Henry Lever-Action 410 - Followed me home

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whatnickname

whatnickname

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I’ve always regretted not buying the Winchester 9410 when they came out. Today these things, if you can find one, are crazy expensive. I’ve watched the lever action Henry since they came out. Overall the reports have been favorable. The model I really wanted, 20” barrel with screw-in choke tubes, doesn’t exist. The model Henry makes with screw-in choke tubes comes with a 24” barrel and a bead front sight, like the old Marlin. The 20” gun is cylinder choke but appears much more popular. I suspect this popularity is due to those individuals that are using these for home defense with buck shot or any number of other defensive loads. While I think a shotgun is an excellent tool for defending life and limb, my preference runs along the line of tactical 12 gauge guns with extended magazine tubes and non-buffered 00 buckshot.

So, I did quite a bit of reading on the 410...actually a 67 gauge. Those folks with more experience than I have opined that the 410 is basically a 25 yard gun, 21 yards for the skeet shooting crowd, and that more open chokes, cylinder, skeet and improved cylinder, were more useful at the optimal range for the 410. I found that interesting, as the vast majority of 410 guns are full choke. To tell the truth, I never gave the matter that much thought, so I headed to the gun club with my H&R Charmer (full choke snake gun) and my Henry 410 20” to put those theories to the test using 2.5” Winchester AA shells with 1/2 oz. of #7.5 just to keep my comparison “apples to apples” on the steel patterning board. I found the results pretty revealing:

* At 40 yards the patterns get pretty spotty. There just isn’t enough shot, regardless of choke, to make hits much more than “iffy” at that distance.

* Moved up to 25 yards. While the full choke pattern was a bit tighter, the cylinder bore of the Henry delivered a nice pattern that was approximately 3” wider. In all honesty, anything I fired at with either gun would have sustained a lethal hit.

* Moved up to 20 yards with the Henry and fired another pattern. At 20 yards the Henry delivered a pattern identical to the H&R at 25 yards.

Before I went to the range, I was considering having screw-in chokes installed in the Henry. Don’t think so now. For what I intend to use the Henry for, small game and pests, the current configuration will do just fine. And the Henry itself? Well made with a buttery smooth action. Kind of sad in a way, but Henry makes a better Marlin than Marlin makes. Anyone out there ever had any experience with one of Henry’s single shot shotguns?
 
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Congrats on the Henry .410.
My dad has one also. It's a beautiful gun.
We have some experience with the little .410. Several guns chambered in. 410. It is my humble opinion based solely on experience that chokes in a .410 make very little difference in patterns. I patterned and bored out my .410 quail gun to .405, and again to .408 no detected difference in patterns. I think the slender design of the shell lends itself to tighter patterns.
In my opinion, I would not spend money on tubes for a .410.
 
I have one of the early Winchester 9410 with a 24 inch barrel and cylinder bore (with wad stripper etch ring near the muzzle). I have hunted everything from dove to deer with the Winchester 9410. The most fun shotgun I own.
 
My experience seems to verify the original post information. Once in a while we play with the.410 on the trap field. If you are one of those shooters who are quick on the bird out of the trap house and shoot, then you can do pretty decent with the .410. If you are a person who shoots later in the flight then the .410 gets a lot harder real quick. It's still fun to try different guns. My recent fascination with the 28ga on the trap field has provided hours of fun so far. I tend to be a pretty quick shooter out of the launch and do pretty well with the 28ga. However the .410 can be more humbling for sure. Thanks for posting.
 
I really wish they would step these up to really any other gauge, even a 28 I would bite. In my experience I'm just not convinced that a 410 is useful in my hands. I'm sure better shots can make it work but it just has let too much game get away from me for me to have confidence in it. I've messaged Henry on this and their response is basically the only reason the went 410 vs anything else is these are simply their 45-70 receivers with a smooth bore attached and a few other tweaks to make things run smooth.
 
OP, thanks for the good review.

The biggest gripe I have about any lever action 410 is that they will only shoot 2 1/2" shells, same with the 410 AR uppers. I have hunted with a 410 since I was a little kid and have always used 3" shells. I reload all of my hunting and self defense shells. I'll take 5 pellets of buckshot out of a 3" shell over 3 pellets out of a 2 1/2" shell.
 
I use to think that the 2.5 inch chamber was a big disadvantage but found that 1/2 oz of #7.5 shot at 1300 fps always killed the rabbits and squirrel nice and dead for me.

I have some 410 buckshot with three 40 cal pellets in 2.5 inch hulls. But after getting Brenneke slugs I am not sure I see much point to buckshot from a 410. The Brenneke slugs were doing 2000 fps with a 114 gr hard cast slug (~1000ft-lbs) from my 24 inch 9410 and had far better terminal performance than buck shot pellets in my experience.
 
Here is 6 shots of 2 1/2" 000 buckshot at 7 yards from my Mossberg Shockwave as fast as I could rack the slide and get the red dot sight back on target. Yes the 2 1/2" shells will work but I feel more confident with having 5 pellets per shot in the 3 " shells. I was using Sellier and Bellot 2 1/2" 000 buckshot loads that are around 1400 FPS. I have used 410 slugs years ago for raccoon hunting and they worked great for that. For home defense, I'll stick with buckshot.

000BS 7yd.jpg
 
Armored farmer said:
Congrats on the Henry .410.
My dad has one also. It's a beautiful gun.
We have some experience with the little .410. Several guns chambered in. 410. It is my humble opinion based solely on experience that chokes in a .410 make very little difference in patterns. I patterned and bored out my .410 quail gun to .405, and again to .408 no detected difference in patterns. I think the slender design of the shell lends itself to tighter patterns.
In my opinion, I would not spend money on tubes for a .410.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Never gave it much thought until I read your post, but the width and height of the shot column has to be the reason for the relatively small difference chokes make in overall patterns. I’ve read quite a bit on the 28 gauge being the best balanced of all the popular shotgun gauges, and again, those discussions seem to center on the height of the shot column relative to the shot charge. At least that’s what some of those discussions suggest. Pretty interesting.
 
12Bravo20 said:
OP, thanks for the good review.

The biggest gripe I have about any lever action 410 is that they will only shoot 2 1/2" shells, same with the 410 AR uppers. I have hunted with a 410 since I was a little kid and have always used 3" shells. I reload all of my hunting and self defense shells. I'll take 5 pellets of buckshot out of a 3" shell over 3 pellets out of a 2 1/2" shell.
Click to expand...

You’re welcome. I wouldn’t sell the 2&1/2” 410 shell short. Inside of 25 yards it kills the begeebers out of small game with 7.5 shot as mcb has stated.
 
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whatnickname said:
Thank you. Never gave it much thought until I read your post, but the width and height of the shot column has to be the reason for the relatively small difference chokes make in overall patterns. I’ve read quite a bit on the 28 gauge being the best balanced of all the popular shotgun gauges, and again, those discussions seem to center on the height of the shot column relative to the shot charge. At least that’s what some of those discussions suggest. Pretty interesting.
Click to expand...
Perhaps the same reason that waterfowlers prefer 3.5" 12ga over 10ga.
 
Armored farmer said:
Perhaps the same reason that waterfowlers prefer 3.5" 12ga over 10ga.
Click to expand...

Could be. Although both 10 & 3.5” 12 ga. shells can deliver devastating results on ducks. I also think that part of it has to do with the cost of manufacturing. 10 ga. shells have always been something of a specialty item and not as popular as the 12 ga. The industry had long since been tooled up to produce 12 ga. guns. Stretching dimensions out an additional 1/2” I’m sure was far easier than tooling up to produce 10 ga. guns in quantity. Once the firearms industry figured out how to build semi-auto shotguns that would shoot everything from a 1 oz. field load to a 3.5” magnum the rest became history along with the 10 ga. I have a friend that owns a 10 ga. Ithaca semi-auto. Remember those? Heavier than a boat anchor and almost as punishing on the back end as the front end. Used to hunt turkey with it...until he had his back against an oak tree one afternoon when he drew a bead on a gobbler. What a mistake! For the longest time after that he didn’t think he would be able to have children:(. Just my .02 cents...
 
So I may have to eat crow on what I said earlier. I shot some clays with my wife and we raced to the clay. She was shooting her 20ga BPS and I was shooting the NEF single shot 410 to try and make things more fair. Just messing around I was hitting about 2/3 of my shots which is a least a decent starting point. Maybe I just need to chill more when I shoot 410.
 
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somethingbenign said:
So I may have to eat crow on what I said earlier. I shot some clays with my wife and we raced to the clay. She was shooting her 20ga BPS and I was shooting the NEF single shot 410 to try and make things more fair. Just messing around I was hitting about 2/3 of my shots which is a least a decent starting point. Maybe I just need to chill more when I shoot 410.
Click to expand...

The 410 can be a humbling experience on a clay, skeet or a trap range. I still feel like they serve a useful niche. I enjoy the ones I have.
 
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I am always on the look for the 9410. I need it to go with my 9422. If one doesn't appear soon I may go with the Henry 410 lever gun before I get too old to enjoy it.

IMG_3752.JPG
 
I use to use slugs out of an old Montgomery Ward Western Field single shot 410 all the time to knock raccoons out of trees. I might eventually get a lever action 410 to go with all the other 410s in the safe. My old Mossberg bolt action 410 does well with slugs too.
 
Anyone looked at the Marlin lever .410 lately? Do they look of decent quality? Last .357 lever Marlin I saw wasn't very pretty. The wood looked a like a dry side of a barn and the checkering was half sanded away. I liked the action, but it just wasn't the same quality I had witnessed in the past. I have not seen a Marlin .410 lately to compare.
 
Milkmaster said:
Anyone looked at the Marlin lever .410 lately? Do they look of decent quality? Last .357 lever Marlin I saw wasn't very pretty. The wood looked a like a dry side of a barn and the checkering was half sanded away. I liked the action, but it just wasn't the same quality I had witnessed in the past. I have not seen a Marlin .410 lately to compare.
Click to expand...

Others more knowledgeable about Marlins than I am may have more accurate information than I do. So here goes. Marlin hasn’t made that lever action 410 in more than 50 years...probably way more than 50 years. I’ve only seen one in person and it was well made. Today if you can find one in any kind of decent condition it will set you back the better part of $2000. The whole Marlin story has been a sad one. The company was gasping for air when Remington acquired them. IMO Remington has done a good job of turning them around. I have a 336 ““Rem-Lin” that is well made and reasonably accurate. I wouldn’t purchase a used Marlin unless I could personally inspect first. Many of the older ones have seen some hard use and those made prior to Remington’s acquisition were of poor quality. Even some of the ones made from existing parts after Remington acquired them were real garbage.


Lever action 410s have lived short manufacturing lives. IMO this is probably due to what one other poster on this thread has stated regarding his preference for 3” shells as opposed to the 2.5” shells lever action guns handle. I truly hope the Henry lever action 410 lives a long and successful life. But if it doesn’t, mine will skyrocket in value. The one I would dearly love to get my hands on was the take-down Savage 99 with a 410 barrel and a rifle barrel...I think the rifle barrel was 30-30. That’s right...Savage!!! The whole package came in a fitted case. One of these days I’m gonna go to an estate sale and find one of those for a song...at least that’s my dream anyway!

Correction: Just went on GB and saw a Marlin 1895 NIB 410... looks like they’re making them again,
 
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While I was reading the original post, I was thinking about slugs then mcb and 12Bravo20 beat me to it.
I`ve put a few slugs through a .410 and was fairly impressed. Your range could well be extended to 50-60 yards.
 
I have found that slugs and even the 2 1/2" 000 buckshot loads will work well for close in HD/SD. I just prefer having the extra two pellets from the 3" shells. You can see in my post about my Shockwave how the 2 1/2" 000 buckshot shells do at 7 yards rapid fire.

Here is photo of my reloaded 3" 000 buckshot shells at 10 yards out of the 14" Shockwave. Again shot as fast as I could rack the slide and get the red dot back on target. As you can see, the 2 1/2" and 3" 000 buckshot shells work well for HD uses.

IMG_2721.jpg
 
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