A friend was telling me of an old family gun. A Stevens .410 that was more of a handgun than anything that took a 2 1/4" shell. Anyone ever heard of these?
Try a search for Stevens number 35 auto-shot .410 smooth bore single shot pistol.
Back in my youth, it wasn't unusual to see those break-open shot-pistols. I wonder about their legality today as they have been classified as AOW under NFA. After all, they were made as handguns. So what's the difference between them vs all of the short shot-pistols sold today which have no NFA restrictions? I guess it has something to do with the 26" length requirement.
Main difference I am aware of is the modern day shot pistols have rifled barrels............. shallow rifling and not much of a twist but enough to get around the letter of the law as written. The original Stevens and H&R shot pistols still fall under the AOW clause as they are smoothbore and have barrels shorter than the mandated 18 inches. They require registration to be legal but I suspect there are a number of them out there that never were registered. I've seen a few of them that people had as family heirlooms, totally unaware of the Federal restrictions.