Most revolver shooters are familiar with Bianchi Speed Strips and the similar Tuff Products Quick Strip for carrying spare ammunition. Well, the .44/.45 size Quick Strips also work for .410 shells:
While this takes up more room than the 5-round box, it's easier to handle as a unit especially if you're wearing gloves.
A few weeks ago I got to shoot an old H&R folding .410 shotgun that belongs to a friend, and instantly got a bad case of the wants. I offered to buy it from him but he's not selling, and I can't blame him. He owns some property and it would be a perfect piece for taking care of varmints in his garden or to tote while he's walking his land.
So, I got to looking for a .410 break barrel on Gunbroker. I lost an auction for a nearly mint condition Stevens 94 but found a gently used Rossi SS4112811. I picked it up from my FFL a couple days ago and it's in even better shape than described in the listing. It's basically new old stock. The only thing that was missing was the OEM cable lock, which is no loss IMHO. This model is no longer listed on Rossi's website.
The barrel is 28" long with a modified choke, which is preferable for my needs to the full choke most .410s have. I think, anyway. I need to pattern it.
The gun weighs about 3.8 lbs. It feels like a toy but it means that you can carry it all day.
Rossi's method of takedown is good. The forearm is held on by the same screw which the front sling swivel is attached to. It's captured so it can't be lost.
Like the H&R single shots made in the past several decades the Rossi has a transfer bar, allowing it to be safely carried loaded with the hammer down. It also has a manual hammer blocking safety mounted on the left side of the receiver. At first my reaction was to regard this as superflous but it will allow me to hunt with the gun cocked, much as one would with a hammerless double or a pump gun. I'm left handed so the safety is easy to push off with my trigger finger. A righty could use his thumb, but for once this is a gun feature that's actually more southpaw-friendly.
The plastic furniture is hollow, which got me thinking about using it to store emergency supplies. There's plenty of room in the stock to hold a bore snake or maybe a collapsible cleaning rod, and a bottle of oil, or a ziplock bag with some shells. The forearm is hollow with reinforcing ribs. If I cut one out it could hold shells. I may just stash some fire starting gear in it.
Since the 2020 pandemic, .410 ammo has been scarce on gun shop shelves, and most of that seems to oriented for defensive use in Taurus Judge or S&W Governor revolvers. My FFL only had shells loaded with No.9 shot. However, I've been able to find a variety of .410 ammo online in both 2.5" and 3" length, and have acquired several boxes to experiment with, ranging from No.9s to No.4s to buck and slugs.
UPS should be bringing a stock cuff for ammo and a repro M1 Carbine sling today.
I'm also planning to fireform some .303 British empties into all-brass shells, using instructions posted elsewhere by @Outpost75. The gun closes on the .303 cases but it's a little tight so first I'll sand a thou or so off the case heads. I also have a box of Magtech 2.4" brass shells on the way from Ballistic Products along with suitable cards and wads. Next weekend there's a gun show and I'll try to pick up some Lil-Gun and/or H-110/W-296 to reload with. Apparently, 2400 is also good for reloading .410 but lately it's pretty much unobtanium. And I can always use the Holy Black.
I have several 12 and 20 gauge shotguns so this acquisition wasn't a need, but it should be fun to experiment with.
I've had this Mossberg 500 Mariner 12 gauge shotgun for close to 20 years. It's pretty much a dedicated home defense gun, although I did use it in one or two action matches over 10 years ago. Recently, I've done a few mods to make it more useful for me.
Closeup of the fiber optic front sight and left side of the accessory rail, which is symmetrical:
HPG stock cuff:
When choosing these modifications, I kept Greg Ellifritz's comments in these posts in mind:
So, after a couple different configurations over the years, I think I've settled on my final set up:
I've been wanting to try out 1.75" mini shells due to their reduced recoil and because you can load more in the tube magazine. Mossberg shotguns are easily modified to run with the mini shells with adapters from either Op Sol or Defender Tactical.
Even if I keep the gun loaded with Federal 2.75" 00 Flitecontrol for now, the mini shell adaptor gives me the ability to use reduced recoil loads when I'm older. With 2.75" shells the Mossberg's capacity is 6 +1, but with mini shells it's 9 + 1.
Since I no longer have any small children in the house, the gun is kept in a closet "cruiser ready," i.e., full magazine, empty chamber, bolt locked forward.
Set up this way, the Mossberg will handle any home defense situation I can reasonably think of in my suburban location.
Yesterday I relased v4.0 of my free e-book, Guns for Jews.
Version 4.0 adds a new and extensive section about shotguns. Earlier versions of this text downplayed shotguns but I came to the realization that because of gun control laws where most Jewish Americans live, a shotgun may be the best gun they can buy for defense. For those of us who can readily get handguns or modern rifles, shotguns are great backups.
In v4.0, there’s also a new appendix with tips for helping to secure your home.
Please feel free to forward this link and share widely.
Shortly before the election I ordered a Zastava ZPAP92 Kalashnikov pistol from a Gunbroker seller and had it shipped to a local FFL to handle the transfer. I decided to pull the trigger on it (sorry) because if Harris had won, she'd be more able to mess with acquiring such a gun down the road since POTUS has more leeway to affect imports than domestically produced firearms.
As we now know, the American people resoundingly rejected her flavor of Marxism, so I now consider it a celebratory purchase.
The gun is essentially a "pistol" version of a "Krink," chambered for 7.62x39 with a 10" barrel.
This ZPAP is fitted with "Serbian red" wood furniture and an SB Tactical TF1913 brace attached to a Picatinny rail attached to the rear trunnion.
It came with a single 30 round polymer magazine with metal reinforced locking lugs. Like other mags from the former Yugoslavia it has a bolt hold-open follower, which I'm not really a fan of. Most of my shooting with the gun so far was with Hungarian 20 round "tanker" mags.
A nice feature is that the safety selector has a notch in it for use as a bolt hold-open. It's a little awkward to use but simple and works.
The receiver cover is hinged at the front, with a two-leaf open rear sight graduated for 200M and 400M mounted to it. There's a short section of Picatinny rail mounted between the rear sight and the hinge.
The front sight base has left hand 26mm thread, instead of the more common 24.5mm threads. It's fitted with a Krink-style booster.
Because the short barrel has a lot of blast I also picked up a Midwest Industries Blast Can, which is designed to redirect blast and flash downrange.
Yesterday I put 80 rounds of Vympel 7.62x39 through the gun for a basic function check. As expected it ran perfectly, but shot about 8" low at 15 yards. I used the front sight adjustment tool from an AK cleaning kit to raise the point of impact, but I will do a final zero at 50 yards.
I also tried both the Krink booster and the Blast Can to see if there was any difference from the shooter's perspective. I didn't notice much of a difference. I'll try them side by side again but for now I have the booster on the gun.
The Vympel ammo has corrosive primers so I wanted to do a basic cleaning before packing up. So, I hosed everything down with DRNCH (pronounced "dirnch"), which is imported by Zastava USA from Serbia. It's a CLP type aerosol cleaner with a mild smell. I don't know if it's specifically rated to clean corrosive primer residue, but if that residue is saturated with oil it won't be able to absorb atmospheric moisture to cause rust. I'll do a thorough cleaning today.
So why a Krink? Because:
The bag is a Sarma assault pack, which is a knock-off of a Maxpedition bag.
Going forward I need to zero it at 50 yards and put some kind of a dot sight on it, and run a pile of ammo through it.
Yesterday I patterned some Prvi Partisan Stars and Strips 12 gauge 2.75" 9-pellet 00 buckshot. It's made for Prvi in Italy by Cheddite. I shot them through my Mossberg 500 Mariner pump action shotgun, which has an 18" cylinder bore barrel with a bead sight. It also wears a Magpul SGA buttstock setup for my short length of pull.
With the factory bead the gun shot a little high, so last week I added a Hi Viz clamp on fiber optic front sight that clamps onto the barrel. It has a notch at the front that mates with the factory bead and keeps it from rotating. It just clamps onto the barrel but is tight enough that I have no concern it will come loose.
Aside from better visibility, the Hi Viz bead lowered the point of impact so that it coincides with my point of aim out to at least 20 yards.
Anyway, here are the patterns with the Prvi buckshot.
5 yards:
10 yards:
Two rounds at 20 yards:
The shells I normally keep loaded in the Mossberg for home defense are Federal reduced recoil 2.75" 00 buckshot in Flitecontrol wads. At about 12 yards that ammo patterns about what the Prvi did at 5 yards, and at 25 yards will keep all 9 pellets on a paper dinner plate.
While the Federal Flitecontrol patterns much tighter than the Prvi, it's a lot more expensive which may be important for people on lower incomes. Regardless of cost, the Prvi patterns well enough for inside the home engagements. A 10 yard (30 feet) shot would be a long shot inside most homes.
Indeed, at typical inside the home range, the wider patterning Prvi buckshot may cause more severe wounds to an assailant than Flitecontrol, due to the more dispersed wound channels.
The 5 and 10 yard patterns also demonstrate the necessity for aiming a shotgun, in contrast to the myth of pointing it in the general direction of a threat.
If you are in need of a portable power station with a built-in inverter, this Anker unit is 50% off today at Amazon.
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