Possibilities of the 410 Bore Shotgun 
What the Little Gun Can Do on Game. 
in Hunting Quail, Snipe and Ducks 
VY YE have two kinds of quail in 
the Rio Grande. valley. One 
is known as Gambel’s quail 
and locally as the bosque (woods) 
quail. The other is the scaled quail, 
known locally as “blue” quail, or as 
“domineckers,”’ as some of our sports- 
men call them, because their feathers 
are not unlike those of a 
dominecker chicken. The for- 
mer is a noble game bird, and 
though they run atrociously 
‘n thin cover, if gotten into 
thick cover they lie very 
well and can be worked quite 
well with dogs. This is a 
beautifully plumaged bird 
and is extremely tenacious 
of life, and unless killed ab- 
solutely dead, he uses every 
spark of life left to run, 
crawl or fly away from 
where he falls, and it takes 
a very good dog to pick any 
of them up in bad brush and 
thorns, and this is where 
they usually are. This bird 
weighs about 61% to 7 ounces 
and is a little smaller than 
the eastern Bob White, as 
well as the writer remembers 
them. This bird is a strong 
flier when he flushes, and is 
fully as hard to hit as the 
eastern Bob White, and 
much more difficult to bag. 
The scaled quail is a “bad 
actor”; he runs and runs 
and is extremely difficult to 
flush, but when he does flush 
he flies about like a Bob 
White, and has a tendency 
to fly rather high, while 
Gambel’s quail frequently slips away 
by flying very low to the ground. The 
scaled quail lives on the barren mesas 
(table lands) and only comes to the 
valley when food is scarce on the 
mesas. When flushed in the valley, 
they nearly always fly back to their 
native mesas, where the experienced 
hunter leaves them alone, because 
they can “outrun a pack of hounds,” 
as described by a distinguished hunter. 
This quail is a little larger than Gam- 
bel’s quail, weighing seven ounces or 
a little more. 
It is interesting to note that Bob 
Whites run in thin cover nearly, or 
quite as much as Gambel’s quail, ac- 
398 
rubber stamps that show 
represented. 
patterns are exactly as shot. 
By JAMES VANCE, M.D. 
cording to Mr. Benjamin Sherrod, 
who has hunted these birds frequently 
where the cover was thin in north 
central Texas. 
These quail flush much wilder than 
Bob Whites, as a rule, and it is noth- 
ing unusual for your dog to point a 
covey of them and then have them run 
The 410 Bore Illustrations 
The patterns illustrated are exact reproductions 
of the original patterns and are generally a little 
better than average patterns, as will be seen by re- 
ferring to the various series of recorded shots. 
They represent faithfully 80% of the shooting of 
the three guns used, for it is the 20% of poor 
shooting that pulls shotgun averages down. 
The method of reproduction is as follows: 
original pattern is laid upon a table, and covered 
with thin white architect’s tracing paper. 
pellet marks and circles are plainly visible through 
this paper, and each pellet mark is stamped, ex- 
actly as it is, with a suitable rubber stamp and black 
laundry ink. We drew the circles with a soft black 
pencil, which seems to serve well enough. 
gives an exact reproduction of the pattern, which 
is then put up by thumb tacks against a large sheet 
of pure white paper and photographed. This trac- 
ing paper is too thin to photograph well without 
putting it against a pure white background which 
brings out the pattern perfectly. 
If pellet marks are photographed in their exact 
size, they are so small they cannot be seen plainly 
in the photograph, so for this reason we have made 
the pellet marks, as near 
as possible, exactly twice the diameter of the pellet 
necessary exception the 
With this 
THE AUTHOR. 

thirty or more yards out from under 
his nose before flushing. On account 
of this wild flushing, these quails offer 
a longer average shot than do Bob 
Whites. 
ITH the little 410 gun, the writer 
bagged 187 of these quail dur- 
ing November and December of 1924. 
All but fifteen or twenty of these were 
“bosques” and the others “blues.” 
About fifty quail were shot with the 
2” all brass U. S. No. 9 chilled load, 
and the rest with the 2%” Western 
8 chilled cartridges. The 9s are deadly 
on quail even to 35 yards, but we did 
not use them very often because late 
This 
~ Cal 
Experiences 
in the season when the birds’ feathers 
are hard and the birds strong, the pel- 
lets. do not all go through the birds, 
and this lead stuffing is very objec- 
tionable at the table. This is a fatal 
objection to this size shot with any 
gauge gun for quail or larger bird 
shooting. This is unfortunate, because 
if this were not true, the 410 
would be nearly 2 first-class 
quail gun. The quail are 
killed well and are more 
easily hit with this load than 
any other, and it is alto- 
gether splendid for the work, 
if one does not mind eating 
lead; but we prefer the 8s, 
because the pellets go 
through from side to side, or 
end to end—it makes no dif- 
ference, and we haye yet to 
find a pellet in a bird. 
The 
The 
HE little 410 was carried 
afield fourteen times in 
killing these 187 quail, and 
the bag limit of 20 birds was 
reached only once. Twice 
18 birds were killed and 
once 17; on all other occa- 
sions from 4 to 12 birds 
were bagged, because fewer 
quail were found and rela- 
tively fewer shots were ob- 
tained. Occasionally we shot 
brilliantly with this 
gun—thus on the afternoon 
of November 7th, we killed 
and put in our pocket 12 out 
of the 15 birds shot at, and 
every possible chance 
fered was taken. The last 
nine birds were killed 
straight, including two doubles. The 
second was as difficult and brilliant 
as we have ever made with any gun. 
Two other runs of six and five straight 
kills were made on two other occa- 
sions, but ordinarily missing was very 
generally interspersed with kills. 
Sometimes we have shot very poorly, 
and our notes show that on November 
4th and December 18th, we killed no 
better than one shot out of three. Of 
course all shots offered were taken. 
If a man chooses his shots, ‘he can 
kill a much higher percentage of his 
shots than if all shots offered are 
taken. It is always much more of a 
thrill to make one very difficult shot 
_ ey 
little. 
of-s 

