Just have to add my 2 cents to this one:
I hunt a heavily hunted waterfowl management area in S.E. Michigan....every year I see birds shot at ranges of 50+ yards with the latest 3.5" 12 gauges and latest "wondershot".....and every year I see more and more birds get crippled and land in the refuge where they are unrecoverable, or sale off to other parts of the marsh to go unrecovered.
The idea behind the 3.5 in shell was originally to put more pellets on target for cleaner kills.....PERIOD! it had nothing to do with increasing range. Steel looses it's velocity much, much faster than lead, even when fired at super sonic speeds (I read in some technical publication that you gained, at best, another 3 or 4 FEET...not YARDS.....but FEET....by going to a faster shell). Early steel was abysmal in it's ability to kill, so they decided to put more pellets in the load to compensate for that.
Then the idiots in marketing decided to put out ads (maybe some of you older gents remember the one where the guy was standing on a cherry picker with the dog and the print said "increase your range".......
IMHO, the 3.5 in shotgun has crippled more birds than it has killed..........