Box of Truth. Rock salt...

I don't think rock salt loads were ever meant to be lethal or to really stop a threat. Farmers use to use rock salt shells all the time to get people out of their fields. I know one farmer that was very good at it, he got me and my buddies one night while stealing melons out of his field.

It came from an age when 1) the shotguns were more for garden pests than people, and 2) physical deterrence for non-deadly encounters was accepted.

Imagine you have a garden. Gardens attract nuisances. Rabbits and possums and teenagers from up the road all want to mess about in your garden at night. They aren’t a threat to you and you aren’t trying to stop an attack in the few seconds before they have a chance to kill you. They aren’t acting out of malice and everyone knows that. You might even hire the teenagers next week to help mend your fence or take in your fields. But you still don’t want them messing about in your garden.

Nowadays it would be unacceptable to use any sort of direct force in that scenario. Instead we’re told to tolerate or trap the animals and use the nuclear option on the teens: call the police. However, in the past, getting the law involved was seen as overreacting and giving pesky teenagers a harmless thrashing was seen as a normal thing for a fellow citizen to do. Doing something that actually killed them would be seen as excessive, but the equivalent of aggressive pepper spraying would be seen as reasonable.

Hence rock salt loads. The farmer or old coot down the street who didn’t want to kill anyone and didn’t want to bruise their own knuckles could use it to give pesky people the equivalent of a thrashing with a relatively low chance of killing them. It’s an idea as obsolete as “alarm guns” on your windows that fire whenever someone opens the window without disabling the gun first.

Had a German Shepard in heat many years ago. She was locked in the barn as it was her first heat and we didn't want her bred. Neighbors two male dogs were intent on getting in that barn. Took a couple of shotgun shells and dumped the lead out and filled them with rock salt. One shot to each cured the problem and they never came back. Wasn't that close to them but they were sure complaining to each other as they left the yard. They did live long lives after that but in their own yard.
I'd say it works.

Rock salt is meant to hurt, not cause injuries. All it has to do is barely penetrate the skin. The salt does the rest.

Not that in this day and age I would recommend shooting at a person with a salt load. That would be no different than using buckshot so far as the law enforcement problems that could arise from it are concerned.

Paul Harrell has a video where he tests rock salt.
In his demonstration, loading his ML shotgun with 100 grains of black powder, he couldn't get the rock salt to penetrate a t-shirt.

Now I don't know what kind of salt he was using. I'm sure there are different sizes you can get. If his were too small, they would just turn to powder on impact.

Rock salt is large crystals.

Think Morton's Ice Cream Salt


This is short range stuff. It doesn't have the mass or density to carry all that far, but within that range it will light up your life.

Again though, against people you may as well use lead shot so far as the legal implications are concerned.

whm1974 said:

So reading about loading shotshells with rock salt and testing them...
https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-33-rock-salt-in-a-shotgun/
Nope this only works in movies... And close up, only the wad is more likely to do something to stop an attacker. Well that and the muzzle blast.

So where did this idea about loading shotguns with rock salt came from anyway?

Click to expand...

I didn't read all the replies. In today's world, discharging a firearm is deadly force whether you hit your target or not. Inviting return shots from your target would be disadvantageous if you are standing there with your rock salt loads....

In my mis-spent youth I was shot by a farmer......with rock salt in the meat of my hand. It stung for a couple days!

Granny Clampett used rocksalt and bacon rinds.

It was a different world when most of us were young. And there were a few of us that had to learn lessons the hard way, like staying out of the farmer's melon patch. In no way would I even think about using rock salt shells today.

Even back when, although I heard many a story of rock salt/ buttocks wounds, I never saw one. IMO, most farmers were far more serious about scaring off the local kids, and saving their crops, than they were, about causing any real injury.

Rock salt is more effective than buckshot on ghosts, or so the Winchesters would have you believe. Not sure how to test that in real life, though...

When I was a kid MANY adults had been shot with it. As mentioned it was farmers chasing kids out of fields. Did not want to actually do real harm to the kids, idea was scare them away. How this morphed into personal defense is another of those things the net is great at

I can attest that rock salt hurts when it hits the backside. I was the "get-a-way driver" for a watermelon stealing ring in my youth. One night my buddies got a load of rock salt to the backside from an old farmer, who was VERY good with that shotgun. They were unable to sit down for a few days and had to sit in a tub full of water for a couple weeks to get it all out.

We stopped the watermelon thriving after that as we didn't want to get something worse.

I loaded some up to try them-I don't have a melon patch, just did it out of curiosity. Ballistics are unimpressive (which is the point), and as others have mentioned, not a good idea in this day and age.

I always suspected rock salt loads being more about protecting a mans teenage daughter‘s reputation than anything else. Found that out once... lesson learned, and no shots fired... but farmer worked factory on night shift...

whm1974 said:

https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-33-rock-salt-in-a-shotgun/

Click to expand...

This guy is totally missing the point of rock salt and as a result it’s a totally useless video. The whole point of rock salt is not to kill or maim but to cause temporary pain. In that regard it works well. I tried rock salt on some feral dogs that kept getting in our trash. From the sounds they made their hides were burning as they ran away. They never came back. This occurred in the early 70’s.

For it’s intended use rock salt is very effective IMO. But since we live in such litigious times I would only use it on four legged creatures.

20 years ago, I had some teenagers in my small town learn not to break into peoples' sheds real quick when someone peppered their rears with rock salt. Needless to say, no one was seriously hurt and everyone's sheds were safe. The police chief laughed it off when the teenage thieves' parents complained to him about the incident. And by the sound of it, a few of us learned our lessons the hard way when we were kids. But man them watermelons sure were delicious and tempting.

No way would I use or recommend anyone use rock salt for home defense. It is only good for chasing vermin (2 and 4 legged) away from your property.

whm1974 said:

So reading about loading shotshells with rock salt and testing them...
https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-33-rock-salt-in-a-shotgun/
Nope this only works in movies... And close up, only the wad is more likely to do something to stop an attacker. Well that and the muzzle blast.

So where did this idea about loading shotguns with rock salt came from anyway?

Click to expand...

have you never watched Supernatural?

sawed off double barrel shotguns loaded with rock salt shotshells are the ideal ghost gun.

I was at work one day and the talk turned to getting shot with rock salt, one of the newer guys lifts his shirt and shows us his upper back all criss-crossed with a web of scars, when he was younger he got caught stealing radios from a junk yard and got shot as he went over the fence, cured him from stealing he said.

not sure where BOT was going with this, but way back in my day (late 1980's) rocksalt shot was what they people in the wooded areas threatened trespassing kids with. Around that time the DEA was really stepping up drug seizures, and sensational media was scarring people into thinking drug gangs were hiding in everyone's closet. People were afraid of the state coming for their property and got really aggressive with trespassers, even kids under 10 in the early 90's. Rock salt was a common scare tactic, lots of people had it, but no one ever used it.
One guy used to shoot 9mm's to scare people away.
My parents also talked about getting shot with it as kids in the 50's and 60's while trespassing. Said it hurt, but mostly the ears. I think the idea was panicked kids would run to their parents saying they were shot, and parents would teach the kids not to do what they did.
I never heard anyone claim it was anything else, and the BOT thing backs up exactly what I was warned of.