View Single Post
Old November 19, 2012, 12:49 PM   #5
BigJimP
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 23, 2005
Posts: 13,195
I reload ....so I can shoot whatever I want in a .410 ....

....but 1/2oz of 8's is my primary shell for the .410 in sporting clays..../ for Skeet - I load 1/2 oz of 9's....and in both cases, I buy the hardest shot I can find....vs stuff I'll load in 12ga, 20ga or 28ga ....where I don't really care if its a premium shot or not.

A note.....If I was shooting a course set up for 12ga or 20ga shotguns.../ I might carry 3 or 4 boxes of 7 1/2's ( in 1/2oz of course ) ....to reach out a little more....everything I load in .410 ( is 2 1/2" shells ) and at a velocity of 1200 fps....( but typically on a 100 target clays course....I'll carry 150 shells....( even in 12ga ) ...where I carry some loads with 9's, some 8's and some 7 1/2's because you never know what the target setter had in mind for you today ...or who he was mad at that morning....

Balistically: 1/2 oz of 8's still gives me about 205 pellets in the pattern / and when I load 1/2oz of 7 1/2's I still have about 173 pellets...so if I were to shoot an IC choke in a 12ga ...I might go to a Mod choke in a .410 ....to tighten the pattern up a little ...and let me reach out there a little.....but one # 7 1/2 pellet out of a 12ga or a .410 at 1200 fps ...will hit that target just as hard...( but in general it will take 4 or 5 #9's to break a clay, 3 or 4 #8's to break a clay ...and only 2 or 3 # 7 1/2's to break a clay...) ...and the larger the pellet - the longer the effective range is - because larger pellets carry their energy further downrange.

But in clays ...its not just the range....its what aspect of the clay you see when it gets to your break point...( the underside is easier to break ), if the target rolls over and you can see the top its pretty easy to break ....but if all you see is "edge on" of the target...its hard to break....so they harder the aspect of the target is ...the bigger the pellet you need / or the more choke you need.....

but in the right hands.....410's are capable of amazing scores on a sporting clays course ( not in my hands ) ... ....but in capable hands....

Last edited by BigJimP; November 19, 2012 at 01:39 PM.
BigJimP is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.02322 seconds with 8 queries