410 cartridges

[Fredwalton]

I have just brought some 410 cartridges to use over the weekend but they are only 11g 6 shot size will that kill a pigeon?

[itchy trigger]

yes

[Stonepark]

Under 25 yards, yes they will kill but due to the small number of pellets, you will have to be spot on and not shoot at longer ranges.

Edited November 17, 2017 by Stonepark

[Walker570]

Yep, shoot straight and keep within 25yrds. Put 'em in the pattern.

 

Buy some Hull High Pheasant next time round.

[Fredwalton]

That' good to know. It was a last minute buy as farmer has txt asking to go the field tomorrow and jist borrowed my mates moderated 410 but he had no cartridges and these were the only ones my nearest gun shop had

[Walker570]

Have fun, weather looks good with a bit of wind to help.

[Ultrastu]

Your gonna find it hard for sure .

I'd say 25 yds is too far for 11 grm .more like 20 if your lucky .my 16 grm max out at around 25 yds .a 30 yd kill  with my 16 grm is a lucky shot .

I think of the 9 grm and 11 grm loads as more of a ratting cartridge .

Pattern the gun on card first and make sure you know the exact aim point/point of impact .as it will be more like rifle shooting .

Best of luck .

 

[Fredwalton]

Unfortunately not much about and the farmer doesn' want me to use decoys for some reason. Anyway killed a crow and about 20 yards folded it up stone dead I was very impressed

[Ultrastu]

Then that was a great shot .well done .

[neutron619]

9 hours ago, Ultrastu said:

Then that was a great shot .well done .

I'd say it was a lucky shot.

I know of no 11g/#6 cartridge that's ever put more than 87 in the circle at 20 or 30 yards. Most of the time, they're a lot worse.

I briefly field tested the Fiocchi GFL36 11g/#6 load and consistently failed to kill stationary birds on the ground at ranges under 20 yards. I don't have an image of a 20-yard pattern (average: 86) but here's the best from 30 yards, which has about half of the minimum number of pellets I'd want to kill pigeon. Just look at those gaps! You could get a cart horse through that pattern!

 

Also, here follows the Hull 11g/#6 load at 30 yards, which I've never fired at anything living, for reasons which I hope are equally obvious (but in case they aren't, the cartridge only has around 111 pellets in it to start with, which isn't going to get you 140 in the circle at any distance).

You may kill some birds with 11g of shot and a reasonable degree of luck, but if you're doing that then you have a 2½" chambered gun and because of that, better alternatives to choose from.

Do not use #6 in the .410 unless you absolutely have to! I know of one or possibly two cartridges that shoot it adequately to 30 yards, and they are 3", 18-19g loads and only barely suitable for pigeon at that range.

Edit: one last thing - remember that those images represent the best performance I've recorded. Both cartridges have RTOs, are extremely inconsistent and have both recorded pellet counts in the 40's at 30 yards for individual patterns. Avoid!

Edit II: don't use them for rats either. If the gaps in the pictures above are too big to kill pigeons reliably, you sure as hell ain't going to hit a fingernail-sized vital organ in a brown rat with any degree of consistency - unless you're scratching his **** with the gun barrel, that is.

Edited November 18, 2017 by neutron619
Further thoughts.

[lancer425]

Out of interest those who dabble with the .410s a lot, what is the best choke constriction?

I have always had .410s with full chokes and never though about reaming them out any because of small payloads, but is the full chokes generaly better at say 25 30 yards with these big 19 gram loads etc, or in the case of the .410 can the chokes quite often work against you if you understand my meaning.

[neutron619]

3 minutes ago, lancer425 said:

Out of interest those who dabble with the .410s a lot, what is the best choke constriction?

I have always had .410s with full chokes and never though about reaming them out any because of small payloads, but is the full chokes generaly better at say 25 30 yards with these big 19 gram loads etc, or in the case of the .410 can the chokes quite often work against you if you understand my meaning.

Instinctively, I'd say somewhere in the region of 0.018" as a general rule, but it depends on the cartridge.

My gun came with chokes having 0.005" increments from 0.005" to 0.025" and although for everything up to 0.020" it depends somewhat on the cartridge, the 0.025" choke blows patterns pretty reliably and I never use it. Some cartridges - particularly those with a plastic wad and those which are "faster" - seem not to like the 0.020" choke very much either, but for subsonics, large shot and the middle-of-the-road stuff, that constriction has generally worked the best.

As far as names go - well - some people call 0.025" full, others 0.018", others 0.040" (!! - "because that's the English way..."), others something else entirely, so I've given up with that and just talk numbers now.

Expect a PM from me shortly.

[Walker570]

I shoot a 410 exclusively for driven game these days, I have used Fiocchi 3 inch #8s (UK71/4  ...1/2 ) with very good results. At the moment I am trying some Hull High Pheasant 19s #6s and they also show promise. By far the best results I have had are some fibre wad reloads, 18.5g of UK7s, 97g  SP3, 12mm fibre wad over a 1mm over powder and a six point crimp, lightly polished with a GAEP spinner.  The patterns from these astonished me and the three outings I have had so far show them to be more than adequate out to 40yrds...which is a long way and misjudged by many shooters. I do my patterning at 35yrds and I use the #2 Yilditz choke with these reloads and the #1 full choke with the Fiocchis.  BUT all cartridges, chokes, guns, barrel lengths seem to come into play with a 410 and my advice is to set up a measured 35yrd back board and run some of your own tests, with your gun and test each choke available.  The joy is, unlike years ago, most up to date 410s these days have interchangeable chokes.

BUT!!!  at the end of the day it is up to you to put that bird in the middle of the pattern

You can source the reload details on Folkestone Engineering web site and they provide the powder/wads etc.

 

Edited November 18, 2017 by Walker570

[neutron619]

14 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

...and the #1 full choke with the Fiocchis.

I'll be pattern testing exactly those cartridges, with that gun / choke tomorrow morning. Thanks for the tip - as I said above, I wouldn't usually bother with the full choke...

[Ultrastu]

I don't know the choke on my .yildiz single .410 .but I have 16 and 18 grm no6 carts plas and fibre .and they seem to shoot very similar to each other .on paper the patterns are too open at 30 yds and just acceptable at 25 and ideal around 20 .with 10 yds being too tight to hit owt flying generally .

So decoying into around 20 yds is spot on .and a bird in the middle of the pellet cluster is brown bread ..

I've had .410s before this is my 3rd and its definatly a keeper as i seem to drop more with it then I ever did with the others .there could be many reasons for that . (Not least my own improved  ability ) but confidence is a powerful tool .

[Stonepark]

1 hour ago, Ultrastu said:

I don't know the choke on my .yildiz single .410 .but I have 16 and 18 grm no6 carts plas and fibre .and they seem to shoot very similar to each other .on paper the patterns are too open at 30 yds and just acceptable at 25 and ideal around 20 .with 10 yds being too tight to hit owt flying generally .

So decoying into around 20 yds is spot on .and a bird in the middle of the pellet cluster is brown bread ..

I've had .410s before this is my 3rd and its definatly a keeper as i seem to drop more with it then I ever did with the others .there could be many reasons for that . (Not least my own improved  ability ) but confidence is a powerful tool .

I have a khan/revo ou and find the best choke for it is 0.012 to 0.015 (briley light mod and briley mod). Any tighter blows the pattern with this gun ans i suspect a lot of guns suffer from similar over choking in 410.

 

For over the counter, eley magnum in 18g no7 (fibre) or fiocchi 18g no8 arw what i recommend to start with and both will give 30 to 35 yards range.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2017 by Stonepark

[Walker570]

quote......................but confidence is a powerful tool .............

This is something not realised or talked about. The shooter has to INTEND hitting the target and add INSTINCT to this and it makes a huge difference. That is why the gun should fit as well as possible. If it doesn't then firstly you don't FEEL comfortable or confident and secondly the gun is not part of you, so INSTINCT goes out of the window.

All of this although important with all shotgun or free hand shooting rifles and handguns, is in my view critical with 410s and 28 gauge. 

You can have the most expensive, decorated gun on earth but if the above is not there you will not do any better than with a crabby old Baikal that just fits you like a glove.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

W570, very good point!

[222mark]

8.5 thou of choke in a .410 wingmaster,  good for everything. Bore is only .405 though.

[Fredwalton]

On 18/11/2017 at 20:51, neutron619 said:

I'd say it was a lucky shot.

I know of no 11g/#6 cartridge that's ever put more than 87 in the circle at 20 or 30 yards. Most of the time, they're a lot worse.

I briefly field tested the Fiocchi GFL36 11g/#6 load and consistently failed to kill stationary birds on the ground at ranges under 20 yards. I don't have an image of a 20-yard pattern (average: 86) but here's the best from 30 yards, which has about half of the minimum number of pellets I'd want to kill pigeon. Just look at those gaps! You could get a cart horse through that pattern!

 

Also, here follows the Hull 11g/#6 load at 30 yards, which I've never fired at anything living, for reasons which I hope are equally obvious (but in case they aren't, the cartridge only has around 111 pellets in it to start with, which isn't going to get you 140 in the circle at any distance).

You may kill some birds with 11g of shot and a reasonable degree of luck, but if you're doing that then you have a 2½" chambered gun and because of that, better alternatives to choose from.

Do not use #6 in the .410 unless you absolutely have to! I know of one or possibly two cartridges that shoot it adequately to 30 yards, and they are 3", 18-19g loads and only barely suitable for pigeon at that range.

Edit: one last thing - remember that those images represent the best performance I've recorded. Both cartridges have RTOs, are extremely inconsistent and have both recorded pellet counts in the 40's at 30 yards for individual patterns. Avoid!

Edit II: don't use them for rats either. If the gaps in the pictures above are too big to kill pigeons reliably, you sure as hell ain't going to hit a fingernail-sized vital organ in a brown rat with any degree of consistency - unless you're scratching his **** with the gun barrel, that is.

Luck? There was no luck involved it was a cracking shot!!!!... I'm just kidding it was bloody lucky as it was a really quick snap shot and must have just hit the crow in the  right spot, but that said it did fold the it up a treat.

[neutron619]

1 hour ago, Fredwalton said:

Luck? There was no luck involved it was a cracking shot!!!!... I'm just kidding it was bloody lucky as it was a really quick snap shot and must have just hit the crow in the  right spot, but that said it did fold the it up a treat.

Sorry - I see how you could have taken offence and none was meant.

But yes, unfortunately, with such small loads, luck does play more of a part than I'd like, as I hope you can see from the pictures. It's not that you won't kill birds as you've found - you just might find more of them flap than most of us would be comfortable with.

Good luck with your .410, nonetheless.

[Stonepark]

The 87 at 30 yards is equivalent of half choke, but it has a core of 55.

Assuming this was the pattern at 25 yards you would have 97 would have a core of 64 and 20 yards 104 and 70.

Both these patterns spread similarly would be 26 inch and 21 inch.

You would therefore have the pattern density equivalent of 130 and 233 in a 30 inch circle  at 25 yards and 20 yards respectively.

Whilst even at 25 yards the cartridge is being pushed beyond its comfort zone (though notably some people will shoot 28g no5 at 40 yards with an identical pattern) , it should  perform at 20 yards.

Doesn't exclude poor consistency cartridges of course.

 

Edited November 20, 2017 by Stonepark

[neutron619]

7 hours ago, Stonepark said:

You would therefore have the pattern density equivalent of 130 and 233 in a 30 inch circle  at 25 yards and 20 yards respectively.

Doesn't exclude poor consistency cartridges of course.

Yes, but it also requires you to shoot with an effective pattern area of about 44% of usual size, so if one has trouble hitting birds with a 30" pattern, this could be an issue.

As for poor consistency - well - let me just say that being Italian and having a rolled turnover certainly doesn't help!

[wymberley]

5 hours ago, neutron619 said:

Yes, but it also requires you to shoot with an effective pattern area of about 44% of usual size, so if one has trouble hitting birds with a 30" pattern, this could be an issue.

As for poor consistency - well - let me just say that being Italian and having a rolled turnover certainly doesn't help!

Unless one is using some form of mini canon, it is not possible to consistently KILL PIGEON if you're relying on the full 30" circle. The simple answer to the question is to find the maximum range at which as near as damnit on average ALL of the available pellets are contained within a 20" circle in YOUR gun.

Edited November 21, 2017 by wymberley

[neutron619]

1 hour ago, wymberley said:

Unless one is using some form of mini canon, it is not possible to consistently KILL PIGEON if you're relying on the full 30" circle. The simple answer to the question is to find the maximum range at which as near as damnit on average ALL of the available pellets are contained within a 20" circle in YOUR gun.

Taking Stonepark's numbers above, I see no particular reason why, in - for example - a 12 gauge loaded with 32-36g of #6 - it would not be possible to have 233 (i.e. c. 65% of c. 340) pellets fall within the 30" circle and therefore to rely upon all of it, which makes your first assertion somewhat puzzling. #7 shot makes this possible with a 28g cartridge, give or take. Given that I consider 140-150 to be a reasonable, consistently-lethal pattern for pigeon, I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't rely on the full circle? In fact, one ought to be able to achieve sufficient pattern density at shorter ranges, with a more open choke and an effective pattern radius of well over 30", with skeet being the obvious sporting corollary.

I'm afraid I find your second assertion even more puzzling. In any of my full-choked guns, all of the pellets will fall within a 20" circle at somewhere between 12-15 yards, which seems a little on the short side, even for the expert decoyers amongst us. I'm usually so tired from being woken up by small people at ungodly hours that I'm lucky if I even see the bird before it's 30 yards away and I still shoot a few, so I assume you said what you didn't mean?

Edited November 21, 2017 by neutron619