Cartridge Board

To my way of thinking, guns, shooting and handloading should not be just something to do, but fun. Fun of the “Where did the day go, we just got here” type.

Fun like when Dad gave me an old smoothbore .22 rimfire chambered for shot cartridges. Early one summer morning, I was carrying it while walking around a marshy area in farmland behind our house. Flying everywhere were dragonflies with 4-inch wingspans. Here was a target for the tiny shot cartridge! Jump-shooting the bugs when they lit on a weed was great fun.

Soon the daylight was fading and new targets appeared. First just a few bats, then hundreds. Because of their erratic flight, the only thing successful was spot-shooting, again pure fun. Crumpling bats at that marsh remains a vivid memory almost 60 years later. That and Dads comment when he found out what I was doing: “Just don’t cook and eat any, they’re poison.” I hadn’t thought of that yet!

Perhaps to get my mind off bats, Dad soon brought home a funny-looking single shot and several boxes of dirty greenish­brown paper cartridges. They looked like my cousins .410s but were only 2 inches long. This was my introduction to the “European .410” with cases head stamped “12mm.” While superior to the . 22 shot cartridge, it would barely kill sitting barn pigeons at 20 yards. Wing shooting was difficult due to the heavy trigger pull. The only thing I remember shooting with it was a few meadowlarks off fence posts because a crazy friend of mine read they were good cooked over an open fire. Well ... yes they are!

For our purposes here, we must ask why the cartridge was designed and when, but that trail quickly runs cold. It has been said the 12mm shotshell originated in Germany while others favor France or Belgium. My research tends to point toward France. A device called a “cane gun” was popular there early on. Some collectors say it was first available in percussion. It was simply a walking cane with a gun lock fitted into the handle. Loading was done by unscrewing the handle from the shaft (barrel), dropping in a cartridge and screwing it back together.

The largest French cane gun cartridge is listed as 12mm Dumonthier, aka 11.85x44.9R, dated roughly 1890-96. This cartridge was loaded with both shot and round ball. A robber would certainly be discouraged by such a thing if applied at only a few feet!

Britain also had small firearms for these cartridges. Eley Brothers, for example, has a .410 headstamp of “ELEY BROS” on a pinfire cartridge that is supposed to date it from the late 1860s to 1874. The company has pinfire headstamps of “12mm,” but only on pinfires and no date. Loaded ammunition was listed in 1885 for a .410 with a 2-inch case containing ¾ dram of powder and a 3⁄8-ounce shot charge. In 1911, the company listed a .410 in a 50mm (1.97-inch) case for the Belgian trade. In 1907, it listed a .410 with a 2-inch case as the “FOURTEN” and in 1912, a .410 with 2½-inch case as the “FOURLONG” containing a 7⁄16-ounce shot charge. Kynoch listed a 2½-inch case in 1911. References state the Eleys were available to 2005.

Most perplexing is where the numbers .410 and 12mm come from. Since barrels are smoothbore the 12mm should indicate bore diameter, but 12mm equals .472 inch, and the earlier mentioned French round of 11.85mm equals .467 inch. Both are a long way from .410-inch bore diameter of all such guns I have measured. However, the 12mm comes close to the outside diameter of loaded ammunition. Some people insist the old 44XL shotshell is the origin of the .410, but the 12mm and British .410 ammunition clearly predate it.

Cane guns were not popular in the U.S. with revolvers being favored for self-defense. There were a few cheap single shots in 12mm/.410 2-inch made in the U.S. and imported before World War I. They are seldom seen today because if used much, they quickly wore out. These guns (like mine), were called “garden guns” in Europe and Britain. Supposedly to keep birds and hungry little mammals out of the beans and radishes, they were probably more noisemakers than anything else.

In the U.S., Winchester listed its 2-inch .410 (also called 12mm) in 1916 in its yellow paper REPEATER case holding a 3⁄10-ounce shot charge. The 2½-inch shell was added in 1920, along with a couple new Winchester guns to fire it. This round held 3⁄8 of an ounce of shot. By 1925, a 1⁄5-ounce round-ball was available in both case lengths. The 2-inch case was gone in 1931.

The two Winchester guns mentioned didn’t sell and were quickly dropped. Other makers sold even cheaper break-open and bolt-action single shots that didn’t sell any better. The problem was that the 2½-inch .410 is too powerful for shooting rats or mice in or around farm buildings and lacks enough shot for spot shooting rabbits or squirrels unless they are very close.

Skeet shooting saved the 2½-inch .410 in the 1930s. Ranges to the targets were both close and well-known. Good scores could be shot with the roll-crimped shells of the time. It was a challenge (fun) that many shooters enjoyed.

The little round’s one loading remained unchanged for years with smokeless powder pushing a 3⁄8-ounce shot charge in sizes No. 10 to No. 4. This and its later ½-ounce shot load are no doubt responsible for more wounded and lost game per shot fired than any other shotshell ever known. Adults thought it was a real shotgun and gave it to kids to hunt with because of low recoil and shells that are (were) 25 percent cheaper than 20 gauge loads. Many hunters still think this way.

Today Remington, Winchester and Federal list 13 loads between them, not counting the weird ones from these and others that are intended for a certain huge revolver. Of the 13, all are target or rifled slugs except one from each company designed for hunting. It’s the same as the 1960s offerings with ½ ounce of shot because no more can fit in the case. Hulls are plastic, contain modern plastic gas-sealing wads and shot of sizes No. 4, No. 6 and No. 7½ (Federal doesn’t load No. 4s). Velocity is given as 1,200 to 1,250 fps.

It is safe to say the 2½-inch .410 will last as long as the clay target games because it is great fun. As a hunting round, it is only for those who own quality guns and have patterned them enough to know exactly where that pattern becomes too thin to be effective, as well as exactly where their gun puts that pattern. Being a faultless judge of range to within a couple yards is also required. Only experts need apply.

Next time, we will look at the mystery that is the 3-inch .410 shotshell. What did its designers hope to accomplish? Was it just a promotion for a new shotgun? Something different? Stranger things have happened.