10 gauge handgun?

[HarryT]

What do you think about a 10 inch barrel, pistol grip, 10 gauge shotgun (with ATF approval)? I watched a couple of youtube videos of short barrel shotguns and the shot pattern is very wide at 10 yards. Would screw in chokes tighten the pattern on such a short barrel? Do you think this is a useless project?

[Hickory]

It has to have a use, rabbits? Protection? Maybe Deer?
I'd invest my money in something more useful.

[HarryT]

It would be a swamp gun and a curio to let my friends shoot. I've got a bunch of beavers that build dams every hundred feet on my creek (it's the beavers' creek right now). And I meet a couple of cottonmouths every time I destroy a dam. I've been carrying a S&W Model 29 with four Speer shot capsules and two lead boolits. I can probably load the ten gauge cheaper than using shot capsules. I'm hoping to find a shotgun with damaged barrels so the ATF stamp will be the bulk of the expense. I could use a 12 or 20 gauge just as easily but a 10 gauge would be maximum bragging rights.

[Tackleberry41]

You wont like it at all. Whatever novelty it has will wear off real quick.

Long ago I came into a H&R 10ga for $50. It was under the legal limit, I was younger and dumber about such things. It came with I want to say 10 boxes of shells. It got the name of 'thud' as it did look like an M79. Those who did fire it, usually fired it once and never again. It took a long time to use up those shells. Once they were gone, so was the gun. As a shoulder fired weapon it was brutal....a pistol, you can have it.

A cheap 12ga is way easier to find than ANY 10ga. And a 3 1/2" 12ga will do anything a 10 will.

[gwpercle]

A TEN gauge handgun ??????
You've been watching way too much U-Tube. But what the heck....go for it !
Make sure it's a double barrel rig, a Pedersoli Howdah Hunter on steroids , be sure it has two triggers so the fellow (or gal) who touches of both barrels at once can be declared the absolute winner. Two 3 1/2 inch 10 gauge shells at once is sure to be a lot of fun....and please post the video. It's going to be awesome ! This I want to see.
Gary
I'm just jerking your chain....don't do it , the recoil of a 10 gauge is rather stiff, shooting one hand held , will get old fast. The Pedersoli Howdah is a double barrel , 20 gauge black powder cap lock handgun , perfectly legal . And it's rather a handful to shoot. You and friends could have a lot of fun with it.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It is hard to think of any purpose that wouldn't be far better served by something else. That includes masochism, which can be handled far better by latex-clad ladies. Well, so I am told.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

A TEN gauge handgun ??????
You've been watching way too much U-Tube. But what the heck....go for it !
Make sure it's a double barrel rig, a Pedersoli Howdah Hunter on steroids , be sure it has two triggers so the fellow (or gal) who touches of both barrels at once can be declared the absolute winner. Two 3 1/2 inch 10 gauge shells at once is sure to be a lot of fun....and please post the video. It's going to be awesome ! This I want to see.
Gary

Thomas Bland used to make heavy double 4ga shotguns for use principally from a rest in a canoe-like stalking boat, as a substitute for a heavier calibre punt gun. People used to wire the triggers together to ensure discharging the lot before it rose in recoil. I mention this just in case you want to try it with your friends, if you have any to spare.

[35remington]

Interestingly, firing both barrels of a howdah type double pistol simultaneously doesn't just double recoil, it increases it four times. Since a 3.5 inch 10 generates about 80 ft/lbs of recoil in a seven pound gun, just imagine how unpleasant a single shot pistol would be. Good luck keeping it away from your forehead.

I have a TC single shot .54 Scout pistol with 12 inch barrel that is fairly unpleasant to shoot with a 430 grain conical and 120 grains of 2F. A single shot 10 would shoot 1000 grains of projectile including the wad at not a whole lot slower velocity.

It would be way more gun than the .54. Shooting a single shot or double pistol in ten gauge would be a "I dare ya!" type of event and not something to be looked forward to.

If you are smart you will pass on the idea. It would be one of the least used or fired guns in your collection.

[paul h]

If you make it a muzzle loader you won't have to deal with the BATF. I can't imagine going to the trouble and tax stamp to make something that would be a novelty at best.

I'd just go with a 12 ga pump or coach gun. Cheap, easy, no BATF hurdles, effective, what's not to like?

[Tom W.]

When I was younger I had a buddy that made sawed off 12 gauge shotguns, cutting the stock down so the thing looked like an old flintlock pistol. He didn't have enough courage to test it and I didn't have enough sense not to. Never had a problem with one,other than that they were a witch to hold outstretched.

[HarryT]

Being that we're all handloaders you know we can make a 10 gauge load that will be pleasant to shoot from a light gun even if it's rice or aluminum shot. I could use a chamber insert to shoot a .410 shell if I ever get too old to handle a little recoil.

[str8wal]

When we were young my brother and I cut off an old 12 gauge single shot shotgun behind the grip and shortened the barrel just in front of the forend. It was a hipshooter at best as you needed your off hand on top of the barrel to keep it from flying away when fired. No way you could hang on to that thing extended out in an effort to aim it at anything like a pistol. The barrel latch release would dig into the web of your hand, ouch. Was fun tho and we didn't know we were breaking any laws.......

[MT Gianni]

If you add 6 or 7 lbs of weight to it it might be controllable if your wrists hold up.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Interestingly, firing both barrels of a howdah type double pistol simultaneously doesn't just double recoil, it increases it four times. Since a 3.5 inch 10 generates about 80 ft/lbs of recoil in a seven pound gun, just imagine how unpleasant a single shot pistol would be. Good luck keeping it away from your forehead.

I have a TC single shot .54 Scout pistol with 12 inch barrel that is fairly unpleasant to shoot with a 430 grain conical and 120 grains of 2F. A single shot 10 would shoot 1000 grains of projectile including the wad at not a whole lot slower velocity.

It would be way more gun than the .54. Shooting a single shot or double pistol in ten gauge would be a "I dare ya!" type of event and not something to be looked forward to.

If you are smart you will pass on the idea. It would be one of the least used or fired guns in your collection.

To be fair (and I stand amazed at my generosity of spirit) the OP only mentioned making it a single. The actual increase in apparent recoil would depend on how precisely together the two ignitions in a double occurred. It is rather difficult to do it simultaneously if (and you will pardon the grotesque suggestion?) you were trying to do so.

There is no doubt at all, though, that acceleration is inversely proportional to the mass of the gun. Make it 3lb. instead of 7 and you get two and a third times the acceleration, and in the timespan of that awful event, two and a third times the recoil velocity is achieved. Energy is proportional to the square of velocity, so you get almost two and a third times the recoil energy, without a shoulder to lean it on. The American, British, Australian and Canadian medical associations have called for a ban on boxing, due to about six deaths per annum and 15-20% suffering dementia pugilistica considerably later in life.

[BCB]

I would think it to be a bit cruel to allow a “friend” to shoot such a critter!!!...

I reloaded for 10 gauge many years ago and still do, but I only shoot a few each year during spring turkey season…

Many many years ago when a few of us hunted ducks, we used the H&R 10 gauges—inexpensive, but still a 10 gauge—we thought we needed them—a bit young and foolish it seems…

Regardless, I just weighed one of them and they weigh-in at right at 9.5 pounds—clubs they are…

A dozen rounds out of it and your shoulder begins to get that yellow tint to it. Another half-dozen rounds and your shoulder is black and blue and quite sore…

Even light loads have considerable recoil as there is so much volume you must fill in the 10 gauge hull—pushing even light weight produces recoil…

Actually, a 10 gauge handgun could be dangerous to the shooter and those standing nearby. It certainly could “leave the hands” of the shooter and smack him/her in the face or hit the person standing in the vicinity…

I wouldn’t want to shoot it…

Good-luck…BCB

[HarryT]

I agree, a ten gauge handgun is not a good idea. I still like the looks of one so I might have to use twenty gauge inserts. I'd never let an unknowing soul fire a heavy kicking gun. I don't see any humor in that.

[toallmy]

Or you could load your own shot shell loads for your handguns , I just hate to see a old gun cut down when it could be resurrected .

[Ithaca Gunner]

Ithaca ran with the idea back in the 20's, but did it in a somewhat more reasonable 20 gauge format. The Ithaca "Auto Burglar".



It's said "Doc" Holiday had and carried on occasion a sawed off 10 gauge "pistol" with a ring soldered to the rib for a shoulder rig. I've seen a picture of the gun and shoulder rig designed to level the gun when the coat was opened. If I recall right the gun was a "Meteor" brand.

You could, if impression is your goal buy an old pre 1899, but in good shape 2-7/8" chambered 10 gauge double and have your way with it with no interference from ATFE and shoot brass black powder shells out of it. Still, I think I would hold on to it with two hands like shooting a regular shotgun from the hip.

Let us know how you make out.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I did say it is difficult to shoot both barrels at exactly the same time, if you actually wanted to. You do not want a short double, fired from the hip, to slip out of the barrel hand with another shot on the way.

I've got a couple of 2⅞in. 10 gauge hammer guns, a slightly tired Charles Daly Prussian and a rather beautiful single barrelled W&C Scott. They had a lot more point when they were new than they do now. You get a worse pattern with lead shot and no shot-cup wad when the shot charge is long and narrow. Nowadays with shot cups, and steel shot so much in use for 10ga shooting, you can do about as well with a longer 12ga. The 2⅞in. cartridge isn't a commercial cartridge now, and that's official. It means I can buy or import a gun as freely as a walking-stick, and produce it place it on my licence if I want to shoot it.

The pistols being sold as howdah pistols nowadays undoubtedly outnumbered howdahs, and you were probably about as likely to die from swallowing a live fish as by having a tiger enter your howdah. Small ones were made in Belgium for the South American market, entirely bereft of howdahs, where the main function was to make someone overlook the first split second of movement towards the knife. The British ones were simply a very large defensive pistol, with some adherents among hunters and the military before the revolver became fully trusted. Muzzle-loading pistols were often of carbine bore, but in breech-loaders the most common rounds were 20ga with round ball, which would only have been 0.8oz. at the most, and the short .577 revolver cartridge which was used in some of the earliest cartridge Webleys in the 1860s. The Snider rifle round was sometimes used, possibly with reduced charges, but even the full power one would be very different from 10ga.

[CLAYPOOL]

With Purchasing a Ithaca Mag - 10 in 1978 near when they were starting to be produced till this date. I have 4 Mag -10's and 1 Remington Sp -10, (very recent). I have reloaded from before steel shot till present. They don't produce the recoil violence of a 3 1/2 inch 12 gauge. They are a power shove. As for performance they have most any thing else beat. In a hand gun there is a lot of better things out there. As for beavers, a center fire rifle in the head at frontal shots are preferred. Aim slightly low judged by their distance from you. This is best in the last few minutes just at dark. Think tip of the nose as they come towards you.