Plus they are ideal for shooting rabbits, raccoons, rats, possums, hares and snakes or even bothering irksome birds in the garden .. all the usual stuff that needs dealing with or taken for the pot about a country place. In honesty, they were just about near perfect guns for the farmer's wife .. the equivalent of a 'never miss .22' I guess not too many American farmers ever got around to figuring that out or the ammo cost was too dear.
I'm not even positive that .410's or the earlier smooth bored 40 cals were actually intended to be used as shotguns in any dynamic sense, the exception being the Wild West Show and exibition guns where pellets were being used rather than bullets to insure hits and not reign a solid down on some unsuspecting member of society a few furlongs removed from the spectacle. Inside 25 yards they work remarkably well with minimal aim at more or less stationary targets.
I think that Skeet may have provided the first real opportunity for .410's to be used as shotguns in any normal sense at flying targets and the rest, inclusive of the myrads of single shots were mostly used as small game guns at birds on limbs and ground targets. High end small gauge guns were and remain mostly a novelty. Of course that is but an opinion and conjecture on my part. What do the rest say?
Back on subject, I saw a well used 311 .410 priced at $510 recently. The seller told me he'd paid $300 for it over 5 years ago," .. because it was 'cute'." He really didn't care if anyone bought it or not. Someone probably will and then list it somewhere for $1100.
