[Balrog]

What would one shoot or hunt with a 410 slug?

[halfacop]

Deer.....

I know a guy that has shot a ton of good bucks with a 410 slug out to 100 yrds....

[MCgunner]

Awfully weak round for deer. There are far better. I guess if you have a shoulder injury and you're in a shotgun only state.....

[Guvnor]

From what I understand the main problem with the 410 slug is that most 410's have full chokes and therefore accuracy is usually lousy except at very close range.

I have a full choked 410 and it shoots slugs with acceptable accuracy out to 20 yards or so. Wouldn't want to attempt a shot farther than that. Maybe coyote, fox or even deer out to 20 yards would be doable but I have never attempted.

The best performing slug ive tried is the 3 inch Brenneke. It was the most accurate in my gun and from what I understand has better power and penetration than the 2.5 inch slugs from the other manufacturers.

[Erik M]

I had 10 rounds set aside for home defense when I was younger. Single shot H&R was all I had. I'd be afraid that hunting deer would be inhumane because of the lack of mass and velocity that the round would carry.

[Nicodemus38]

banging head on wall....

the .410 simply requires the user to actually take aim, and put the slug through a vital part of the animals anatomy. ie, put it through the lung or the heart and well, it works as well as any hardcast slug from a pistol.

since most people beleive the hype created by gunwriters and advertisers, they feel that you need a belted magnum to take a 100 yard shot on a 180 pound deer. Hence, the .410 is considered bad because it doesnt have the energy of say a 300 win mag or a weatherby magnum.

[WVMountainBoy]

I have taken two does with a .410 'punkin ball (slug) the furtherest was 40 yards. From a NEF single shot to be exact. Neither made it five steps before going down. Both were lung shots that did the deed. I don't think it is at all too weak for the work. I'd agree with Nicodemus38 on this one. I think there are far too many people hunting little white tail with 300 ultra mags and not enough hunting them with .410's

[Deltaboy]

I have used 410 slugs to take feral dogs on the farm and as others have posted I knew an older man who had a slug barrel for an old 410 pump that he filled his deer tag with every year.

[TheFederalistWeasel]

Pewing the ole .410 for Deer is akin to pewing the ole .22 as a defense handgun. If its all ya got.

How many folks have been put in the grave by a Saturday Night Special?

Lots of deer have been and continue to be taken each year with a trusty .410

I shot a doe years back with one, she fell within 25 yards of the spot I shot her at.

As one posters said, shot placement.

[snowtigger]

My first Caribou fell to a .410 slug in 1959. My dad was there to back me up with his .308 win. He was not needed. I learned to shoot on that gun.
First moose fell to it two years later.
Never got to kill a bear with it, it got stolen from my truck in 1970.
Winchester Model 37. Good kids gun.

[suemarkp]

I have taken two does with a .410 'punkin ball (slug) the furtherest was 40 yards.

Can you define what a "punkin ball" load is for a 410 shell? Usually, this is a near caliber size ball. In the 410, that could be a 40 caliber ball, or a 375 ball in a wad, or perhaps two or three 375 balls in a wad. 000 Buck in the 410 is pretty much a punkin ball load to me.

What was it?

[Acera]

Another reason you can get a lot more energy and velocity from a .410 slug than a .45 LC when you shoot it from those revolvers and derringers designed to shoot both.

[plumberroy]

What would one shoot or hunt with a 410 slug?
Many years ago I killed a feral pony the was tearing up the garden .
with a 410 H&R . dad was travelling for work the garden supplied most of our food. I was 14, oldest kid figured it was my job to do something . Shot from about 50 foot he went down about 50 yards dead as dood knob.
Roy

[orvpark]

All the kids in my family did their first deer hunt with a single shot .410 with a slug. Nearly all of us got at least one kill with that old gun. My dad and uncles did the same with the same gun.

[SeekHer]

Well, in England it is/was used for dispatching fox, badger and the like...

It doesn't have to be a belted magnum for a deer at 100 yds--how many have fallen to the old .25 WCF and .30 WCF rounds but it has to have sufficient energy to drop the animal there and then and with a sufficient trajectory that you're not guessing with 10 feet over the shoulder...

The .410 is not and never will be a deer/caribou/moose/bear gun unless it is the only thing you have and you're within feet not yards of the animal because it has a rainbow's trajectory and piss poor velocity...

It isn't the ideal gun to train kids on...the shot string is long, amount of shot is small but recoil is light...I've trained my second batch of daughters on the 28 bore instead...same shot string, three times the pellets and a very light increase in recoil and as a bonus the shells are cheaper to buy...By having more pellets, it means a greater chance of hitting the target, which means more confidence and produces a better shooter, quicker...

There is a reason the call the .410 AN EXPERT'S GUN...

Longest continuous string in competition
American Skeet Assoc. Records
Bore...Men....Woman
12….... 2462….... 1183
20….... 2173…..... 801
28….... 1718…..... 443
410….... 777…..... 265
Dbls…... 710…..... 259

[Deltaboy]

The 410 is as much ran down shotgun as the 22 LR is in a 22 pistol.

Seekher I must be an expert with a shotgun then.

[Guvnor]

The brenneke slug does 1755 fps and 781 ft. lbs at the muzzle. Thats about the energy level of a .357 mag which alot of people have used for deer.

The 410 slug's ballistic coefficient sucks though, so you already lost more than half your energy at 50 yards. But out to 25 yards its still cooking pretty good. I would feel comfortable hunting deer at close range with my 410 H&R if it were legal in my state.

The 410 unfairly gets a bad rap but its certainly not useless.

[JR47]

There are an awful lot of areas in the country where deer run considerably lighter than 180 lbs.. Ranges are much closer than 100 yards, as well. I hunted Sitka deer on the Eastern Shore of Maryland years ago, in a ranch style fenced area. They pushed 40#, and a .410 was just fine.

A lot of this country's deer are shot at less than 50 yards, in brush. The .410 will work there, and has, obviously, for over a century. That's also the territory that makes the .30-30 a fine choice, as well. The environment will dictate the caliber, as well as the discipline of the hunter. If one is willing to actually hunt the animal, and place shots carefully, it's amazing what will work.

[viking499]

My niece and nephew got their first deer with a 410 slug.