Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 45/410 question

I'm thinking of getting a new bbl for my contender in 45/410. My question is wether shooting the 410 shells thru it will damage the rifling and effect the accuracy of the 45s.

Yes. Your pattern will also suck to an incredible degree.

Rifled choke in for slugs and .45LC; rifled choke out for shot shells.

I'm not sure why 4ager said that it would hurt your rifling�as long as you're not shooting steel shot, there would be nothing in the ejecta to harm your rifling. The shot collar is plastic and shot strings move more as a fluid than a solid. As long as you clean the plastic out of the rifling there should be no degradation of accuracy with .45LC ammo. Agree with him tho that your patterns will suck; however, that's not a function of the rifling. I have Perrazi, Beretta and proprietary thin-wall Briley Diffusion chokes which are rifled. They're designed for 1st shots on Columbare Pigeon shoots to spread but even-out the pattern.

I think it goes the other way, choke IN for shot shells? Was certainly the case with my .44 mag barrel. What I HAVE heard, is that the chambering of these guns does not favor accuracy when shooting .45. I have one, but honestly have't shot it enough to say yes or no.

Checked to be sure - the "choke" is intended to stop the shot charge from spinning as it exits the barrel. That is why it has what appears to be rifling in it that runs straight, rather than in a spiral. The device would serve no purpose when shooting .45LC, and in fact would be detrimental.

Shot will not damage the barrel. The 410 chamber is long for the 45 colt and this is not conducisive to top accuracy. May or may not matter to you, depends on what you are looking for.

Accuracy with 45's sucks regardless. Too much freebore in the chamber. If you wish to shoot 45's you would be better served with a dedicated 45 barrel.

i have such a barrel, to fire .410 in it you leave the so called "choke" in the barrel. As stated, it is to prevent the shot from spinning.
I have shot it quite a bit with .410 and it works to minute of bird so to speak at up to about 20yards. Have never fired it with a .45colt.
I have a .44magnum barrel that also has that device in the barrel. You remove it to fire a hard projectile.

Thanks guys for the reply's. I was thinking of getting it for hunting deer and blackbear with the 45 and just thought it would be cool to have the 410 option. It looks like there are better options.

My Contender 45lc / .410 barrel key holes my cast bullet 45 Colt loads at any distance past 20 yards. And of course, the Accuracy sucks, too. That's OK, though, as I bout it strictly for shooting .410 shells.

On the other hand, my S&W Governor Model in 45 / .410 is actually pretty accurate with the 45 Colt and 45acp loads.

The first Contender I ever bought, way back when, was a .44 ,ag with the "vent rib" barrel and the shot shell "choke" for shooting the .44 shot capsules. However, I did not know about the shot shell deal - although I bought it new from a dealer, it came with no box or paper work (and no "choke' wrench), and neither I nor the dealer knew much about Contenders. For awhile I went about happily firing 240gr JHP ammo in it, although I did notice when shooting at paper targets the accuracy was a bit poor, and recoil was more than I expected. Finally noticed the "rifling" at the end of the muzzle looked a bit strange, and then figured out I was looking nat the choke tube - which was in the barrel when I purchased it! I got very upset with the dealer, wrote a letter (no e-mail back then) to T/C explaining the situation, and asking if I had damaged the barrel by shooting JHP ammo through the choke? They replied that T/C was proud of the strength of their barrels, and felt confident that I could not possibly have damaged mine (although they did not recommend the practice). They also sent me the paperwork that should have come with the gun, AND a choke tube wrench.

That barrel has been semi-retired, but I still use the frame regularly.

They're right. I had a brain fart.

The increased throat to accommodate shotshells generally affects accuracy adversely. The rifling of the bore coupled with the short twist stabilizer 'choke' would result in a less than desirable shot pattern. IMHO if you wanna throw a pattern, use a smoothbore and if you're gonna shoot a bullet, seat it out just afore the lands start.
The 'best' of both often results in all to be compromised.

On a two dimensional patterning board, .410's don't tend to throw stellar patterns with any barrel-----in the three dimensional world, due to their excessively long shot string to pellet count ratio, there are a huge # of gaps and holes that don't show up on a 2 dimensional board. The shortness of the Contender barrel isn't really an issue as many small-bore sporting clays competitors use Seminole and Rhino chamber inserts for sub-caliber events; according to Jose Morales (owner of Rhino) a 12 ga. barrel would have to be over 5 ft. long for the choke to effect the ejecta from a .410 insert. They shoot well enough to be used in competition and are in some cases shorter than the Contender barrels. What the rifling in the barrel and then the linear rifling of the "choke" would do to the shot string is difficult to determine as it's easier to start a spin than to stop it.

I'm embarrassed to say that I own a Taurus Judge, but I have to admit that its accuracy with .45 LC ammo doesn't suffer due to the long gap to the forcing cone. My guess is that each and every gun/ammo combination is going to be a rule unto itself---shotguns are ballistic nightmares.

Thanks for the 'spin', gmoats. I worship at the church of Bellm where the throat of a bore is everything. I appreciate your perspctives of shot column behavior and must confess that I'm a single projectile kinda guy. Thanks again.

Fun fun fun fun fun....




DMc

I also have a shoulder stock for my 16" .45/.410 barrel. Makes for a very handy and useful little gun.

I can tell you one thing from experience.

just for fun I installed a 24" rifled barrel with sights on my 20 gauge Mossberg. Shot slugs through it and is was very accurate!!!

Then I tried a few #3 buck shot (20 pellets) through the rifled bore for fun. I shot it 3 times and my buddy twice. NOT a single pellet hit the target at 15 yards!!! LOL