Yes, a 20 gauge is just fine for doves.
I went from a .410 (when I was 12 years old) to a 12 gauge Belgium-made, Lightning Grade Browning Superposed (when I was 24 years old), then reverted to a Charles Daly 28 gauge over/under (my 28 gauge skeet gun bored “skeet#1 & skeet#1”) for birds hunted over dogs when I was in my 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.
I have a Model 42 (Winchester pump gun) in .410 bore that I bought with money earned from the first paying job I ever had (when I was 12 years old) helping my Dad paint some apartments.
Eventually, I came back to my light, fast-handling little Model 42 I now hunt "everything" with my Model 42 in .410 bore (modified choke)... but I "pick" my shots... I don't shoot at birds that get up beyond a reasonable distance in front of my son's young yellow Lab retriever.
I keep in mind that my little .410 with its modified choke is, at best, no more than a 25-30 yard gun, but I prefer to shoot at no more than 20-25 yards. At times, I've pushed it to 40 yards (because the dog is very capable of finding downed, wounded birds if need be) and have killed some pheasants at that range, but that's asking a lot of such a small payload of shot... and this old fart who is shooting it.
Back when I was a kid (in the late '40's and early 1950's), we use to be able to buy 3" paper .410 shells (Winchester, Federal, etc.) with 3/4 ounce (12/16ths of an ounce) loads, but now, the heaviest loads I can find are 11/16's of an ounce. I agree 1/16th of an ounce isn't a lot of lose, but when you have such a small "payload" to start with, you just hate to lose even that little bit.
Does anyone reading this post know of any heavier shotloads that are generally available?!?
The 28 gauge makes a fine dove gun as well... but it's almost impossible to find a 28 gauge gun built on a 28 gauge frame.
I have a Charles Daly over/under made by the B.C. Miroku Company (the same company that builds the Citori for Browning) that was brought into the USA in 1961 as one of just 37 such over/under shotguns, made on 28 gauge frames, for the annual National Sporting Goods Association Show.
Unfortunately, the executives at Charles Daly viewed the lithe little stacked barrel as being “too costly to build” for the Charles Daly line of shotguns. But rather than being shipped back to Japan as was ordered, the 37 “special made” shotguns were sold by MISTAKE… and I got one of them.
There's an article in the 1995 Shooter's Digest on page 150 about this gun and the fiasco concerning it. The article illustrates to what extent Joe Salisbury, then Sales Manager for the Daly Company, went to in an attempt to get these special little shotguns BACK from the original buyers.
The article’s author, Dick Eades, had quite an experience with Mr. Salisbury and, after I read the article in which the author asked about anyone else having one of the 37 guns, I called the author who lived down in Texas at the time. In our conversation, Dick related to me that he had only found one other owner of the “special 28 gauge shotguns”… and the gentleman he found had just sold his 28 gauge Charles Daly over/under for $1800. This was in 1996. I bought my gun at the ATA’s Grand American Trap Shoot in Vandalia, Ohio, for a mere $225 in either 1961 or 1962.
My 28 gauge, built on a 28 gauge frame, weighs just a little over 5½ pounds and is a delight to handle, carry and shoot... and it seems to almost point itself! I use to be able to find 1 ounce hunting loads for it (in the old paper shells), but the only shells I can find for it now are skeet shells with 3/4 of an ounce of shot.
But I digress... my point is that most 28 gauges are built on 20 gauge frames and if you're going to be forced to carry a 20 gauge FRAME, you may as well have the larger shot payloads of the 20 gauge (up to 1¼ ozs.) rather than the lighter 28 gauge loads.
I’ve read articles that claim sub-gauges are great for dove hunting… but like everything else, it is a matter of “opinion”.
Strength & HonorÂ…
Ron T.
