Rock salt shotgun shells

[JesseJames]

Does anyone know where you can buy some?

 

[Aneat]

Would that be considered "corrosive" ammo??

 

[bcolorado]

Ahh yes, twelve guage margaritas

 

[JesseJames]

Or perhaps peppercorns balls?
Is to handload your own the only way to go?

 

[Aneat]

Salt & Pepper?? You could pre-season you food and not worry about picking the shot out

 

[John G]

They're great for de-icing your driveway.

 

[xring44]

I think what we have here is the results of hearing oldtimers tell yarns about how far there shotguns would "reach", some told of loading them with rocksalt to keep the game from spoiling while they made the trek to retrieve it. If not,,then I'm lost as I have never heard of them...

 

[AnyRacoon]

Several of the old time farmers in my area used to load shot shells up with rock salt instead of lead pellets. They used them on trespassers and people stealing produce out of the fields. I was told that the rock salt would not do as much damage as pellets but would really sting, as salt rubbed into a wound. Big time OUCH!!

 

[The_Antibubba]

they were an early "less lethal" load.

 

[caz223]

Salt & Pepper?? You could pre-season you food and not worry about picking the shot out

Man thanks for the laugh, I really *needed* that right now. Hard times. I laughed out load, almost spilled my tea into my lap.

 

[AStone]

Ahh yes, twelve guage margaritas

Bcolorado, welcome to THR. Anyone that can whip out humor on their second post should do well here.

{Yet, beware of Legal & Political forum; there be dragons.}

All: thanks for the laughs. Good thread.

Nem

 

[redneck2]

I did this when I was a kid. Medicine for those that would steal watermelons that I worked so hard to raise all summer. I just opened the end of a 20 gauge, picked the biggest chucks of salt I could get, and resealed the end

With the court system today, I'd never do it now.

 

[Murphster]

My uncle's Northwest Arkansas life of crime lasted exactly one day. He, too, decided to help himself to a pumpkin one fall night. The farmer/owner took exception. Uncle prided himself on his leg speed. He discovered leg speed falls far short of shotgun pellet speed, even when the pellets are rock salt. He said being shot wasn't nearly as bad as what you feel when the salt begins dissolving in the many wounds. Asking Ma and Pa to remove the salt apparently wasn't a viable option in his mind so he soaked in a hot tub until they and his larcenous tendencies dissolved. Ah, the old ways are still the best ways. But, I always heard that the rock salt ammo was a handload type of thing. Uncrimp the old paper loads, pour out the shot, put in salt and recrimp.

 

[wolf_from_wv]

I was given some 12 gauge loads by someone I know. He first seperated the lighter ones out, because they had rock salt in them. He gave the other shells to me because he didn't have a 12 gauge anymore. A few years ago, he had one but didn't clean the barrel after a few salt loads and it destroyed the barrel.

 

[jondar]

I think the previous poster is correct in that you will have to load them yourself. A few years back a neighbor's five big dogs charged me as I rode my motorcycle past his house on a gravel road. Nasty accident, separated shoulder, mucho pain. It took a lot of will on my part to get back on that bike, after healing, and ride past that house again. I loaded five .44 Special brass with ice cream salt over a light charge of Bullseye. Put the Colt SAA, making sure the pin was down over an empty chamber, on the saddle under my left thigh. No dogs in sight but coming home here they came. I steered with my right hand and fired three loads at them. They headed for the house faster than they came out. Few minutes later the phone rang. Sheriff's dispatcher. She said there were two deputies in my driveway and would I come out and talk with them. She asked, "if I didn't mind" to have my hands in plain sight. So I went out and explained what happened months before. They asked to see the revolver and the two unused cartridges. They laughed and said the dogs got just what they asked for. Complimented me on my ivory stocked SAA and left. Rock salt will do the job within reason.

 

[ATAShooter]

The rock salt can be deadly, cause rocks is as hard as lead... I use uncooked rice. Will sting the heck out of whatever is recieving it and don't go far. Use at 30 ft or farther though.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Rocksalt loads? Man...I still have the scares on my backside or at least in my mind...I was steeling a big watermellon back when I was a kid. I'm now 63...That wasn't your watermellon, Redneck2. Was it???

 

[MCgunner]

My latest Centerfire Systems catalog/flyer has rubber pellet loads in it, pretty cheap, like 13 bucks for a box of 25. That's gotta hurt.

Had a neighborhood dog come off the porch once when I was riding by on my bicycle, 14 year old kid. Now, we lived out in the country, but had neighbors on the road. This dog took a chunk out of my leg, bit right through my sock! The owner must not have been home, cause I rode my bicycle home, mom and step dad had gone to town. I grabbed my squirrel rifle, Mossberg M152 .22 auto, rode back down the street, and put one in that dog's head from the road before he came off the porch again, rode back home, put the gun up, and dressed my wound. Never heard anything of it and I got my revenge.

 

[Meplat]

I think what we have here is the results of hearing oldtimers tell yarns about how far there shotguns would "reach", some told of loading them with rocksalt to keep the game from spoiling while they made the trek to retrieve it. If not,,then I'm lost as I have never heard of them...

Hell's bells! We used to make them to sting the neighbor's dogs when they decided to make garbage raids in the middle of the night. Some of the old guys in our neck of the woods would even pop a round or two off at kids stealing watermelons. No harm done, as in the case of the kids, velocity of the rock salt had fallen to NOTHING long before any had a chance to sting anyone. As far as the dawgs, you had to be right on top of them in order to have any effect at all. The only thing about popping a round of ANYTHING, even a blank at a human for childish pranks like watermelon patch raiding (more a rite of passage thing than actual theivery - since oftimes the kids involved were raiding EACH OTHER'S patches - and my Dad hated a theif of ANY stripe, but considered this to be one of "them boy thangs") was TOTALLY unacceptable in my house. Dogs, sure. If you screwed up and picked up a "live" round and pumped it into a garbage raiding, barking dog, it just wasn't that big a deal back then. A human life, OTOH, was different. One DID NOT point a firearm at a human unless he had reason to kill that human. If you weren't justified in killing a person, even pointing an UNLOADED weapon was grounds for deep doo-doo.

 

[Rock_Steady]

I still have scars

Friend of mine and I found a great fishing hole on some property that never seemed to have folks on it - out one day, heard some dogs comin' and some old codger yelling at us - we decided to make a run for it, jettisoned everything we could - as we were fleeing we heard a shot and both got it. I learned to never trespass again. I've still got some of that crap in my shoulder - lost a good fishing pole that day.

 

[jeepmor]

Great stories, great lessons

I never lived in a rural enough area to experience these things firsthand, but I had plenty of friends and acquaintances in college who did. Rocksalt steered one individual away from a life of crime when he got blasted in the backside with Rocksalt while attempting to steal someone's hotrod.

His response was, "Time to quit, if that was buckshot, I would not be here. Thank you lord for allowing me to live through this lesson." Oh, the perils of youthful machismo and utter stupidity. Wonder any of us made it past adolescence some days.

I don't think I'd do it these days though, at least not here in Metro Portland, Oregon. But the dog story, that was good, especially when you have a chunk of meat out of you to verify you're not just out to maim some dumb animal for fun. The cops laughing, that was a cool twist, didn't expect that.

jeepmor

 

[Ranger J]

A friend of mine way back in my college days told of being shot with a combo load of rock salt and navy beans. He claimed that the salt burned like hades and the navy beans left big purple whelts.
RJ

 

[The_Antibubba]

AIM FOR THEIR LEGUMES!!!

Hmmmm, Ranger J, now you've got me thinking. If I loaded a shotshell with soybeans and lentils, could I market it as an "AntiPETA" round?

 

[dfaugh]

Ground Glass

Had a friend on the local PD, many years ago. They had shells loaded with ground glass..called them "riot loads"...said to make a real mess of the BG at short range, but lost energy fast so they wouldn't harm innocent bystanders. I always had this mental picture of some guy getting a few hundred pieces of razor sharp glass picked out his butt...Nasty but funny

 

[Essex County]

Do not help yourself to a Vermont farmers prize apples. At least this was so forty-five years ago. 'Nuff said.........Essex