unclenunzie
Contributing Member
Thank you Vern Humphrey.
Thoughts on pistol shotshells?
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Thank you Vern Humphrey.
Pat Riot
Contributing Member
I shot a big water moccasin with a .22 LR shotshell. Made it mad! Luckily I was able to kill it with the 5 remaining cartridges of CCI stinger. There was a bit of excitement on the bass boat that day. 
From then on the 12 gauge went with me in the boat.
From then on the 12 gauge went with me in the boat.
Random 8
Member
I use the Speer shot capsules in .38 loaded with #8 shot over HP-38 per the recipe that comes in the box. My use is for dispatching field mice and meadow voles as they flee the riding lawn mower, and also for house sparrows inside my steel outbuildings. They are effective from a 6" barreled .357 to 10 feet or so.
Vermin control doubles as good sport bouncing along on the rider and quick drawing before they make cover.
Vermin control doubles as good sport bouncing along on the rider and quick drawing before they make cover.
Tallball
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I leave snakes alone in the wild, but I have pets and kids. If I see a water moccasin or copperhead in my backyard, I will kill it.
I prefer a single-shot 410, but a 38 special shot shell will work if you're very close.
Sorry to sidetrack, but FWIW, you can also do the opposite of shooting shot shells out of a handgun. I don't recall the name of the company, but they make adaptors that allow you to shoot handgun ammunition out of a shotgun. I own several of them. I can, for instance, use an adaptor to shoot 38 special ammo out of my single-shot 12 gauge. I haven't used one for a while, but they are entertaining and might be useful in certain circumstances.
I prefer a single-shot 410, but a 38 special shot shell will work if you're very close.
Sorry to sidetrack, but FWIW, you can also do the opposite of shooting shot shells out of a handgun. I don't recall the name of the company, but they make adaptors that allow you to shoot handgun ammunition out of a shotgun. I own several of them. I can, for instance, use an adaptor to shoot 38 special ammo out of my single-shot 12 gauge. I haven't used one for a while, but they are entertaining and might be useful in certain circumstances.
doubleh
Member
I just walk around a rattlesnake unless it’s close to my house or garage. If it is close I relocate it a good distance away. Leave the snakes alone and they will take care of your rat and mouse problems. I have no experience with copperheads and water moccasins. Living conditions are apparently too tough for them here. 
Vern Humphrey
Member
Did you ever read "Desert Solitaire" by Edward Albee?I just walk around a rattlesnake unless it’s close to my house or garage. If it is close I relocate it a good distance away. Leave the snakes alone and they will take care of your rat and mouse problems. I have no experience with copperheads and water moccasins. Living conditions are apparently too tough for them here.
Albee, a true-blue Environmentalist had a job as Summer Ranger at Arches National Monument in the days before there were any paved roads there. The Summer Ranger lived in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, with a singe electric line coming for miles across the desert.
One morning he got up, sat on the steps to put his boots on, looked down and saw a rattlesnake between his feet! It was cold and the snake was sluggish, and he managed to yank his feet away. He got a shovel from the toolshed, scooped up the snake, took it a quarter mile out into the desert and dumped it.
The next morning, he got up, started out the door and there was the snake again! He got the shovel from the toolshed, scooped up the snake, took it a half mile out into the desert and dumped it.
The next morning, he got up, started out the door and there was the snake again! He got the shovel from the toolshed, and chopped the snake up into little pieces.
The moral of this story is, you can only cut a rattlesnake so much slack.
doubleh
Member
How did he know it was the same snake?
.308 Norma
Member
Sounds like fun!
Made me think of the year (probably 15 years back now) we had a real vole plague around here. When our grandsons were out to the house, I'd drag a water hose out in the pasture and flood the voles out of their tunnels, then watch as our grandsons tried to smack them with shovels as they made for other tunnels. I should have tried the #8 shot in my 44 Mag trick when I was by myself.
Vern Humphrey
Member
It didn't come back after the third time.
.308 Norma
Member
No venomous snakes other than rattlesnakes in this part of the country, but we have pets and grandkids, and we'll probably have great-grandkids before long. So even though I leave snakes of all kinds alone in the wild, I don't tolerate rattlesnakes on or near our property. There's usually enough non-venomous snakes, feral cats (subject of another thread), foxes and coyotes to keep the gopher and vole populations in check around here anyway.
But I guess that's kinda off-topic. So, getting back - I've used those Speer shot-shell capsules with #8 shot in my 44 Mag to kill a couple of forest grouse (Ruffed Grouse) at very close range - 6 to 8 feet. The shotshells worked, but I'm neither bragging nor exaggerating when I say I could have just as easily snipped those bird's heads off with real slugs at that range. I've done just that many times, and we didn't have to worry about biting down on a piece of birdshot later on when we're having "fool hen" for dinner in camp.
.38 Special
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I kill every rattlesnake I see, because they're actually pretty tasty. I used to rely on homemade shot loads laid up in .45 Colt: Trail Boss, gas checks, #9 shot. Those still work, but the .500 S&W is even more effective. Using components borrowed from the muzzleloaders, I can get 3/4 ounce of #9 shot into the case and theoretically should be getting better than 1000 FPS (I'm afraid to chronograph them - the patterns open up fast). The only real problem - aside from gun weight - is that I have to be a little careful not to tear up too much meat!
doubleh
Member
It didn't come back after the third time.
That doesn't mean it was the same snake everytime. As long as the length is about the same they all look pretty much alike. It could have been three different snakes and the third one drew the unlucky number.
Vern Humphrey
Member
But they all had the same Social Security number.
Random 8
Member
Learned a new one yesterday. Do not use the speer capsules to terminate a hole chewing, insulation destroying, attic inhabiting pine squirrel inside an aluminum downspout. Something about riding along the metal downspout doesn't allow the capsule to fragment and they hit like a Glaser safety slug, putting a rather large hole in the elbow on the other end. Got the squirrel though!
How long was the downspout, Random (muzzle to bullet hole)? The capsule still had quite a bit of energy to penetrate the corrugated aluminum 90......and maybe a squirrel....Never gave it much thought, but the CCI shotshells use a very thin plastic capsule but the Speer capsules are more substantial to allow handloader access for filling. May have to do a bit of experimenting "in the interest of science", as my gunsmith friend and mentor used to say.
This pattern was shot on one of those thin corrugated cardoard boxes at 8-10' and the Speer capsule appears to have hit nose first making a wadcutter like hole in the cardboard. Wish I had dug into the (packed) dirt to check penetration. Doesn't look like these capsules disentegrate, especially with your results. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Regards,
hps
.308 Norma
Member
So, what you're saying is, "Do NOT terminate a pine squirrel inside an aluminum downspout with 'rather large hole' making Speer shot-shell capsule."
I'm not laughing at you Random 8, I laughing near you.
I myself didn't used to think one of those Speer, plastic, practice (powered only by a primer) bullets would penetrate my wife's laundry basket at about 15 feet. It did.Vern Humphrey
Member
Years -- about 60 -- ago, I shared a house in Lawton, OK with two other lieutenants. I got some Speer plastic practice ammo, and I and one of my housemates were shooting with a box full of newspapers as our backstop. The other lieutenant was due home soon, and one of us said, "Hey, let's shoot ol' Doofus in the butt with this."
There was a rubberized canvas divider across the living room, allowing us to make a third bedroom, and that was ol' Doofus' room. One of us shot at it, and the bullet sailed right through.
"Hmmm . . . looks like maybe we shouldn't shoot ol' Doofus, after all."
There was a rubberized canvas divider across the living room, allowing us to make a third bedroom, and that was ol' Doofus' room. One of us shot at it, and the bullet sailed right through.
"Hmmm . . . looks like maybe we shouldn't shoot ol' Doofus, after all."
shinyroks
Member
I took some rabbit hunting a bit ago when i worked on a ranch, the owners didn't want any rifles as the rabbits were around the barn/house/equipment. Made up some in 45 auto and 357, no plastic cups but 7.5 grains of unique in a cut down/necked 308 case worked wonderfully in the 45 auto, and even ejected and autoloaded. Wads were primer box cardboard cut with .40 casings, as were the overshot wads. Just drop the powder, hand tamp the wad, fill as much as the shell will take in 7.5-8.5 shot. Took rabbits cleanly at about 20 feet, only lost one of about 20 to crawling off.
Same story for 357, I think I settled on a 357 case, 6 grains Unique, 7.5 shot to the brim, and capped with a .338 gas check. Made a good watertight round when the gas check was sealed with nail polish. I've always been wary of that plastic cap breaking if the ammo/gun gets jarred... tiny shot everywhere!
Either method is kinda time-consuming, but worthwhile when the cost of "snake shot" is nearing 2 bucks a round, and fun to experiment with. Also a hoot to load randomly in the revolver when shooting paper targets with the kids...
Same story for 357, I think I settled on a 357 case, 6 grains Unique, 7.5 shot to the brim, and capped with a .338 gas check. Made a good watertight round when the gas check was sealed with nail polish. I've always been wary of that plastic cap breaking if the ammo/gun gets jarred... tiny shot everywhere!
Either method is kinda time-consuming, but worthwhile when the cost of "snake shot" is nearing 2 bucks a round, and fun to experiment with. Also a hoot to load randomly in the revolver when shooting paper targets with the kids...
deadeye dick
Member
Sounds like fun!
Made me think of the year (probably 15 years back now) we had a real vole plague around here. When our grandsons were out to the house, I'd drag a water hose out in the pasture and flood the voles out of their tunnels, then watch as our grandsons tried to smack them with shovels as they made for other tunnels. I should have tried the #8 shot in my 44 Mag trick when I was by myself.
WACK=MOLE
.308 Norma
Member
Random 8
Member
Never gave it much thought, but the CCI shotshells use a very thin plastic capsule but the Speer capsules are more substantial to allow handloader access for filling. May have to do a bit of experimenting "in the interest of science", as my gunsmith friend and mentor used to say.
This pattern was shot on one of those thin corrugated cardoard boxes at 8-10' and the Speer capsule appears to have hit nose first making a wadcutter like hole in the cardboard. Wish I had dug into the (packed) dirt to check penetration. Doesn't look like these capsules disentegrate, especially with your results. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Regards,
hps
Downspout elbow was about 5 feet from the outlet. It's been my experience from firing them in the open with snow cover that the capsule shatters into tiny pieces, and the basewad remains intact. In this case, a large amount of the plastic and basewad was concentrated in the area of the hole in the downspout, leading me to believe it stayed intact at least to the point of squirrel impact. I've fired them at 5 feet into sheet metal siding and gotten a nice 12" or so pattern with a little larger dent from the base wad.
I can see the shards of the capsule cylinder embedded in your cardboard outside the mass of the pattern. I've had similar results.
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You're probably right about that being the base wad. It is a bit more solid than the capsule itself and I had not noticed the blue shards until you mentioned it. Glad you got the squirrel; no squirrels here but do have tree rats that follow the power lines and get in attics. Real problem when you can't get in the attic due to fairly flat roof.
Regards,
hps
Regards,
hps
I shot a big water moccasin with a .22 LR shotshell. Made it mad! Luckily I was able to kill it with the 5 remaining cartridges of CCI stinger. There was a bit of excitement on the bass boat that day.
Buddy of mine had that happen in a swamp in NC. Thing fell out of a tree into his boat. Had a pistol decided that wouldn't be good. Paddled it to death.
jmorris
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To me that’s the beauty of loading them yourself. You can actually do better than factory and actually have stuff that doesn’t exist otherwise.
This is my 9mm shot load cycling.
380 shot load in a PPK.
And my 45 ACP load above.
As I said the pattern is tighter than others that don’t use wads.
ThomasT
Member
I load 32 H&R mag cases with #12 shot for my bud out in Weatherford Tx. he has lots of snakes there and he is afraid of everyone of them. I just loaded another 40 rounds a couple of days ago.
I use a 308 gas check run through a Lee .311 bullet sizer for the base and overshot wad. I use 2.5grs of Bullseye for power, then seat the wad with a special seater I made to fit a 357 bullet seater die from RCBS. After the base wad is seated I dip the case in a box of #12 till its just below the top and put the gas check over the shot. Then I use the 32 roll crimp die to slightly roll the case mouth over the top gas check. It holds about 80grs of shot and seems to really kill the snakes for him.
I think since there is no shot capsule holding the shot the rifling doesn't spin the shot load into a donut pattern. So the pattern is full and round. One other thing if you are using some of the Speer 357 plastic capsules and you have any .310 round balls you can fit three of those balls in a capsule and make a 3 ball load. Just a thought.
I use a 308 gas check run through a Lee .311 bullet sizer for the base and overshot wad. I use 2.5grs of Bullseye for power, then seat the wad with a special seater I made to fit a 357 bullet seater die from RCBS. After the base wad is seated I dip the case in a box of #12 till its just below the top and put the gas check over the shot. Then I use the 32 roll crimp die to slightly roll the case mouth over the top gas check. It holds about 80grs of shot and seems to really kill the snakes for him.
I think since there is no shot capsule holding the shot the rifling doesn't spin the shot load into a donut pattern. So the pattern is full and round. One other thing if you are using some of the Speer 357 plastic capsules and you have any .310 round balls you can fit three of those balls in a capsule and make a 3 ball load. Just a thought.
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