Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 410 single shot

I have a Savage model 94c that I've had since childhood. I keep it beside my front door along with a box of Winchester super-X #6 shot. It's got a 3" chamber and one of the tightest chokes I've ever seen on a .410...

It has killed a lot of firsts for me in it's time. Everything from rabbits and squirrels to coons to an occasional deer or two.
It now pretty much only resides in waiting just to give any nosey coyotes a very bad day...

I had plans of taking it turkey hunting last season but didn't, maybe this next season it will get to go with me.

Years ago my brother and I kept a pack of (mostly) walkers to run fox and coyote. Any given time we'd have 10 to 15 running hounds. anyway, one time we took this guy with us who wanted to go...didn't pay much mind to what he had for a gun when we put him on a crossing..fox came by, he killed it...when I got to him fox had one big hole in it...wtf? He was using a .410 with slugs.

Yup, got an old one I kill a sq. with now and again. It's good for possums in the yard, etc. year round.

I did buy a new one a while back. It's gonna be a turkey gun if I get on with working up the tungsten loads. I guess I need to get on that.

A H&R single shot .410 was my first "real" gun as well. Bagged my first pheasant with that gun as well as numerous rabbits/squirrels. Still have it, not worth much but memories.

I frankly can't imagine a worse gun for kids just learning how to hunt, or shoot on the wing.

A .410 to be effective, needs to be in the hands of an expert, with lots of experience.

Why not give you kids a chance at actually hitting and killing something? Why not get them a gun that shells cost $3.50 a box, rather than $12.00 a box?

Think they may shoot, and practice more?

Starting kids out with a .410, unless all they plan on shooting is snakes or squirrels, just isn't being fair to them or what they are hunting.

I have a few of these top breaks laying around, mostly stevens.
Had a turn of the century one out a couple of weeks ago, son in law was potting squirrels with it. worked just fine out at around 25yards.
That particular one was a fold up, when you open the barrel, you can swivel in around for the barrel to tuck into the stock.
Belonged to a 90 something year old woman moving into a rest h ome and had to get rid of her guns.

Had an Iver Johnson as a kid, Now shoot a Winchester Model 41 bolt action single shot.

Here's the little guy I bought for $75. Locks up as tight as a new one.

I keep an old, easy-to-operate NEA .410 break open in a place where my wife can reach it in case of a Rattlesnake visit in my absence.

Had it for 30 years or more; it's a youth model. Used it on many occasions.

This Prairie Rattler was wrapped around a flower pot on the kitchen steps. That's one shot with #9 shot.

H an r .410 , got the youth model... Fits rite on the 4 wheeler, shoot rite from the wheeler seat and have the dog fetch them up ...times are rough!

always felt a .410 was damn useless, but I do love my old Savage Stevens single shot 20 ga. Probably killed more total animals with that, than any other gun I have owned. Including my first deer at age 7.

Hated paying the cost of .410 shells so much I learned how to load .410 ammo from .444 Marlin cases.

Now I pay myself 10.00 an hour to load 25 shells

I have a Winchester M370 I got for Christmas when I was 12. I have killed truckloads of squirrels with it.

I still have it though I haven't fired it in years.

A lot of folks used to consider a 410 as a kid's gun but in fact they are more of an expert's show off gun. They are difficult to hit with. I worked for a museum in Northern Arizona and we collected bats down in the bottom of the Grand Canyon using a single shot H&R Handigun. Trying to hit a flying bat with a pistol in low light was humbling.

Dad, bless his heart, probably thought that he was doing the right thing in getting me a .410 that didn't kick much. While it probably was a bit handicapping, it also probably served to make me a better shot for that very reason. I have no complaints. (I wish I could go back and relive the pheasants that I took with it in his company.)

I bought my first gun when I was 8 in 1951, a Winchester Model 37 .410 hammer single for $23.50 plus tax (the wages for picking just under a 100 field lugs of prunes). Got the "grownup" 28" barrel version because that's what the hardware store had.

I still take it quail hunting every year, kill a couple and then switch to a double to see if I can fill out a limit (not likely in our current drought). It's killed a LOT of small game since 1951, and one small blacktail buck that couldn't stay away from the windfall apples beside our barn in Northern CA ("the Wine Country"--in those days it was "the rural poverty country"....).

A .410 slug has more smack than it gets credit for and can be "minute of deer" accurate at real close woods ranges. But you NEED sights and the groove on the top of the receiver of most singles and the front bead usually won't do.

My Savage M24DL .22 WMR/.410 shoots slugs quite well at about 30 yards when the scope's adjusted for them.

I've the same model.



What slugs do you find most consistent?

I tried a box of Brenneke 3" Magnum Silver (SL4103M) slugs and was surprised at how well they grouped, even at 50 yds.

I agree. Which is why when my kids were young, I bought at H&R youth 28 gauge. Much easier to hit with than the .410. Ammo not that much cheaper however

I really wanted to find a side by side, but none turned up.

Each spring we get a flood of black birds that nest, have a litter then leave. I'm gonna have feathers fly in'!

Thats the one. My first "real" gun. Grab a kid and bring that 37 out for some use.

Cool little gun.