Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Humbling. Very humbling.

I’ve shot trap, skeet and sporting clays all my adult life. Probably more skeet than anything else. Love the game. And I shoot it fairly well with any gauge from 28 to 12. Sometimes I have days of difficulty but it’s rare for me to shoot less than 20/25.

I’m 60 and in all my life have never owned a 410. Don’t know how that came to be but just never had one. Until this week. I bought a very nice little Beretta SP1 with Briley extended choke tubes. Yesterday afternoon I stopped by the range on the way home from work and shot a couple rounds of skeet. First order of business was to check it on a splatter plate. Both barrels shot about 60/40 and well centered left to right. Shooting where I look so no gun fit or regulation excuses.

Man there’s a lot of room around those birds for shot to go without damaging the bird in any way. Especially when it’s just a half ounce.

I was humbled. Very humbled. Shot a 15 and a 12. But what a hoot. No recoil and what a lively little gun. This has the promise of some great fun.

Sounds like fun!!

I shot a bunch of skeet about 15+ years ago using an SKB M685 3-barrel skeet set (20/28/410).. I had more fun with that .410.. And beat a fair amount of guys who were using 12 ga guns..

Best I could do though was a 24.. Just couldn't run 'em.. Had the most trouble with station 4, for some unknown reason.. I think I averaged about 21 on the 410.. Sure was a sweet gun. Sold it about three years ago to a guy in MO. who had been looking for a set like that..

They call the .410 the “idiot stick” ay my club. Very humbling.

I suspect if someone learned to shoot with a 410 had had shot one a lot, it would seem much easier to hit with. I have one in an AyA SxS and use it to shoot pigeons now and then with for my dog's, I'm not so good with it. Carried is grouse hunting now and then but have never seen a grouse in the past several years. I've known two pro trainer's that use one for dog training and they shoot them great, just what ya get used to I think.

Just shoot it like it’s a 12 and try not to get sucked in the mental game if you can.

THIS!!!!!!!!!

Yep, I have always said a 410 is an experts shotgun. Not the way to start a child on wing shooting. Wait until the kid can handle a 20 gauge so he can hit some birds.

I used to shoot skeet leagues years ago. It is very humbling when you are shooting a 12 and get beat by the guys shooting the 410's. Happend to me a lot.

I always say, anyone can shoot the big bores.....

I had a .410 gun and could never shoot above a 20. Sold it. Now I have tube set and have shot a number of 25s with .410 tubes in my 12 ga. Go figure. I gave up a long time ago trying to figure this stuff out. For me shooting is 90% mental and the other half is luck

Shooting a good score at skeet with a tubed 8# O/U with .410 tubes pre-mounted is not like shooting a good score with a 5-1/2# SxS .410 shooting it gun down. Light whippy guns are challenging!

We were shooting skeet with a very good shooter at our club who was smashing all the targets, as usual. Eventually I realized he was using a BPS .410! I would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself. He was hitting each target harder than us 12 gauge guys.

Never shot skeet with a 410, but have used a 410 for Quail and Dove for many years, light fast handling, fun to shoot. what's not to like. Rio7

Skeet clays with a .410 either break or don't, sometime even with a perfect point. Even when shot at about the perfect distance for a .410...A chip is an X and a miss is NBD except for tournament skeet. However, the same perfect point can cripple a Dove or Quail. And since you asked, it gives me something not to like about the .410 in the field....

Shoot TSS shot and the game changes....

I know that a 410 is very effective as a game gun provided the choke, load, and distance is correct in relation to the game being hunted. The little gun kills just as dead as a 12 gauge, perhaps not as far out though.

There are not different degrees of dead....Dead is dead. However, there are different degrees of skill, and that is where the .410 fails in the hands of us average shooters....



Any who want to brag on the .410 in the uplands should take the time to read "Shotgunning, the Art and the Science" by Bob Brister. He covers the topic in detail...Summation from memory would be the .410's effective pattern is extremely limited and is mainly comprised of a relatively small center core. Most of us are not skilled enough to point with such precision, especially on take them as them come in the field, to use it effectively and consistently with lead shot.

battue, I have high regard for your opinion when it comes to bird hunting and dogs, I have been shooting a 410 for 68 yrs on game birds, I agree the 410 is not for every one, and you need to know it's limits, but it will do the job in the right hands, I guide about 150 Quail and dove hunters every year and have for many years, i see more birds hit and fly away than most people see in a year, with every thing but a 410, all most no one shoots a 410. guess that's why. regards Rio7

I’m pretty much Mr Average when it comes to Birds and Dogs, I just do a lot of it. Anyway, you guide that many hunters every year over many years and you see more Birds killed in a couple weeks than I do in a year.

Therefore, I’ll take your word on it. Experience always deserves consideration. However, I do know I’m not good enough with a shotgun to be using a .410 in the field.

battue, It's not unusual for us to kill 100 to150 doves a day, Quail are a different deal we average killing 1 Quail per covey over the hunting season, and we average about 20 to 30 covey's per day, kinda interesting numbers.

Rio7

Have had some great Dove hunts over here, especially when some late full grown flight Doves are temporarily stopping off on their way South. Also been invited to hunt all wild Quail and Doves down in Georgia a couple times. Mule wagon and all the trimmings with the Quail, with 15 to 20 Coveys in the morning and the same in the afternoon. It was an experience that I consider one of the hi points of following Dogs around.

We have a snow bird at our range, shoots a 410 Rem 870, with a release trigger, and he is a lefty shooting a righty gun. Talk about handicapping yourself. He does pretty good with it though. In the 3 years or so I have seen him out there when he is around, that is the only gun I have seen him shoot.

battue, Doves, our early birds are White Wing, then the mourning doves and collared doves.

Georgia piney woods Quail are fun and a great place to get young dogs started on birds, most of the Quail are pen raised and planted before the hunts. All our birds are wild, our hunts are much different than the plantation hunts, we use our gun trucks with a driver, dog handler, helper, and 3 hunters, 10 dogs per truck plus 2 out riders on horse back, per truck.

The Georgia, Florida, Quail Unlimited, guy's come here for a couple of hunts every year, fun guy's to hunt with, it takes them a couple of hunts to catch up with our wild birds, as our birds are much faster than pen raised and flush much different than pen raised birds.

If I had my choice all i would do is bird hunt, but the big game is also a big part of what i do. Hell I can't gripe, i hunt 6-7 months every year, and spend the rest of the year getting ready to hunt again next season.

I'm to lazy to work, and to chicken to steal so I hunt for a living, Rio7

Rio,

I hunted on Pineland Plantation...it is not a commercial operation, and.you won’t find a single pen raised or planted Quail on the entire place. Used to shoot sporting and travel around with the owners Daughter which was the only reason I was invited to hunt there a few times. Tall cotton it was, because one can't pay to hunt there and some have tried....

The owner single handily originally funded the Albany Quail Project-Tall Timbers research station. Finally some of the other private plantation owners saw his results and joined in. And yes the Wild ones are much faster than the planted ones....and to keep it on track, I'm glad they didn't make me use a .410.

They have also ran the National Bird Dog Championship on Pineland more than once.

I understand the rather Bird hunt than work situation you have carved out for yourself. Congratulations!!!!


Addition: Have to correct myself on the National Bird Dog Championship...They have ran big trials there, but on looking it up, I can't find that the National was ever ran there..

Shoots a 410 with a release trigger. Pour guy must have developed one hell of a flinch to need to go that route. I've seen some bad flinch habits come out of handicap trap shooters, but none that bad!

H&R Topper .410 was the gun my brother learned to hunt with. Then me. Later in my nephew used it for his first quail hunt. He seldom missed with it.

Recoil really has very little to do with flinching. It’s almost always panic and or lost sight of the target.

The more one piles up the empties, the more ways they can stumble into a flinch....Recoil is only one of them....

I shoot a 410 skeet/5-stand combo league in the winter. 10 rounds of each January through March can be challenging. There are two divisions "Pro" with a trophy for top gun and "Bragging Rights" which gets your name in the end of season flyer. It is a fun league and a Minnesota winter doesn't add much more difficulty for skeet but it makes the 5-stand more challenging.

One wins the division by shooting well on the 5-stand but loses it by shooting poorly on skeet. Skeet averages for Pro need to top 23 to be competitive while BR will usually win with something between 21.5 and 22. 5-stand is not predictable like skeet as there are three courses with positions and target rotations being switched around.

My Citori 410 was my "go to" for woodcock when it opened on Sept 1. For quarry that seldom presented a shot greater than 20 yards it worked great. I've shot a fair number of ruffed grouse and a few pheasants with either that gun or an Iver Johnson single shot but it is much more difficult than other birds. It's best use for birds may be early season sharptails and prairie chickens as one can often get pretty close to them, they aren't overly tough birds, they aren't noted runners, and the habitat isn't thick enough to hinder a dog from running down a cripple.

My primary uses for a 410 is dog training and pest control. The shot charge of a 410 is not very damaging on pen raised quail and pigeons so one does not tear up a bird much if a shot has to be taken quickly. A 410 loaded with 9 or 10 shot is pretty effective for jump shooting English sparrows from birdhouses though a little light for starlings. My wife likes it for use on rabbits and red squirrels raiding her gardens.

A 410 is not a "better" choice in most cases but it is effective for those that know and understand its limitations and work within those limits. It is also a fun, though often frustrating, choice for many clay situations.