doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 410 choking

Picked up a Perazzi MX 20 /2000 with 28 3/8" barrels today. It has fixed chokes. Using the Galazan gauge it must be choked Improved Mod and Full. I am considering either leaving it as it is our investing in Briley chokes.
Will be using this for clays and doves. Question is, what chokes do you guys use in your 410's?

In my opinion choke gages are useless. I had a 16 gauge that I wanted to sell and the barrels were cut to 24 3/4", from the records they were originally 26". This gun still had the .650 bores and with my Skeet's gage the choke was still .014 in both barrels. A fellow was looking at it and wanted to use his choke gage and it showed full choke.
You have to know bore size before.

I use .410s a lot for doves and prefer tight chokes. A mistake often made by uninformed people is that they equate a small bore with small patterns, and go to more open chokes to, in their mind, "compensate". They should be doing the opposite. Density in a pattern is what kills, not overall pattern size. Use tight chokes and learn to shoot the gun well enough to put that small pattern on the bird, and you'll see success with the little guns.

It depends on what your primary use is.

For clays, you need to break down how you are going to build your score.

For instance, any kind of a NSCA shoot is going to have plenty of long targets to separate the 12 gauge guys shooting for HOA and punches. There will also be edge on targets. (Early battues , skeet High 1, etc)
A .410 is handicapped there because of pattern density at range.
The statistics show “Full” gives best probability on those.

But if you are shooting at a “Fun shoot”, sponsored by a club or sporting organization, they will have plenty of close targets that really reward more open chokes.

You build a score perfecting shots based on speed and distance, much the same as a pro golfer works his way out developing his putting and short game. Decreasing aiming error through practice and technique adjustments.

A chip is a scored target. Not a dead bird.

For hunting, you want clean kills at your “avg” shooting distance.
I use 2.5” cartridges in the .410 @ 1250-1300, mostly 7.5’s.
My avg shot is “skeet like”, so 10-25 yards.
Never an “edge on” target,

You can get higher 1st shot kill ratios with a little more open choke, and then mod for the second.

This is birds over dogs primarily.

You might be just fine for pass shooting staying with the chokes that get you your best clays scores.

I have been talking to my gun club (Deer River) about putting on a 410 shoot event. I do not know how receptive the owner is as I believe he wonders how many people would attend due to how many people own and shoot 410's.
Would you guys attend a 410 event shoot?

I have a theory on chokes, the smaller the bore, the tighter the choke you want. Here is why I say that. As SH suggested, the bore size has zero affect on the size of the pattern. How do I know this???, because, being a muzzleloader guy, I have played around with ML shotguns from 8GA to 20GA. Being ML'ers, they are all cylinder bored. At a given distance, they ALL throw the same size pattern. Naturally, the bigger the bore, the more shot and therefore the denser the pattern at any given distance. When you reduce the size of the bore, you need to increase the choke to maintain the same pattern density by reducing the size of that pattern. Look at it this way, shoot a pattern from a big bore shotgun with an open choke that is throwing a 30" pattern at a given distance. A small bore with a similar choke will also throw a 30" pattern at that distance but obviously with a much more open pattern (far fewer pellets). If you choke that smaller bore down to reduce the overall size of the pattern, you can effectively get a similar pattern density but in a smaller circle. A full choked .410 will throw a pattern of similar DENSITY as my cylinder bored 8GA, just a MUCH smaller circle. Bottom line, they will both kill (be it live birds or clays) equally if said target is in the middle of the pattern. The bigger bores just provide a bigger "fudge factor". If you are a GOOD shotgunner that can centre your targets consistently, you will get just as many kills with a 1/2OZ from a tightly choked .410 as you will with 2OZ from an open choked 10GA. OTOH, if you shoot shotgun like I do and you want to compete with GOOD shooters, you might want to try a cylinder bored punt gun throwing 4-5 OZ of shot if you can swing it (literally and figuratively).

No, I would not travel to NC for a one day .410 shoot.
If it coincided with a swan hunt on Currituck, maybe.


Came back to edit this, to add in my general parameters for shoots.

One day shoots, three hours driving one way is about my limit, but if it’s a two day shoot, I might drive five hours.

On my club’s premier event, that’s the 90% confidence interval.

Pattern it with several different loads. Look at 20, 25 and 30 yards. I like tight chokes with decent but not top end speed. I seem to have better luck shooting 1/2 ounce loads with velocities between 1250 and 1300. If I can get a 18-20" killing pattern at 33 yards I am as happy as I can be. I have found by limiting my shots under 33 yards my success rate climbs. And by 33 yards I measure out 33 yards and place markers, as simple as cut weeds to establish known distance markers to judge birds and leads. With a Full choke and 1/2 ounce loads I have taken many an early season limit. Later I go to 5/8 or Stan's favorite 3/4 ounce loads.

But choke gauges tell you almost nothing about your gun. For that you need to shoot it at a pattern plate, multiple times, under game type distances. 40 yards is worthless distance for a .410 and 21 yards, a common Skeet distance, does not give you a realistic hunting situation in too many cases. 20, 25 and 30 will give you real game type information about how your gun will work. You might find your current set up works out to 30 yards with no changes needed or you might find the point of impact is high or low at that distance. Shooting will tell.

Whether on not I could come to your proposed .410 clays shoot would be determined mainly by when it would be held. If it were on a Saturday and I had no other conflicting events or work scheduled I might could make it. It would be fun I'm sure. I used to really enjoy the .410 NSCA sub-gauge events at major shoots, where I would use my 30" barreled FAIR Verona Over/Under.

I'm leaving for the US Open tomorrow and am taking my 30" .410 with IC/Mod chokes. I have 1 box 8 1/2 shot, lots of # 9 and several boxes # 7 1/2 shot. Since I've never patterned it, I'm not sure what is best? I will probably leave the #9's at home.