28G advice from an experienced user required.

[bruno22rf]

So out on the greys today - 6 for 13 shots inc 2 "in the air to get things moving" shots. Dropped one at about 30 yards but when I went to pick it up it was still very much in the land of the living. Now, in desperate need for a suitable candidate for my bouncer, I didn't want to obliterate him and he was moving towards a thick bramble patch - so I stepped back away from him till I was at least 25 yards away and gave him another 23 grams of 6 shot through 1/4 choke bottom barrel. What was left of the bird was little more than Pate - so bad that I couldn't even pour him onto the cradle - am I missing something obvious only this doesn't seem to ever happen with my 12?

[muncher]

Probably a wad not opening properly, easier to ring the birds neck.

[enfieldspares]

I'd ask how are you confident to say that your bottom barrel is 1/4 choke?

If it was on the ground then maybe the pellets that hit the ground skipped up into the bird? Or maybe also threw up some stones and things?

Also a bird when shot can pass through the shot string as it were. It doesn't happen often with live quarry but you see it often enough on English Skeet when an opene choked gun now and again "smokes" a target. As a pattern is three dimensional and has length as well as height and width. Essentially its dead with the leading pellets yet it's flight path is such that it passes through all the shot and gets hit by the pellets in the string following on behind the leading pellets that killed it. 

Edited June 19, 2020 by enfieldspares

[hawkfanz]

on a staionary target that will happen no matter what calibre,its gets all of the shot string.