effective and consistent are two different meanings. would I count on it for every shot at those distances? no. can it be done? yes.
but I wouldn't bank dinner on it.

 

I've hunted with a .410 since I was 7 or 8 and shoot one every week on a Sporting Clays range.

A lot of people call them 25 yard guns and in a hunting situation with rabbit and pheasant and larger animals that's fairly accurate. On quail maybe double that at the most.

Basically I shoot at targets that are within 45~50 yards because beyond that range I don't get consistent breakage.

Having said that, I did smoke a clay at 40 yards last week with it, so it happens.

I won't shoot at a quail beyond around 50 yards.

 

It also depends on the choke you are using. I know that almost all of the fixed choke 410s were made full choke, but todays 410s come with tubes. I have a Yildiz O/U with screw in chokes and hunt quail with it using IC and Mod chokes. Works fine out to about 30 -35 yards. As a kid I hunted with a Win Model 42 pump that is full choke and it would reliably reach out to about 50 yards.

 

Yildiz 410 O/U


I also use my Yildiz O/U .410 GA for quail...and I practice at 25-50 yards for clays...the effectiveness range is impacted by the difference between 2 1/2 and 3" shells.
I find that IC and MOD tubes work great...and I get great quail hunting drop effectiveness at 50 yards when I use 3 Inch loads (7.5oz)
Plus the light weight of this shotgun is a huge benefit when I get toward the end of the hunt...where as my 20GA O/U is about 1.5 pounds heavier and a lot heavier to carry over a 4-5 hour field hunt.
Now for Dove season...the 410 is my go to weapon...and very effective even with 2 1/2 inch loads. Not bragging, but I had a double-double with it last Dove season...so a .410 works well for my purposes.

 

My only .410 is a Model 500 Mossberg with a fixed full choke. So far, the only thing I have used it for is squirrels. It will reliably harvest them at 40 yards with #6 shot......robin`

 

I have just done some basic penetration tests along with comparing an expensive cartridge, the Italian made RC with another Italian made shell the Fiocchi. I found that the RC was blowing the pattern where the Fiocchi had a very tight concentration, maybe 50% of the shot load in a 20 inch circle at the centre of a 30 inch circle, which is where I want it. This is at 35yrds with full choke. I had mounted a sheet of heavily compressed, hard 1/8th inch thick cardboard on a 3/8th inch ply backboard, over this I loosely pinned five layers of soft wrapping paper to try and give an effect of feathers. I was shooting size 6 Italian size which is close to 5s English. Both cartridges penetrated well penetrating the hard cardboard with some actually piercing the plywood to a depth about 1 1/2 times the diameter of the shot. I would think these pellets would have gone through the breast meat of a pheasant into the vitals. The pattern from the Fiocchi was sufficient to put four pellets into a bird no problem. I butchered maybe 50 pheasants last season shot with all calibres and rarely saw more than three hits.
At sensible ranges ... and 35yrds is a high bird .... I think we denigrate the little 410, because this goes someway to proving that the 3 inch products available today can hold there own with 20 bores and 12 bores if the shooter does their bit and puts that shot load in the right place.
20 gauge to follow.... ran out of paper.

 

I did a highly non scientific but interesting test a few years back shooting Sporting Clays with a .410.

I'd shoot the birds on a station with a 2-½" shell, then a 3". For the next station I'd reverse it and so on, all the way to Station 12.

I did it for a couple of months, once a week. The object was to see if the 3" gave me better breaks or more hits.

I found no visible difference in hits or breaks with the 2 shells and have shot nothing but 2-½" shells at Sporting Clays ever since.

Since I reload .410, I got a glimpse of what I think is the reason for there being little to no difference. If you reload a 2-½" shell, after you put the wad in and drop the shot you see that the shot is very close to the top of the wad. If you reload 3" shells, you use the same wad, but 1/4 oz. more shot (or 3/16). What happens is the additional shot is above the wad and has no protection from friction from the barrel. I believe that a lot of the shot above the wad gets honed down to where it's about like a frisbee and kind of peels off into never never land when it leaves the barrel. Obviously not all of the shot does as some is still protected but a lot has this happen.

 

I am intrigued by the .410 penetration testing posted by acctoml

Where you using 2 1/2 or 3 inch shells for your test?

I am more comfortable using a high brass 20GA when I get to shoot at Pheasants...which is a pretty rare hunt in Texas, unless you are at a private game preserve. I am not sure I would trust the smaller amount of shot from my .410?

 

Pattern Testing .410

My outdoor range only allows shotgun board pattern testing at 25 yards...so my results were limited to that distance.
The 3 inch shells (7.5) were consistently giving me a far more dense pattern than the 2 1/2 load (7.5) from either I/C & Modified choke tubes from my O/U

However, with a heavier shot (6) there was less of a difference in densities at that distance.

 

I knew a guy that was a big time pheasant hunter who used a pump .410 exclusively.

He hunted over pointers and shot at preserves only. He handloaded and used 3" shells with #5 shot.

He said when a bird flushed, he said out loud "my what a pretty bird" before he shot to give the bird time enough to get far enough away that he wouldn't pretty much destroy it.

My experience with pheasants was all with 20 Gauge shells, 2-3/4". I used an ounce of 5s for the first shot and 1-1/8 oz. of 5s for the second shot.

Worked fine and I took a lot of pheasant over the years I hunted.

 

I absolutely love the delay firing tip!



Awesome tip - I am going to try this phrase on my next upland pheasant hunt!