BLEBLESSING N OR CURSE?
Is the .410 only a youngster’s gun?
The conversation I overheard at the neighbouring table at the shooting club went something like this: “The .410 is not a youngster’s gun, it’s an expert shot’s gun. Any father should rather start a youngster on a 20- or 28-bore.” This statement struck a chord with me, and on the drive home I started pondering this statement.
Many of us started our shooting careers with the ubiquitous .410 because there wasn’t much else available. 20-bores were scarce when I was a youngster, and I was 40 years old before I saw my first 28-bore gun. The first 28-bore cartridge I encountered was from a case of CIL cartridges unearthed from Federated Timbers in Springs in the 1960s. The whole case was duly dismantled for components to load something more useful.
This second smallest of the better-known shotguns after Louis-Nicolas Flobert’s 9mm garden gun (invented in France for controlling garden pests) first appeared as Lancaster’s pinfire ammunition in Eley’s 1857 catalogue. By 1874 the .410 was well-established in Britain in its modern guise, first as a 2-inch
cartridge, and later in 2½- and 3-inch formats (it was, rather surprisingly, never produced in 2¾-inch format). Its first appearance was alongside the 360 No 1, No 2 and No 3 rimfires. All these cartridges were designed for pest control in cheap, breakaction guns and even as “walking stick” guns, presumably for self-defence as part of a gentleman’s must-have gear at the end of the 19th century. Nobody, however, can be sure who the first gentleman was who stepped into a well-known gunmaker’s rooms and ordered a bespoke double in .410.
IT DIFFERS FROM OTHERS
The .410 differs from other shotguns in that its nomenclature actually refers to the bore diameter at .410-inch, which computes to somewhere around 67-bore. It is often erroneously referred to as a 36-bore, which I can only surmise to be a vague reference to the diameter of its ball ammunition, or even a reference to the obsolete US 36-calibre rimfire shot cartridge, but this is just my personal opinion.
The .410 first made an appearance in the United States and Germany at the beginning of the 20th century and remains in production to this day, largely thanks to its inclusion in the US clay target line-up post-1926. Not all .410s were created equal, though, so for purposes of discussion, let’s exclude selfdefence and all other survival, pest-control and poachers’ guns in .410.
Most .410s floating around in SA are of single-barrel, breakaction design, along with a scattering of bolt-actions and combination guns – particularly the Savage which were mostly a .22 Long Rifle over a .410 barrel. These were general-purpose guns kept on farms to deal with snakes and other pests. Most of us were oblivious of their shortcomings but we knew how to stuff cartridges into them, and the little gun delivered a much more satisfying bang than an airgun.
The .410 in side-by-side, double format is a scarcer item, and many of British origin were cheaply produced as keeper’s guns. Many surviving .410 sideby-sides have unfortunately also endured severe abuse, and rare is the beast that was ordered by a member of the gentry from a known maker and produced at a best-quality level. Best-quality .410s command high prices, and in the United States the most collectable guns are the highergrade Parker .410s.
ON A PRACTICAL LEVEL
Anyway, how good is the .410 in practical terms? I’m going to put the cart before the horse here and recount my experience of my son’s development as a field shot. I acquired a Jeffery side-by-side non-ejector for him when he was 9 years old. It was not a high-grade gun but after a refinish it was ready to go, and at 4lbs on the dot it was easy for him to handle. He used it for five seasons and my observations of him shooting with it was that he either missed cleanly or we had a dead bird, and I can recall only one francolin that was very much alive on retrieval. Other gamebirds shot included guinea-fowl as well as two yellowbill ducks over decoys on the same evening – both came down stone dead. My only experience of the 3-inch version of the .410 was an American friend using his Abbiatico & Salvinelli over/under on a pheasant shoot in South Dakota. The application of ¾oz (20 grams) of Winchester Super-X No 6s on a fast-flying ringneck pheasant was, to say the least, very satisfactory and I couldn’t do better with a 20-bore loaded with 1oz of copper-plated 6s. I decided to do a few experi- »