rantingredneck
Member
....but this time comparing shotshells 
Be honest, when you saw the thread title you rolled your eyes didn't you?
I was browsing through Walmart one evening recently and ran across some boxes of CCI shotshells for 9mm and .45 for 4.50 per box of 10. I have always wondered how well these things would actually work for snake duty around the house so I picked up a couple boxes each of CCI 9mm and .45ACP and I thought I'd do some pattern testing and a range report here for those interested.
My targets were improvised using standard notebook paper from my shooting log book with orange target stickers for aiming points.
The 9mm shells use 64gr. of #11 birdshot in a plastic rounded capsule. The .45ACP loads are an aluminum extended length shell with plastic cap containing 117 gr. of #9 shot.
All targets were shot off hand at a distance of 10 ft. I picked this distance arbitrarily as about as close as most people want to get to a snake.
I loaded all magazines tested with one shotshell followed by standard FMJ target loads in the magazine. All weapons successfully cycled the shotshell out and the FMJ load in.
The first weapon tested was my P89:
Not impressed. I would think that most snakes would shrug that off and keep on slithering.
I decided to try my PC9 to see if the longer barrel would help at all with patterning.
I didn't think it would. Again I don't see 9mm shotshells being useful for much of anything.
Moving on to .45ACP in my P90:
Now that's better. I would think that would actually do some harm to a snake, possibly killing it without further shots needed.
Now the best of the batch was my P345 in .45ACP.
Thats what I'm talking about. Bye bye Mr. Serpent.
I'm not exactly sure why the P345 did better than the P90. The only thing I can think, and this is pure speculation, is that the slightly shorter barrel hits right at the sweet spot in the pressure curve for this particular round. Any thoughts on that gentlemen?
Overall at 10ft the .45ACP loads appear to significantly outperform the 9mm loads. That's to be expected, though given the smaller shot size and smaller shot charge of the 9mm. Now 10ft may be a bit long for shooting snakes. If you can get closer I would expect better patterns from any of these rounds. I still think the 9mm's are pointless for this, though.
Be honest, when you saw the thread title you rolled your eyes didn't you?
I was browsing through Walmart one evening recently and ran across some boxes of CCI shotshells for 9mm and .45 for 4.50 per box of 10. I have always wondered how well these things would actually work for snake duty around the house so I picked up a couple boxes each of CCI 9mm and .45ACP and I thought I'd do some pattern testing and a range report here for those interested.
My targets were improvised using standard notebook paper from my shooting log book with orange target stickers for aiming points.
The 9mm shells use 64gr. of #11 birdshot in a plastic rounded capsule. The .45ACP loads are an aluminum extended length shell with plastic cap containing 117 gr. of #9 shot.
All targets were shot off hand at a distance of 10 ft. I picked this distance arbitrarily as about as close as most people want to get to a snake.
I loaded all magazines tested with one shotshell followed by standard FMJ target loads in the magazine. All weapons successfully cycled the shotshell out and the FMJ load in.
The first weapon tested was my P89:
Not impressed. I would think that most snakes would shrug that off and keep on slithering.
I decided to try my PC9 to see if the longer barrel would help at all with patterning.
I didn't think it would. Again I don't see 9mm shotshells being useful for much of anything.
Moving on to .45ACP in my P90:
Now that's better. I would think that would actually do some harm to a snake, possibly killing it without further shots needed.
Now the best of the batch was my P345 in .45ACP.
Thats what I'm talking about.
Bye bye Mr. Serpent. I'm not exactly sure why the P345 did better than the P90. The only thing I can think, and this is pure speculation, is that the slightly shorter barrel hits right at the sweet spot in the pressure curve for this particular round. Any thoughts on that gentlemen?
Overall at 10ft the .45ACP loads appear to significantly outperform the 9mm loads. That's to be expected, though given the smaller shot size and smaller shot charge of the 9mm. Now 10ft may be a bit long for shooting snakes. If you can get closer I would expect better patterns from any of these rounds. I still think the 9mm's are pointless for this, though.
