Hunting with a Weatherby 28 Gauge SXS

I did have a 28 ga sxs for a short time, but as a lefty it didn't fit me.
Love hunting and shooting the Remington 1100 Sporting 28 and Benelli Ethos 28, as well as my WInchester Model 37A in 28. Gave my daughter the Cooey Model 84 in 28.
It is a great grouse gauge!
 
I have used a 28gauge to harvest hundreds of pheasant ,sharptail grouse, and Hungarian partridge. For a couple of years I used a Citori 525, then a 625 Feather, then an AYA#2, and for the past several years, a Grulla Consort. An English stocked , two trigger, SxS shotgun, is by far my most favorite upland shotgun, and the 28 gauge is light and very effective over a pointing dog.
 
My first gun was a 28 gauge single shot Winchester/Cooey Model 84.For quite sometime, it was my only upland gun.The old girl still works well and every so often I take it out for a hunt.Still bags game as well as it did ,when both gun and man were much younger.:)
 
Just sold my 28g Weatherby still have a couple 28's left but that was a great gun and harvested many grouse and pheasant with it. My only issue was the 26" barrel otherwise would still be in the safe. The Beretta 28 upland I have now has a 28" barrel and is capable of shooting 3" which will probably never happen. But as far as comparison the Weatherby was every bit as capable as the Beretta for a third of the price IMHO.
 
This is a little off topic but any one hunt/own a semi auto 28? I am getting back in to running rabbits with dogs and I think a semi auto 28 gauge would be an ideal gun.
 
mattgoulding said:
This is a little off topic but any one hunt/own a semi auto 28? I am getting back in to running rabbits with dogs and I think a semi auto 28 gauge would be an ideal gun.
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I bought a Remington 1100 in 28g last year from a fellow skeet shooter…it took lots of arm twisting and a generous cash offer but it was worth it !! I love it for shooting barnyard pigeons and crows. If there is snow on the ground and finding your empties is a problem I’ll bring out my Browning Ultra XS 28g instead. Have a few Browning/Winchester Model 12’s in 28g that are a total joy to hunt with and shoot sporting clays with. Bismuth shot for mallards over decoys. Last but not least just received my Krieghoff 28g with 30” parcour barrels with fixed chokes. The starlings and pigeons will be in trouble soon. On cottontails I use 3/4 oz #6 reloads. If I could only hunt with one shotgun it would be a 28g, and everything else between 10g to 410 would stay at home. And from reading this post my impressions are that other shooters are in LOVE with this magical little 28g also !!!!
 
The Weatherby Orion has been around for a long time and build quality has been up and down depending on who made them. The first Orions were made by SKB and while not being very fancy were pretty good quality guns. Production then moved to Fausti where the looks and finish improved but the quality was a bit hit and miss. After Fausti, production then got moved to ATA, a Turkish company known for replicating popular shotgun models with varying degrees of workmanship. The present Orion is now made by another Turkish company called Yildiz which in the past has been noted for their exquisite wood and not so exquisite workmanship. I’ve read that Yildiz quality has improved greatly in the last few years but frankly based on my past experience with them I’ll pass on giving them any of my money.

My take on the new Orion? I can’t stand a Matt finish on a gun that is being billed and touted as high quality. Everyone knows that it’s way cheaper and easier to do that than polish and blue the metal but it just screams cheap to me. The large Weatherby logo on the receiver also screams gaudy to me as does the extended and color banded choke tubes. I love extended and coloured tubes on a sporting clays gun but they just don’t seem right on an upland game side by side. Maybe I’m just too much of a traditionalist.
The wood I’ve seen on these is very nice and that’s where Yildiz does seem to excel, I’ve seen plenty of their guns in the past with stunning wood on them, unfortunately lipstick on a pig doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pig.

My pearls….. go ahead, flame away!
 
Well ,I have a new Orion ,in 20g though must have been built during the week as its fit and finish is quite satisfactory and I have had several Turkish guns. The logo on the side yes could be better but my Beretta 400 in 28 upland screams with its side logos so maybe I just roll with the punches on new guns .I am in the other corner on finishes and prefer satin to the "wet" look but hey that's why they sell different strokes for different folks. The Orions Prince of Wales grip is really nice for us with big mitts.
 
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I don't hunt upland game all the time, but when I do, I use a 28 gauge O/U Savage Milano. I have shot countless pheasants, grouse, woodcock, squirrel and rabbit, mostly with nickle plated #6, 3/4 ounce load in a winny AA hull. Generally shoot IC and Mod in my barrels, this was done years ago when my pointers were still around, since they are gone I haven't done much upland.
 
I had a Yildiz Elegant A1 many years ago when the Yildiz guns first arrived here. The wood was spectacular, the blued barrels were well polished and the engraving well done but unfortunately that’s where the quality ended. Pulling the stock off revealed soft coil springs, machining burrs, rough and sharp edges everywhere and triggers that broke at 11 lbs. Other over and under guns at that time we’re not any better and I saw some that were so loose after 4 or 500 rounds that you would think they had 100 k through them.

Ascetics are what they are, the Orion doesn’t appeal to me but that’s just my preference.

As I previously mentioned, the new Yildiz guns are reportedly much better quality than the previous ones so hopefully that has carried through to the Weatherby Orion they are making….I’m just not a believer yet.
 
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