Those are pretty heavy loads for dove. I expect that if you had your shoulder on slow motion video, you could have seen it move back about six inches.

Before I started shooting skeet and reloading about 15 years ago, I always used heavy field loads on quail and dove, and wondered why I had a bruised shoulder at the end of the day.

After I started shooting skeet I set up for reloading 12 and 28 gauge. As the bird seasons came and went since then I started loading very light 1 oz. 12 gauge loads with 8 shot for dove and started using my daughters 28 with skeet loads and just substituting 8 for 9 shot.

Before the fire ants took out all the quail around here, I was hunting quail successfully with the 28 and it made it more challenging and more fun. For me quail hunting is more about the dog than the shooting and I always had others with me to bring down birds for the dog if I was having a bad day.

Sounds like you've been getting in plenty of shooting. Enjoy.

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