Looks like I'm the only one so far that started with a .410 side by side. At age 8 I was given a J. C. Higgins tenite stocked S x S .410. I, like Lee the First, didn't know what a "handicap" I had been placed under by having it. So, happily I accounted for many squirrels, rabbits, quail and doves with it. Was it the best gun to begin with? Probably not. But, it was what I had and I learned to be quite proficient with it, not shooting everything sitting, but on the run and on the wing.
One thing I have often wondered about is that since I started out with a gun that was as hard to master as a .410, and since I shot it a lot for about four years, when I graduated to a twenty guage it seemed so easy to kill doves with it that I regularly out shot grown men on the dove field at the tender age of 12 or 13. No small thing when you have grown up in a culture that places dove shoots in high esteem.
I do not regret having been started on a .410 at all. It just may have turned out to be an advantage in the long run.
Stan
