no way does a 410 put out enough shot to kill ole cock birds cleanly and consistently. better to use a 22...your experiences and comments?

You be bad Ed, you be bad!!!

When they throw them big ole cock birds out of the tower they lose altitude pretty fast, so when they get over your head they might be low enough for a .410. Sorry, but that's my total experience with pheasants...Geo

Where I hunt pheasants there are so many that I use a Mini-14 with two 30 round banana clips.

ol ed landers says the .410 is the best shotgun for pheasants.and geese.

Given that a gun is hand held and the birds are flying targets, no shotgun and shooter combination I've seen in action by any hunter I've run across in the field is consistant enough to guarantee a clean kill every time. Your mileage may vary.

The 12g shotgun probably wounds more game every year than all the other gauges combined.

A .410 puts out plenty of shot to kill a ole cock bird daed. Yes, D-A-E-D. 'pends on how far and where the pattern was relative to the ole cock and how big the shot is. Maybe you just need shootin lessons from a good instructor? I know a good one.

Ed, my personal experience with the .410 and pheasants is 100% kills, dead for the dog, with one exception. I missed one once with the .410, but my partner killed it dead with his 28. Just one man's experience.

Is there some point to typing your topic in all caps and your posts in all lower case letters?

SRH

stan: ah jes duz hit tu ah noey u...

I've found the 410 to be overkill. I have an awesome 9mm shotgun in a crushed purple velvet case that came from someone near to this discussion. I find that when I point out the marvelous safe chemically enhanced colors to the bird in flight they just collapse regurgitating their crop and gizzard in the process of falling dead. Sure saves a lot on ammo!

And just to add to the challenge I have gone to a Red Ryder BB gun for my pheasants. Last year I shot a true double. BB went through the head of the first bird into the neck of the second cock and killed em both dead dead dead.

I was a little disappointed as I thought I had them lined up so that both would be shot in the head. But hey, there is always next season.

Best,

Mike

Probably true....they say youth hunter numbers are way down.

ROFLMAO Does your Red Ryder's barrel ring true?

harry: may i quote you in my sales presentations? with that kind of an endorsement, i may not even need to take pitchers....

Well you seem to have a lot of friends around here, but I'm gonna call bs on this. Next you're going to claim that your favorite .22 is skeet choked.

...and Ed, I'll swear to that. He didn't hit that second bird in the head.

I seen that shot! 40 MPH wind, blowing snow! Awesome! Chuck H dint mention it, but when using his 410, he removes half the the shot charge, and stuffs papertoweling under the remaining shot when he replaces it. That way the bird is not shot up and the wound is cleaned as the paper toweling passes through.

I'm such a chump. I patterned .22 shotshells awhile back. Results kinda surprised me. I assumed the CCI offerings would pattern tightest by virtue of the shotcup. Wrong. Through rifled barrels (handgun and rifle) they doubled pattern size vs traditional (Winchester) .22 shot cartridges. Imagine results could have reversed through a smoothbore .22. Dunno - don't own one. So I figure I could take a rooster to about 4 yards. My dad uses them to blast red squirrels off the feeder in the winter. I suppose I could cheat and pop them with an Anschutz and ball at 50 yards or so.

Why use a .410? Well, first off, I have a bunch of M-42s - and don't own even one Brit SLE. So what's a boy to do? Second, out to 25 yards I hit as well with a 3" M-42 (mod) as with my Mossberg, or my Pahkuh. Third, birds don't seem to know the difference between #7.5s shot from a .410 vs a 12 or 16. Go figure. Four: those skinny little shells look cool, and I can carry more of them on safari. B&P are now offering 3" shells with full-length shot columns (for anyone who bothers to pattern their 3" .410s).

Gotta respect distance though. At 30 yards the "magical and square" 28 (especially with 15/16 oz B&Ps) kicks .410 butt.

Then, at 35 yards.............

Sam

Mike,

Did you ever have a problem with a barrel bulge shooting steel out of your Red Ryder?

tunes

That's the second time I've heard someone suggest using a 22 on game birds and I'm trying to figure out how would you use it??
Ground swat them with a 22 or shoot them in the air with a 22?
I'm not that good to shoot them out of the air with a 22 and wouldn't a 410 be better in that situation? And for ground swatting birds, I will never ground swat a game bird, my Dad taught me better than that.

Treb,
I think buy a brick of them and smash it over their head. Should be consistantly effective.

I have shot many birds with my .410. However I load my own shells with a combination of rock salt, whole peppercorns, and a little bit of garlic salt so they are seasoned when they hit the ground. The garlic makes it easier for the dogs to find them too.

I had a friend in high school knock down a pheasant by throwing a rock at it. I guess at close range nearly anything will work.
Steve

All these wonderful tales of shooting pheasant with small bored weapons. I really cannot match the BB gun story. However,when in Korea, I did shoot one from a jeep with my 45.
In this case the hardest part was to figure the forward allowance as I was moving
and the bird was not. The other targets we had were easier but they shot back.
Regards
John Mc

There's a guy on the 16ga.com com board who claims to have killed many grouse in his youth with a bow and homemade arrows. I don't think he's even an Indian. If he can do that, you oughta be able to kill one with a .22?!

I think he was kidding........

Here in Maine, the saying goes that grouse are what fancy sports wearing expensive clothes carrying expensive shotguns shoot (at and miss) in the air, while pa'tridge are what you ride the logging roads looking for, then stop, jump out and ground-sluice with high-brass 6s that single-shot Topper you stuff behind the seat of your pickup.
Or the ones you cap while clucking and scratching like chickens (through the head, please) with your deer rifle while waiting for the non-existent deer to show up. Or the .22 when you were out looking for squirrels or cans.

My son and a friend, both about nine years old, went on an excursion when the adults were shooting skeet. They came upon a gobler a bit confused in some multiflora rose, stalked him, put him in a bear hug, and brought him back to the skeet field. And we adults spend so much time and effort to kill a big bird, when on a Sunday afternoon, a couple of kids with five minutes to waste can come up with the same result.

That Byron Ferguson guy ain't kiddin. He was shooting quarters and lifesaver mints tossed in the air with a longbow and wood arries.

Ed,

Only if you also quote me on the Miroku that conspicuously didn't show the chunks of wood missing from the grip in all your photos. The one you refused return on indicating I was fabricating the issue and offering to have your master gunsmith fix.

It has also been said that over the period of man's existence more people have died at Home than on all the Battlefields of the world combined.

Now both of these "Statistics" are likely true. As to having any practical use both are also equally Useless as neither account for any of the Whys & Wherefores.

No more than I would consider a battlefield in time of war to be safer than my home would I consider a 12 ga to be the least effective & efficient of all the gauges.

A hospital is the 2nd most likely place to die & most automobile accidental deaths occur within 15 miles of Home. Rest assured though even if you travel from home by more than 25 miles, never return & never set up another permanent place of residence & never under any circumstances enter a hospital, you still will not gain immortality.

Likewise put both the .410 & 12ga on an equal footing as to amount & conditions of use & a quick reversal of those wound statistics will be noted.

Miller,
The wounding comes in when you shoot any gun outside of either it's useful range or your own competency range. I've found that out to 25, and even 30 yards with a modified choke, the .410 does an excellent job. After 30 yards, it's not so good. The same goes for a 12 gauge, after 40 yards the average shooter starts wounding more game.
Steve

Miller,
Arguements against the use of the .410 for hunting go something like this: 'A .410 is a wounding weapon' 'it's unethical to use a .410 because it's a wounding weapon'. The inferrence is, therefore, anyone using a .410 to hunt is unethical.

The anecdotal reference to 12g guns wounding more game than all other gauges combined, indeed has value. It points out that people argueing against the .410 based on what is ethical, ignore actual performance of the 12g itself. The reality is that the average gunner is a low average clean killer. Even people known as "good shots" or "ethical hunters" are more often than not, no where near 100% clean killers with a 12g.

I no more believe a person hunting roosters with a .410 is a less ethical hunter than one using a 12g, than I believe a person using a bow and arrow to hunt deer or elk is less ethical than someone using a rifle. Was Howard Hill or Fred Bear less ethical than Elmer Keith, based on their choice of weapons? Was Askins less ethical than Keith for shooting all that game with a .270?

If the 12 Ga. is a wounding shell, could it just be a numbers game. Probably more of them out in the field with a truck load more shots fired than all other gauges/calibers combined. Aren't the worst shots of the bunch, newbie kids, steered towards .410's, maybe.

Understand, I was not condemning the responsible use of a .410, only the meaningless statistics. Looks like craigd understood, I just thought my way of saying it was a little more dramatic.
To be meaningful the statistics would have to be more on the order of a % of game wounded in relation to those killed cleanly.

Bottom line is Chuck, I do not believe a person is unethical if they use either a 12ga or a .410, as long as they use them wisely & understand the limits of either.

Again ""IF"" you put .410's into the hands of as many shooters as are now using 12's & having the same ethics you woulld indeed find your statistics would not hold up. The 12ga ""IS"" after all the more efficient of the two.

In his book "Shotguns by Keith" Elmer said that 410's were the preferred shotgun of poachers. Well, I don't agree with Elmer. The 410 in the skill hands of my Dad was deadly. Dad shot 7 pheasants with 8 shots with a 410 once and didn't cripple any. I could never match my Dad with a shotgun so I use either a 10 bore or a 12 bore. It's not that bushel of shot I throw at them but rather I need that extra margin of time the bigger bores give me.

Miller,
Agreed, no arguement.

I saw a picture of an arrow through a pheasant, not too pleasant of a way to dispatch game, I might add, but he said he shot it on the ground with his bow. I still don’t get it; shoot pheasants with a 22 on the ground, what kind of hunting is that?

treblig1958,
Ground swatting with a 22, that be called meat hunting.
Steve
A lot of Texans would disagree with me, but hunting deer at a feeder is nothing more than meat hunting.

A .410 makes a good squirrel gun

English said Fiocchi Magnum 19.5gm loads with English 7s pellets were brilliant pigeon killers and English 5.5 size proved very good load for bunnies.

joe: now that you have made an intelligent post, i will now favor you with an intelligent response. yes, if one does not have benefit of a scoped 22, then a full choked load of 6's from a 410 at about 20 yards may work, some of the time. here in nh, we got tough critters. they need a lota killin. a 22 hollow point in the head does the job here, cleanly and quickly. you may not comprehend what i am sayin here, but we owe em at least that....

Has been a number of yrs ago so don't recall all the details, but recall reading in one of the outdoor rags where some folks were hunting pen raised pheasants on preserves with archery equipment. They used arrows with extra large fletching which they referred to as Flu-Flu's so they did not travel so far & usually ended up stuck in the ground with the fletching up so were much easier to spot. (This was the ones which missed)
I doubt they would have had much success in Wild Pheasant country.

Miller,
Keep in mind the goal of having a rewarding sporting outing and you'll see things much differently. Some people may have a different perspective as to what that means. Not having much success, but having say a 5 or 10% success with a very difficult method of taking game, may be very rewarding to some...or very frustrating to others.

And a good snake gun..Many of the roosters we kill here, in heavy cover (Dirty wheat stubble, weedy draws), flush right at your feet. There is no reason why a .410 in that circumstance would not be effective. Common sense usage is the key. I agree on the deer over feeders comment...Thats not hunting..

Chuck;
I fully understand what you are saying & have no argument with it at all. My Concession is muzzle loading, which I fully enjoy the "Frustration" of having to ram each load home & even on my riflr being limited to only one shot.
On the other hand when I do hunt with by double bbl'd breech loading 12ga I consider myself neither unethical nor unsporting & strongly detest any inference that I might be otherwise simply because on that occasion I chose to shoot a 12.
I have had some limited esperience with a .410 & within their range limitations I never personally found them any harder to hit with than any other shotgun, so actually the "Increased Difficuly" simply fails to impress me. If one compares a full choiked .410 with a cyl bored 12 then obviously the 12 will be the easier, but that is more a matter of choke than gauge.
When I need lighter charges I simply load down my larger gauges, doesn't make hitting any more difficult but does help the ol molars as I eat what I kill.
No problem at all with anyone else shooting a .410 or archery, neither just happens to be my cup-a-tea but I feel no lesser a person because they aren't.

ed, Recommend your reading the book," American and British .410 Sotguns," by ,Ronald S.Gabriel. This excellent book reviews the performance of the .410 comparing,cartridge length, weight of charge and sizes of shot available.It records the performance of same with various barrel borings.
In summary the writers opinion is that with the correct shot size ,weight of charge and barrel borings the .410 is effective on smallgame out to 25 yards.Definitely not a gun for use on large game birds and wild fowl that are likely to flush 30 plus yards out.
By the way,this book provides an excellent write up on of both American and British gun makers focused on the .410. Illustrations are first class.

Truth is some people are infatuated with the .410 most aren't...truth is I never cared for one when I was a kid.

roy: thanks for recommending the 410 book. but, i just have no interest in finding out more about the 410 than i already know. my first shotgun was a 410. my second was a 16 gauge. that was enough 410 for me and i have no further interest in it. in my experience it is not enough gun to quickly and cleanly kill much of anything considered to be edible game.

joe: i agree with you on the 410.

IMHO, I think a .410 bore in the hands of an EXPERT can be a good game gun. By expert I mean not only a crack shot with a shotgun, but also an expert bird hunter who can pick his shots wisely and demand of himself to stay as close to the 25 yard line limit for use of the gun. Anyone other than an expert who uses this gun to hunt wild birds is a CLOWN in my opinion. For squirrel and rabbit though I think even a clown can get away with the .410 because the shots are much easier.

That's scarey...you setting me up for a tOrch job ?

Ed, As a boy in the U.K. I used a .410 mostly on rabbits at harvest time or later in the year when the rabbits were bolted from warrens by ferrets.In the late 1940,s rabbits were a pest in the U.K. I remember shooting 19 rabbits out of 25 shots as they bolted from a field of wheat being cut by the old fashioned binder. Some were shot close but some were at least 25 yards out[A red letter day for me,one never forgotten]. The total bag on that day from a 10 acre field was 240 approx.Most of these rabbits would have been sold through local game dealers.

240 briar hogs from a 10 acre field?

Ya'll need some coyotes over there.

SRH

I took 5 roosters with my Win 42 using 3" #6 shells on the openning weekend in SD last year. But I didn't know about this fact then. I'm always learning something.

Next season, I'm going to a larger bore. I bought this new gun that is a Beschi gun and it has .421 bores.

A beginner hunting for his first few years of wild birds, I agree he shouldn’t use a 410, but someone who has been hunting wild birds for ten plus years or more I figure has earned the right to use and knows how to use a 410.

I agree the .410 is an experts gun. That being said though, I was given a .410 Savage pump complete with vent rib for my first shotgun when I was 12 years old. I strictly used it for 4 or 5 years before I bought a 20 gauge. But boy did I ever learn to hit with it. Anything from clays (hand thrown) to grouse to teal. I still have the gun. I never hunted pheasant with it but it also did a good job of pi--ing my two brothers off when I accidently sprayed them with pellets on a grouse hunt years ago. I told them if I would have had a bigger roaster I would have aimed better!

So yer saying it took you 4 or 5 years to figure out you were no expert ?

Watch it jOe, I think he's gonna hug ya.

Call 'em anything you want, but we need more folks willing to get out and do it with any sporting arm. Hope we're not looking for a new federal clown test to get a hunting license.

Craigd: If there was a Federal Clown test for eligibility of a hunting license and gun usage I would be certain some would be restricted to usage of a BB gun especially if the Clown Test was only based on hunting experience and shooting ability.

No actually, not bragging or anything but really what I was saying is that I quickly became an expert with it at a young age which could have been attested to by many who shot or hunted with me back then. Only reason I bought a 20 gauge at the time was because I figured it was time to add another gun to the collection which has since grown considerably.

Argh, you stole my thunder. I was going to start a thread about how much better Daisy's were than Mossbergs on pheasant. When my boy was seven, he folded three roosters in a row with his red ryder. Either that or he had a heck of a lot of fun with the .410 around that age even though he hadn't obtained his expert shot rating.

OK, I've tried to stay out of the .410 thread. I think its a silly "guage" good only for reduced recoil introduction of children into the shooting world. Yup, I started out with a .410 an found it to be a giant step up from a Daisy BB gun. But a game gun it ain't.

I still have the Marlin "four-tenner" my Grandfather gave me when I was 10. He said he got it back in the thirtys as a "premium" for buying some stock in the Company. Its a 2.5 inch lever gun and it was a grand up-grade from the Daisy.

I shot my first duck (a blue wing teal) with it many a rabbit. However even with the full choke, it was not a dependable game gun. I remember wounding rabbits with it that I had to dig out of hollow trees or gopher (tortoise) holes (use a slender branch split at the end to poke into the hole and twist to pull'em out).

I still take it out from time to time for "kick-em-up" released quail over dogs and it seems to be adequate for that. I have to go with the guys who say the .410's a joke on wild game...Geo

It aint the arrows, it's the indian.

You guys nose that the foe'ten wilt shoot farther and tight'a than 12 ga ?

HomelessjOe recently took the new federally mandated Clown Test. But how did he score?

I'm rated for a 10 ga.

George and others who don't think the fo'hunnertn' ten is a decent game gun.

I am going to stick my neck out here, and make a promise. Our opening day of dove season is 41 days away. I will shoot opening day afternoon with a new .410 S x S (Yildiz) and report back to this thread (if I can still find it then) on what the outcome was. I cut my teeth on a .410 S x S, but haven't used one on game in about 48 years. I will be shooting 11/16 oz. loads of no. 8 shot, and I give you all my word that I will report is exactly as it happened, dove count and shell count.

If I indeed kill a limit of 15 doves with a respectable number of shells, will any of you concede that the lil' gun may, just may, be a game gun under the right circumstances?

Remember, it only takes one proven positive example to disprove a theoretical negative.

Stan

It IS the arrows, it just ain't the bow.

Stan: I have shot doves with a .410 bore on several occasions. It's a lot of fun! Especially good if doves are coming to decoys or a mojo dove. I will say on occasion I had to shoot a dove twice to get it down. I believe a .410 under the right circumstance is adequate as a game gun and a lot of fun too. If one is a poor or even marginal shot, I think it would be far more frustrating than fun, however.

I wouldn't waste an opening day on an experiment like that! If you do though, you might try the Polywad "gram cracker" loads. I've had good luck with them. Now don't rig the experiment by shooting a water hole or something like that.

I went through the "born again .410" stage a few years ago. Maybe Chuck's right and it was the 'Indian not the arrow', but I realized right off why I was in such a hurry to move up to a real guage shotgun as a kid...Geo

Heck up here we kill doves with fly swatters

Geo.,

Won't be a watering hole, though I will probably be looking for a watering hole after the shooting, if it's as hot as it's been here lately! I'll likely be shooting Kemens, found some recently at a local gun shop for $8.99/box. The 2 1/2" ones seem to work fine in the lil' gun.

jOe,

Bring that flyswatter down heah' and fan the gnats away from me Sept. 3. I can't cut no mo' holes in my britches!

SRH

I bet yankees don't even know 'bout that little trick!...Geo

The heck with that! How do I get in on some of that shooting?! I love hunting rabbits and, with coyotes the way they are now, hardly see any except the yotes' half-eaten leftovers.

Stan,
Are those gnats or circle flys
Steve

Steve,

They is GNATS. And they is the ver' same ones dat swarms around dogs' private parts!

They cost me lots of dough every summer. I have found that AyC Grenadiers (Light) cigars will keep'em at bay until it burns out. Bet I smoke a box and a half a day this time of the year at work just to keep 'em away from my face. Co'se Avon makes some oily stuff that keeps 'em away, and Oil of Citronella works, too. But, since I enjoy the aroma of the Grenadiers much more than the Skin So Soft, I light'em up!

Yankees passin' through think we are the friendliest folks, a'wavin' all day.

SRH

My ancestors were drinking beer and schnapps in Germany while the War of Northern Aggression was going on so I'm not a Yankee or a Dixie. I will say this though, after living/working in Alaska for 2 years I'll take your southern gnats long before Alaskan mosquitoes. I almost needed a blood transfusion until I discovered Cutter's brand insect repellent and little smouldering piles of Buhach. I suggest you try it. The stuff works wonders on the pesky little devils. By the way could you explain the holes in the britches joke?

J.R.B.,

These little boogers don't bite, sting or anything like that. They just love to crawl around on you in your sweat, and will crawl up your nose, in your eyes, ears and any other bare skinned place on you. Take a deep breath suddenly and they go down your windpipe. As I said, they crawl around on animals, too. They have been blamed for conjunctivitis (sore eyes) among other things. Try to eat barbecued pork and you might as well cover the meat with pepper so's you can't see the gnats. You can't ignore them. They are worse in very humid hot weather, and only exist in worrisome numbers South of the Fall Line in the Southeast U.S. In the fall when the mornings are cool they swarm over the highway in a swarm that may number in the hundreds of thousands, trying to find a warm spot in the sun. They laugh at Cutters, and I ain't sure what buhach is. Some kind of cigar?

The joke? "Know how to keep gnats away from your face? Cut a hole in the seat of your pants."

SRH

Stan--Buhach pronounced (byouhack)is a powder of ground pyrethium (sp?) flowers. It can be sprinkled dry around buildings for ants etc. or put in a small cone shaped pile and burned for flying insects. I was a Cat skinner (dozer operator) in Alaska on night shift and the only way we could eat or have coffee breaks in our mine shack was to burn Buhach. It didn't smell bad when it was burning. In fact it smelled kind of nice but the fumes were deadly to skeeters and other insects. Buhach has a web site but I can't remember it off hand. A google search should turn something up. BTW good joke on the holes in the britches.

Every year about this time discussions like this show up on this board. Thank goodness it is only six weeks til dove season!

Buhach powder is one of the secret ingredients in the color torching process.

Ya can also snort it, Joe...

They talk about attracting bugs to their butts every year?

It's just a jOe'ja thing...