45-410

[dave22250]

Any one have luck shooting 45 colt out of there 45-410 contender. Was hoping to find a decent load to shoot targets, bench accuracy not needed but a couple inches would be great. Cast or Jword.........Thanks for any input.....Dave

[Outpost75]

Better than a Judge revolver or throwing rocks, but if you were really good with a Whamo slingshot as a kid and had a limitless supply of catseye marbles you are better off.

Standard pressure, cast lead bullet .44-40 loads give good accuracy in my Microgroove Marlin 1894S and H&R Bunny Gun which John Taylor fitted with a Marlin Microgroove .44-40 barrel fform Numrich. The Microgroove .44s get decent close-range results on brush bunnies at 25-30 ft. using No.8 shot loaded in Starline 5 in 1 blank cases with 5 grains of Bullseye. Soft lead .44-40 cowboy loads fired in the cylinder bore .410 do not shoot as well as roundball loads. Roundballs from the .410 cylinder bore do about as well from a cylinder bore .410 as .45 Colts do in the 45-410, about 4" at 25 yards. The 5 in 1 Shotloads also work in the .44 Magnum, .45 Colt or .45 ACP revolvers and pattern decently as a short-range (50 ft. max.) load in the .410. Photos below tell the story.

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[Lonegun1894]

I messed with my .45/.410 for a while, but not very long. I use it as a .410 only. If my results and al the results I have read of are any indication, I would say use your .45/.410 as a .410, and then get either a .44 Mag or a .45 Colt (only) for accuracy. For what it's worth, both have similar performance on game, or I should say identical, but the .44 Mag is more common--read that as CHEAPER. I have a .45/.410, and a .44 Mag, if that helps.

[dave22250]

I did buy for the 410 but did see on some sires that they were getting decent groups with j-words and was hoping someone did the same with cast, I came up with abit of brass and was hoping!!!!!!!!! Dave.......

[Harter66]

Apples and oranges.

I had a 45/410 single shot pistol. It was mostly lands with very slight grooves ,think 6 pencil lines . Anyway jacketed seemed to just slide over the grooves cast would shoot ok in it if it was cowboy loads and pretty soft like 1-20 soft. Even plated lead skidded .

[gunauthor]

I have a Rossi 45/410 with serious accuracy issues. The fix involved trimming 3+ inches from the breech, re-welding the lug, and re-chambering in 45 Colt. In now shoots much better (minute of beer can.......).

[35 shooter]

You might try a lee .454" 298 gr. hollowbase minnie ball mould.
Shoots very good considering the fixed sights on my Bond Arms derringer.

The hollow base seems to do a good job of flaring out to seal the 410 portion of the bore.
Cast from 50/50 i get very minimal leading that doesn't build up from a lot of shooting and brushes out easily,which i seldom do as it doesn't seem to affect accuracy.

I usually get about 2.5 to 3 " groups at 25 yds., so combat accuracy at best from my 3.5" bbls. I only have about 1/2" rifling in the derringer so yours should do better with the longer bbl. hopefully. Wish i had an encore bbl. to try it in.

From a rest i can make a gallon milk jug keep it's head down at 100 yds. with it(the derringer) lol. No i don't hit it every shot but the misses are very tight.
BTW the holes in a cardboard backing are still straight at that range too.
Best boolit i've found for the 45/410 so far.

[DW475]

Never had much luck with 45 out of my TC barrel, works great for shooting grouse with the 410 loads though!

[Harter66]

I did this a while back ,the results weren't great but it does solve most of the jump to the rifling. A long seated "standard" Colts bullet would be better .

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?139925-Court-date-for-a-judge

[Tackleberry41]

Your pretty much wasting your time trying to run 45 colt in a 410 chamber. I had one, it would be good for hitting barn walls....from the inside. I tried 444 cases, even that 450 mongo. But the 410 section wouldn't take a brass case and a 451 bullet. So your left with a good 1 1/2 of freebore for the bullet to bang around or start going sideways before it rams into the rifling. Now if it was like the cylinder throat in a revolver, might work, but then a 410 shell wouldn't fit.

I fixed mine by converting it to 45 colt only. A rossi single shot pistol, did a barrel stub. Was going to try some sort of reamer so it would take a overly long case to get the bullet up to the rifling, but they bored it so poorly and out of round, concentric, was never going to work.

But I do not see the 45/410 fad dying out anytime soon. Taurus offers long barreled versions of the judge, guess the longer barrel for more accuracy, don't see it doing much good. Was glancing at some load data, they had 45/410 revolver specs, hotter than standard pressure less than ruger only. But the velocity data was for a 7 1/2 in barrel, sort of worthless, its not much better than throwing the bullets at the target accuracy wise.

[quilbilly]

I use my 10" 45/410 now exclusively for the 410. It is a wonderful "walking-around" gun for grouse and cottontails patterning remarkably well all the way out to 20 Yards. The problem I had with the 45 colts in that barrel was the rudimentary sights and that it wouldn't reliably eject the 45 LC cases forcing me to have a wood ramrod handy. Recently I also discovered that the 410 barrel when using the buckshot loads would keep all the buckshot pellets in a paper plate at 12 yards.

[marshall623]

I use mine for 410 only 2.5" seems to pattern better than 3" loads , has anyone shot slugs in theirs . I thought about it but wondered if choke in or out ?

[marshall623]

Back to the OP's ? , Ive shot about 3 boxes of factory lead 45LC in mine about 16 years ago seemed like they shot OK

[Buckshot Bill]

I had a rossi 45/410 a long time ago, shot terribly with everything I put in it. The chamber on these is necked down so no .45 cartridge longer than a colt can be inserted, I had this reamed out so the whole chamber was straight walled. I fire formed .444 marlin brass and loaded 230 grn boolits with hot LC data and got promising results. My main goal though was to make sort of a 45-70 out of it but the rifling would not stabilize a 405 grn boolit so I ended up trading it off. I suppose a guy could have it rebored to .458 and then rechambered in 45-70. Or have a custom pilot reamer made to rechamber to 45-70 and neck the 45-70 cases in a long colt or ACP die and load .452 slugs? They would have to stay at or under 300 grains probably to stabilize properly. The 405 grn I tried key holed at 25 yds. Seems like an awful lot of hassle though when there are plenty of different 45-70 single shots out there to be had.

[bearcove]

The 45 colt was put on them to make a legal 410 pistol. You might try 9.3X74R brass fireformed and loaded with 45 colt dies. I've had a 410 contender for 35 years and never shot anything but 410s in it.

If you want to shoot 45 colt get a 45 colt barrel.

[Buckshot Bill]

The 45 colt was put on them to make a legal 410 pistol. You might try 9.3X74R brass fireformed and loaded with 45 colt dies. I've had a 410 contender for 35 years and never shot anything but 410s in it.

If you want to shoot 45 colt get a 45 colt barrel.

With the weird chamber shape you get stuck cases doing that (don't ask how I know). it needs to be straight walled before you can fireform anything in them

[bearcove]

Like I mentioned I never bothered, its a 410.

[mcdaniel.mac]

I had good luck with "rifled" .410 slugs with a Judge before I traded it for something more useful. Might be worth a shot, though I don't know if you'll get what you want out of it.

[vh2q]

I tried cast but then eventually found a jacketed load that shot well enough to hunt with. The load is cci350/21.5 296/Sierra 300gr JSP. Not a magnum load but heavy bullet. Shot a red duiker with it and it passed through.

I would like to use this barrel for snakes but I don't have the choke piece. Anyone have a line on one please PM me. NEVER MIND MAGNUM RESEARCH HAS THESE CHOKES IN STOCK

[str8wal]

Better left as a shotgun, as it was meant to be.

[vh2q]

Well taking a closer look my (round) barrel is marked 45LC only ... nothing about 410. And the chamber is a normal 45LC chamber, not a long 410 chamber. But it is threaded for internal choke tube. Upon further research apparently some were made this way for hotshots (which were apparently made in 45LC for a short time) and the company also put out a brochure stating that 2 1/2" 410 ctgs could be shot in these short chambers. I have never tried that, not sure whether the ctg would fit into the bore section. Anyway that may explain why I was able to get 75 yard tennis ball grouping with jacketed bullets. Could not get useful accuracy with cast however.

[Lonegun1894]

Yours shoots better than mine then. I only tried a few jacketed loads, but they didn't give appreciably better performance than cast did, so my solution was to use the .45/410 as a .410 only, and then get a .44Mag for the accuracy.

[str8wal]

my (round) barrel is marked 45LC only

Makes all the difference in the world. That long chamber of the 45/410 won't give performance like that.