Opinions on S&B .410 buckshot?

O

Oleg Volk

Staff Alumnus
I keep wondering if 5-ball 00 buck that S&B loads in .410 is any good. If it is, might make .410 a viable HD bore...

Any experience with functioning, patterning, anything else relevant?
 
Oleg,

I know what opinions are like, but in mine, the .410 is relatively useful for only two things, neither of them Home Defense.

To me, a .410 is useless except for busting clay birds and killing snakes.

For home defense, I would not go smaller than a .20 guage, in shotguns.

You asked for opinions, and that is mine. FWIW

Doc Hudson
 
The reason for my interest is that I know people who own those marginally useful Mossberg .410HS scatterguns as well as a couple of single-shot top-breaks, a double...all in .410. I am just curious if S&B buck would be a good choice for those.

I know that buying an old Sears pump in 12ga and chopping it at 18.5" might be a better way but humor me regrdless.
 
Oleg, this is kinda like asking about the best defensive round for the 22 Short, IMO.

At cross room ranges, it might be enough to do the job, or it might not. And "Might not" is a bigger risk with this than say, a 20 ga or a 38 revolver.
 
Aside from the caliber of the launcher...

I fail to see a problem with 5 OO buckshot - as long as it's moving at a reasonable velocity. Seems to me that it would be 5/9ths as effective as a 12 GA load - if the velocity is up there.

I would much rather have that load in a .410 than birdshot - simply due to the lightness of the payload in the .410.

Oleg, the key would be shooting it. Most (all?) .410s have a full choke. I don't know about the HD Mossbergs or the snake charmers. The full choke with the buckshot may give a blown pattern - once again, need to test it.

Giz
 
Building on Gizmo's comments, I suspect that choke may not be as much of a detriment to patterning since the .410's buckshot is stacked in a straight line. However, I do worry about the quality of S&B's pellets. It might be a worthwhile experiment to substitute some premium buckshot for the S&B pellets.

When you consider the existence of Remington's 12 gauge 8-pellet 00 'Tactical' load, a .410 5-pellet 00 load doesn't seem terribly unreasonable.
 
If I had a choice between 12guage #6 birdshot .410 buckshot in a HD situation I'd take the .410.

Shok
 
I know of plenty of people who won't practice with 12ga and some who won't with 20ga. They would be willing to fire .410 regularly and I am curious if they could press a $200 Mossberg 410 into HD service if they lack $420 for an M1 carbine.
 
I was not too impressed with .410 slugs -- 70-85gr at 1400-1700fps. The reason I am curious about buck is that 5 00 balls seems like a heavy load and (given how tightly they'd fit the bore) might come out in a tight pattern.

.410 is an under-rated bore, IMO. It is very suitable for small and skittish users and at least marginally effective at room distance (i.e. under 8ft most loads would act as a .41Mag Glaser). I personally prefer 20 gauge but have no illusions about my parents ever using it with any proficiency. A light .410 OTOH might be just the tool and no worse than .30 carbine in perms of recoil or effectiveness at close range.

So far no one has answered my question...maybe I ought to buy a 410 and some S&B buck and test it but I'd rather not just yet.
 
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