Fell in love with the .410

R

relientk1988

New member
Went out to the local "throw your own" range a little while ago with my brand new NEF single shot .410. I bought the gun so I could have the 3 most common gauges (12,20,.410, 16 and 28 on the way!) Anyway, I was worried about not being to hit anything but I was pleasantly suprised. I was hitting better with it than my single shot 20. It was also nice to shoot a shotgun with hardly any recoil. I have seen alot of people on TFL make fun of the shotgun but it proved itself to me! Has anyone else had this same experience or does everyone think the .410 is undepowered? I like everything about it except for the price of shyells($7.00/25) :eek: .



-Ben


thinking about a mossberg .410 pump.
 
The last few months I have been shooting the .410 almost exclusively for skeet. Gone through about 1100 shells since February. I shot a couple of rounds with the 28 gauge which I love dearly, and broke 24 and 25 with it, and went back to the .410. It gives me something to play with and challenges me a bit more than the bigger gauges. When I run a straight with the little gun, I know I was on the targets, especially with the full choke patterns my little double throws. :D

Many times the little .410 is critisized for being too small, but it's usually someone trying to use it for something that it is not designed for. It is not for everybody, and it is not an ideal gun to start a kid out on because it is more of an expert's gun. But it is fun.
 
It's ironic that the .410 is considered a "youth gun" in this part of the country when the opposite is true, you have to be a good marksperson to use one effectively. I have a mossberg 500 which works very well for squirrels, rabbits, etc. and I use it to dispatch 'coons in my traps. I have found for myself that I do better aiming it like a rifle rather than pointing it like a shotgun and I put those screw-on fiber optic sights on it. The only other shotgun I would like to have is a 20 O/U with different chokes for sporting clays. :)
 
A .410 story

I was rabbit hunting once in Deer Creek, OH wildlife area and I came out of the brush and there were two elderly gentlemen with a gray arthritic beagle looking at me. One of them peered at me and my gun and drawled disbelievingly, "Yew huunt with a foer tiin???"

I replied that I believe in giving the bunnies a running start!
 
I got worried...

When my friend's dad told me he hit a squirrel 5 times with a .410 and it still didn't die. But after shooting it I love it. Anybody reload for the .410? How much do you save?


-Ben
 
I have a Savage double and a Mosberg pump. Wouldn't get rid of either of them, and there have been offers. The only thing I miss is the skillet shot on quail. (Your allowed to do that on blues) Don't kill near as many as with a 12.

Had a friend up in Capitan that hunted EVERYTHING with a 410. Then as he got older he said he had to switch to a 28, reflexes were getting slow! ;)

I do reload for about a $3-$4 dollar per box savings! :eek: and as a bonus, the loads are "custom". 'Bout all you can find here are 7 1/2s but I have boxes of 4s and 6s.
 
The volume of 410's that I go through I have to reload, and with the price of shot going up it will stretch a bag a long way with 1/2oz loads. I figure that a box of 2.5" shells reloaded costs me about $2.30-$2.50 to reload. A new box of AA's or Rem STS's goes about $6.50 around here. If I want 3" shells I just go buy them as my reloader won't do them without a major adapter kit.
 
I've got a handy little Baikal .410 that was imported back in the 70s that I bought non-first hand at a gun shop (I can't tell you if the thing had 1 previous owner or 15). It had been shot enough to loosen up the action, but hadn't seen enough field work to mar the wood or the finish. Its a great little gun, and if the price of .410 shells wasn't so outrageous in my neck of the woods I'd use it more (I'm currently looking at using .444 Marlin brass and paper wads to reload). Its a dandy caliber for dove, quail, rabbit, squirrel and if the opportunity presents itself I've never turned down a shot at pheasant either. Out to 12 yards a moderately choked .410 is a better gun IMHO for wingshooting anything up to pheasant sized game than any other caliber in the book. They swing fast, have a narrow shot column and hit hard.

The only thing I dislike about the Baikal is that it makes me not want to carry my other guns into the field.
 
Funny thing, I didn't see this post until after I posted about my first outing with a single shot 410 today.

Amazingly fun gun to shoot, and it was so easy to hit clays with at closer ranges.
 
"When my friend's dad told me he hit a squirrel 5 times with a .410 and it still didn't die."

sounds like he MISSED it 5 times. :eek:
 
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