Although not viewed by an as a Restorative for Youthful Abuses in the Aged, the 28 gauge does provide the necessary nutrients and supplements to make you feel younger, walk taller, range farther, see clearer and shoot better. Your taste and good judgment is immediately self-evident. Dogs work better when shot over by a 28. Game birds of all breeds and gender happily submit to their destinies when taken with a 28. And what happier measure of immortality can befall a hunter than the epitaph -- HE SHOT HIS 28 GAUGE WELL?

Mindful of their responsibilities to your psychological wall-being, in addition to their own bottom lines, shotgun makers have, in recent years, brought forth well-considered 28 gauge guns, built on 28 gauge frames, for your approbation and appreciation. Lovely 28 gauge Parker Reproductions, Browning's copy of the Winchester Model 12 and the Ugartechea-made Bill Hanus Birdguns are all available on a sometime basis in the shotgun after market.

Currently manufactured guns like Rugers Red Label over/under and Remington's 1100 are joined by Franchi's 5.4 pound AL28 semi-auto. Remington's brought back it's small gauge pump action in 28 gauge with the M870 trim line and screw-in chokes. Merkel makes dandy side-by-side 28's in 147SL, 147SSL, 247SL and 447SL grades and the New Bill Hanus Birdgun by is offered in 28 gauge with single or double triggers, stocks with cast-off for right-handed shooters or cast-on for left-handed shooters starting at $2,195. There is absolutely no excuse to chase birds without the extra spring in your step that a 28 gauge insures.

FEEDING THE NEW BABY
When Charles Parker invented the 28 gauge shell a lifetime ago, it had a cardboard tube and chilled (soft) shot pushed by a fiber wad. In these Good Old Days, before plastic wads were inverted, a bird hunter could count on maybe 25% of those soft shot pellets being deformed at the moment of ignition and, with any luck, another 25% having their sphericity challenged -- first by short forcing cones, then unprotected travel suffering all sorts of abuse and abrasions along the barrel walls on the way to the chokes. Regardless of how the gun was choked, with half the shot deformed the result was a meaningful -- OPEN -- pattern at distances of birds shot over dogs. The genius of Charles Parker's design was that the 28 gauge triumphed over this adversity!

The many virtues of today's 28 gauge shell -- hard (high antmony content) shot found in skeet target loads, super-efficient wads with shorter shot stings in open-choked guns have made for legendary performance. Sellier & Bellot's and Winchester's 1 oz. loads are finding increased usage in the left barrel of many doubles where pheasant and western quail ranges overlap. Baschieri & Pellagri has a nifty, new 28 gauge shell and Bismuth's No-Tox is the only non-toxic 28 gauge ammunition on the market for use in the increasing number of areas requiring use of non-toxic ammunition. Will any of these new loads challenge Federal's copper-plated Premium as king of the 28 gauge -- or the Remington-Federal-Winchester target loads as the royal court -- or Fiocchi's Hi-Vel as the lower cost crown prince? What a delicious dilemma in which to find one's self.

If you need something to worry about on an otherwise sleepless right, consider the problem of Creeping Choke Constriction that faces the 28 gauge shotgunner. Today's plastic wads cushion and protect shot as never before. Shot is harder and rounder, with a higher content of antimony. Forcing cones are longer. High volume shooters are beginning to discover that plastic wads leave a film behind -- a smear deposited under heat and pressure at the choke constriction that is hard to remove -- and in time -- changes the choke constriction values. It's a conspiracy to tighten the chokes of your favorite bird gun! And you thought you didn't have anything to worry about!

To get the most out of your 28 gauge gun -- and to compensate in part for the ballistic efficiency of modern 28 gauge ammunition on quail -- open chokes are an absolute necessity. Suggested chokes constrictons for 28 gauge bird guns are: Cylinder - .001", Skeet 1 - .003", Improved Cylinder - .005", and Skeet 2 - .007". Note that the choke constrictions for Modified and Full are .012" and .022" respectively in 28 gauge -- and represent a needless handicap of bedpan-size patterns at 20 yards distances.

NO DISCERNIBLE DEFECTS
Just like the product reviews of the old Datsun 240Z, any shortcomings of the 28 gauge are "hardly worth mentioning." But grouse, quail and woodcock hunting -- which relies in large measure upon instinctive shooting -- makes special demands on the hunter's hardware. In brief, the gun must come to the target without conscious search for the sight plane. This usually requires a bit of cast-off for the right-handed shooter with a dominant right eye. Without cast-off the shooter will often "instinctively" shoot high and to the left.

The English, as usual, have a name for it. They refer to cast-off as "Advantage Right" and cast-on as "Advantage Left." Note that the operative word here is ADVANTAGE. A bit of cast-off gives the right-handed (and right dominant eyed) shooter several obvious advantages. He gets to hunt with his head erect and both eyes on the dog. He doesn't have to cant his head or take his eyes off a fast disappearing target in order to locate the sight plane. The down side is he gets to clean more birds.

Most off-the-rack shotguns are cast neutral -- which puts both left-handed and right-handed shooters at an equal disadvantage. Not much of a problem on pheasant, duck or doves which present relatively long, leisurely and deliberate sighting opportunities; but an involuntary contribution to game conservation on instinctive shots taken at right flushing birds. It's a problem that's hard to detect because it is easy to blame on something else -- your partner, his dog, the birds, the lack of birds, the sun in your eyes, the rain in your face -- but if you find that you seem to miss more than your share of birds that flush to the right it may be that you require a bit of cast-off to get the most out of your time in the field.

CASTING ABOUT FOR PERFECTION
Eye-balling the cast on an unloaded gun is as easy as resting the heel on the floor and sighting down the underside of the barrel and over the trigger guard. If the toe is to the right of your line of sight, you have cast-off. To the left, cast-on. And cast neutral if all three sighting points are in a straight line.

Post purchase cast adjustments may include: (1) professional stock bending to obtain the desired amount of cast and drop, or; (2) the whisper of a wood rasp to remove some wood from the 10:30 position (if you think of the butt plate as a kind of elongated clock face). A 1/16" change will move the point of impact a foot at 2O yards, so a deft touch and frequent testing on clay targets is required lest you achieve overperfection.

THE JOY IS IN THE DOING
The world offers few pleasures greater than watching a close working dog at work. . . but the grace and style of a 28 gauge -- slender as a girl at the wrist: quick to the cheek without thought -- which gives purpose to the moment and defines perfection. . . comes close. It is possible that ordinary mortals have memories of glorious days afield. However, 28 gauge hunters' memories are in Technicolor(R) -- and they live forever!