FL legal- when did exotic shotgun rounds become illegal?

[beerslurpy]

I cant find any mention of anyone ever having been charged with violating this, nor can I find any mention of anyone passing this law with much fanfare.

I personally dont understand it, none of the rounds outlawed really do anything dangerous except maybe dragon's breath which is something of a fire hazard.

I really want to shoot off a ton of bird bombs for july 4, but I dont want to get in trouble. Actually, now that I look, bird bombs dont seem to be mentioned by name. Woot, my backyard is going to sound like someone is firing a flak cannon.

790.31 Armor-piercing or exploding ammunition or dragon's breath shotgun shells, bolo shells, or flechette shells prohibited.--

(d) "Dragon's breath shotgun shell" means any shotgun shell that contains exothermic pyrophoric misch metal as the projectile and that is designed for the sole purpose of throwing or spewing a flame or fireball to simulate a flamethrower.

(e) "Bolo shell" means any shell that can be fired in a firearm and that expels as projectiles two or more metal balls connected by solid metal wire.

(f) "Flechette shell" means any shell that can be fired in a firearm and that expels two or more pieces of fin-stabilized solid metal wire or two or more solid dart-type projectiles.

(2)(a) Any person who manufactures, sells, offers for sale, or delivers any armor-piercing bullet or exploding bullet, or dragon's breath shotgun shell, bolo shell, or flechette shell is guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

 

[Croyance]

A lot of laws are passed on what makes for a good sound bite. Feel good legislation.
Remember the action movies of the 80's? One result of them is that nunckucks (sp?) and butterfly knives are illegal in places.
Now considering the training it takes to use either effectively under stress and time pressure, this is silly. A criminal is just as likely to knock themselves out or cut themselves than to deploy either quickly. Those types go for the cheap stamped metal knives and not the quality ones anyways.
Besides, a lead pipe or kitchen knife has been far more likely and more dangerous in inexperienced hands.

 

[Byron Quick]

Some of the weird legislation is sound bite/feel good stuff, sure. But there's another thing I've been noticing for some years now: changing the penalities or parameters of a criminal offense and then not publicizing the change or being very low key with it.

Georgia raised its age of consent several years ago. If there was media attention at the time, I certainly wasn't paying attention. It made no real difference to me as I'm far past the age to be attracted to teenagers...or for them to be attracted to me. I have wondered if any young men wound up charged with statutory rape from simply not realizing that the age of consent had been changed. One day a young man is legal in his conduct and the next day he is a felon-with the same girlfriend.

 

[Croyance]

Flechettes can be said to be better against kevlar than a buckshot.

 

[Standing Wolf]

"Bolo shell" means any shell that can be fired in a firearm and that expels as projectiles two or more metal balls connected by solid metal wire.

I believe this sort of thing was known as "grape shot" during the Civil War and probably earlier: lots of lead balls connected by wire. It was said to be effective in stopping infantry charges.

 

[beerslurpy]

re: flechettes
Not the tests I saw that showed them failing to go through even II and definitely not IIIA. They dont even seem to penetrate planks of wood that effectively.

re: grapeshot, I think that is just extra large buckshot, no?

I am less annoyed now that I realize bird bombs arent affected, so I might spend some money and get a saiga magazine's worth of them. I think it might be hilarious to wail on a 50 yard target with the bombs at the range. People would think someone was shooting 20mm anti-aircraft rounds downrange. I should probably take care of my other range business first in case they dont see the humor in it and kick me out.

 

[antsi]

I believe this sort of thing was known as "grape shot" during the Civil War and probably earlier: lots of lead balls connected by wire. It was said to be effective in stopping infantry charges.

I've seen grape shot that had wires to hold it together in a bundle - perhaps to make handling/loading easier - but I thought it was intended to separate outside the gun.

I am not any kind of expert on blackpowder-era artillery though - there may have been a projectile such as you describe called grape shot for all I know.

I have also heard of "chain shot" in naval artillery where two projectiles were held together by a length of chain and the idea was that this thing would whip around and destroy the rigging of a sailing ship.

 

[Spiggy]

that would be a bolo

 

[Gifted]

I believe this sort of thing was known as "grape shot" during the Civil War and probably earlier: lots of lead balls connected by wire. It was said to be effective in stopping infantry charges.

Grape is extra large canister. While canister may have hundreds of balls in a charge, grapeshot will only have a dozen or two. Like bird vs buck, the grape will penetrate better than canister. They did have such charges, the hollow cannonball was segmented, with chains connecting the pieces. Mostly used for cutting rigging on the other guys' ships. Don't know how useful they'd be against personnel.

Birdbombs are fun, the biggest issue I had with my MP-153 is that they're a very low pressure round, and so don't cycle the action. That and one of hte three I shot off popped prematurely, and left the wad in the barrel. Perhaps my barrel was too long, I don't know. Just make sure you're watching for failures.

 

[beerslurpy]

The chain rounds for taking down masts would be a giant version of a bolo round.

The grapeshot round was the blackpowder cannon version of buckshot. This later became behive rounds and similar in the modern artillery age.

 

[MrMex]

What's a bird bomb?

 

[mbs357]

(d) "Dragon's breath shotgun shell" means any shotgun shell that contains exothermic pyrophoric misch metal as the projectile and that is designed for the sole purpose of throwing or spewing a flame or fireball to simulate a flamethrower.

(e) "Bolo shell" means any shell that can be fired in a firearm and that expels as projectiles two or more metal balls connected by solid metal wire.

(f) "Flechette shell" means any shell that can be fired in a firearm and that expels two or more pieces of fin-stabilized solid metal wire or two or more solid dart-type projectiles.

Sounds like a great party.

 

[Dave P]

FS 790

BS, as best I recall, that paragraph has not changed for the last 20 yrs - I don't think it is new at all.

Dave

 

[antarti]

I recall the "Dragon's Breath" furor quite well. It was early or mid 90's.

The media were running a film (provided by police) of a mannequin in kevlar regalia being shot by various shotgun rounds at close range.

First birdshot, then buckshot, then a slug (which stuffed the vest inside the mannequin's chest cavity lol!), then finally the Dreaded Dragon's Breath.

During the dragons breath sequence (which was repeated in slow motion several times for effect), there was a sound effect of what sounded like a lion roaring (no crap), and the round simply set the mannequin and vest on fire, pretty rapidly, and turned it into toast. During the slow-mo replays with voice-over of how "dangerous" this was to the LE community, the sound effect was played in slo-mo as well, kinda like the way Cato and Cleuseau fight and even the voices are slowed.

It all sticks in my mind because it was so hilarious and obviously designed to scare crap out of those who had no clue. It was instructive though, as to what both slugs and the dragons breath would do at close range, my immediate reaction was "gotta get me some of that before this dumb law passes". It was also instructive in how even the most pisspoor LE propaganda could make for passage of an obviously dumb restriction.

 

[Croyance]

Grape shot was not any different in size than regular musket balls and were in use hundreds of years before the American Civil War.
Canisters have been used to hold them together for loading. Canvas bag was another way.
The shot seperated. The idea was to make a cannon a giant shotgun. It was effective at musket ranges.
Sometimes they would load in a cannon ball with grape shot on top. In addition to the initial shotgun effect, the cannon ball was aimed to hit the ground, bouncing around. In the tight infantry formations of the day it was very deadly.

 

[EddieCoyle]

I've seen the Bolo shot they describe used on turkey.

It was an old Vermonter trick. They would crimp several large split-shot sinkers onto a guitar string and stuff it into a 12 ga shell. When fired at a group of turkey on the ground, it would often behead several birds.

I've never shot them at turkey but I've mowed down a swath of cornfield with it and cut down small trees.

It would be a devastating anti-personnel round at medium distance.

 

[Gifted]

I've seen pictures, and read books, so I'm inclined to hold my view, grape was much larger shot than canister.