How Effective is the 410

[tops]

At one time I shot skeet and the 28 was my favorite gauge. It is an expensive ga. because the shells won't take many reloadings but if I was worried about cost I wouldn't shoot skeet. I think a .28 ga. on a scaled frame is a quail hunters dream. Larry

 

[medxam]

I agree with dan01. I have autopsied many victims of .410 shots. At close range it will put a very serious 1/2 inch hole in you and many times gos all the way through.

medxam

 

[DWalt]

As others have said, the .410 is fine within its decreased range limits, due to the small amount of shot it carries. The main advantages of introducing a kid to shotgun shooting with a .410 is that the recoil is light and the shotgun is lighter in weight and easier for them to handle. I started my son at about age 11 with a 12 gauge, but using 7/8 oz.skeet loads, and that worked OK.

Back in the old days, the .410 was frequently called a 36 Gauge, which is not strictly correct - It is actually something like a 50 gauge. Nonetheless, some pre-WWII shotshell boxes will be found marked 36 Gauge. I have an old Remington wooden shotshell shipping case from probably the 1920s, which is marked as both .410 and 36 Gauge.

Personal feeling - the craze of the last few years with the Taurus "Judge," etc. .410 revolvers is stupid. If I had to use one, it would be loaded only with .45 Colt. There have been some devastating reviews of the poor performance of the Judge using .410 shells, even those sold for personal defense.

 

[RightArm]

I inherited a 410 from my grandpa. I believe my Dad recently sold it to a golfing buddy. My Dad has been doing this kind of "favor" for me since I was a kid, building my own custom racing BMXes. I bet he got all of 30 bucks for it. He probably thinks he came out on top. He has addmitted none of this to me yet, but I asked for it recently and he explained to me how it was only a single shot and therefore no good for anything. He means well, I think?

 

[Mike McLellan]

For my eighth birthday, my dad gave me a Mossberg .410 bolt action. I became a really good shot and downed lots of pheasants. When I got "too old" for the .410, I got a 12 gauge. My shooting skills dropped to the point where pheasants would laugh and flip me off as they flew overhead.

 

[Texas Star]

I agree with dan01. I have autopsied many victims of .410 shots. At close range it will put a very serious 1/2 inch hole in you and many times gos all the way through.

medxam

Thanks. That sort of answers the question I asked here some months ago about whether a character in a fan fiction that I was writing could have put a tight enough charge of shot from her 12 ga. Purdey into a charging chimp from about ten feet or less. I wanted the shot to still be clumped and hit like a more or less solid mass. She needed that angry chimp to drop right then. It worked like a charm in print. Glad to know for sure that it'd do that in real life, too. That chimp was one of a group using primitive hand axes to bash open the skulls of local natives. They thought that the dead were victims of the probably mythical Nandi bear.

I have a single-shot .410 that was my first gun, age 6. I couldn't hunt with it for several years, as it was too long for me and the recoil was more than my dad thought good for a child. When I did begin hunting, I soon found that it was best to take sitting shots, to avoid wounding game. I killed a mallard at some 30 yards on the wing once, but usually shot more cautiously.

I think the .410 is best regarded as a candidate for a survival gun, not a sporting one for hunting. Shoot within reasonable range, "shoot sitting", and eat. This was the concept for the M-6 bailout gun for bomber crews with a .22 Hornet barrel over a .410 barrel and ammo storage in the stock.

I was surprised to read above about that raccoon taking so many .410 slugs! Wow! That was a tough animal. It does show that shot placement is critical.

Today, I won't hunt with less than a 20 ga. and I own a 12. I am afraid to shoot any bird that I can't put down with a three-inch 12 ga., and normally stick to 2.75-inch shells. The old .410 will probably go to a grandson. But I'll warn him not to use it for flying game. Maybe I'd "shoot flying" with an M-1100 in .410, but not with that single-shot. BTW, I think it was made by H&R or Iver Johnson for Diamond Arms Company. That seems to have been a brand sold by Shapleigh Hardware.

 

[410bore]

whats a .410?

 

[jspick]

[QUOTE=Texas Star;

I was surprised to read above about that raccoon taking so many .410 slugs! Wow! That was a tough animal. It does show that shot placement is critical.


Sometimes it doesn't matter how many times a animal is shot, thier adrinelin keeps them going. My son shot a mountain lion twice with a 357 mag and his partner shot the lion 3 times with his 44 mag before it went down. All good shot placement. A charging bear can soak up a lot of lead before dying. Then again a 22 LR has killed a lot of big game animals. Each animal and situation is different.

There was a guy up here in MT several years ago that was pheasant hunting and out of the brush a 500lb grizzly jumped him. The guy pointed his gun and shot as the bear fell on him. It happened that close and that fast. A load of 6 shot at point blank dropped the bear and the bear fell on the guy and bent the barrel of his shotgun.
My son shot a charging grizzly with a 20 ga with slugs. Two very good shots. The bear turned and went uphill 100 yards and was alive a full 5 minutes after being shot. The first shot destroyed the lungs. How that bear kept going is a mystery. One tough bear. 450lbs.

John

John

 

[jspick]

There was a guy three days after my son shot his charging grizzly, 60 miles north of us, that heard a noise on his back porch and went out to check it out. It turned out to be a 400lb griz. a couple of feet from him. All he had time to do was point his 410 single shot shotgun and shoot. The point blank shot went right up his nose and dropped the bear right there.

So there are some stories of real people I have talked to that thier experiances just don't fit the mold! Every situation is different.

John

 

[cass]

I use a 410 on the trap/skeet range to prepare for Dove season.

 

[moosedog]

My son took his first deer with a single shot Winchester model 37 in 410 at the age of 12. One shot kill from about 30 yards.

 

[RonJ]

Thanks to all who replied, especially those who took the time to write several paragraphs.

 

[Bullet Bob]

It's funny this subject has come up. I've been reading through some old Gun Digests from the 1950's - 1980's recently, and the .410 is either loved or hated, based on several articles.

It's funny how the range of opinions stay the same over the years; an article from the early 50's talked about how some new ammo badly leaded revolvers, even ones made many years ago "when they were made much better".

I think the .410 is fine fun, this one (on top) is a Browning/Miroku reproduction of a Winchester 42:

 

[M29since14]

There was a guy up here in MT several years ago that was pheasant hunting and out of the brush a 500lb grizzly jumped him. The guy pointed his gun and shot as the bear fell on him. It happened that close and that fast. A load of 6 shot at point blank dropped the bear and the bear fell on the guy and bent the barrel of his shotgun.

Well, that certainly gives me a different idea about bird hunting in the west, which I would like to do someday when I have time. Thanks for those stories, John. Definitely off the usual, beaten-path bear stories.

It's funny this subject has come up. I've been reading through some old Gun Digests from the 1950's - 1980's recently, and the .410 is either loved or hated, based on several articles.

I think it has always been that way. There has to be something a little demonic about .410 shooters. Where I like to shoot skeet, almost everyone has a .410 or .410 tubes because they HAVE to have them to shoot all four guns, but it is usual to find someone who claims they really enjoy the .410. I do, but I am not very good with it. I guess since I shoot it as well as any other gun, I am too cheap to enjoy wasting more lead. That is a very pretty M42 Repro you have.

 

[DWalt]

Back in my skeet shooting days of 20+ years ago, I shot only in the 12 ga and 20 ga events with Remington 1100s, as I was not good enough to warrant an investment in 28 and .410 guns. The folks that did shoot all 4 gauges invariably had their lowest scores in the .410 event.

There was one guy who shot .410 skeet in a 12 ga O/U using two of the strange Savage "four-tenner" devices, essentially a short tube chambered for the .410 that chambered in a 12 gauge. It seemed to work pretty well, but clumsy as he had to pry out the empties and reload the device. I saw one of those at a gun show several months ago.

 

[Texas Star]

Mr. Pick-
i
I am certainly well aware of the adrenline factor. Did you see my post about the lion that took 11 hits from a .375 H&H and a .465 or .470 and still almost killed Peter Capstick and his PH?

A vet named Dr. Kevin Robertson is also an African hunter and he determined that a Cape buffalo can live for about a half hour after a solid heart shot. Its physiology is unique in that respect, he thinks, even among other wild cattle.

But I was very impressed by your accounts of those bear shootings with shotguns. I suspect that the shot charge at those ranges worked a lot like a Glaser projectile.

This makes me all the more sure that I had the right effect in mind for my story where Lady Roxton, Countess of Avebury, shot the charging chimp with similar results, if you saw my posts about that. I'm always wanting to keep such fictional descriptions in the realm of reality. I had no hesitation at all in telling about the effect of her husband hitting another chimp in the noggin with his .375 H&H. I think that'd be a foregone conclusion!

Thanks a lot for your contributions to this topic. I'd not heard of the incidents that you cited, and they are very revealing. Most impressive!