.410 hunting load .40 cal round ball

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jimkim posted this 11 July 2008

I am planning on forming some .410  cases from .303 brass. I want to load them with  93gr .395 dia  balls. Have any of you ever done this? Can I safely load three 40 cal balls in this shell? Do I have to limit it to two?

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Ed Harris posted this 01 August 2008

jimkim wrote: I am planning on forming some .410  cases from .303 brass. I want to load them with  93gr .395 dia  balls. Have any of you ever done this? Can I safely load three 40 cal balls in this shell? Do I have to limit it to two?

I did this for a while, but am not sure it's worth the trouble because you can buy factory 5-pellet 00 buck loads which work pretty well considering the few rounds you really use.  

A caution is that multiple lead balls may upset during initial acceleration to fit the larger bore diameter closer to the breech end just ahead of the forcing cone, and then may have trouble making it through a tight choke!

I speak from experience. I blew the last 6 inches of the muzzle off my old single-barrel H&R doing EXACTLY that with three .40 cal. balls stacked on top of a Walters .43 Spanish .060 card and Ox Yoke Originals lubricated .45 cap & ball felt wad and 16 grs. of #2400.  The end of the muzzle opened up just like the spreading hood of a cobra!  Makes a nice ornament for my string tie which attracts attention at gun shows.

I cut the end of the burst muzzle off with a tubing cutter at 18-1/2", chamfered the edges, and installed a new bead sight. It  makes a handy cylinder-bore snake gun now which throws skeet patterns and shoots .44-40 lead roundball loads into “minute of a bucket” at 25 yards. 

This is the same .410 which later became my .32 ACP / .32 S&W Long / .32 HRM “Bunny Gun” after John Taylor made me two new barrels.  I seldom use the original .410 anymore, but still have it, just in case I should ever see a need.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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jimkim posted this 30 August 2008

I don't have any 44-40 brass. How do you think one .445 cal round-ball and 2.0gr Unique in a 44 mag case would do? I use it in a Win 94 to protect the “ranch” from outlaw gangs of empty soup cans.

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CB posted this 30 August 2008

Jim

I've been trying round ball in the 45-70. Unique has not worked well. I've quit shooting it for now, but when I get back I'm going to try Bullseye, probably in the 2-4gr range.

I bought 410 brass from GRAF supply. Not necessarily cheap, but a box of 25 ought to last me a long, long time.  :fire  ..........Dan

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gunarea posted this 31 August 2008

Hey Jim

    What I have juked up is a 125 gr 9mm cast RN slug. The bullet goes inside the 410 wad down to where the splits begin. Cut the shell off to eliminate all the crimp portion. In my MEC grabber press I removed the shot and inserted the wad/bullet manually and seated them. If needed I can go weigh the powder charge or give you the bushing number used with 2400 powder. Even with a full choke barrel there is no bullet swaging and is accurate out to 75 yds or so. This was developed for a small young boy who was determined to go hunting with his Dad. This little fellow hasn't had the opportunity to shoot at a deer with the load but has gotten two turkeys so far. His firearm is a H&R topper, cut down to fit him. Bulleteering is fun.

                                                                                           Roy  

Shoot often, Shoot well

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jimkim posted this 01 September 2008

Thanks Gunarea I might have to give that a try.

Dan I already load the 44mag case with a roundball. I use it in a model 94 and a model 29. I was wondering how it would work in a 410. I might give W-231 a try next. It might do better. I plan on fireforming 303 brass. I don't have much but like you said it ought to last a while. I don't know anybody that would want to buy less than twenty 303 cases.

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Ed Harris posted this 05 September 2008

jimkim wrote: I don't have any 44-40 brass. How do you think one .445 cal round-ball and 2.0gr Unique in a 44 mag case would do? I use it in a Win 94 to protect the “ranch” from outlaw gangs of empty soup cans. .44 Mag rims are a bit thicker.  If your gun will close on them they will work OK, but cases will bulge out and may split.  A 2 gr. charge is a bit light. In the .44 Mag. I use 5 grs. of a fast burning powder similar to Bullseye with a rounaball.  5 grs. of Unique should work OK too.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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jimkim posted this 05 September 2008

 I might fire-form those 303 cases and load them with the 5gr Unique loads, some wadding and one single 44 cal round ball. I'll also start loading 5gr in my 44 mag loads. Thanks Ed.

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snuffy posted this 07 September 2008

I just started messing around with the ballistic products small game slug load in my rossi .410 single shot. http://www.ballisticproducts.com/prodinfo.asp?number=0721641

The loads are in their slug loading manual,(which is not available right now, being updated). I got a copy of the page in the load manual from BP by e-mailing them.

Today, I tried a few in their  multi hull 3” red plastic new shells. I used 2400 and some surplus wc-820. I also substituted for their .375 round ball with some home cast from a lee .395 round ball mold. I did try 5 of their .375 balls, they were all over an outers sight in target. The .395 balls grouped reasonably well at 25 yds, considering a simple bead front and no rear sight. Velocity is supposed to be 1320 fps. They have one load using longshot powder that puts that .375 ball out at 2335!

These are NOT multiple ball loads. My experience with multiple ball loads in several weapons has been dismal. I tried it in .357, found that the balls flattened and slug up to make a kind of wadcutter bullet. I couldn't even keep them on a standard target at 50 ft. indoors.

I also have some of the mag tech all brass .410 hulls. I'm going to try some of these round ball loads in them. Stay tuned!

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jimkim posted this 18 September 2008

Ed and Roy, I shared your posts with a fellow on another site. He got a kick out of the “minute of bucket". He said if it is a five gallon bucket he can relate.  Roy he says he wants to give yours a try.  He asked about the velocity. Did you chronograph the load? Thanks. Jim

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Ed Harris posted this 19 September 2008

Yeah, lid of a 5 gal. bucket is about right. Sut sometimes you get lucky for a few shots and think that you do better.  But it's really just an illusion...

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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gunarea posted this 19 September 2008

Hey Jim

    We tried to chrono the load and did get a few readings right around 1750 fps. The wad might have been spreading though, cause we had mostly error readings. My chrono is a Pact, a buddy brought a Chrony out weeks later and got a better string showing 1670 to 1720. The Chrony also had many errors along with a 490 reading which threw all the averages off. We are way too lazy to write the good readings down and then try to extrapolate any of the averages.  I promise to go write the MEC powder bushing number down.

                                                                         Roy

Shoot often, Shoot well

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snuffy posted this 23 September 2008

I  did some more work with the BP light game slug on Sunday. A surprise along the way!

The second pic is some of the multi hulls that were once fired, then primed with a WW 209 primer. The group size, location did not change, but the velocity sure did! Average 1877 FPS. Same powder charge, just a primer change.

None of this answers the OP's question, since this is a single ball load. And it is in plastic cases, not a re-formed 303 case. As I said, I do have some of the mag tech brass cases, I will try to load some of them in those. The wad colume is so long that I doubt there will be enough room, but I'll check it out.

This is in my Rossi single shot with a simple bead for sights. I have no doubt that actual front/rear sights would improve on the groups size. These were the lee .395 round balls, instead of the as supplied BP .375 balls.

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jimkim posted this 23 September 2008

Thanks for posting that. Apparently the 395's work good.

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Ed Harris posted this 23 September 2008

Those are good results for 25 yards and a bead sight.  That's about what I got with mine.  But I might try increasing the load after looking at your results. 

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Ed Harris posted this 28 May 2015

I chronographed some Pakistani surplus .410 Mk.1 Ball cartridges out of the cylinder bore H&R .410 shotgun. Only four of ten rounds went off, and two of those hang-fired, but the velocities of those which went off was about 1600 fps.

A .395 ball weighs about 90-92 grains depending upon the alloy.  I cast mine out of 1:30 tin/lead alloy from Roto Metals that I use in my .44-40s.  The Pakistani rounds had 13 grains of a coarse flake powder, card wad, the case wadded with oakum and a .390 hard lead 87-grain ball crimped in the end.

I approximated the velocity of this load fairly closely using 18 grs. of #2400 in Magtech brass .410 cases, using a Walters .45 card over the powder, two Buffalo Arms wool felt wads, the top one being lightly lubricated with 30 weight motor oil and the excess squeezed out, then filling the case up to the mouth with granulated polystyrene grex filler to the case mouth, and crimping the ball in using a Lee .38-56 seater die cut off 1” by Erik at http://www.hollowpointmold.com.>http://www.hollowpointmold.com.

The finished cartridge looks as good as the ones out of the Kirkee Arsenal in Poona... A .395 ball will go through most chokes, but you should slug yours before trying this.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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