Hope this isn�t too much of a dumb question. Read the post on the Lever action .410, and wondered what such a beast would be used for. In further daydreaming, my thoughts went to what the .410 designed for anyway. Never gave it much thought, but as a kid in the Ozarks, the old timers used to always have one around. There was a line of thought, which wrongly in my opinion had the .410 as a starter gun. Own one, shoot one, but never thought of it as anything but a conversation pc., or a more challenging clay gun.

Scott

I'm not sure what it was "originally" designed for, but it did find a niche on a lot of northern Michigan farms: it was used to put down sick & old cattle (using slugs to the head....where a .22LR might not be as effective), it was used to kill pests like chipmunks in the garden and pigeons in the hayloft, where something like a 12 gauge might have done more damamge, and was used to put food in the pot.....a lot of ground swatting of grouse with the little cartridge, but it was the depression. Shells were cheaper (unlike now) for the .410 than the 12 gauge, and a lot of farm kids took thier first squirrel with a .410 from the local wood lot. I think the .410 has a lot of nostalgia behind it, in addition to being a difficult gauge (caliber?) to master.