doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Chokes for a .410

This one is right up there with any ranking of "greatest shotgun canards".

Most available bore gauges don't "do" .410. I recently obtained a small hole gauge set. I had long before developed very clear ideas of what barrels actually worked in grouse/WC cover and on a skeet field.

My 42 "skeet"s run from .003 to .011. All are unaltered. Mods I've measured have run from .005 to .011. My fulls run from .016 to .020.

The measurements validated my impressions (why did I do so much better with this skeet gun vs that skeet gun?).

I'll distill it: .005 is my minimum for single barrel field work. It will work with Rem 3" to 25 yds. It's also my minimum for confidence on 3,4,5 with good 2.5" shells. .010 is Nirvana for both NSSA and field work (for me). Put differently, .010 gives the widest effective pattern at 25 yds - 25 yds is my .410 field max.

My Briley .014 is a great 5-stand constriction, as are the full choke barrels.

I've patterned true cyl .410 barrels and would not feel comfortable using one on birds beyond 15 yds. But I'm kinda slow. I'm guessing Chuck is alot faster than me.

Maybe the forcing cone surgery is worth the trouble.

Finally, I should mention that .410 ammo selection is important. There are huge differences in pattern characteristics among available factory 3" loads.

Sam

Sam,
Thanks for your input! You helped validate my .410 experiences. As far as ammo goes, I'd imagine that shot hardness would be a major contibuter to good patterns. I was looking at some advertising for some of the latest "environmentally friendly" shot and found one (the name I forget) which was quite heavy and nearly as hard as steel. I imagine using that shot in a .410 would give excellent patterns. I'm thinking just using bismuth shot would help (of course now we'd really have over-priced ammo!).
Steve

Mike the Bear and my friend KyJon are the ones with actual experience with competitive skeet and know about constrictions. As they said, and I agree with, around .007 or .008 is what competitive skeet shooters use. No competitors I am aware of would trust an oh oh five choke when shooting for money. As a Kolar shooter, I imagine Mike has shot some scores in the high nineties or better and knows what he is talking about. Jon's friend, (wish I knew who he was, since Jon is a home boy from MD and I have probably shot with his friend) has probably run some 100s in .410 and knows what to shoot. I think my competition .410 chokes are .007 and .010, and I don't normally shoot the tens in competition, only for fun. For tame pheasants, I would use my mod and full Smith, which is probably choked about .015 and .020. For tame quail, the sevens and tens would be fine. Sam is another one who knows what he is talking about, knows patterns and constrictions and owns a small hole gauge to measure the chokes in his Model 42s.

Bill,
I'm at a loss for an answer. Possibly my "drilling out" the forcing cones actually does something. I'll have to check with the dead birds.

Steve,

I have not had occasion to play with non-tox in the .410. I can give some distilled info concerning my testing of 3" Pb loads.

If I want fast and tight (well, at least 9/16 oz of the full payload in the effective pattern) I use RPs. They ran 1270 fps, way over spec. They feel like it, too. Frankly, I don't know how they do it......maybe I don't want to know. My full '42 puts over 65% inside just 20" at 40 yds in #6. In #7.5 through mod it hammers phez to my self-imposed 25 yd limit.

If you want relatively open and even, and don't fret over pedestrian 1120 fps velocities, you might like WW's loads. Very soft recoil. I've used this for early Oct WC and grouse.

The Fio 3" I tested was interesting. Wad is basically a gas check. It had no petals at all. Chrono'd 1230 fps.

The B&P 3" is the only Pb loading I've seen with full-length shotcup petals. Not surprisingly, it shows the least pellet attrition on paper. IIRC, chrono said about 1180 fps. Throws a larger, more open effective pattern than the RP. Not much field experience with it yet, but I'm thinking grouse/WC.

Sam