doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shot Distribution in Pattern

Once again I will refer you to Mr. Neil Winston in the event that you may be interested in knowing how to do correctly whatever it is that you're doing

http://www.claytargettesting.com/index.html

And I'll suggest again that he has many extensive tests and results scattered thru trapshooters.com that are not posted on his web site even tho I've all but begged him to so so repeatedly. Running a search for those would be well worth your while.

Patterns are magical and mystical, both at the same time. By that I mean that no matter how long you have been doing this and no matter what you have learned you will still come across a result that just defies your learned experience. And no more so than with the .410 sometimes. Maybe it just that patterns involve about 20 different variables and we tend to think it is just three or four. Maybe pattern perfection is unobtainable because it is truly random to some extent in nature. We can only see the average, think that the average is everything and forget that it is not the whole picture. With a long shot column in the .410, bore scrub deforming a higher percentage of shot, you would expect to see less center density, at distance and more fliers. Not what you get at all. But what does it mean? In the hands of a average shooter the .410 might be effective three to five more yards than we thought. The .410 and 28 are not magical they are what they are, limited to some extent and those limitations are their appeal to me.

I have shot a lot of small bore shells in my time. Killed a lot of game with the 28 before lead shot was banned for waterfowl, now shoot a lot of .410 at small upland birds and have shot tens of thousands if not a hundred thousand rounds at clay targets with the 28 and .410. What I've learned in 50 plus years of shooting 28 and now .410 is that it comes down to range and limitations I should just accept and exceed at doing them well. If you use the best ammo you can, shoot at ranges not to exceed 25-30 yards, then both the 28 and .410 can work well. Given a little repeated practice on clay targets you can stretch a .410 out to 35 plus yards, on crossing targets, but I would not shoot game at that range. A chipped clay target does not suffer. One hint is that if you want to shoot a .410 at 35 yards you had better check it's POI because it is not what you think it is.

I used my .410 almost exclusively this year on doves with limits easily taken on multiple times. It is not the bow or arrow but the Indian when I miss. I killed four pen raised, released pheasants yesterday, with five shots with the same .410. All birds killed with in 20-25 yards. Only miss was a hit too far to the rear, because I shot too fast. Second shot cleanly brought the bird down but all in reasonable range. Pen raised pheasants are much easier to bring down than wild ones in my experience and I would not even try it on wild birds.

Like many shooter I have read a lot of pattern articles or books and tried to figure out what they all mean. From simple pattern plate counting of shot, to higher math explanations, to advanced physics being use to explain and hopefully predict what a pattern will do. They are all interesting to some extent but the only thing that really counts is the result. Do you hit what you are shooting at and does it have the desired effect? Dead is dead and over kill does not make it deader, it just puts more holes into it. And for years I hated to pattern any .410 I wanted to shoot because that image of such a small pattern just undermines my confidence in shooting it well. I might shoot for POI on a .410 but not for pattern. I go more by results.

Yours is the most accurate summation I've read of responsible use of the .410. It's an expert's gun for game, not an introductory one for youngsters. Thank you.

I beg your pardon. They work well for youngsters, too, when they have had proper coaching, and proper supervision in the field.

My grandson at age 9. That's a .410 double he's holding, and the doves he took.



Too many youngsters DON'T get the proper coaching and supervision. That's the adult's fault, not the gun's.

SRH

Remembering how much I wanted to graduate from the .410 I started with to a 'real gun', I started my own boys off with a 20ga. It was too much gun for them at the age I started them, especially in the light single shots they were shooting. My grandsons will begin with .410's.

Likewise I have recently and belatedly come to the conclusion that .410 shotguns do actually have a place in the field...Geo

Stan, my guess is you're one in 500,000 or a million. There aren't many with your experience and opportunities to hunt. Your grandson was introduced to firearms properly. He learned .410 limitations on game. By any count, he's an exception, and from all appearances he knows it. (I grew up as as a country boy.)

King,

Using a .410 successfully is not about being a great shot. Grandson Jackson was not a great shot at age 9. What he was, was a good listener. When Grandpa told him he better not shoot at a dove unless he was close enough to see it's eyes, he listened.

That's what I meant about it being the lack of coaching, not the lack of gun.

SRH

Geo,. Think about a 28 or a 20 loaded like a 28. The 3/4 ounce 20 loads work well and recoil is very manageable. I started my boys off with a Remington 1100 Standard weight 20 ga. with a barrel which some moron had opened up the gas ports on. He sold it because it kept breaking parts. I figured out what he had done and went to ultra light loads. It works perfectly. Standard loads worked the action too fast and caused parts to break. Never figured out why he thought he was smarter than the people who made the gun in deciding what size hole was needed to operate the gun. So it has became my starter gun for ladies and kids alike now. Would work with loads as light as 5/8 ounce shot but the 3/4 ounce loads hit just like they do in a 28 and 20 shells are real easy to find.

Stan. a .410 is fine for a starter gun as your good looking grandson proves. It is not my first choice. But he had a unfair advantage, you. I see too many kids stuck with fathers who barely can shoot themselves and have no ability to teach them how to shoot correctly. Worse in their eyes dad is the expert so whatever he tells them, no matter how wrong, is taken as the right thing to do. You gave him lesson number two, know your range. Lesson number one is gun safety at all times.

Had a kid shooting with his father, in my field this year who shot 50 shells with zero dead birds and this field had several hundred birds in it. His father sent him down to me, I think so he his father could get his own limit.

After talking about safety we got down to business of range. Showed him my weed markers, 20-25 yards out. Everything outside them was too far I explained to him. He had been shooting at too many birds, way outside of his effective range. Third shot he killed a bird. Never mentioned lead other than slightly in front of the bird. With the rest of his last box he killed eight birds. I have a strict three box of shell limit in my fields. If you can't kill 15 with 75 shells you can't go back to the truck. Shoot better next time. In fact I had a two box limit on fields when the limit was 12 birds. Friends claimed I was too hard on them. Maybe but sky busting is not a thing I like at all.

Two weeks later the same kid got his first limit with two boxes and had shells to spare. He was shooting a 20, which was fine for his needs. His problem was his father, who needed 75 shells to get 15 birds, with years of practice and that was all he knew how to pass on. Safety, range and slight lead will kill a lot of doves which will make a lot of kids happy as heck. Give me a year with that kid and he will be taking his father lunch money shooting.

I like 1100's for starter guns. Used they don't cost that much. Easy to repair. Easy to find a cut down stock to fit people of all sizes. Works as a gas operated single shot. You can progress to two shells easily. They come in all the gauges you want and I have them oh hand.

Yes, various loads were tried, as best I remember. But, that shouldn't matter if you're right that .....




I wish I had it back in original form to examine, too. His son still has the gun but, as I said, the choke was altered to cure the problem. Heck, I just wish I had pictures of those patterns. I've heard of this happening in rare instances, but it's the only time I ever saw it.

SRH