.410 brass shotshells

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Red Beard Forge

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I would like to make some brass shot shells for my old .410 and I have heard of people fire forming .303 British brass for the purpose or using .444 marlin brass but 444 is pretty rare around here so I picked up some .303 brass to try. One source I found says that .303 brass will not work unless the rim is filed as it is not a tapered rim like the shotgun shells are. I have tried it in my old single shot and everything closes with no extra resistance so I'm thinking that it should work without modification. My question is am I missing something? Have any of you done this before? Any tips or suggestions? I would like to use black powder loads just for the smell and smoke as I had a lot of fun with a flintlock years ago and would like to play with BP again. The shotgun in question is a very old cooey 84 that has sentimental value to my family so obviously I don't want to damage the gun but I'm thinking black powder shotgun loads are about as safe as it gets
 
I did this myself on a test run of 5 pieces of brass a month ago. I had to file down the rim until it the brass chambered in my gun then annealed it before loading up a ffg load of if memory serves me 25gr. It blew the neck out perfectly on 3/5 and ballooned on the last 2. The 3 survivors got annealed again and loaded up with ffg and 7 1/2 shot before fully forming. I think playing with the initial neck blowing load would be the best way to find the ideal survival rate. Best of luck!


Edit: the amount of work required to produce a practical amount is rather large, if I were to do this again I'd just order Magtech to be honest. Proving I could do it if needed was fun.
 
I did it to about 50 303 cases. My single 410 would not close on the 303 case so I had to thin the head (belt sander). Then the primer pocket is too shallow for rifle primers so you can use pistol primers to solve that. I annealed them first, used some fast pistol powder and COW then glue gunned the open end. Only 4 were destroyed by neck cracking and about 5 would need another fire form of the 50. Fun project but too much work.
 
Seagull said:
I did it to about 50 303 cases. My single 410 would not close on the 303 case so I had to thin the head (belt sander). Then the primer pocket is too shallow for rifle primers so you can use pistol primers to solve that. I annealed them first, used some fast pistol powder and COW then glue gunned the open end. Only 4 were destroyed by neck cracking and about 5 would need another fire form of the 50. Fun project but too much work.
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I love this schit. Even though after doing this sort if thing I also decided that stuff like this was too much work. Which is why I won't even own AI rifles these days. :)

But it's interesting and fun :)
 
Seagull said:
I did it to about 50 303 cases. My single 410 would not close on the 303 case so I had to thin the head (belt sander). Then the primer pocket is too shallow for rifle primers so you can use pistol primers to solve that. I annealed them first, used some fast pistol powder and COW then glue gunned the open end. Only 4 were destroyed by neck cracking and about 5 would need another fire form of the 50. Fun project but too much work.
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I would have removed the metal from the top of the rim
 
Removing metal from the rim of 303 is dependant on how your chamber is cut. My attempt with a backpacker needed the rim thinned, a 410 I bought later on did not need it. 444 marlin brass depends on your extractor/ejector. It may slide past but its a small thing to deal with. No worries about BP hurting your nitro barrels, unless you do not clean it after!
 
if you google "make 410 from 303 brass" there's dozens of videos and sources of info available online.

Some brass is quite brittle and splits when fireformed. Remington was crap even with annealing. Federal, Winchester were better, PRVI best. You end up with a 410 shell a bit shorter than 2.5" but they work Ok. Thinning the outside rim worked ok with pistol primers for me, but depends how much material you have to remove.
 
Seagull said:
I don't understand how that is different. I just took the head stamp off and that was it. I guess I chamfered the primer pocket also now that I think more about it.
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The difference is that the primer pocket gets shallow but not necessarily a problem if you don't take off much or switch to the thinner large pistol primers.
Turning the front of the rim avoids that and is more elegant but tougher to do. I've got 100 cut down 44-40 that need doing to make 11mm French pistol shells but have to make a collet or something to hold them.
Another way is to build a die that you use to swage the rim thinner with pressure. Haven't tried that either so not sure what king of forces would be required.
 
Just a note, even when you do not have to thin the rim use large pistol anyhow, some shotguns will not set off large rifle primers and the stronger cup is not needed at 410 pressures!
 
Priner pocket depth would be the same if you took it off the front vs the back
Seagull said:
I don't understand how that is different. I just took the head stamp off and that was it. I guess I chamfered the primer pocket also now that I think more about it.
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my bad clocked reply before scrolling down to see it was already answered
 
I've done some. Annealing is the biggest PITA step. Probably did it poorly, and lost (split) some of the brass along the way. The others are coming along.

After annealing, I used a primer, 10gr Titegroup, cardboard disc, filled it with tamped-down cream of wheat cereal, another cardboard disc about 1/8" from the top of the brass, and white glue to hold it in place. Fire, clean, repeat. The brass slowly starts looking like a 410. Eventually you can get a proper very light load in.

Takes a long time. Great little hobby over the winter, if you have acreage to pop these off (very little noise). Certainly not worth wasting a trip to the range, but if you're going anyway, bring the 410 stuff along, and advance the experiment a bit further.

Then I bought an Enfield (first one since I sold mine in 2008), and suddenly no new brass was available for the 410 project :(
 
I have some .410 brass shells kicking around that we made years ago. Yes, they do work but can take a lot of time to get them right.

In all honesty when you can pick up 3 inch winchester hulls from the range that last a dozen or more loads, Why bother?
 
A solution not mentioned. If you were to dedicate the shotgun to 303/410 formed cases and the rim thickness was an issue------you could get a gunsmith with a reamer to slightly deepen the rim recess on the shotgun.
 
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