doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com THE 410 PHEASANT GUN MYTH

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.