Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I have several storage places for ammo, some I don't dig through very much or often and once in a while I find something I bought and forgot about. This Russian 12 gauge ammo is an example. IIRC, Sportsman's Guide was selling these at one time. They used to have quite a few good items, military surplus and so forth but their offerings in recent years are not opportune for me.

Note the picture on the front of the box, one of those Saiga semi-auto shotguns. I've never owned one, so I cannot say if this ammo was designed with it in mind. Years ago I looked at the Saiga 410 and thought it was interesting.

The shells and the box are marked "0000" and I guess that is the shot size. #0000 buck is .38 in diameter. The steel cases are 70mm long, which is approx. 2-3/4 inches. They are made by Barnaul.

At the time these were being sold, they were fairly inexpensive and I bought several boxes but have yet to fire any.

Most of us are familiar with the old brass cased 12 gauge shotgun shells used by the US military. In the Korean War era, the government had .410 shot shells made up with aluminum cases for use with the USAF survival rifles, the M35 cartridge. The Russian galvanized steel cased shells resemble those in appearance.

i have a number of boxes of this in 410 , i shot a little through my enfield 410 , it functioned but left something to be desired in my humble opinion , i did not look closely at the box yet , ill do that later to determine what the photo depicts on my boxes , i think it might be fine in a close quarters / home defense scenario but it was way less than adequate at a clay target

I've ready elsewhere online that these were made for use in the Saiga auto loaders. Providing a steel case has something to do with function through the magazine.

i don't think the 410s i have would cycle the action , could be wrong on that but they had very little ooomph , ill see about finding someone with a saga to give it a go , nearest thing i know of off hand is the two AR 410s in the safe at the range , but i know they are way too finiky to cycle on these