.40 caliber mini ball rounds for a pistol or a muzzle loader make ideal “Pumpkin Ball” rounds for the .410 shotgun. This is a favorite round with all our .410 shotguns because it can work in anything but a “Full Choke” bore. (To make a pumpkin ball round for a full-choke bore just substitute the .40 caliber ball for a .395 ooo buck pellet.)
To make this round all you need is:
3″ BPI Primed Skived Hulls
Federal 209 Primers
12 Grains of Alliant 2400
.410 Bore stump wad
2- 1/2″ Fiber Wads
Roll crimping tool
After you have prepped your hull and installed a new primer. Fill with 8 grains of Alliant 2400 powder.
Next, place two 1/2″ Fiber wads for spacers, then a .40 caliber ball, bore stump wad, and another .40 caliber ball.
- BPI .410 “Bore stump” hull and two cork wads
Finish with a roll crimp. Do not compress this round. For a 2.5″ hull simply use 1 fiber wad or a nitro card in front of the powder charge.
As with all of our rounds you are the responsible party. These recipes are for educational purposes and the end responsibility is yours when creating and firing these rounds. Starting charge is 8 grains of Alliant 2400 and work up from there. My max charge is 12 grains from a Mossberg 500 410 shotgun with a cylinder bore barrel. Do not fire from a choked shotgun barrel.
These rounds are great for Coyote, Fox, Kangaroos (So say our Aussie friends) and home invasiopn defense. Not recommended for any 410/45 type weapons, ie., Taurus Judge, Leinad, etc.
Dedicated to the Smallbore Shotgun 
You say “not recommended” for 410/45…. could you explain why? my first thoughts are the larger bore dia and the rifeling leading to a less stable flight path/trajectory.
Yes, that is right. And the “Bore Stump” will want to engage the rifling – remove the plastic wad and seat the pellets on top of each other and that should work, but accuracy will suffer.
Thank you for explaing this. Do you think there could be any Danger from using the load as developed in a Taurus or S&W handgun (410/45)? If there isn’t any danger and the main concern is the accuracy, I might try doing some trials to see what gives the better accuracy; with the stump (plastic wad) or without. Obviously the accuracy will be nothing compared to a shotgun with a cylinder bore, but it would be interesting to see the difference none the less.