A Season of .410
Originally published in Clayshooting USA, March/April 2023
In an interesting parallel to the course of a long and natural life, a good number of sportsmen begin their hunting and shooting careers with sub gauges, progressing as they age to the more mainstream standard 12 gauge and at some point reversing course, revisiting the smaller gauges once again.
I for one fall firmly into that category, having started my hunting career with a hand-me-down family gun the likes of which is not made today. With an internal box magazine and a bolt action, it was a Mossberg .410 with which I successfully blasted many holes in the sky, though nary a dove, quail or pheasant would fall to it in my first season in the field.
I then worked my way up through the ranks of family firearms to the 20 gauge Mossberg bolt gun, then the Savage 24 and eventually the Winchester Ranger 12 gauge – a camo-tape-clad behemoth that would serve me mostly faithfully until I found gainful employment and could afford to buy my own shotguns.
Going into last year’s fall hunting season, I knew I was looking for something different to add to the gun room. Outside of clays, I’ve mothballed every 12 gauge I own at this point, cycling through the 16, 20 and 28 gauges I’ve accumulated in recent years. What was missing was a .410 – a chambering I’ve not seriously revisited since that first season so many years ago.
The market for entry-level .410s is surprisingly well-served, with a wide array of offerings with varying levels of fit, finish and features. I didn’t need any frills, I just was after an adult-sized gun that would work reliably, wasn’t too whippy and hopefully had interchangeable chokes to make it a bit more adaptable depending on the quarry.
A few days prior to the upland opener in Kansas, I laid my hands on the solution at my local Rocky Mountain Discount Sports. Harkening back to that gun of my first season in more ways than one, the Mossberg Silver Reserve wasn’t gobsmackingly gorgeous, ornately engraved or a mechanical work of art. A simple box lock over/under with a single solid lifter to extract shells, it checked all the boxes on my list – no more, no less.
Available in 12, 20, 28 and the mighty .410 bore, this budget-oriented shotgun has two-tone metalwork with a satin silver receiver and semi-gloss blued barrels. More importantly, its walnut furniture is properly man-sized, in more ways than just length of pull. A full pistol grip and forend filled my extra large-sized hands without the 2x4 feeling of some like-priced alternatives. A crisp, modernized beak to the schnabel forend and a likewise sharp profile on the pistol grip leave the gun with attractive yet modern lines.
When comparing the Silver Reserve to some of the nicer shotguns in my safe, it may be simple and unadorned, but it is far from crude. Built under contract by KHAN in Turkey, it shares the same solid build quality and fit and finish of another of their contract pieces I picked up a couple years ago – the surprisingly good TriStar Bristol side-by-side. If that Bristol had the same level of attention paid to its forend shape and checkering as the Mossberg it’d be an even better deal than it already is.
Prepping for a couple weeks on the road chasing birds, I dug through my ammo cabinet to see what I had stashed. I came up with two different .410 loads, both filled with 7 1/2s – far from ideal as I headed to the prairie after wild ringnecks. With nary a box of .410 to be found in any store near me, I knew there might be one chance at landing something in the 4-6 shot size – a hole-in-the-wall bait and gun shop near my wife’s hometown that always seemed to have ammo no matter how scarce it was everywhere else.
Correct I was. Not only did Leonard have a box of 3” B&P #4s, he also had some 44 Magnum and three different choices in 6.5 Grendel, all which had been unobtanium back home for quite some time.
Opening weekend arrived and my dad and I headed out in a truck packed to the gills with dogs and gear for 12 days on the road. The further west we got, the more bleak things looked. 2022’s summer drought had been especially rough on Kansas’s pheasants and the habitat they depend on. Their saving grace on the landscape, the Conservation Reserve Program, had permitted farmers to hay a significant percentage of the grasses the birds use for cover. With no habitat and no water, the #4s I scrambled to locate weren’t seeming as necessary.
With massive snowflakes drifting from the sky, my father and I walked westward into a big chunk of WIHA, the most prevalent program for hunter access to private lands in Kansas. Breezing between the sparse bunches of big bluestem, our expectations for roosters continued to fade. Half a mile in, we converged as his English Pointer quartered in the falling flakes in front of us.
Massive snowflakes fall as hunters walk a piece of Kansas WIHA for pheasant and quail.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen here,” I sighed as we watched Sage work.
“Nope, but we might as well see it out,” he grinned, turning north into the slowly-falling flakes.
Even without birds, our playing hooky from responsibilities had been planned for too long to be spoiled. We were getting to the end of the section of grass when Sage went on point in a tiny strip of laid-over phragmites – the only proper cover we’d seen in the piece.
I waded in with the handy little over/under at low gun, tromping right through the middle of the reedy patch. I kicked around, looking back at Sage who had repositioned and was trembling at point, nose aimed right at my feet. Trusting him, I kicked a few more times. Nothing.
As I waded out of the strip, the corybantic wingbeats of a single bobwhite erupted from the spot I had been standing. By the time I turned and raised my gun, he was already putting decent distance between us. Thumbing forward the tang-mounted safety, set to bottom barrel first, I let loose with the first load of fours going through Improved Cylinder. Not a feather disturbed. The second string of #4 shot was choked down to a Modified, this one finding its mark.
I fumbled to strip the 3” hulls from their chambers quickly as two more quail gave up their cover a few feet further back up the reeds. My dad spun to put shots on them, also missing with the first but connecting with the second.
Reaching into the left pocket of my vest, I slid two AA target loads into the chambers – the nicest of the 7 1/2s I had grabbed from my stash. With Sage returning, quail in mouth, I continued methodically retreading the reeds until I had covered every inch twice. By the end we had put up a dozen birds and added a few more to our birdbags.
With a still-solid population, quail have been affected to a lesser degree by the drought – possibly because the woody and weedy lands they prefer are a bit less prone to over-grazing and haying than the brightly-colored pheasants that are the crown of Kansas bird hunting. Numbers of bobwhites were better in the last eight years than in any time since my youth, and they just happened to be a bit more ideal of game to chase with the little Mossberg.
As our nearly two weeks on the road progressed, pheasants would prove few and far between, while coveys of wild quail would continue to surprise us. Another unforseen bit was how curious folks were about the little over/under I was carrying. By the time we had wrapped up our winter bird hunting, four other folks had carried the .410 in the field. Those that got to shoot it more often than not came back with quail in their game bags, while those who didn’t were pleased with how light it and an entire box of ammo were while on their armed hike.
Late winter after bird seasons had fully ceased, the little Mossberg came with me to Kentucky to chase squirrels behind dogs. Again it made the rounds, with its light weight and the nearly unnoticeable heft of its shells garnering it praise as we put on miles from swamps to hills.
After a full season of carrying the little over/under, I’m firmly impressed with it. It may not be fancy, but it delivers a whole lot more than its roughly $600 street price would let on. It fills the hands without too much heft and it swings well despite its lighter weight.
With interchangeable chokes, it’s begging for a quality set of aftermarket tubes, especially with turkey season right around the corner. The big question now is if Leonard happens to have a bit of TSS squirreled away – I’ll have to stop in and see…
