A pipsqueak, a puny round, only good for kids, ladies and wusses – the .410 has had to live with this underachiever bad rap since its inception. But it’s not true.

I’ve often confounded the know-it-alls with this simple question. Would you rather be hit with a #4 pellet fired from a 410 or a 10-gauge? They always say .410. Wrong – the .410 and the 10-gauge deliver the exact same punch. The 10-gauge just throws more punches (pellets). Actually, if you’re nit-picking, the velocity on the .410s may be a bit faster, so it would actually hit a bit harder! It just doesn’t throw as many pellets.

Most hard core shotgun enthusiasts eventually become admirers of the little round, and accomplished gunners like Layne Simpson are serious collectors of fine 410 shotguns. I am wholly in that camp and most of us hoped we could keep the virtues of this sleeper to ourselves and keep on picking up all those great guns on the cheap. Wrong – the .410 has found a new following among the growing home defense crowd. It makes sense. Nothing beats a shotgun for bad dudes in the foyer, and at dining table distance, a .410 is totally up to the task. The advent of the Taurus Judge revolver has no doubt also revved up the popularity of the .410 round.

Manufacturers of ammo and, curiously, uppers for AR15s, have responded to the increased demand. Remington’s latest .410 offering is a 2 ½-inch loaded with a total of four balls of 00 buck. From the short barrel Judge revolver it moves out at about 700 fps and from a full length shotgun it delivers about 1,300 fps. Patterns at 15 to 20 feet are definitely tight enough to stop a confrontation. Winchester’s entry is a three ball, duplex affair that adds a bit of BB shot to the pattern that is equally mean on the target end.

As a .410 enthusiast I will be adding these not only to my Judge fodder, but also as a close work “Predator-In-The Barn” choice. Don’t overlook the .410 for protecting the home front!

Most die hard gun enthusiasts, especially hard core hunters, admire and appreciate the classy line of Weatherby rifles. Owning a Weatherby is almost a right of passage, but a passage that required you book first class. For most of us working stiffs, owning a Weatherby was something you had to put off until your life reached a point where every buck wasn’t needed for boots, braces and the basics of raising a family. The Mark V is a class act and as fine a rifle as can be had, but it’s pricey and feeding it, regardless of which “Weatherby” cartridge you chose, is not cheap. Worth every penny, but at $75 to $100 per box, well out of the casual shooting range for most.

The introduction of the “Vanguard” series of rifles changed much of that. Now you can buy a Weatherby rifle, chambered in the most popular of the Weatherby line up of calibers for about 400 bucks and a Weatherby rifle now graces a lot more gun racks among the up and coming crowd than it used to. But, once you owned that affordable rifle, you were still held hostage by high-dollar ammo.

Part of the high cost of the Weatherby ammunition, including the double radius shoulder design, came from having to ship a lot of the components overseas to Norma, then plugging it in to their manufacturing schedule, then shipping it back. Norma, it seems, had a better idea. Their suggestion was, “Let us build everything here, load it with our excellent bullets, and ship it to you”. The result? How would you like to buy a box of .257 Weatherby Magnum for a retail cost of $29 a box? I’ll say it’s a good idea. .257’s loaded with a 100-grain bullet and the .300 Weatherby Magnum 180-grain are available now. Hopefully other cartridges will follow soon. Things just got a whole lot nicer for Weatherby shooters.

This is for the millions – yeah, millions – of new AR owners. Your AR finally came in after weeks or months on backorder and you discovered it really doesn’t fit well in your gun safe. Or perhaps you’re an AR aficionado with several ARs and many uppers and keeping them locked up is a pain. Gun safes are made for long guns and hand guns – until now.

Predator Xtreme doesn’t do press releases. As a rule, products have to be tested and prove their worth before we write about them, but this is a noteworthy exception. A safe designed specifically for ARs, that will work for your other rifles and handguns also, as well as the unique tactical gear that many AR owners collect is too good to pass up. Here is the press release from Browning.

AR34F - The Most Unique Browning Gun Safe In 27 Years - Specially Designed For Tactical Firearms

Morgan, Utah - The AR34F Breaks New Ground. Browning has been the industry leader and innovator in gun safes for over 27 years. But there has never been a Browning ProSteel safe like the all new AR34F Tactical safe. In fact the AR34F leads in ground breaking innovation and is the first Tactical gun safe ever. And it is perfect for the person who has special guns -- tactical guns -- that have special storage requirements.

On the outside it has the tactical look you like -- black and textured -- with the unique look of overhead and side racking. On the inside it is specially designed to handle the odd shapes and sizes and special storage requirements of tactical guns. That means its made for shorter length rifles with different shapes, unique optics and unique buttplate-to-magazine-to-muzzle dimensions. Finally a practical way to secure your AR, M-16, M4, AK, FAL, FNAR, SCAR, or whatever, in a way that makes sense and doesn't waste valuable space. It is not a beginner's safe. If you have the goods that need protection from theft and fire, this gun safe excels. If you like the look of black guns, then this gun safe rises to the top.

The AR34F - Tactical looks and an interior that will conveniently hold both tactical and sporting guns.

MORE FEATURES SPECIALLY CONFIGURED FOR TACTICAL GUN OWNERS

•    12-gauge steel body

•    1" formed steel door

•    Force Deflector Locking Mechanism

•    Hardened steel pin lock protection

•    1" chromed locking bolts

•    DPX Storage System

•    UL tool attack listed

•    S&G electronic lock

•    Elevated floor to facilitate removal of guns

•    Door Frame - U-Channel reinforced steel

•    1200°/60 min.

•    Additional Barrel Rests - shorter configuration allows for convenient storage of shorter overall length tactical guns.

•    Tactical Design Features - The tactical gun owner gets a safe that matches the looks of his guns.

•    New interior configuration conveniently holds both tactical and sporting guns

•    External Accessory Rack - conveniently hang your gear outside the safe.

•    Additional internal storage features - side mounted hooks and tray for top shelf slot

•    Reinforced patterned rubber bottom panel

•    Picatinny rail accessory - mounts on shelves

•    Short gun capacity - interior and door

 

STANDARD FIRE PROTECTION

•    1200° F/60 min. fire protection

•    Three layers of 1/2" fire-resistant insulation in the body and door

•    Palusol® expanding fire seal

The year was 1994. I had just traded into a dandy custom Voere Mauser in .30-06. It wore a Bausch & Lomb 3-9 and after a bit of bedding it fell in love with a handload of 57 grains of 4350 and a 165-grain Nosler. Between them, they would consistently produce little hundred yard clusters you could easily hide with a nickel.

Not wanting to lose this magic formula, and being one of those handloaders who can’t sleep nights knowing there’s an unloaded case in the loading room, I cleaned, prepped and loaded 100 rounds of the sweet combo. The folks at MTM Molded Products tell me they sell a lot of 100-round boxes, so I’m not alone. Do you know how long it takes to shoot 100 rounds of big game ammo, especially if you hunt with several different rifles?

The .30-06 stacked up the deer, elk and antelope for about 13 years with more than half the original rounds left in the box. Then, suddenly, that sweet load went to pot, opening up to two or three inches and scattering hideous flyers. I ran the gamut, top to bottom, bedding, throat, stock, scope, but it was the chronograph that finally revealed the culprit. My notes showed the original load was delivering 2,800 fps muzzle velocity way back when. Now, it was reaching 2,950 with a large (100 fps) standard deviation. The bullet puller provided the second clue. Over time, either as a result of hardened lube residue or molecular interaction between the different metals of the bullet jacket and case wall, a bond like a spot of glue had developed that sealed the bullets into the cases. That sticky exit raised pressures. The fix was a quick pass through the seater die set down just enough to “crack” them loose – two thousandths did it. After that, the rifle went back to shooting the kind of groups you carry in your wallet. If you’re shooting vintage reloads, or even older factory stuff, keep this – and the fix – in mind.

Throat issues were covered in the last blog. Today we will examine accuracy issues from the crown end of things.

The crown is the area at the end of the muzzle, and is the last bit of metal the bullet experiences before it leaves the rifle. As it exits the muzzle, all that good gas escapes behind it and if it doesn’t escape evenly, all around the bullet’s base, it can bump the bullet off course and accuracy suffers.

Sometimes the crown gets chipped, either by a fall or ramming it on a rough floorboard, but most often, especially in levers, pumps and semi-autos, the cleaning rod is the culprit. A bad crown will cause flyers — an errant shot outside a group. The best giveaway is the signature of the fouling residue. After shooting, look at your crown. Are all the little streaks of fouling at the end of each rifling groove even? If not, or if you suspect a bad crown, a recrown job at a competent gunsmith is usually under 50 bucks. It’s well worth the cost and will hopefully improve your shooting.