I killed my first shotgun-killed bird (an English sparrow) with a .410. I was 11 years old. My buddy's grandfather used to let us run loose at that age with his Savage 24 on their farm (also his late '40's Willys Overland.)
When we were kids one of my other buddy's father always used a .410 rabbit hunting. He claimed the .410 "shot like a rifle" and you could kill rabbits further with that than anything else. Even as a kid, I read enough of the "experts" to know that wasn't true, but he sure killed a lot of rabbits.
My grandmother had an old .22/.410 that she kept by the back door. Any time at night she thought she heard prowlers outside she'd let fly a couple of rounds of .410 out across the horse pasture. (If they got in the house, she always had her H&R top break .32 S&W handy for close-quarter battle. She'd also keep us in .22 shells all summer. My brothers, cousins and I worshipped that woman.
Back in my misguided younger days, my brother and I kept a pack of running hounds and our winter leisure time activity was running coyotes and foxes. One day a guy who'd expressed an interest came with us. We didn't pay much mind to what gun he had, just told him where to go to get on a watch. He killed a red fox ahead of our dogs and, when I saw the hole in it, asked him what gun he was using. He was using a .410 with slugs. We suggested that if he were to take up this sport with us on a regular basis he might consider using a 3" 12 gauge with #4 buck which was our standard coyote running load at that time.
I have a .410 barrel (2 1/2" chamber) for my Savage 99 in .303 Savage. I took the 99 on a Quebec caribou expedition several years back, killed some caribou with the .303 barrel and, after tagging out, spent a good deal of my time wandering/exploring with the .410 barrel on the 99 and collected a goodly number of spruce grouse for the table.
I know it's fashionable to say the .410 isn't a good beginner gun, but I respectfully disagree. You need to teach beginners to limit their distance with any shotgun. Where do we draw some arbitrary limit? You also need to teach them to shoot. It's a lot easier to teach them to shoot with a gun that's not beating them up. My favorite bird gun is a 1620 Merkel. Yes, it fits me, but when I use the 20 gauge barrels to shoot sporting clays or 5 stand with it will have me starting to flinch at much over 50 shots. To say the .410, because of its limited range, is not a beginner's gun, sort of implies that maybe a 3" 12 gauge would be better. Beginners should be shooting under supervision.
That's about all my experience with .410's.
