KelTec announced the KSG410 a little bit back but they had them at Industry Day at the Range for SHOT 2024 for industry folks to shoot. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s basically a dual magazine tube KSG shotgun shrunk down to take .410 shells. The smaller diameter tubes make the KSG410 very similar in size and weight to the single tube KS7.

I have a 12-gauge KS7 and it’s a slick, compact shotgun. Its overall length is about the same as my Mossberg Shockwave, but its bullpup design allows for a full buttstock, an 18.5 inch barrel and a 6+1 capacity. Weight is just a hair under 6 pounds. It’s very handy, but recoil is stout with full house loads.

The KSG410 has similar proportions and actually weighs slightly less than the KS7 at 5.28 pounds. It has the dual-magazine tube system of its 12-gauge KSG sibling and holds 11 rounds total, five in each tube and one in the chamber.

Operation is the same as the KSG and similar to the KS7, but recoil is dramatically less. It’s actually pleasant to shoot, and you can get rounds off accurately and quickly with the .410. You pick up four rounds over the KS7 and can put rounds on target much faster. The 12 gauge may pack more punch, but for someone who wants less recoil and still wants to spit out 55,OOO pellets from 11 rounds of 3-inch OOO buck the KSG410 is worth a look. The MSRP is $495, and they’re listed as being available in black, but there was a slick FDE version at the range as well.

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56 COMMENTS

        • Wouldn’t the larger buckshot be denoted in 0 as opposed to O as aught typically would be numerical zero or am I getting weird?

        • SAFE,
          You’re absolutely right, and I was wrong. I think in my head I tried to make it make sense as the author differentiating the pellet count from the pellet designator.

        • Happens occasionally but honestly wasn’t sure I had it all the way together. Either way still want to see a 55k 000 loading if only for utter silliness.

        • My shotgun dreams are a little more modest: I’d like to see a regular shell made exclusively for home defense, with zero concessions to hunting / long-range patterning, filled to the brim with metal.

        • Umm… Well then…..hmmm ok for the destructive device end take a 40mm buckshot round typically used in a m203 and cut it about in half for a reduced shot/powder load until the velocity is a mild 800-900fps and load it with #4buck. I think there was a pump action 40mm grenade launcher from the Vietnam era that could serve as the starting point for a oversized “shotgun” that would have a bit higher capacity due to using shorter shells.

        • Sorry if I was unclear: by “a regular shell”, I meant a non-NFA 3″ 12G shotshell. I really like your idea, though.

        • Gotcha, the issue I have with a 3″ she’ll is it is almost defacto a hunting oriented round but on that one………. Copper plated (or jacketed if needed for structural integrity) aluminum buckshot driven to higher velocity but similar or lesser recoil than traditional buckshot. Configure shotgun to standard or NFA layout as makes sense

        • That is true, but only by the manufacturers’ choice – driven in turn by customers who want a “good” pattern, not considering that a shell optimized to deliver a “good” pattern at typical deer ranges throws a “why bother even using shot?” pattern at typical home defense ranges.

        • Safe

          There was a 27 pellet buckshot round for the 40mm M79 in the late stages of Vietnam. Spread very quickly and very short range. Would probably feed through a M203.

          Meant to give some self defence to M79 gunner (who maybe had a pistol) when enemy was inside the arming range (30-35 yards) of the HE round. The rifle / 203 combo got rid of the need for the buckshot round.

        • RCC actually had a small number of the buckshot rounds (less than half a dozen for the company) on deployment for some of those with the 203s. Didn’t see any use but was cool to see them outside of a TM. Would love to see DD being less obnoxious a category to work with as there is bound to be some interesting things to figure out and a 40mm mini shell may be just stupid enough to work. Oh and China Lake for the launcher I half remembered.

        • SAFE,
          It is strange that DDs aren’t more popular. One area I think deserves more exploration: Standard-issue explosive rounds are DDs themselves (i.e. pointless), HOWEVER, the cutoff (1/4oz) below which they aren’t is kind of huge. That’s 1.5 .458WM loads, which would be even more energetic with HE rather than propellant.

        • In 40mm there was the M576 antipersonnel canister cartridge, which was described as having twenty pellets of #4 buckshot and launching them at a relatively low velocity, about 850-ish feet per second from an M79. The patterns were poor–only about 70 to 80 percent in a five foot circle at fifty yards, but they bought an awful lot of them and used an awful lot of them between around 1965 and around 1990. Once they were used up it was assumed that future wars would be high-intensity conflicts and the grenadier was always going to be surrounded by riflemen who could engage short-range “pop-up” hostiles too close for safe use of 40mm grenades. Since 9/11 there seems to have been a call for something like the old M576, but better.

          More recently I have read of an experimental XM18 “beehive” cartridge but I don’t know if it’s ever been deployed. It is described as having eighteen individual rifled barrels machined through it for eighteen .22 LR cartridges, which are all fired simultaneously by a plate with fixed firing pins driven forward by a grenade launcher primer. The overall length of the cartridge makes it something like a two and a half inch pistol barrel or a hair more. Velocities are slightly higher than with M576, and reportedly dispersion is greatly reduced. I can find few details but if I were asked to design such a thing I’d have the machinists bore the barrels at very slight angles so as to have those eighteen evenly distributed across a six foot circle at one hundred yards, or thereabouts. That seems like it’d be a good point from which to start. A consistent six foot pattern at one hundred yards was one of the design criteria for flechette guns intended for jungle warfare and urban combat, under the auspices of the SPIW/SALVO/NIBLICK/Future Rifle Program projects.

  2. I’d have preferred a KSG20, or better yet, a TS20. Most people find 12G spicy, but nearly all adults can handle 20G – which is cheaper, more available, and much more effective than .410.

    • Given the virtual non-existence of 28g no argument to that as a preferred secondary option. I can see some value to the 410 for those utterly unable to tolerate recoil but able to hold a lighter longarm (nerve pain issues maybe) but if it drops the intended target good enough.

      • True, but seems very niche. I’ve never fired the two side-by-side, but I bet the differences between 20G semi and .410 manual are minor.

        .410 with decent loads is decent, but availability is nuts. I’m not the type to dismiss a cartridge on the basis of whether one old guy in my hometown stocks it or not, but I think Midway is a pretty good gauge for mainstream availability. AFAICT there are zero defensive .410 loads in stock!

        • 20 is almost as bad up my way but yeah way more available if you do the hassle of ordering or driving out of state. As to recoil only ever shot a youth model bolt action 410 that was probably closer to under 4 pounds than over so have to assume that is the heavier side of what it can be and that was similar to the 20 break action I remember from camp.

        • Sorry, living where it’s [mostly] still the US I sometimes forget the BS you have to deal with. For me online ordering is by far the preferred and easier option.

        • Besides why funding court challenges is important no reason to remember such nonsense. Does incentivize reloading and learning all manner of things that make many gun control initiatives irrelevant as well as figuring out how quickly various types of ballistic armor become questionable in performance.

        • Found some 357 SIG, 10mm, and 44 that tend to blow through most pistol rated armor. Also some 458 loadings that seem to bypass most level 3 rifle armor and potentially some lower end level 4. Had to cease much of it as armor is no longer able to be ordered in NY but some friends in other states have seen similar and apparently Kentucky Ballistics figured out much of the same.

  3. 20 Gauge is the ultimate compromise to the 12 gauge.
    Recoil should not be a problem for a 20 gauge and if it is limited to house duty, then it will not be shot as much as other guns. Just the thing for uninvited guests.

    • I’ve rarely ever seen 16-ga or 28-ga available, so between 20-ga and .410, I tend to lean toward the 20 as well as the best compromise.

  4. If the thugs all know
    there is a shotgun by the door
    they will change their mind
    and search for a more suitable find

    • Nobody wants to square off at house ranges against a shotgun. If they see a homeowner holding a shotgun and still continue the aggression then the homeowner needs all that firepower.

      He is facing an epic monster.

    • Then it’s safe to say
      where the thugs all lay
      really close to the floor
      there was a shotgun by the door

  5. First, Kel-Tec is crap. Anyone that’s honest with themselves knows this. I have a friend that brought one of those things in 12 gauge. I told him it wouldn’t work. It didn’t. Shotguns are for shooting birds. I have a quail hunt set up for a week from today with lunch at the Country Club after. I did buy a Wilson Combat 870 a couple of years ago in deference to my neighbors when I moved into a more urban environment. However, I do maintain a “ready rifle,”

    • They certainly have issues with quality control as the 12ga I saw in person did work but a bullpup 5.56 not so much. With that said they do have occasional nuggets of innovation that are copied by others and incorporated into future design considerations. I tend to think of them as mad scientists, can make some neat stuff that can be made to work but may not want to rely on them exclusively. Have fun on the hunt sounds fun.

      • I’ve had a love / annoyance relationship with them myself. A friend once expressed an insight similar to yours: he thinks Kellgren is a fellow designer / builder / tinkerer, who’s managed to break into manufacture enough to fund his hobby.

      • Im with Safe. Love me some Kel Tec. I love that theyre one of the few willing to take the risk of working outside the box or boundaries. LoL Despite me having to stand on one leg, and spin around clockwise twice while rubbing my belly to get some of their magazines to load correctly they are actually fun guns, whats wrong with a fun gun??

    • I like that.
      Remember when barrel shrouded pistols were a no-no? And that shoulder-thing doesn’t “go up” so it’s okay, right? I think the rail can count as a bayonet mount. Add the pistol grip and a threaded barrel any you got yourself a Federal Assault Weapons Ban B-I-N-G-O!

  9. I really don’t get this excessive hatred. For keltec, High Point. Or even Charter Arms.

    Sig Saur has some very serious problems with their handguns right now. And all the big gun makers have had recalls of their guns. And the “gun community” was swearing up and down, how great Remington guns were. Right to the very end when the company went bankrupt.

    The one common denominator I can see is that these other manufacturers produce low cost firearms. The 2A is for everyone including poor people.

    • Remington shotgunms were among some of the best. I’d say at the pinnacle of the pump gunm era Remington ranked #1.
      It goes back to the We Cant Make Them Like That No More. That’s a fact. The older Rems were truly the Queen of The Shotgunms, in my opinion,, 🙏gook bow.

    • It’s because Hi-Point products are dangerous trash and Keltec and Charter are not much better, it’s just that the Hi-Point catastrophic failure modes are firing out of battery during unloading because the firing pin and the ejector are the same part, fractured cast potmetal slides, and fractured cast potmetal frames, this over and above a general lack of reliability–ask indoor ranges that rent guns near you whether they rent Hi-Point products, and ask them why not–whereas the Keltec and Charter catastrophic failure modes are broken internals that render the gun inoperable but usually repairable and typically don’t involve unintended discharge. Happy to help clear that up for you.

      Also, I don’t know what “gun community” you’re talking about, but at least in the places I frequent online, people have been very vocal about the QC problems at Remington since the dialup days. SIG and their line of striker-fired Tupperware filled with all-but-biodegradable sintered metal internals made in India come in for a great deal of criticism too, as do MIMber, I mean, Kimber, Colt, and many others.

      I know it’s not 1990 any more, and there are no more $59 SKS carbines or $69 spam cans of 7.62×39 M43 PS Ball, but even in 2024, anyone who won’t put the little glass pipe down long enough to save up $200 for a used pump shotgun for home defense or $350 for a used police trade-in Glock or M&P is someone who shouldn’t own a firearm at all. I’m not talking about law. I’m talking about custom, and about human nature. There are people out there who are not responsible enough to possess weapons, and this correlates pretty strongly with unwillingness to save up the trivial accumulations of funds that are the price of entry. They are not responsible enough to operate a motor vehicle safely either. Whether the root cause is cognitive incapacity or personal inclination is a distinction without a difference. The “gun people” community should not encourage them and should certainly not welcome them.

    • Or many with crippling arthritis and/or nerve pain. The problem may be loading it (or getting a lemon).

  11. My gunms must be multi purpose tools.
    The limiting criteria is, Can it be used as a basher?
    Light gunms ain’t good bashers, plastic light gunms are the worst.
    I should have got a Mosin/Nagant. It seems to meat, dah meat, what is meat, We’re not in Kansas anymore ToTo ,meet a lot of the super survival gunms require adjustments.
    With a bayonet affixed you could even harpoon a Whale.
    ” –””’Whale””
    Argh.
    Shiver me timbers.
    Nantucket sleigh ride.
    Damn yee whale I stabbeth thee.
    Argh.
    They call me Oatmeal.

  12. Salt in shotgun shells won’t even break the skin at 10 feet; see “Box ‘o Truth”. They put this myth to bed long ago.

    Regarding a shell “packed with metal” for defense… look at the TSS shotshells from folks like Apex. Yes, they are very expensive. But 2 oz. of tungsten BBs makes for a formidable defense load, out to 50-70 yards.

    • Tungsten BBs you say……….not hating the idea re limited load capacity shells such as this likely won’t get 2oz into a 410 but should penetrate better than lead for the same size shot.

  13. I hope this winds up like the ladies home companion where they make it in 45-70. Heck, making one in 45LC would be awesome too.

  15. >bullpup combat shotgun
    okay
    >multiple magazine tubes for higher capacity
    okay
    >.410 cartridge that is iffy on small game at fifty feet
    Is this a joke?

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