Shooting 45 ACP from a 410 shotgun?

To quote Cody Lundin from Dual Survival:

"be a dumbash, experience dumbash consequences". [edited to be G-rated..]

That quote is applicable to this thread as well
 
Unless the bore is rifled, I believe you would own an illegal firearm without some form of federal tax stamp. If the bore is rifled, the 410 is worthless; then you would need to decide which rifling you want and one of the cartridges would not be that accurate either
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I think that only applies to short barrel guns such as pistols. As far as I know, smoothbore rifles specially built for .22 shotshells don't need any special tax stamps. I'm pretty sure that a long shotgun overbored enough to safely shoot .45 ammo would just be a .410 shotgun with a oversize bore.

But if you really want that kind of versitility in a single gun, they already make combination guns, one barrel a rifle and the other a shotgun.
 
Rampant Colt said....
" speaking of liabilities.. It's foolish nonsense like this that causes people to get injured, and then makes us all look bad. How many times are you going to risk losing an eye or bulging your barrel shooting .451-.454 diameter projectiles down your .410 diameter barrel? What if the bullet doesn't swage down and gets stuck in the barrel and you don't know? Guess what happens next?
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A-men, and most of them don't have healthcare so we end up footing the bill for them to boot! So we get stupid prizes as well.
 
Play stupid games; win stupid prizes."
--------------
There's prizes?!?
Nobody told me and I've won the Darwin Award twice!!....(pout) Someone shoulda' said sumpthin':mad:
 
These guns are very nice, my only complaint is the stock isn't polyurethane coated.
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My thought exactly so I got on the phone and gave a call to BrazTech to see if I could order the synthetic stock found on the blued model of the very same gun. I was met with an overly loud and sure "Not only NO, but HECK NO". It seems that BrazTech had to come to and arrangement with the Federal Government for the Feds to be happy with calling the gun a Revolving Rifle. Apparently there are more states other than just California that do not like revolving shotguns (ie. from the street sweeper days and such). CA's law is worded just about like that "There shall be in no way a revolving shotgun allowed to be owned, possessed, borrowed, lent, rented, transferred, looked at, or talked about" I kid you not, it is really that silly of wording about those darn evil street sweepers.

So what BrazTech had to do to please the Feds and sell this gun in all of the states that have similar laws (Including California) was to promise at all costs that at no time would they make available to the public any part whatsoever for the Circuit Judge. This included absolutely everything (stocks too) with the exception of a choke wrench and/or the chokes themselves. I then asked "But what if I had warranty damage on my stock? Would I then be able to order a replacement?" They said if I had a broken stock, warranty or not, that I'd have to send in my gun to their repair facility for their techs to do the work or part swapping, BUT.... they also said that if I sent them a stainless Circuit Judge with a broken stock that they'd replace it with the same type of stock that the gun was sold with Ie. it would be replaced with a wooden stock. Likewise a blued Circuit Judge would be replaced with a synthetic stock only even if the owner wanted to try wood for a change. Bummer.

So, since they were going to be like that I thought of a better idea, like a pistol gripped stock. I ordered some Hogue grip replacements and found the only difference between the pistol grip and the stock was placement of the stock screw. I slipped on the Hogues and center punched where the new hole would be and drilled and tapped the hole (remember metric threads). That made a quick illegal gun since the overall length was way too short, but the barrel was fine. So I just made my own spreader choke out of a piece of 304 seamless, stainless tubing and permanently welded it onto the barrel. I then found that ATI makes stuff that can be modified to work on the circuit Judge and bingo I got a gun that I'd rather have in the first place. Take a look and YES it is very legal. More so in fact with several inches to spare both on the barrel and on the overall length.

http://s563.photobucket.com/user/5kwkdw3/library/Super Circuit Judge

Smithy.
 
Smithy,
That definitely looks cool! I thought a shotgun that short had to not only have an 18" barrel to be legal, but be at least 36" in overall length to be legal.
 
The cool thing I like about it was with the sight arrangement. The rear sights went into the trash and the holes plugged (soldered over) and polished. The aluminum rail was swapped out for a solid stainless one and milled to mate with the contours of the receiver. The flashlight has a 35mm bell on it so I got some 35mm rings. My son turned a bushing out of aluminum and split it was a key-way saw blade to take it down from 35mm to the smaller dimension of the rear of the flashlight (I don't remember off hand what the measurement was?). The light uses one of those double CR123's and is rechargeable. Or if both are drained I can just pick up a couple of the CR123's and be in business. Of course there is no front sight or bead, but here's the kicker.

In house type distances, the flashlight focus casts a shadow of the front of the barrel that is just about spot on for pellet impact. So holding the gun at waist height using the light, if it's in the light (highlighted by the barrel shadow) it's toast. The light also has some neat features (seven modes I think?). I have it permanently set in the strobe mode. I can see just fine, but anyone else on the receiving end will have a hard time just standing up. The loads I'm loading for it start with 000 ought buck, but the pellets are swaged into little cylinders of the same weight (70 grains) and tumble in flight giving a pie sized pattern out to 16-17 yards.

It's weird, with the blunderbuss muzzle and the fact that the chokes were cut off, the cylinders come out of a rifled barrel and immediately split apart, but are contained by the muzzle extension so that the pattern is pretty much the same from 5 feet to 35 feet from the muzzle. Then it starts going to pot, but I wouldn't want to shoot at a bad guy at that distance anyway, because I'd be asked "Why didn't you run?", which of course is a very good question. So I wanted a short range (house distances) blunderbuss and I think I've made just exactly that. Smithy.
 
a friend of mine slugged the barrel of a .410 and got .408,so the answer is HELL NO DONT DO THAT
the 410/45 long colt guns are either double barrel or have exchangable barrels.NO SANE PERSON EVER FIRED A .451 BULLET FROM A .410 BARREL
 
If you decide to try it, make sure to have it videotaped and put on YouTube. The rest of us would like to see what really happened.
In all seriousness, bad idea / no bueno / ka-beer moosh-kah-la / don't.

The guys that do that kind of weapons testing have robotic shielded setups for safety.

"You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their back... Or the epitaphs on their graves".
 
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Smithy,
That definitely looks cool! I thought a shotgun that short had to not only have an 18" barrel to be legal, but be at least 36" in overall length to be legal.
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That is classified as a handgun if I am not mistaken that just so happens to also fire a .410.
 
It is my understanding that a shotgun that can fire 410 gauge shells as well as 45 Long Colt.
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NO!!!!!!!

You have it exactly backwards!!!

The combo caliber guns .45Colt/.410 (note how its written) the Judge, etc. Even the T/C Contender are .45 caliber guns, that happen to be able to fire the .410 shotshell. NOT the other way around.

You can make a long gun to fire .45Colt/.410, and as long as it meets the Federal (& state, if any) requirements for length, (both barrel and overall length) it can be rifled, or smoothbore, and be legal.

Rifled, your performance with .410 shot shells is going to suck. Even though the .410 is undersize for the bore, it is close enough that the rifling will have a spin effect on the shot, while gives a "donut" shaped pattern (hole with no shot in the middle). Legally it will be a rifle.

If you make it smoothbore, then legally its a shotgun. And, since you get rather poor accuracy from a smoothbore .45 using .45 Colt ammo, there's no point. A regular .410 shotgun is better.

The combo handguns are all rifled, they have to be, in order to meet federal law and not be considered "sawed off" shotguns.

Don't shoot .45 caliber ammo (any) in a .410!!!

Also, due to slight dimensional differences, you need a different chamber to shoot .45 Colt and .45ACP. Note that the Ruger Blackhawk convertible .45Colt/.45ACP uses two different cylinders, one for each round.

Also, FWIW, a .410 shell will not chamber in a standard .45 Colt chamber. The .45 chamber has to be cut to allow the extra length of the .410 shell, otherwise, it won't fit.
 
I've fired the Judge with both .45 Colt & .410 shotloads.
I deem it a fine close range rabbit getter with #6 shot, potentially a self defense round with 410 buck.
NO WAY would I shoot that flame belching thing w/o ear protection.
I'd like to see b-gel test of the short bbl'd .410 buck loads at, say 15 feet.
I wonder about penetration???
 
A400 Fan: Just to let you in on the legal numbers: For a rifle its 16" on the barrel and 26" overall. Shotguns are 18" on the barrel and 26" overall. Now usually folks will go .5" more or sometimes squeak it by only 1/4" over each dimension just to be on the safe side of things. In no way has it ever been 36" for overall length for either rifle or shotgun. Good grief just check out some of you guns next to a yard stick and see what I'm talking about. Smithy.
 
I know that, my quote was from the OP who had the numbers incorrect, but it doesn't hurt to post those facts again for many who may not know
 
Flame belching gun? What exactly are you shooting through it? And I believe there's more than one grade of these guns. Has anyone else noticed the ones Walmart offer have a stock with more red in it and its much glossier? All of the ones in gun stores I've seen have no gloss on the stocks. Makes me wonder if the Walmart guns are made cheaper, like their electronics. I do know I got mine the year they came out, maybe the newer ones aren't as good, I don't know. But mine is excellent, and yes it is quiet. I have shot it without ear protection when I was hunting.
 
Cartridges

Another note to the OP or anyone else thinking about trying 45 ACP in a .410. or even in .45/.410.
Remember that bot the .45 Colt and the .410 shotshell have rims to control their headspace.
The 45 ACP is a rimless cartridge. Under normal use the cartridge headspaces on the case mouth on a little shoulder machined into the chamber.
Chances are that will not be in a .410 barrel.
Pete
 
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Makes me wonder if the Walmart guns are made cheaper
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No, Walmart buys the same guns as everyone else. In the South they get theirs from Ellett Brothers Distributors so there is no way they have cheaper guns made than anyone else. They just buy in larger volume. That is not to say that Walmart, like Lew Horton or Davidson's, might not have a special edition made from time to time like they did, IIRC, with an image of Sam Walton on a gun - but that is the exception, not the rule.
 
Mine must just have a flatter gloss than the newer ones I suppose where mine is an earlier.

To the op, if they are even still reading this, the only gun I'm aware of firing .45 ACP and .410 would be the S&W Governor, you could turn it into a long gun if you wanted.
 
Slightly off topic, but many decades ago I knew an old West Virginia hillbilly who told me that, when he was a kid, they used to fire .410s in .45-70 Trapdoors. He told me that they used to "swell a little." LOL! Of course, this was ca. 1925-1930. Trapdoor Springfields were probably about $1.50 or so then.

Now, an early .41 Long Colt has an outside lubricated bullet diameter of .410, so you might get away with that in your shotgun. Ammo with that bullet diameter is most likely going to an old black powder load, so you aren't' going to find many of them anyway. I still wouldn't recommend it, though. :D

And, unfortunately, it looks like the .41 Magnum will also chamber in a .410; I guess it's just a matter of time before we hear about some moron trying that.

Also, looking at the dimensions, I'm not sure a .45 ACP OR a .45 Colt will chamber in a .410 shotgun.
 
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