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The Maligned .410 bore - Page 3 |
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One of the benefits of the .410 bore used to be that the shells were cheaper than other shells. This is still true comparing express loads and Skeet loads. However, the big three brands all offer field loads in 12, 16, and 20 gauges which are cheaper that standard .410 shells. For the reloader, however, the .410 offers the biggest savings of reloads over factory shells. The .410 bore shells were the last of the common gauges to receive the benefits of plastic shells and wads. As I remember, Remington offered the first plastic .410 shells, but with conventional cardboard and fiber wads. Federal offered the first plastic .410 shell with the plastic shot cup wads. I think this was in 1969, but I might be off a year or two. Prior to that, the National Skeet Shooting Association (N.S.S.A.) had sort of a Hall of Fame listing the shooters who had shot 100 straight with the .410 in N.S.S.A. Competition. Before the introduction of the plastic .410 shell and shot cup wads, there had only been a handful, about seven or eight, 100 straights with the .410 in the history of the game. That year there were five 100 straights in the National Championships. Since then they have become more or less common. The proper .410 bore skeet load is the 2 1/2-inch shell with a maximum load of 1/2 oz. of shot.
I have persisted throughout this article in calling the .410 a bore and the other shotgun sizes gauges. The .410 bore, usually written with a decimal point before the number, is the actual bore diameter in inches; the other shotgun gauges represent the number of bore-diameter pure lead balls in a pound of lead. Thus a 12-gauge gun has a bore diameter of .729 inches which is the diameter of a lead ball weighing one twelfth of a pound. The English gauges originally stopped at 50 gauge which is about .453 inches. Under the English system the .410 would be a 67.4 gauge. I try not to be pedantic about the distinction, and if anyone prefers to call it the "four hundred and ten gauge," as it was called when I was a boy, it suits me just fine. I have seen the .410 bore designated a 12 millimeter in some older references. This refers to the European parent cartridge case, a case with an outside diameter of about 12 mm. A .410 bore measures about 10.4 millimeters. I have also seen the .410 bore called a 36 gauge. Apparently this refers to nothing but the next number in the sequence 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32. Many fans of 28-gauge guns claim that the 28's will outperform the 3-inch .410. Their argument is that in the .410 the shot change is long and thin and much more shot scrubs against the barrel and flattens. They claim this damaged shot flies off at an angle and is left out of the pattern. In contrast, the 28 gauge, which has a bore diameter of .55 inches, has a shorter shot charge and handles the charge better. I don't buy this argument. Much shot rubs against the barrel in every gauge; it can be demonstrated that, with shot sizes larger than 6s, at least half the shot rubs against the barrel in a 12 gauge. If all the damaged shot left the pattern, a 12 gauge gun could not pattern better than 50%. I feel the 28s pattern slightly better due to having about 5% more shot. Using shot of identical quality and quantity and plastic wads to protect the shot, guns of equal quality and degree of choke, I find no significant difference. The 28 gauge shell has a substantially higher velocity than a .410. The benefits of the higher velocity are negligible. Small spheres make poor ballistic shapes and lose their velocity rapidly. The faster shot goes, the faster it loses its velocity. Using 7 1/2s as an example, the 28 gauge's 1295 feet per second (fps) velocity at the muzzle is down to 910 fps at 20 yards. The pellet energy is 2.3 foot pounds at that speed. The three inch .410's 1135 fps at the muzzle is down to 830 fps at twenty yards and its pellet energy is 1.91. Yes, it is slower, but the advantage is slight. The difference in time of flight is .013 second. On a quail or dove at twenty yards, that would require a lead change of 3 inches. It is a difference that I do not appreciate and neither will the dove. I am a fan of the 28 gauge as well as the .410, and one thing I've noticed is that most older 28 gauge guns are high quality guns such as the Remington 11-48, the Winchester Model 12 and the various doubles by Parker, Ithaca, Iver Johnson (which company once made good quality doubles) and Greener of Birmingham, England. I have never seen or heard of any A.H. Fox doubles in 28 gauge, but I have seen a photograph of what is purportedly the one and only L.C. Smith 28-gauge gun. These guns were well made and no doubt had some attention paid to proper choking. If one is going to compare one of these guns with a .410, it would only be reasonable to compare it with a gun of similar quality. I doubt there could be a valid comparison between a Parker or Greener 28-gauge gun and a Stevens or a H. & R. single barrel gun. The latter are good, well designed guns, but they are made to be sold for a small fraction of the cost of the former, and they simply cannot have the attention paid to choking the former could. There was once a different standard for patterning .410's than that used for the larger gauges. The chokes were determined by pattering the guns in a 20-inch circle at thirty yards rather than in a 30-inch circle at forty yards. It has been a long time since I saw a reference on this, and I don't remember whether the required percentages (i.e. 70% for full choke) were the same. I think they were slightly lower, like 65% in a 20-inch circle at thirty yards for full choke guns. I do not know if this standard is still adhered to in the industry. I suppose a reasonable person might ask what good is a gun which only kills reliably out to thirty yards. My response would have to be that it is good enough for all but two shots at game that I have taken in recent years. Most quail I have shot have been taken around 20 yards. Doves might go five yards farther, rabbits and squirrels probably less. The largest game I ever took with a .410 were large jackrabbits and within my modest ranges they were killed as quickly and cleanly as cottontails. I have an acquaintance who killed two big Virginia turkeys with a .410 and Number 8 shot. The kills came while he was hunting grouse and scared up the big birds. According to him both were one-shot kills at ranges of about 20 yards. I wouldn't choose a .410 for a turkey gun, but, within its limitations, it should be adequate. I have never shot geese or ducks, but unless I could do it inside 25 yards I wouldn't choose a .410 for it. I suppose the lack of steel shot loads for the .410 renders this moot. If the .410 can in fact be so effective, why do some very good shooters scoff at it, and say it's not suitable for anyone but experts or those who are unconcerned about crippling game? I think I have observed enough Skeet shooters trying out .410's for the first time to get an idea about it. Most shot gunners start out with big bore guns. The 12-gauge is made in greater numbers than all other gauges combined. Most of them weigh more than seven and a half pounds and, contrary to the advertising, most probably go eight pounds. Those made for skeet have very open chokes and usually ventilated ribs. This results in a gun with considerable weight out front. It's muzzle heavy. It has sufficient inertia when it is moving that it is hard to stop and consequently the shooter using, say, a Remington Model 1100 skeet gun in 12 gauge, doesn't have to concentrate on follow through as much as when he shoots a lighter gun.
Reprinted curtesy of :- The Gun
Digest, 37th edition 1983, Author :- Marshall Williams. |
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The Maligned .410 bore - Page 3 |
