Rocksalt Shotshells....??? can anyone pack a few for me?

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Amish_Bill

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Odd as it may seem, I've recently come into the need for 12ga shotshells loaded with rocksalt.

No, no, I'm not looking to use them on the guys that come sniffing after Critter... (though it might be an interesting deterrent angle)

I asked someone what they'd like to shoot their defective blackberry with. Most people tend to respond "A Glock" or "An AK-47" or "9mm" or "40" or ".45", but no, this person could not follow convention. She said "rocksalt".

So....

Can anyone around here help me out with a run of rocksalt 12ga from their press? I'm thinking no less than 10, no more than whatever you're willing to crank out for me or help me crank out on your gear. I'm hoping I can find someone in the Atlanta area so we don't have to worry about ORMD shipping. Either way, I'm willing to cover some reasonable costs for components & such.

Thanks,
AB
 
Make them it's not that hard. You can open a shell and dump the shot and fill it with some rock salt. I think you can get rock salt in the canning section. If not you can make larger crystals with instructions you can find online.

I'm not responsible for you, your gun or your blackberry if you make it yourself.
 
If you have a old barrel you dont care about another fun thing to do would be to fill the shell with nickles.
 
Opening a shell - I can probably handle that... Getting it nicely crimped back up, THAT is the challenge and why I want to do it on a proper shotshell press.
 
Amish_Bill,

Sorry to say, you are going to need a reloader to get the crimp right. Someone near to has to have a MEC single stage.

Heck even a Lee will do it.

Not sure what you are wanting these loads for, but if only going to use a few, just use some factory promo dove/ quail loads and remove the pellets [dental pick is good for "undoing"] and replace with rocksalt.

Popcorn Kernals are great too. 'Popcorn loads" we call them, and you have seen me and others refer to. Kernals, like we used to use to pop popcorn with.

These work well for getting pests out of a barn or a garden row without hurting structure or garden.

In a teaching capacity, great! This will bust a balloon, or a clay for a kid , or any new shooter learning.

In a .410, just a handy something for around the property to rid the barn or shoot over toward pests getting into something, not needing to actually hit or fell.

Teaching again - shoot at a pond with cardboard or paper on the bank, shows kids about richochet.

Fun factor is there too.
 
its easy enough to empty the shot out of a shell and replace it with something else, rocksalt, or airsoft bbs in my case. to crimp it back over just close it back up with your fingers as best as you can then press the crimp side down on the desk nice and hard. it closes up well enough to shoot.
 
Clean the firearm afterwards very carefully for at least 2 days, the salt can eat the barrel up in no time.
Click to expand...

I suspect that's why police went to rubberball rounds instead.

As for this thing the original poster wanted to do, some of the surplus places had some cheap "door breaching rounds" filled with powdered metal. I would think that'd be less harsh on the barrel than high-velocity salt coating?

Or use a barely-functioning old H&R single-shot or something you don't really care about.
 
For my plan you will need six 12 gauge rounds. Cheap small game or plinking loads will do.
Open one shell up and fill it with rocksalt.
Open the others up and then recrimp them by hand against a hard surface. Now you have five regular shotshells that look like they have also been reloaded.
Have the person in question shoot the offending item with the five "handloaded" shotshells and give her the one loaded with rocksalt as a souvenir. At shotgun range it is unlikely that the target will survive long enough for anyone to tell the difference. It would be safer than actually shooting something with rocksalt and you won't have to worry about corrosive salts in your gun barrel.

My dad used to make rocksalt rounds by opening up a regular shotshell, dumping out the shot, refilling with rocksalt, and then crimping them against the refridgerator. He kept them on top of the refridgerator to deal with unwanted wildlife marauding his garden. I don't know if they actually made any difference but the noise certainly chased things away.
 
its easy enough to empty the shot out of a shell and replace it with something else, rocksalt, or airsoft bbs in my case.
Click to expand...

What do you shoot with airsoft BB's?

Is it some kind of sadistic force on force training:evil:
 
For those real "pesky critters" my old man would boil a pound of rice in a gallon of water with a 5 lb. box of kosher salt for 30 minutes. He would air dry the rice, whip up some AA shells and load em' into his old double 12. All it took was 1 kid to catch a few grains of rice in the fanny and VIOLA - no more "pesky critter" problems.
 
My2cts

I know I'm new but for what it is worth rock salt is what you use on your driveway (Ice melt salt) I've used it before and without a lot of testing works satisfactory. Rivergun
 
All these "The Salt is going to eat up your gun" folks must have forgotton that just about every shell that one might open up today has a full cup wad inside. None of the rock salt will even touch the inside of the barrel. I would fill the space inside of the shell between the salt chunks with some powder of sorts, Corn starch or corn meal would work nice. Remember you are reloading here so do not get the load too heavy.
 
Just open up the shell, pour out the shot, and put in your measured amount (ie. 1 oz) of rocksalt. Because salt is so much less dense than lead, I don't think you'll be able to fit enough salt in there to matter, but I'd measure anyway.

To seal it back up, fold it back over as best you can by pushing with your thumb. Put a few drops of hot glue on the end, and then press against a table for 30 seconds or long enough for the glue to cool.

All you need to do is seal it up just enough to keep the payload from getting out during loading. It doesn't take much.
 
rivergun - yes, rocksalt is the same stuff you use to melt the snow and ice in the more colder areas of the country. It also has a historic application as a non-lethal (at sufficient range) and decidedly painful load to use on pesky visitors. I neither need to clean a frozen sidewalk nor give a youngster a burning backside for being a hoodlum. I need it because it's what someone wants to shoot their old Blackberry with. :D

10-ring - yeah, that would work... but I'd rather do it properly if I could. I'm just that kind of cranky. :evil:
 
Pardon my lack of tact...but...we need to remember that a shotgun is a deadly force weapon even if it's loaded with rocksalt shells. If the threat doesn't warrant deadly force under local law, you are walking on the wild side.

The only thing I can think of that's crazier than pointing a shotgun at a non-deadly force threat is doing something to help someone else use a deadly force weapon on a non-deadly force target where you have no control over how and when someone else is going to do that.
 
Uttered by: JNewell
The only thing I can think of that's crazier than pointing a shotgun at a non-deadly force threat is doing something to help someone else use a deadly force weapon on a non-deadly force target where you have no control over how and when someone else is going to do that.
Click to expand...

You're calling a blackberry a "non-deadly force target"? You've obviously never had one wake you up at 3am to tell you someone in another department was going to be late to work...

(you did read my first and subsequent posts completely, right?)
 
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It also has a historic application as a non-lethal (at sufficient range) and decidedly painful load to use on pesky visitors. I neither need to clean a frozen sidewalk nor give a youngster a burning backside for being a hoodlum. I need it because it's what someone wants to shoot their old Blackberry with.
Click to expand...
All of which makes me wonder why this person chose rocksalt. My guess is it was a misunderstanding about what rocksalt is/does, maybe having heard it in a movie and not understood the context. I think a regular game load would be much more appropriate for punishing the offending electronic gadget. The goal is to smash that sucker, right?
 
I'm not exceptionally sure why this person chose rocksalt either. I get the impression that she's not a real gunny, so my theory is that it's an association in her brain from stories she heard way back. It probably has a "non-lethal" feel in her head, as opposed to slugs or buckshot or even birdshot.

Either way, if I can get a positive gun experience into another girl's head by providing rocksalt for her to shoot a blackberry with, well, I'll consider it time well spent.

:D
 
ps - a rather nice person has come forward to assist in my rocksalt project.

Thanks!
:)

Don't let that little fact stop this thread though - it's somewhat interesting.
 
FWIW, S&B uses a plastic disc across the top of the shell casing to hold the shot in (At least they do on the 00Buck shells I have).

This disc is easily pried out and replaced.
 
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