I own two shotguns. One is a maverick 88 with a 28" non-ported barrell and the other is a mossberg 500 field version with a ported barrell. Yesterday i was hunting dove and I was using winchester 7 1/2 with low brass and the maverick. I was taking down everone I shot at. Today i decided to use the mossberg and same ammo, I shot at a bird and hit it, it flipped and then flew off. Well i was upset at this, I switched back to the maverick cause I didn't want to wound anymore doves(i hate it when any suffers). I didn't have any problems out of the maverick.

Now the question is "Was the ported barrell causing my shot to slow down so much that when it hit the bird it just wounded it and didn't drop it?" I really would like to use the mossberg, even if that means I new barrell and the chokes on the shotguns where the same too. Please help
~bigun