Does anyone here like them?  What do you use them for?

It’s one of the four gauges in competitive skeet, sooooo

I have a beretta silver pigeon with 20 and 28 gauge barrels. I use it for squirrel hunting. Fun little gun.

A buddy just picked up a Benelli Ethos in 28. Light as a feather and extremely light shooting. I’d love to get one someday.

Love 28 gauge for sporting clays and bird hunting...

I've got an 1100 28 gauge skeet gun. Never used for anything else. It should be a good bird gun if conditions are right.

I have a Browning Lightning feather combo.....20 and 28 ga barrels of 27 inches.  Nice gun, shot skeet with it for fun and have hunted grouse and rabbit with it.

Grouse, Quail, and in a good year Pheasants. The last mostly depends on how much practice I've gotten that season.

I carry a Charles Daly (Miroku manufactured) small-framed 28ga, and it's probably my favorite shotgun to shoot.

I absolutely love mine. Shot more clays with it last year than I did with my 12 in the past 5, also chased ducks/pheasants/doves with it a bunch. Went with Tristar Viper at first to see if I'd like the chambering and it's been enjoyable enough that I'm thinking hard about upgrading to the Beretta A400.

Quail.

O/U

They would make a great Grouse Gun around here in BWCA area. Top of MN. Just under Canada.
Most shots are close. No need for a 12 gauge for a Grouse.  Here anyway.
I would love to have a 28 in O&U or SxS.  

Are you guys reloading or are you buying factory ammo?

As I got older I got tired of getting beat up by my 12 ga o/u.  I bought a 28 ga o/u.  Shot a few clay birds with it and went dove hunting.  Killed just as many doves as I did with the 12 and enjoyed it a lot more.

What's BWCA?  I've been to Hallock and International Falls but I've never heard of BWCA.

The muzzleloader crowd likes them well enough, but they usually call it .54 cal

28 gauge is my favorite .  

I have a set of briley tubes in a browning 525 and a k80.

Also have a beretta in 28 o/u

I have 2 O/U's in 28 gauge; it's my go-to gun for bird and small game hunting.

I also use it (and .410) for skeet and occasionally, trap.

Hardly ever use 12, 16 or 20 anymore.

ETA- I also reload for 12, 16, 20, 28 & .410- factory ammo for 28 was $8.95/box of 25 at Academy, but that ain't no more.

Just take that 2 off

Benelli ethos. Great dove for dove and by far my favorite shotgun. Moreso than my Auto-5

I love my 28 for rabbits and clays. Not good for much else than small game, I don't recall seeing a slug or buck load for it personally.

FIL gave my wife an/a(?) Rem 1100 and a box of Fed paper 7/8, 6s. Her first time hunting upland was on sage hens. They are rather big birds, first shot at 50yds, DRT! You can shoot the gun with one hand and very light for my wife. Got lotsa reloading tools for 28 but have never had the need. It's a long shot string, it's 58cal (?) if you want to do slugs. Seems to kill better than it's gauge would indicate.

Shot a 28 while quail hunting as a kid

A thought.   Everyone buys their kids a 410 to start them off.  A 410 is not a beginners gun. Small pattern, the guns tend to be heavy.
I bought my son a h&r junior single in 28 gauge.  Light, low recoil, good pattern.  He did very well with it.

I also bought a rem 1100 sporting 28 for rabbits and grouse.   It is amazing!  Light weight , easy pointing I love it!

I've got a Franchi 48AL 28 ga and love it.  Fun little gun for bird hunting and sporting clays.

Use my 28s for everything except turkey hunting and tacti-cool stuff.





I also have a Ruger Red Label in 28, but I don’t have a photo handy.

28 gauge is best gauge.

Boundary waters canoe area

I have 4. I use them for quail hunting mostly.  Shooting anything bigger than a 28 at them would be uncouth.

Have two Franchi AL48s that I used to get my kids duck hunting at a younger age than most. Very close to 20ga in pattern.

Worth mentioning I put stocks off the 20ga youth versions on them.

I regret switching from 28ga to my current big gun (20ga).

AL 48 is the best platform for it i can tell you that.

That must be beautiful.

Yes,  I do All my small game and upland bird hunting with them

I used to reload for it

But it is difficult to replicate some of the heavier loads

I mostly use Winchester 1oz. 7 1/2s.  6s for pheasant

It's not too shabby.  A bit further north isn't bad either.

I have a Beretta 687 siver pigeon V.  All I've ever done with it is shoot skeet since I don't hunt any more.  It's not a "skeet" (target) gun and sometimes I forget to take the auto safety off when I call for a target.  That sucks

Cool little gun though.

28 Ga with hand loaded TSS will kill the snot out of Turkey,

I don't understand the heavy 28 loads, seems to me they are missing the point.  Just use a 12 gauge if you want to throw that much lead, it's cheaper anyway. The 3/4 oz is where it's at, the 'square' load.

My SP 28 gauge is a beautiful hard hitting gun

Got my kid a Stoeger 28ga SxS. Fun gun but perceived recoil is damn stout for what it is.

Boundary waters canoe area

28 is my favorite gauge.

I have briley tubes for my DT10 skeet gun and I have a Beretta 686 28 ga with the baby frame.

It will knock pheasant down if you do your part.  I have some 7/8 oz bismuth loads that work well.

Nice grouse gun too.

Took the little 686 to the skeet club the other day, ran the first box, dropped a high 2 in the second box.

I load my own 3/4 oz target loads.  I don't shoot enough hunting loads to bother trying to reload them.  I load winchester aahs hulls only.  Most of the euro hulls don't stand up to many loads and many folks report issues with them being sticky in tube sets.

I shoot skeet with mine. But that, and some sporting clays, is all I do with shotguns.

The 28 gauge is a fabulous round . . . punches way above its weight class.

Typical 28 gauge shells are loaded with 3/4 ounce of lead shot. That puts them much closer to a 20 gauge load, which is typically 7/8 ounce. Compare that to a .410 which carries 1/2 ounce in target-appropriate shells. (Typically, 12 gauge is 1-1/8 ounce, but many target shooter shoot 1 ounce loads). At 3/4 ounce, the 28 is plenty of gun for most target shooting (skeet or sporting clays anyway), and just about any upland game hunting. It's a super versatile round.

The 28 gauge is also described as a "square load", meaning that its shot column is about as wide as it is long. That makes for dense patterns with most of the shot arriving at the target at the same time. The .410 is the absolute worst, with a long, skinny shot column that produces long, spread-out shot density.

Mainly, though, 28 gauge guns are really cute. They're light and handy and just a joy to shoot. These days, few guns are made on unique gauge-specific frames, but some are. A true 28 gauge gun is a delicate little thing. In reality, most 28 gauge guns are built on 20 gauge frames. THese guns are lighter than a 20, but not so light as to be whippy and uncontrollable. A 28 gauge shell in a 20-gauge weight gun is super soft shooting. Very little recoil. Even better is a 28 gauge shell out of a 12 gauge size gun. Last year, I sold a SKB 28 gauge over/under and bought a set of 28 gauge tubes for use in a 12 gauge Browning over/under. The thing weighs MORE than a standard 12 gauge (obviously) but shoots like a dream. Practically zero recoil.

Aside from my 28 gauge tubes, I have a Remington 870 wingmaster in 28 gauge and an old Remington 11-48 auto with a skeet barrel. Both are great guns, but I don't shoot it much. I pull them out just to mix things up from time to time..

If you reload, the 28 gauge is great because it uses less powder (and a bit less shot). If you have to buy factory loads, you're probably better off sticking to 20 gauge. Prices for factory 28 gauge shells typically run 50 percent more than 12 or 20 gauge ammo (if not more).

28 gauge is honestly the perfect field bird gun... light, low recoil... enough power to knock down a pheasant.  Shoot, even a 410 can knock down a pheasant if you're good.

No.  Poor ammo availability, long shot string, inferior to a 20 but on many guns it uses a similar frame as a 20.  If I want a smaller gauge I shoot my 20.

It is used in competition, so it has a following.

ETA: long shot string compared to the 20 shooting the same weight.

The part about long shot string is absolutely incorrect. If fact, the 28 gauge is probably the most efficient gauge made. It produces nice dense patterns because the shot column height is roughly equal to its width.

What's not to like about a gun that is light to carry, quick to get into action, fun to shoot and punches above its weight class?

See my edit above.

TSS is amazing in pretty much any gauge

My experience has been that they pattern beautifully.

I said nothing about pattern.  A long shot string can pattern well.  If you are shooting game birds or clays, a long shot string is not good.  The shorter the shot string for a given weight, the denser the pattern on a flying target.

I had a Winchester Model 12 in 28gauge.  It was an OK gun, but I'm too stupid to use a pump.  I've short stroked them in the field before and flubbed things up.

I ended up selling (for crazy money), and went back to an autoloader.  They're ugly tools, but good tools.

My hunting partner shoots a Lefever in 28ga.  His is a pretty high grade model worth a shit ton of money, but he's been beating it up for the last 30 years, and it was an old gun then.  If I could justify the money, I'd consider one myself, as that SxS in 28 is a sweet machine.