My wife is joining me on my annual Dove hunt this year, and I don't have any real good options for a shotgun for her. I am trying to decide between the A400 28ga and the 20ga with kick-off. She is very recoil sensitive.

I am leaning towards the 28ga because I think they are neat guns, and would like to have a 28ga field gun for myself going forward. But I am a little worried about a new shooter having fun trying to bring down a Dove with a 28ga.

I am not super concerned with fit out of the box as she is 6'1" so a standard gun shouldn't be an issue. I'm 6'4" and can live with shorter/standard LOPs. She is a lefty so a gun that comes with shims is a major plus.

Looking for opinions/experience....

most folks can kill a dove with a 410 and the 28 has 50% more payload. As long as the gun fits her, it will do just fine. Ammo can be expensive, but there are remedies for that.

I’m guessing here but if she is 6’1” she likely has a fairly long neck. Couple that with higher cheekbones and she may need something with a Monte Carlo stock or adjustable comb. The stock length may be fine. Sometimes a comb pad can be enough, sometimes not. If the comb isn’t high enough she will either have to mount very high on the shoulder to get the gun to her cheek. Or, mount in the shoulder pocket as she should and really have to bend her neck to get her cheek down on the stock. Either can make recoil worse and accuracy suffer.

Thanks for the advice. I am tentatively planning on picking up the gun with her at Briley. May see if they can help with getting the fit close.

Some women aren’t hard to fit, others can present quite a challenge. We can’t tell anyone much other than general information unless we can see someone mount the gun. In general women have longer necks, higher cheekbones, narrower shoulders, and eyes that aren’t set quite as wide as men’s. Most need a little more pitch and a different toe so the gun doesn’t bite into the pectoral muscle under recoil. You’re doing the right thing to have someone take a look that knows how to fit women and deal with the unique challenges some women present.

With both your heights being considerably greater than average, in addition to an adjustable comb to raise it for your wife, both of you will need a unit called a pad adjuster to allow the pad to be lowered.

Without it, both of you will need to lean your neck forward to put your cheek on the comb of the stock. That will probably be required even if you both mount the gun with as much as an inch of the recoil pad extending above your collarbone.

You can confirm that you need a pad adjuster by mounting the gun as you normally do. With the empty gun mounted, have someone look at your eye from just beyond the muzzle. If the pupil of your eye is very near the vertical center of its socket, no pad adjuster will be necessary.

If it is nearer the top of its socket, a pad adjuster is recommended because shooting with the eye(s) looking "up" promotes raising the head during swings and shooting over targets. (Both the eyes and the neck lean encourage head raising and is why a pad adjuster would be beneficial.)

The goal for both you and your wife relative to the height of eh comb is seeing right along the surface of the rib with the gun mounted and the cheek having snug pressure on the comb. That helps keep the eye aligned with the rib during swings to targets.

Stock length: The stock is the correct length when, with the gun mounted and the cheek on the comb, the nose and thumb are separated by from one inch to an inch-and-a-half. Less separation risks the nose getting bumped by the thumb during recoil and much longer will make the gun much more difficult to mount consistently at flushed birds and more difficult to swing smoothly and therefore, accurately.