H&R .410 Folding Single Shot

[vonfilm]

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Today I acquired this H&R .410-12MMChoke Folding Single Shot in excellent condition. The serial number is 28xx. It seems to be in excellent original condition. I spotted it on the shelf of a LGS/Shooting Range at a very attractive price and was even able to get a small discount.

I believe it’s markings indicate that it is full choke. I think it is for 2 1/2” shells, but I am not sure. It has beautiful color case hardening and a perfect mirror bore.

I am interested in getting a rifle barrel fabricated for it in .32 S&W Long or .32 H&R Magnum, and I have sent an email to John Taylor inquiring about this.

I would love to see some fabricated rifle barrels that have been made for your single shot .410’s.

[Outpost75]

A great platform for a John Taylor Bunny Gun. For mine I have .32-20, .38 S&W, .38 Special, .44-40, .45 ACP, .45 Colt. All satisfactory. The .32-20 barrel has rimless ejector who I also works with .30 M1 carbine. The .45 ACP also works and ejects .455 Mk2.

He also rechambered the .410 barrel to use 3" shells.

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The .45 bull barrels at 20 inches weigh 5 pounds. The .32s with 18- inch tapered barrels weigh 4 pounds, as does the 20-inch. .38 S&W

[Texas by God]

Thanks for sharing that. I didn’t know that H&R made a folding shotgun.
I like them, I’ve had Galef, Beretta, and Yildiz versions. I still have a Yildiz .410 and use it a lot.


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[vonfilm]

Outpost75, thanks for the photos. That’s exactly what I would like to accomplish.An additional barrel in .45 Colt would be great to have since I handload that caliber also.

I would like to match the taper of the existing barrel if I can.

I think I read that you have a XS ghost ring rear sight and an M14 front sight on one of your barrels. Can you elaborate on how those are attached? Can you mount a small scope also?

[vonfilm]

Texas by God, I love this little folder. It is so light,slender, and well balanced. I believe it will be a pleasure to carry and hunt small game with.

I think I will get some brass .410 shells and use a simple hand loading procedure.

[Outpost75]

John can match contour of original shotgun barrel so that wood and fore end iron fit. For my .45 cal bull barrels he made new fore-end and fore-end iron with screw attachmentto barrel. For installing M1 carbine rear and M14 front sights barrel must be machined. For XS sight he machines the sight to install into standard 3/8" dovetail. It is possible to machine the female dovetail off bottom of M14 front sight and shape to male 3/8" dovetail to give a 0.4" high front sight. The front blade can be further cut down to zero if needed. Picatinny rail can be attached to barrel for scope.

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[MT Gianni]

Just out of curiosity's sake is the firing pin size the same as the 12 gauge?

[Outpost75]

Just out of curiosity's sake is the firing pin size the same as the 12 gauge?

Don't recall diameter. Original shotgun firing pin had sloppy fit in breech face. Primer cups of .38 Special +P flowed into the breech face and caused hard opening as cup was sheared off.

Now that firing pin has been replaced and bushing fitted there are no issues firing GI .30 M1 carbine, .45 ACP, ..38 Special +P or .44-40 loads.

[vonfilm]

Where can I source a suitable barrel blank to chamber in .32 S&WL? Would a .308 barrel work? What range of twist weights are suitable for factory loads and cast boolit hand loads in the 90-130 grain range?

Below is a 1909 Argentine Cavalry Carbine barrel in 7.65 x 53. I have read that these have a 1 in 11” twist rate. It is about 22” overall and I believe it would yield at least an 18” barrel when cut down and reshaped for the H& R .410. How suitable would this barrel be as a donor?
This barrel has a beautiful mirror bore.

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[Outpost75]

Good question. Yes, a .308 groove diameter barrel will work fine. My.32 S&W Long and .32-20 barrels were both fabricated by John using pull-off WW2 4-groove government form barrels with 1:10" twist. They shoot inch groups at 25 yards with common revolver ammunition and will also stabilize heavier 150-180 grain bullets subsonic. I do not use heavy loads and stay below 1200 fps in the rifle.

If you have a slow twist barrel, 1:20" is common for the .32-20, but don't pass up a 1:14 or 1:16 if available. A slower twist permits higher velocity with light bullets. The .32-20 barrels and liners are commonly .311-.312 groove and 1:16" twist, but some older barrels are 1:20".

A .303 barrel will also work fine. You just want a good barrel with correct chamber and throat and then cast and size bullets to fit.

[trapper9260]

I had a 327 mag barrel for my H&R . It works for me and able to shoot all 5 cartridges of the 32's in it .

[Jedman]

This was a Yildiz folding 410, I bought 2 of them with the idea of making a rifle out of both of them.
This one was going to be a 32 H&R mag originally I found 308 cal. barrel blanks on Numrich that were made to be used on a Heym combo gun and they were already turned to something like .420 for about 80 % of the barrel and then tapered to a chamber of only about 5/8” OD.
I bought 2 of them also as when you find stuff like that once they’re gone you will never have the chance again to get one. :killingpc. So what I did was instead of trying to turn this super skinny barrel blank down anymore to fit the 410 bore I took a taper pin reamer and silver soldered it to a 3/8” dia. length of steel rod. I chucked the barrel in my lathe and removed the tail stock as the reamer and extension were too long to use with a drill chuck. So I turned it a 60 RPM and with a large tap handle and a lot of oil I hand fed the tapered reamer that I ground the flutes off at approx .425 dia. a little at a time pulling it out a hundred times or more to clean off the chips and it reamed perfectly true the length of the bore.

I turned the blank down so the barrel was the same OD down to the chamber and turned it to 5/8” strait for about 2 1/2” then bored the 410 barrels chamber to fit and epoxied the .308 blank into the 410 barrel. Of course I had to shorten the shotgun barrel as the blank was only 24” long.
I then thought I could ream the chamber for the 32 H&R with a un piloted chucking reamer that I had as it was the right size dia. but the chamber ended up slightly out of round. You really couldn’t see it but the fired brass extracted hard and you could see the case mouth was a little egg shaped.
I wanted a small capacity cartridge as this shotgun has a 6061 Aluminum frame and I thought if I kept the breech thrust down to no more than a 410 it should hold up. So I needed a cartridge enough longer and a little large OD to clean up the chamber so I ended up reaming it with a 300 blk out reamer stopping .060 short and making a rim cut to use 357 mag brass. So now it is a shortened rimmed blk out and I found I need to load it quite conservative on the pressure as I get primer flow into the striker hole in the breech face.

I mounted a compact 4 x scope on it since my eyes are not much use using sights and it shoots well for the small amount of load development that I have done with it. I got 1” groups at 50 yards with several bullets I have shot in it but honestly I have so many other projects to finish that once I reached that accuracy I quit playing with it and haven’t shot it now for over a year.

The second Yildiz is still a 410 and I think it will stay that way as my plan is if I ever get around tuit I think I could make a barrel stub without to much work and make another barrel to fit the one I have already modified.
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