Thread: .410 buckshot?
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Old February 19, 2000, 08:58 PM   #7
Daniel Watters
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Join Date: February 7, 1999
Location: USA
Posts: 644
The three-pellet 000 Buck .410 shell is manufactured by Winchester for American Deringer. Sellier & Bellot has trumped this by introducing four-pellet 000 Buck and five-pellet 00 Buck loadings. These are all based on the 3-inch .410 hull.

Experimenters have even surpassed the pellet count of the S&B loads by one apiece. In the Handloader's Digest, 11th Ed., C. Rodney James wrote up his experiments with six-pellet 00 Buck .410s. Furthermore, in _Cartridges of the World, 6th Ed._, Frank C. Barnes mentions playing with five-pellet 000 Buck loads. These were launched with either 16 grains of 4227 or 14.6 grs of 2400 to achieve a muzzle velocity of 1,100 fps. He was getting patterns of ~6 inches at 25 yards.

Playing with ball diameters other than standard buckshot, I have calculated that a 3-inch .410 hull could hold either five 93gr .395" balls or four 104gr .410" balls. (The former is calculated from the length of a six-pellet 00 stack, and the latter from the length of a five-pellet 00 stack.) The .395" ball is available for muzzleloading rifles from sources such as Hornady, while NEI offers a .410" ball mold. Given the straight stack of the pellets, a rifled choke might actually enhance the patterning...shades of the Paradox shotguns!

The .410 would appear to be an ideal size for a high(er) capacity box magazine than the 12 gauge. The 10 round magazines for the Russian Saiga 410 appear to be equal in length and definitely thinner than the 5 round magazine for the 12 gauge Saiga 12. Given the similar size envelope of the 3-inch .410, 7.62x54mmR Russian, and the .303 British, a double-stacked .410 magazine might even be feasible (although the straight walled hull would probably proscribe double-position feed lips).

The Russians seem to be sold on the general concept, producing a version of the Saiga 410 equipped with military AK-style furniture: folding stock, pistol grip, et al. (All the nasty bits that prevent importation short of a bayonet lug.)

Back around the mid-1980s, Franchi experimented with a select fire bullpup .410 that vaguely resembled the FN P90 (with the exception of magazine placement and sights). It used a 15rd box magazine and fired 200rpm on full-auto.




[This message has been edited by Daniel Watters (edited February 19, 2000).]
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