7/8oz in a 28?
That's all I shoot in a 20!
Federal has or did have a 7/8 ounce 28 gauge load. It was a pheasant hammer. I liked the load a lot, especially on pheasants and loaded a few boxes of 7/8 ounce loads for that purpose. I still used the 3/4 ounce for the bulk of my shooting and never felt under gunned. I ran IC and modified chokes for 90% of my field shooting and rarely ever felt the need for more choke. In fact a lot of grouse gunning I could have done with cylinder or skeet chokes. It was an exceptionally uniform patterning gun with all of the chokes. I can't say on the full choke as I don't actually remember ever having it in the gun. It also saw a fair amount of jump shooting for ducks with bismuth handloads. It crumpled ducks as well as it did quail and pheasants.
I don't do near as much upland gunning now and in a moment of idiocy sold that little Beretta. I could kick myself.
I would agree the 410 is poor choice in most cases for a kid's gun, especially in a single shot. Most of them are choked somewhere around super, extra tight, fuller than full. Consequently they tend to have sketchy patterns at best as they force a stream of shot through that tiny, heavily constricted barrel. The 28 gauge with a 3/4 ounce load doesn't sound like much more compared to the 410 but the load is much better balanced in relation to the bore diameter. Two of my hunting buddies shoot 28's and both have experienced similar results in the field.