting worse.

Many of the folks using the 12 are loading light and slow 7/8 oz loads that are really lighter than 20 gauge skeet loads and many use 3/4 oz in their 20s. Dunno what the trend is nationally but where I shoot it's mostly us old farts and we're going lighter and lighter all the time.

I love the .410 for a skeet gun and agree whole heartedly with you that it's close to ideal and the 28 is ideal yet with the rising cost of shot the .410 is making more and more sense as the ideal skeet gauge.

[Questor]

GB:

First of all, happy new year to you and the family.

That's an interesting comment on the lighter payloads. I walked away from that skeet shooting thinking that if I were to shoot skeet regularly I'd use those 20 gauge light recoil loads I made when teaching the kids to shoot shotgun. About 1100fps and 7/8oz. Very mild recoil even in my light Beretta o/u. More like a vibration than a recoil.

Read an interesting article on new Winchester light recoil loads. Can't remember their name for it. But it's 7/8oz and about 950fps in 20 gauge and 15/16oz at 950fps in 12ga. That seems more sensible as a skeet load to me.

One of the guys who shot with me at that round of skeet has a matched set of nice Winchester 101s and he likes the 28 gauge best and shoots it the most. The other guy was shooting a 12 gauge and it was a big gun like my Winchester Select trap gun, but much fancier.

[Graybeard]

Some of the guys at our range shoot for 1000 fps as a velocity for their skeet loads and use the range chrono to check them from time to time to be sure that's where they are with any new load they experiment with. I prefer about 1125 personally but as I said I mostly shoot only the 28 and .410 and in these the velocity doesn't need to be as low as for heavier shot charges.

[JerryKo]

I've always used a 12, but that's all I ever had at the time.  The 410 does seem to be a great choice if your going to shoot a lot of rounds.  But what size 410 guns are we talking and how about the shells?  I'd like to work something up for myself and probably the kids too! 2 1/2 inch shells 1/2 oz of number 8's? 


Happy New Year!

JerryKo

[Graybeard]

Most of us shoot O/Us for skeet with Browning being the most used followed by Berettas, Remingtons and Krieghoffs with a sprinkling of others tossed in. I use a Browning O/U for both gauges.

[kenscot]

Probably the most popular answer would be price. 28 and 410 shells are expensive unless you reload. Those walmart 12 and 20 gouge shells average 3.70 a box