Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game The 410 is crap

My Winchester Model 42 is 58 years old and still looks "brand new". I bought it with the money I made at the first job I ever had... helping my Dad paint apartments when I was 12 years old.

I took the $95 I made and took a city bus downtown (Dayton, Ohio), went into a big sporting goods store and bought a new Model 42 Winchester shotgun... the .410 version of Winchester's famous Model 12... for $85 plus 3 boxes of 3" .410 shells and a soft case... spent all of the $95 I had except for bus fare.

I carried the little shotgun home on the city bus together with the 3 boxes of shells and the soft case... and no one raised any eyebrow because kids didn't shoot other kids at school back then... nor did anyone crash airliners full of passengers into tall buildings or hijack airplanes back then either... it was a different era.

I hunted rabbits and pheasants with that little gun for over 12 years... and killed a large number of both rabbits AND pheasants 'cause it was the only shotgun I had... and it served me well.

Then, the 2nd. Christmas I was married, my wife gave me a new Browning Lightning Grade, Belgium-made Superposed in 12 gauge and that became my "hunting gun" for the next 40 years.

The trim little Model 42 sat, unused, in the corner of my gun safe for over a half century until last year when my youngest son (who was then 42 years old) invited me on a pheasant hunt with him and his dog, "Jet", a white lab. But he insisted on using my Browning, so I had to choose between my Charles Daly 28 gauge over/under or my Model 42 in .410 bore... and I decided to give my Model 42 a "try".

I sighted down the little gun's ventilated rib at 4 different pheasants that morning... and fired 5 rounds, brought down 4 pheasants... missed one pheasant (stopped the gun swing & shot behind him), but brought him down with the 2nd. shot when he was about 30 yards away.

I guess no one ever told my Model 42 that ".410s won't kill pheasants". <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

You are 100 percent correct. The 9410 is crap. I't an open choked gun chamber for 2 1/2 inch shells.Cool as a collector now. But a real .410 is full choke nad 3 inch and will kick Pheasant butt in the right hands. love my 42.--Jim--

....No question the 410 is a bit anemic when compared to even the little 28Ga. BUT it is, in the expert wingshots hands,sufficent to put down upland birds within it's range limits (i'd peg it sufficent out to 20-25yds with a well choked pattern).I've used it for bunnies,and squirrel on rare ocasion,but little else. I'd always prefer a 20 or 28 to the micro Ga (the 410 is a 67Ga).I have seen expert shots,men who are far my superior, bust 25 in a round of skeet! Such folks could bring home quail dinner for the family out of a box of shells...By the way,410 shells are far overpriced when compared to the bigger guages.

....No question the 410 is a bit anemic when compared to even the little 28Ga. BUT it is, in the expert wingshots hands,sufficent to put down upland birds within it's range limits (i'd peg it sufficent out to 20-25yds with a well choked pattern).I've used it for bunnies,and squirrel on rare ocasion,but little else. I'd always prefer a 20 or 28 to the micro Ga (the 410 is a 67Ga).I have seen expert shots,men who are far my superior, bust 25 in a round of skeet! Such folks could bring home quail dinner for the family out of a box of shells...By the way,410 shells are far overpriced when compared to the bigger guages.

Ron T.

Nice gun, nice story. Thanks for sharing. We're of the same vintage, and my first gun was a hammerless .410 Lefever single barrel that I inherited from my grandfather when I was 11. I never could hit and kill reliably with the .410, so it got relegated to tin cans and clay birds as soon as I could handle a 12 gauge. I can remember things like working to buy my first new gun, a Winchester M69 .22, and carrying a gun on the bus with nobody blinking an eye.

Paul

Chaser1
The only good thing about the 9410 is it's pleasant to look at .Performance wise it stinks.

Thanx... Paul39.....

Yes... the little Model 42 is "THE" sweet handling .410 bore... light... fast... and deadly accurate.

Speaking of "nobody blinking an eye"... I remember when the first airliner was hi-jacked and the hi-jacker jumped out of the aircraft over (I believe) Colorado with a parachute, but the authorities never found him.

At the time, I remember thinking to myself... "Wow... I never even CONSIDERED that anyone would DO something like hi-jack an airliner full of innocent people!"

Then... a few years ago, they discovered some bones and perhaps (I don't remember for sure) a parachute laying near the bones in the wilds of Colorado... and they figured they might be the remains that very first hi-jacker who didn't get away with it after all.

Didn't that hi-jacking happen 'way back in the mid-1950's?

Anyway, compared to "today", it appears we were rather "naive" back in "those days", eh Paul?!? Ahhhhh, yes! Comparatively, those were "innocent times" when we were "young-uns". <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Owning a .410 is like playing golf. You better be prepared for failure!

The .410 works for some people and that's great-- I've got nothing against it. But, I personnally have to be very efficient with my limited field time. The places where I hunt are not all heavy cover with no shot more than 30 yds or so, and I can't afford to choose my shots. The .410 with its tall shot column and paltry payload, and the relatively tight chokes needed to increase pattern density even at close range, make it unsuitable for me. I shoot a 12 gauge because, with a 12 gauge, the physics of shotgun ballistics are in my favor. I can get excellent pattern density with less stringing, larger payload and use more open chokes. I can't afford the handicap of a .410.

If you can find an iver johnson 410 they were backbored and are among the best shooting 410s. back boring has been re discovered in the new long range turkey guns. what goes around comes around.

My father had a 32-inch Iver Johnson single shot that he used to down crippled ducks. We had a duck hunting club, and guided the members, all city fellows, doctors, businessmen, some really good shots, some lousy.

When the flight turned and the shooting stopped, my father would reach out 60, 70 and 80 yards to drop a wounded one before it got lost over the woods. He replaced it when he found something with a second shot, an 30-inch SxS Ithaca 3-inch magnum that had belonged to a market hunter from Long Island. It shot some doughnut and S patterns with 6s and 8s, but closed up with 4s and shot 2s like a rifle. 90% of the 2s would go into an 8-inch circle at 20 yards, and it would spin a mallard at 60 yards like he had hit a tree limb.

One of the big reasons most 410s suck is that tey are choked to tight i had a 870 express that was choked mod. and killed a lot of quail,pheasant and doves. DARREN

Wow... I've been hunting for 5 years now with some make or model of a Remington in 410 and I absolutely LOVE it. I dove hunt with it and love it and pheasant hunt with it and love it, oh, and I've quail and chukar hunted with it too... yep, love it. If Icould figure out the hevi-shot thing, I'd use it on my decoying ducks too! But, just like ANY gun it has it's limitations. I wouldn't bear hunt with it (well, not Alaskan brown or polar bear anyway, maybe blacks with a heavy load of #5's).

Once hunted in an area that was shotgun only. had an old gun smith drill and tap a bolt action .410 for a scope. shot a 1.25" group at 100 Yards with a smooth bore. was a good starter gun for youngsters, I know of 4 youngmen that harvested their first buck with it.

My dad always liked the 410 for squirrels. Did not think you needed anything bigger. My sons started with a double barrel 410. My oldest did not want to stop useing it as he was deadly with it. His younger brother took it over and now feels the say way about it. It's funny what confidence a kid can get when using an"experts gun" as it is sometimes called. And by the way, he shot 10 doves Saturday and it was a very slow day. His brother got his limit of 12 with his 20 guage.

rmill--try the Bismuth on ducks if you can find them. Thats what we use.

Bump for POP

We use ours a lot in moose camp for potshooting grouse. For wing shooting, I stick to my 28.

No, the 410 isn't crap. In a decent gun with an expert wing shooter driving it, it is an effective upland game killer.

It's like using a .222 to kill deer. It will work, but it's not for beginners.

My first gun was a .22/.410 Stevens over and under. It must have been built during the 2nd war as it had a Tenite (plastic)stock. Talk about being ahead of the trends!
In hindsight I now realize I wasn't properly trained in its use and consequently got very little game with the .410.
However, it worked very well for collecting woodchucks around the various farms I hunted as a boy. The .22 barrel was an absolute tack driver.
In later years I bought a Savage .22/20 gauge over/under. The 20 gauge was one of the meanest kicking guns I ever owned (and I presently shoot a .338 Win. Mag. for moose.) Also, it had the heaviest trigger pull of any gun I ever owned. It went about 8 lbs. after it had been worked over by a gunsmith.
Some of our older gun club members who shot a lot of competition in their younger years have now developed flinches. Often they bring out a .410 to try and overcome the flinch. I hate shooting skeet with them because they shoot so much better than I do using larger gauge guns. Some day I have to buy some .410 shells and borrow one of my friends guns and see how well I can do.