Crowning a cut off 410 barrel, options, and expierence please thanks

[Scooby]

Ok so I have been looking for a 410 for rabbit hunting for several weeks now. Been looking for a pump either a Mossberg or something with safety where Remington 870 is. So far I have found full size guns with 24" to 26" barrels, or 18" barrel with very very short youth stocks.

So I have it narrowed down to a Hiawatha that has 870 style controls or an older Mossberg. One has a 24" full the other has a 26" full.

I have hunted rabbits with a rem 870 20 ga with 20" barrel ic choke and 3/4 oz of #8 shot for almost 20 years now, I would like to get a 410 and really like short barrels.

If i get one of the above mentioned 410s what is the best way to cut the barrel to 20" and crown it. I have searched and several people have used a carriage bolt and valve grind compound, however that was on rifles not shotguns.

Any help would be much appreciated thank You

[Outpost75]

Like your avatar with the Beagle. I'll bet he sings a nice rabbit song! I have a single-shot .410 in which the barrel was burst behind the choke by firing .44-40 ammunition in it.

The barrel was cut off 3" behind the split using a pipe cutter, leaving a 20" cylinder bore of .427" diameter, which handles either shot or ball. The inside edge of the cut was chamfered by hand with a pipe taper reamer. The sharp outside edge of the cut was dressed by hand with a mill bastard file, then a new bead sight installed.

This pre-war gun was marked .44/.410/11mm-2-1/2" and was rechambered many years later to take 3" shells.

Here are typical ball, buck and birdshot targets comparing 1/2 oz. No.6 with .44-40 5 in 1 #8 shot, and photo of the gun with extra .38 Special rifle barrel made by John Taylor.

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161959

For those unfamiliar with the D1C repair center, the tagboard is 10 inches square or 100 square inches.
Inner circle is 4," about the size of a clay pigeon.
Outer ring is 8", about the size of a rabbit body. Patterns at 25 FEET!

[Scooby]

I had an Iver Johnson champion 20 ga that looked like that. sold it when I got my 870. Yes she was a yip yiper in her day she still yard hunts but her front legs and shoulders are full of arthritis so I keep her at home for hunting now. The 2 pics in the middle look like dead bunnies to me!

Ok so if I were to get one with out a rib the pipe cutter and file seam like a good way to go. How about if it had a rib on it?

[Outpost75]

...so if I were to get one with out a rib the pipe cutter and file seam like a good way to go. How about if it had a rib on it?

With a ribbed barrel a hacksaw in a mitre box is best to get a square cut.

Try to cut through the rib at one of its supporting posts, to avoid leaving a gap between the rib and the barrel.

[DougGuy]

Anybody with a lathe should be able to cut and crown that pretty quickly right?

[country gent]

Use a hose clamp around barrel tightend where you want the cut +.030 and use it as a guide for the hacksaw. It should tighten and be pretty square to bore. To finish barrels muzzle a simple file and square. A chmfer tool in a brace if you want to chamfer edge of bore otherwise a round head screw or carriage bolt and lapping compound.

[Windwalker 45acp]

all that was mentioned will work, as well as a crocus cloth and a ball pein of the right diameter... or a big steely.

It's not hard, just pay attention to what you're doing.

[augercreek]

I've been doing this very thing for a couple of years now and all of the above work just fine. My dog developed arthritis too and I found a product called Cetyl M on Amazon that really helps with the joints and relieves the pain. It took about a month to really see the effect it has.

[rosewood]

I shortened several 12 gauge single shots for fun and I used a pipe cutter. The pipe cutter leaves kind of a flare which I evened up with an angle grinder and a dremel. It is a shotgun, precision really doesn't matter as long as you don't have any burrs inside the barrel. You could cut with angle grinder also, but the pipe cutter does cut it square.

[richhodg66]

Seems like it should be easy enough.

After reading your post in the WTB forum, I went back to a local shop that had a real nice High STandard pump in .410 for about a year and seemed priced low for what it was to me. I had no use for it, but it intrigued me, sadly, it's gone now. Seems like you never see .410s in anything but single shots.

[gnoahhh]

Personally, speaking as a long time bird/rabbit/duck/goose/trap/skeet/sporting clays shooter, I wouldn't shorten a 26" .410 barrel without giving it a good workout first. One needs balance in a shotgun if one wishes to be proficient with it, and a 20" .410 repeater would be butt-heavy as all get out. Lightness/shortness in a shotgun doesn't necessarily translate into smooth handling or quick accurate shooting. I have known several gents in the course of 50 years of shooting scatterguns who bobbed their barrels to barely legal lengths, and rued the day they did it ever afterwards.

[Scooby]

Personally, speaking as a long time bird/rabbit/duck/goose/trap/skeet/sporting clays shooter, I wouldn't shorten a 26" .410 barrel without giving it a good workout first. One needs balance in a shotgun if one wishes to be proficient with it, and a 20" .410 repeater would be butt-heavy as all get out. Lightness/shortness in a shotgun doesn't necessarily translate into smooth handling or quick accurate shooting. I have known several gents in the course of 50 years of shooting scatterguns who bobbed their barrels to barely legal lengths, and rued the day they did it ever afterwards.

I understand what you are saying I've been shooting trap for over 20 years, its weird for a trap gun I fill the stock with lead make gun as heavy as I can and I even shoot 7/8 oz from the 16 and 1 oz on back. however for hunting rabbits birds and squirrel I have always used my 870 20ga with 20" barrel (just change choke depending on critter I am hunting)

One guy I rabbit hunt with has a newer mossberg 410 26" full, at 35 yards its about the size of a baseball maybe a softball, kind of tight for rabbits I think. I will defiantly pattern what ever I get before making any snap decisions to cut off, maybe I will look into opening choke up if need be.

richhodg66 thanks for looking for me, I am sure it was a good excuse to stop by the lgs.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The only circumstances in which you should use a power tool to crown a barrel are if you have a piloted cutter of some kind, or if the barrel is really accurately trued up in a lathe. Otherwise the best took is a ball-shaped tungsten carbide burr held in a lathe, with the barrel rotated against it by hand. With other shapes you have to hold the barrel in line or the crown will be lop-sided. But with a sphere you don't.

[rosewood]

For a rifle, no doubt you should use the proper tools, but with a smooth bore shotgun, does it really matter? They are not precision instruments by any sense of the word.

Rosewood

[flint45]

I have done abunch of shotguns by just using a pipe remer and then finnishing with a carriage bolt always worked good for me. keep it straght.

[Blackwater]

I and a good friend have cut off a number of barrels, shotgun, rifle and pistol, and all we ever did was hack it off somewhere as close as we could to square, and then take a file, and by eye and close inspection, get it filed off level. Then we'd start in with the sandpaper, turning the barrel gradually and progressively as we went until it looked, to our eyes at least, dead square and smooth. Then we'd polish the crown lightly, deburring the muzzle, and dab on some cold blue or have it dipped in hot tanks, depending on what and whose gun we were doing. And never once have we gotten poorer results, except for the fact that with shotuns, any shortening over about an inch or so results in losing all your choke. That may or may not be a factor for you, though. Just be aware of it going into it.

[Fishman]

With a cylinder .410, those bunnies better be close. I always preferred at least a modified so that I could shoot them in the front half and save the back and back legs where most of the meat is. Most of the front legs could be saved but if not it was always better than shooting them in the butt.

I also agree about the balance. A .410 barrel is a lot lighter Tha a 20 gauge, so to get a similar balance you might want a longer tube.