rifled .410

[silas oberhauser]

I've been toying around with the idea of a rifled .410 slug gun. I bought a Springfield 944 action at a flea market for 20 bucks. Here in Ohio we can use 410 for deer. Where would I start? Barrel wise atleast. I've read of using 444 marlin barrels. But I can only use plastic cases in Ohio. Im thinking .405 winchester. The bullet should fit in the casing without modification. I will not be using typical 410 slugs. My plan is to use solid bullets.

[pipehand]

Have you heard of http://www.hoeningbigboresouth.com/index.html ?

[silas oberhauser]

Yes. That's just fuel to the fire. Lol what size barrel do I need

[Gleedaniel13]

I guess you should see this to have an idea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EffI4jnh6ts
Maybe it would help you and answer your questions.

[Tatume]

The fellow I know used a T/C Encore barrel chambered in 460 S&W. He recut the chamber to accept 2-1/2" 410 shotgun hulls and remarked the barrel to 410 shotgun. He uses brass 410 shotgun shells loaded with jacketed 0.452" bullets. I have not personally examined this gun and do not vouch for the safety or practicality of the combination.

I cannot find anything in the Michigan hunting regulations that specifies plastic hulls for shotgun slugs.

Here is information on plastic-hulled 410 shotgun ammo and guns. http://hoeningbigboresouth.com/Big410Ballistics.html

Before spending a lot of money trying to beat the system, take a look at the Savage Model 220 20 gauge slug gun. http://savagearms.com/firearms/models/

They have a reputation for MOA accuracy and exceptional ranging ability.

[Carryacolt]

I have the Savage 220F and really like it. I have Ed Hubels new sabots in 12ga but those I got for my son as he shoots a 12ga. I am waiting patiently for Ajay to finish his testing of the 20ga sabot he is developing so I can load for my 20ga. I hunt with Turbos full bore slugs as they shoot fantastic in my 220.
Ok, what am I doing here, well when I started researching for what slug would be the best, I was impressed with the slugs for the 410. With a rifled barrel, it is now a 41 caliber "rifle" but is a shot gun. I feel it could be very accurate and deadly for deer with the proper slug and load. I may get a 410 and start "fooling" with it to see what it can do, once I finish my loadings for my 20ga.

[JeffinNZ]

Have you heard of http://www.hoeningbigboresouth.com/index.html ?

Some of those loads would be handful is little light .410 guns.

[turbo1889]

@ silas oberhauser


Sorry I haven't gotten back to you both your original PM a couple weeks ago and then your post on the main forum asking for me a couple days ago. You were asking about the rifled 410-bore slug gun I posted about a long time ago that I built for my younger brother who is a skinny scrawny little guy that a 20ga. slug load will knock him on his rear so he had to have something even lighter then the 20ga. for hunting deer with shotgun loads in areas where that is all that is allowed.

As you probably already know that gun was built by taking an old 303-brit. military junker and pulling the barrel and replacing it using a 405-Win. barrel blank and cutting the chamber with a 410-bore shot-shell chamber reamer. I did all of the work myself that I could but cutting the threads profile on the blank to match and thread into the 303-brit. action was done by a professional gun-smith/machinist gentleman who I just brought the blank down to along with to old 303 barrel and he just copied the thread profile on the old barrel and cut that onto the 405 blank so that I could screw it into the action. I cut the chamber and re-worked the wood of the stock and put on a front blade side and filed it down to get the right POI with the stock ghost-ring/tang-peep flip sight on the old mil. gun and took a dremel to the shell box on the action to open up the forward rails to accept the shorter 2-1/2" shells in the box magazine (takes 3" as well but single shot only since they are too long for the box mag) all myself mainly to save money on the project since I was trying to do it on the cheap. Cheap old mil. surplus gun plus a fairly cheap 405-Win barrel I was able to pick up online somewhere.

At the time I was under the incorrect assumption that the 405 was 0.405" in the grooves of the rifling and thus a tighter bore then most 41-caliber rifle barrel blanks that are 0.416" in the grooves. Later after the fact I learned that its the same exact barrel bore and groove as all the other 41-caliber rifles it is just named for the minor bore diameter rather then the major groove diameter. Seems to shoot accurately enough though loading cast lead 41-mag slugs un-sized as cast. Long story short it wouldn't have been any different if I had used any other 416 rifle barrel blank.

To get a true 0.410" diameter you need to use a barrel or barrel blank intended for a 41-mag. carbine which was my original intent but they are almost impossible to obtain for any kind of reasonable price much less find someone that is selling them as a non-custom blank. It would save us all so much trouble if one of the two cheap break action single shot gun makers (mainly Rossi and NEF in the U.S.) would offer a 41-mag and then it would be a very simple and easy operation of simply cutting the chamber out to the slightly larger diameter and longer 410-bore shot-shell profile and all would be well ~ Unfortunately both of those two companies are content to only offer 357-mag, 44-mag, and 45-LC offerings and leave the less common 41-mag chambering out in the cold.

Yes, you can re-cut the chambers on both the 44-mag. and 45-LC offerings to accept 410-bore shot-shells and just use larger diameter bullets accordingly but that presents its own problems accordingly. The 0.430" diameter boolits to fit the rifling of the 44-mag barrel can be made to just barely work with the plastic shells being a tight squeeze in the chamber with the larger diameter boolit pressed into the plastic shell but the use of 0.451"-454" diameter boolits to fit the rifling of the 45-LC barrels will not work with plastic 410-bore shot-shells and you must use full length thin walled metallic shells (MagTech 2-1/4" brass shells being the most popular choice) but for deer hunting in shotgun only zones using full length metallic shells can create some problems since most people including game wardens aren't aware of the fact that the shell doesn't have to be modern plastic for it still to legally be a shotgun load and using full length mtallic shells instead of convention plastic shells can result in some headaches that would preferably be avoided. One work-around on this is to buy the Russian made 2-3/4" or 3" length full length metallic mild steel cased slug loads for the 410-bore and shoot them and then drill out their Berdan primers with the correct sized drill bit and counter-sink to make those shells accept standard 209 shotgun primers and then reload them with 45-cal pistol boolits seating the boolits deep inside the case so that the nose of the boolit isn't sticking out and is flush with the end of the case like conventional slug loads where the slug is down inside the case and not sticking out the end and then put those reloaded slug loads back inside the original paper 5-shell boxes the Russian loads come with that clearly identify them as Russian made 410 slug loads with unique full length mild steel cases and take them into the field that way. Of course you are honest about the fact that you reloaded the empties but they will be much better accepted like that in the original boxes and you just tell other people and the game warden that the reason you use them is because you reload and the full length steel cases reload very well and work very well in your gun for slug loads (a true statement). That seems to go over a whole lot better then using the MagTech brass cases without any factory shell boxes identifying them as shotgun shells, especially if you load them with the boolit hanging out the end of the case so they really look like a regular metallic cartridge. In addition people seem to accept foreign manufactured factory made full length metallic loads for shotguns as a curiosity rather then you trying to get around the rules and use a rifle just calling it a shotgun which is how they usually interpret full length metallic shells for shotguns. And that isn't even mentioning the fact that of all the factory slug loads made the Russian sabot slugs for smooth bore 410-bore guns that are factory loaded in those long mild steel cases are among the most accurate of all in an oversize rifled barrel of either 44-mag or 45-LC size because the plastic sabot for that slug is nearly 45-cal size and squeezes down in the forcing cone when fired from a normal barrel size for a 410-bore which also means it is large enough to grab the rifling on the larger barrel sizes reasonably well if you end up building a rifled 410 slug gun from either of those larger barrel sizes. Be warned though that the factory Russian sabot slug loads have a fairly light weight slug at fairly low velocity and really aren't suited for animals as large as deer and the factory loads should be kept for target loads or lighter game and use heavier reloads for the deer.

[turbo1889]

Here is the process for converting the fired Russian mild steel shells to accept 209 primers for reloading. Shot load shown, for loading 45-cal boolits as slugs for using in a slug gun made by recutting the chamber on a 45-LC break open single shot carbine buy a Lee "carbide factory crimp die" for 45-ACP and pull all the guts out of the die leaving only the body of the die with its carbide ring and put the shells in a 303-brit shell holder and size the top half of the shell length down and then use a Lee "universal case neck expansion die" with a one of its plugs flipped upside down as a seater die to seat a cast lead 45-cal pistol bullet on top of the powder and a stack of 45-cal nitro cards with its nose flush with the case mouth stopping with both the mouth of the case and the nose of the boolit butt up against the flat plug base.

[turbo1889]

Also, the factory made dual cartridge 45-LC/410-shot combo carbine won't work right off the shelf with full length Russian (or MagTech) shells loaded with 45-cal boolits as slugs because for better accuracy with the short 45-LC shells in the long chamber made to also accept 410-shot loads the forward half of the chamber is cut as tight as possible so that a plastic cased 410 shot-shell will just barely squeeze into the chamber and a metallic case with a 45-cal boolit inside won't fit so at least the forward half of the chamber has to be opened up a little to accept long 410 length metallic shells with a 45-cal boolit inside them. I just run a standard 410 reamer into the chamber and the accuracy with 45-LC loads will be reduced a little as a result but it allows the use of long metallic shells that are accurate and can legally pass muster as shotgun slug loads and when using reloads in the Russian cases packed in the original Russian boxes also create very little headaches and silence most questions just by handing them a box of shells out of my pocket for them to look at for themselves.

[turbo1889]

In Conclusion:

To get a true 0.410" major groove diameter rifled barrel 410 slug gun it is going to be a whole bunch of hassle time and money using either an expensive and difficult to obtain 410-mag carbine barrel blank or a custom cut barrel.

You can use a 0.416" rifle blank with acceptable accuracy and full functionality with all factory loads and loads made using 41-mag boolits for slugs, and you can improve the accuracy to full potential by loading using 0.416" diameter boolits of the correct diameter. You will still have to do a full build off of a blank though or pay someone else to do the work for you.

You can find a 44-mag. single shot break action carbine (Braztec, Rossi, NEF, H&R, etc . . .) and do a simple chamber re-cut with a 410-bore shotgun reamer to open up and lengthen the chamber. Most 410 plastic shotgun shells will fit in the chamber loaded with 0.430" diameter boolits as slugs but they will be a tight fit in the chamber and it usually won't just drop in but will have to be pushed in with thumb pressure. Full length thin walled metallic shells will require a noticeable necking of the end of the case and tight crimp to work with this boolit diameter and they will wear out quickly due to over-working of the metal in the end of the case mouth.

You can find a 45-LC only or 45-LC/410-shot combo single shot break action carbine (Braztec, Rossi, NEF, H&R, etc . . .) and do a simple chamber re-cut with a 410-bore shotgun reamer to open up and lengthen the chamber. Conventional plastic shotgun shells will NOT fit in the chamber loaded with 45-cal boolits as slugs and you must use full length thin walled metallic shells which work great with that boolit size but there are "social acceptability" issues with that being used for deer hunting in shotgun only hunting zones. Most of that can be alleviated by using reloads of the Russian full length mild steel cased 410 slug loads in their original boxes with the slugs seated deep inside the case with their noses flush with the case mouth. It is, however, unknown how long those factory loads will continue to be available in the U.S. (if your going to do it this way stock up and save the reloads in those empty cases for actual hunting since eventually those cases do wear out after enough reloads either by splitting at the mouth or the primer pockets becoming too loose).

[OnHoPr]

Off the wall thought. I had a slight brain fart back a while ago when reading turbo's saiga threads (few years back, I think Mcbirch was doing stuff like that too) and thinking of some type of 410 shotgun rifled barrel configuration myself. If you took a older full choked barrel, (some I hear are pretty tight), and run a .41 rem mag button through it or possibly have it cut rifled. Wouldn't that act like a rifled choke tube and depending on the original constriction and length of the way the choke was designed offer a .410, .416, or .429 boolit enhanced characteristics. Though it has been a long time since I have seen a .410 and could not get the particulars and dimensions, it was just a brain fart.

[bikerbeans]

Hi,

I have been involved in building several fully rifled 410s that are deer legal in ohio. I use a standard 410 brass/plastic case and shoot a .430" projectile in a 44 cal bore. This meets Ohio's requirement that a deer legal shotgun have a bore no larger than 10 ga or smaller than 410 bore. Depending upon the 410 hull used and bullet/powder choice you can approach 444M starter loads. My current favorite load pushes a 44 cal lyman devastator (as cast approx. 267 grains) into the mid 1900 fps range.

The work to build a break open single shot rifled 410 isn't that involved. Bolt guns and pumps have also been produced but will take a lot more work.

BB

[silas oberhauser]

I couldn't ask for more or better information, I just ordered the. 44 barrel Wednesday I think. I've got some drawings of my idea that I plan to build. Ill post them later tonight.

[silas oberhauser]

I couldn't ask for better information. I ordered a .44 cal barrel this week hoping it would be alright. Ill post pictures of the build when I get started.