Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Federal 410 Handgun Ammo

I bought some Federal .410 Handgun ammo recently. The shell is for a 2-1/2" chamber. Box says it loaded with 4 #000 Buckshot and has a velocity of 1200 fps.

I took some to the range to try and compare with the Winchester 3" 5 #000 Buckshot loads I used in my Bond SSIV
derringer.

At three yards both shot in about 4" groups. At 7 yards the Federal load was still shooting a group not much larger than at 3 yards. The Winchester load had opened up to 6 - 7" in size.

I was shooting into corrugated board (ie cardboard.) I noticed that the Winchester shot seemed to make larger holes in the cardboard than the Federal shot did. How can that be? Both were 000 buck.

Since my Bond has 3" chambers and shoots the Winchester 5 000 Buckshot load well, the Winchester remains my carry load. However if I had a Taurus Judge with 2-1/2" chambers the Federal loads would suit me OK.

I really couldn't tell a difference in recoil. Both loads kicked pretty smart.

The Bond is my backup, special purpose iron. My primary carry is a S&W 3913 or S&W 642 loaded appropriately.

Pretty hard for round shot to get bigger.

Cut one of each apart and measure the diameter of the shot if you have a dial caliper, or something better.

I'm pretty sure that the Federal load is pure marketing, trying to shirt tail on a popular handgun.

The December/January issue of Handguns magazine has an article by Patrick Sweeney on the Federal 410 load. He likes it pretty well.