2 "3/4 VS 3" shells

There is some brand allegiance, but reasons for that are varied. Some brands / loads will pattern or work better in certain shotguns - but you need to try them out and do real patterning. One of my shotguns patterns very well with the Federal 1 oz #4 steel. In theory I should get better results with the Winchester 1 1/4 oz of #4 (more shot), but it doesn't work that way with that particular gun...

otherwise, I buy what's cheapest.... or price being equal, I buy Canadian
 
The only times I use 3" over 2-3/4" is first brenneke gold mag 600 gr slugs. They're 3" and amazing. The second is #4 buck for coyotes. 41 pellets vs 27. Other than that I use 2-3/4". I've never been undergunned and can and do knock down ducks and geese the same or better then my buddies using their 3-3.5" guns. If you can't do it with an oz and a eighth more recoil more muzzle blast and a few more pellets aren't going to help you
 
Sometimes, you don't have a choice - my favorite grouse gun I've had for 40 years and it's only chambered for 2 3/4, so that's what I use - never had a problem hitting birds & bunnies. :) I have 3" guns, but for upland I always take that old double.
 
I don't pretend to understand the physics of all of it, but there is a thing called the shot column that is very important in wing shooting. It involves producing, as it were, a steady stream of pellets flying downrange to fully intercept a moving object. With overpowered shells, there is said to be a danger of "blowing through" that column, meaning it gets hollowed out in the centre and scattered into a less useful pellet formation. Again, this is just what I've been told, but with most guns a magnum shell does just that. The only way to be sure is to pattern and wing test your gun under real life conditions, but I do notice I never see a skilled skeet or trap shooter using 3" shells, and if they conferred an actual advantage you can bet people would, recoil be damned. (Perhaps steel shot shells can be engineered to avoid most of this problem, or perhaps the extra amount of steel shot more than compensates for it but I don't know that.)

Personally, I regard magnum shells as being for people that shoot their shotguns at stationary targets like a rifle, not those using a proper shotgun technique. Probably great for deer and bear and such though.
 
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