The little 410 surprised me

[Cast_outlaw]

I bought a C.I.L. 410 single shot couple years back For $100cnd with a soft shell case and 20 rounds I took 11 of 12 grouse I got last year with it Wood not mind a double but have other things to buy and pay for first

[Thin Man]

Last week I stumbled across an H&R model 490 (youth model) single shot .410 and bought it. We have a 3-year old grandson who will grow into the age and size to start shotgunning with that 410. Just hope I get to live long enough to be the person to deliver it to him.

[beemer]

I like the 410 myself, keep a H&R by the back door for creepy critter control. I don't hunt anymore so the 410 does most anything I need to do and it doesn't beat me to death. I have a loader and have played with everything from little popper loads for snakes to round balls, it's fun.

About the only thing I use my 12 for is pruning limbs on my range that a pole saw can't reach.

Dave

[MDC]

I picked up a Steven's 555 O/U a while back and it has been fun to shoot. Real light weight and swings easy. I love my 16ga but found myself leaving it in the truck pretty often last dove season in favor of the little 410

[Stephen Cohen]

some 50 odd years back I purchased a Winchester single barrel 410 for my then wife, I took 5 ducks in one shot as they lifted off the water, three dead on the spot and two I had to chase down. I agree 3'' shells are pretty much a must have in my view. Regards Stephen

[RKJ]

I'm ashamed to say I've got 2 410's a 870 express and a Stevens 311 sxs that seldom get used. I haven't even shot the little sxs and have had it now for 3 years. I believe it's time to rectify that. ��

[RU shooter]

I picked up a Steven's 555 O/U a while back and it has been fun to shoot. Real light weight and swings easy. I love my 16ga but found myself leaving it in the truck pretty often last dove season in favor of the little 410

I was just reading reviews about that sav/Stevens 555 sounds like a decent gun and I like that's it's lightweight due to the alum frame .

[kens]

I never owned a .410, but I have shot 12ga vs 20ga.
The 12 sure has more horsepower, but the 20 is lighter and faster to swing.
Also, the small game birds only need 1 pellet to bring 'em down. the big 12 might deliver 2 or 3 pellets and 1 is enough.
Next time you clean bunch of doves, count the birds that have just 1 hole in them.
Clay pidgeons break with only 1 pellet. the big 12 might turn one into dust, but 1 pellet will get a score. a score is same whether you smoke it or not.
If a .410 was properly built, it would be very fast handling gun.
My eyes opened the last time around the gun & ammo shortage. The gun store only had 1 flavor of buckshot. that was .410 three pieces 000buck.
I was thinking gee, 3 pieces of .36 cal moving at high velocity, just one piece of .36cal @ 1300fps is no joke.

[Vdubman27]

The .410 does not get near the credit it deserves. It is the perfect "critter control" gun and will also take pheasants. I will refrain from describing what a .410 will do to a possum at close range.

You are not wrong the 410 will keep the critters out of the garden

[MDC]

I was just reading reviews about that sav/Stevens 555 sounds like a decent gun and I like that's it's lightweight due to the alum frame .

I did a good bit of research and reading before I bought one. I was still a bit hesitant but once I held it all of that went away. It feels great and is easy to shoot. Very pleased with it.

[M-Tecs]

I mostly consider the 410 to be an expert's gun. The 28 gauge seems to perform way better than it should.

[cwlongshot]

Thats a mistake many make in thinking the 410 is LO POWERED.

IT ABSOLUTELY IS NOT AT ALL LOW POWERED. What it IS is LOW CAPACITY or SHOT COUNT. Its sportin exactly same Velocity and per pellet energy as a big 10GA!! Its just moving 1/2 oz opposed to 2 1/2oz... But its not a single projectile. Now thinking of slugs YES the 420 is less powerful in the order of a 38 Super or +P 38. Almost a light 357. Where the 10g Slug offers TREMENDOUS ENERGY figures.

CW

[gnostic]

I shoot a Charles Daly 410 over and under for skeet. It breaks clays as well as a 12 gauge if you're on. If you get a little behind the bird, forget about it. The shot is going 1100 FPS, but a 1/2oz of shot just makes a smaller pattern...

[M-Tecs]

Most shotguns are patterned at 40 yards to establish choke except for the 410. It is patterned at 30. For hunting or clay target games for me I notice very little performance deference between to 20 and the 28. I do notice a significant difference between the 28 and the 410. That being said the 410 can be very effective if you don't expect it to be a 20 gauge.

[rking22]

That is a key point in getting along with the 410, or “idiot stick” to a lot of 4 gun skeet shooters! Just looking at the classification table for American skeet you can see very little difference between the AAA minimum score in all gages, except 410. The 410 score is about the same as doubles score for the same classification. And note, skeet targets are broken inside 20 yards. stretching to 30 yards there is a substantial difference in effectiveness to the 28ga. Accept it is a close range gun and they can be very effective and fun. Start stretching it and there will be disappointment. I shot one round of ATA trap with my cyl choked M42, totally pointless and I am pretty fast. Just not enough pattern density. I can go straight with it on skeet and won the Vintage World 410 one year with it. It works great on preserve bobwhites, and doves before they get educated to fly HIGH.

[RU shooter]

I mostly consider the 410 to be an expert's gun. The 28 gauge seems to perform way better than it should.

I don't doubt that a bit never shot a 28 either . Only issue I have with a 28 is I have never ever seen a box of 28 ga shells in any gun shops near me in my life let alone the Wally mart . Heck even finding a single box of 16 ga requires quite a few phone calls these days

[dpoe001]

The first gun i shot was a Remington 410 single shot that my father used when he was young.Hunted with that gun for 5 years,my uncles used to commit how accurate my little 410 was. It brought home many squirrels rabbits and pheasant

[Der Gebirgsjager]

That's kind of.....can't think of a good word here.....not exactly coincidental, your not seeing any 28 Ga. shells for sale. Just last Monday I was in our local Bi-Mart store. No .22 L.R., no 9mm Para., but a whole shelf full of 28 Ga. shells. I inquired if they had a 28 Ga. shotgun for sale, and they did not, although their gun rack was full. Pistol case was about half empty. Anyway, they are usually well stocked with shotgun shells, and have always seemed to have some even during the ammo shortages, but I've never seen so many 28 Ga. shells on their shelves. They had exactly 3 boxes of .410, so I took one, and when I got home discovered that it is no. 9 shot. $10.97.

[Outpost75]

OK, need to post this again as I can't find it in the archives, enjoy:

Making the Most of the “Little Gun”

I have lots of experience with the .410. I carry one often for woods walking and to shoot garden varmints. Truth be told a 12-ga. pump riot gun is the "go to" gun for things which go bump in the night. So if you intend to own only ONE shotgun, get a 12-ga. Reduced recoil law enforcement loads are viable if females and youngsters must use the same gun. Their recoil compares to a 20-ga. load.

The .410 is great extra for use as a bugout bag spare or loaner. Slugs are accurate in some guns, but you can determine that only by testing. I found them mostly ineffective on anything larger than foxes, or at ranges beyond about 30 yards. Grouping of shotgun slugs from a plain, bead-sighted single-barrel shotgun at very best is 1 inch spread per ten yards of range. AND your gun may not hit where it looks, so it is really a guess work unless you test and practice. You may spend $25-30 in ammo just to find out that it doesn't work in your case...

A .410 slug weighs about 80 grains. While its initial velocity is high, it loses half its striking energy in the first 50 yards, where its energy compares to a .25-20 rifle firing black powder loads. Certainly this is no bear gun!

Much better than .410 slugs for predators, large varmints or home defense are the 3-inch five-pellet 00 buckshot loads now popular for home defense and so widely available. A 5-pellet, 3" 00 buck in the .410 puts the same number of pellets on a silhouette at 25 yards that a cylinder bore 12-ga. riot gun does firing 9-pellet 00 buck does at 40 yards. This means that you can expect 4 out of 5 pellets striking an Army "E" silhouette at 25 yards, a killing pattern. At 40 yards the .410 gets at very best gets only 3 hits out of 5, which is barely adequate. This is based on the WW2 Army standard that kinetic energy delivered on target should not be less that of a hit from an M1911 .45 pistol firing service ammunition. If you are lucky, you might land 2 pellets out of 5 at 50 yards on your Zombie silhouette, if your particular gun really likes the load, but still, you better shoot him twice!

I spent $250 in ammo testing various .410 rounds in three guns, a full-choke, high-dollar Beretta, a sawed off cylinder-bore Iver-Johnson and a modified choke H&R youth gun to validate prove the conclusions to my satisfaction. If your Daddy’s .410 happens to be a stone killer, it may indeed be that, you have a great gun and that all of mine are all junk, because the luck of the blind monkey does indeed rule the universe in these sorts of things.

Each 00 buckshot pellet fired from a .410 has about the same energy at 25 yards as a .32 ACP pistol slug. Less than 3 pellets hits do not total our magic 350 ft.lbs. of kinetic energy which approximates .45 ACP hardball on target, and so cannot be considered effective for defense or hunting deer-sized game. The longest range at which you can realistically expect 3 pellets hitting when firing the shorter 2-1/2 inch .410 buckshot rounds is about 20 yards from a typical single-barrel shotgun.

If using the Judge revolver, sorry, but count upon no farther than 7 yards in the best case, based on one gun I tested. Velocity really drops off quickly from a .410 revolver. Winchester 5-pellet 00 buck gets 1230 fps from a standard shotgun, and only 800 or so from the short Judge revolver and 880 fps from the long-barreled one.

When using a .410 with bird shot for hunting small game, it works OK IF you stay within its severe range limitations. The most important thing to remember is that given its small payload (1/2 oz. in the 2-1/2 inch shell and 11/16 oz. in the 3 inch shell) you have very few pellets in the pattern. In order for a shot pattern to be effective on a game animal the size of a rabbit, or a bird the size of a pheasant or duck, you need to achieve a number of pellets hits equal to the shot size, such as six No. 6 or 8 No. 8 within 20 square inches on a 5 inch paper plate, which is about the size of a rabbit.

Having less than 200 shot in the shell makes obtaining effective patterns difficult beyond about 10-15 yards because the pattern spreads about 1 inch per yard of target distance. Using shot larger than 7-1/2 in the 3 inch shell or No.8 in the 2-1/2 inch shell is ineffective unless you limit ranges to 25 yards from a single-barrel shotgun, or 5 yards with the Judge revolver.

It is important to fire test patterns with your gun and ammo and to PRACTICE with the smaller gun, learning to acquire the target and shoot QUICKLY, so that you have clear knowledge of its capabilities and develop enough shooting skill on your part to somewhat make up for its reduced effectiveness. The biggest drawback in using a .410 is that developing skill requires buying and shooting up more ammo in testing and practice to obtain that knowledge and maintain that skill, than does a 20- or 12-ga.

A casual shooter needs to fire about 100 shells a year at clay birds to simply maintain basic skill and not decline. To improve your skill you need to deliberately and with purpose shoot a case of 250 shells a year in structured practice with a coach who can watch and observe what you are doing wrong. Otherwise you are simply blowing money out the barrel!

And .410 ammo costs about TWICE as much as the same number of 12-ga. or 20-ga. shells because the factories don't produce or sell as many. If you shop seasonal promotions you can buy case lots of "dove & quail" no. 8 or "duck & pheasant" No. 6 shot 12-ga. or 20-ga. loads reasonably, but not .410s. My advice if you intend to own only one shotgun is to get either a 12-ga. or 20-ga. pump gun and stock up on bargain ammo whenever you find it.

You won't find any bargains in .410 ammo. At least, I've never seen any. In some areas it is difficult to find .410 cartridges in shot sizes smaller than No.6, which is simply nuts! Marketing people try to make up for the .410s lack of killing power by pushing larger shot, which is pure lunacy, particularly large shot such as No.4, because patterns are so thin that it entirely useless beyond 20 yards unless you happen to have a full choke barrel which "likes it". If you are lucky enough to center a bird you have featherburgers...

In those cases your gun may pattern so tightly that you must shoot it like a rifle, which means that you could have used your .22 pistol and saved a dollar to kill that silly wabbit!

Shot sizes of No. 6 or larger should only be used in choke bore .410 guns which actually pattern the particular load well, within the ranges at which you have determined that they are actually "effective."

My Beretta 412 folding shotgun was designed to fold and fit in a "two-suiter" suitcase and is well adapted to shooting wood pigeon out of tall trees in Tuscany, or Fox Squirrels in West Virginia. A shot load throwing "effective" patterns means that you can reliably depend upon putting a number of pellets equal to the shot size, such as four No. 4s, five No. 5s, six No.6s, seven No.7-1/2s or eight No. 8 shot on your 5-inch paper plate at your given range. Determining this means firing in a rapidly thrown-up 2 second instinctive snap-shot. Misses with a single 0 buckshot do not count for anything, sorry! Given the modest shot capacity of a .410 the maximum useful range at which you can expect effective game killing patterns on squirrels, pheasant, duck or rabbit with any confidence is 25 yards under the great majority of circumstances. With cylinder bore guns you should expect to do no better than 20 yards, sorry folks, this is reality...With a Judge revolver no more than 5-7 yards.. I can kill grouse with my slingshot flipping a stone that far for less money and more silently.

I cannot emphasize enough that there is NO substitute for actually patterning your gun!!!!!!!


You do not have to dissect shells, count pellets, put up a big piece of paper, count all the pellets, draw circles and figure pellet percentages. But it IS absolutely necessary to determine where the center of your pattern falls in relation to the sights, and to assess whether patterns thrown are uniform, or if they tend to be thicker towards the center, have holes or are patchy around the edges.

Take a roll of wide butcher paper, roll it out and hang it along on a wire fence. Then take 5-inch paper plates, to represent your rabbit, duck or pheasant. Staple these every 4 feet or so along the rolled out butcher paper until you have five or six of them. Now, then take your walking shotgun, load, walk TEN paces away from the fence, turn and fire quickly at the first plate you see. This should be in natural-point snap shooting as you would at a flushing bird. Turn around, walk away another 5 paces, repeat, turn and shoot the next one, etc. until you have fired five patterns at 5 paper plates, the closest at ten paces and the farthest about 30 paces away. Try 35 paces if you are a dreamer, of course, and if you believe in Santa Klaus!

Looking these patterns over and repeating the exercise again with each shot size and counting the hits on the plate will give you a crystal clear perception of what your little .410 will (or won't) do. After doing this exercise you will probably come to one of two conclusions, which I did:

Use the .410 only where its reduced weight and cube of gun and ammo is worth the extra cost. Mine is packed as a two-barrel rifle-shotgun combo with two barrels for the survival ruck carried in the boat, private aircraft or carried as a spare gun at the hunting or fishing camp. It is NOT the only shotgun to depend on. The .410 is a great as the EXTRA gun, especially for use by a recoil-shy family member.

Forget the .410 slug Zombie fantasy. Instead buy not less than one hundred rounds of 5 pellet 00 for large varmints and defense use, then 250 rounds of 3-inch No. 7-1/2s to hunt small game and birds with another 250 rounds of 2-1/2" No. 8, 8-1/2 or 9 for clay bird practice. Have all users also pattern the gun so they can understand where it hits FOR THEM, and everyone PRACTICE with it.

Or...

Instead buy a 3" magnum chambered 20-ga. gun with modified choke or, better, equipped with screw-in choke tubes. It can use either 3" magnum or standard 2-3/4 inch shells. Buy 100 rounds each of 20-ga. slugs which ARE effective and 3 inch magnum No. 2 buckshot for defense, and 250 rounds each of 3 inch magnum No.6 and 2-3/4" 1-oz. 7-1/2s for small game and birds. If you will be teaching other family members to shoot and throw clay birds for practice, buy an additional 500 rounds of 7/8 oz. No. 8 "dove and quail loads."

My two cents.

[elmacgyver0]

I am kind of glad I didn't know all this as a kid.
I shot a lot of pheasants with a .410, I guess they didn't know it would be ineffective against them.