bird shot in a revolver

[greenwood county cowboy]

i want to use my black powder revolver for shooting snakes....could you load it with shot.....powder+wad+shot+wad+cap??? has anyone every tried that??

[Long Johns Wolf]

What a neat idea. Like to learn more like which model pistol you use, load, etc. Have this Pietta LeMat with the smooth bore center barrel but never got to load & shoot it with shot.
Don't want to steal your thread but I regularly shoot flares out of my .44 cal. ASP/Colt Army and my wife's .44 cal. Santa Barbara/Remington 58 at New Year's: .31 load BP, 9mm flare, chamber sealed with wads, primer and there you go. Obviously I shot this special loads straight up only. However, this might not be legal in other parts of the world and can start a fire in a dry environment...
Bootsie

[Delmonico]

I did this back in the early 80's, with a 44 Remy, used a little less than half a cylinder full of powder and used a card wad over top, #9 shot and another card wad.  Worked Ok as long as you only loaded 1 that way, with more that one they tended to come unloaded.   Patterns were good enough you could have killed a snake at 5-6 feet.

BTW I have found what Elmer said was true about shooting snakes. (Like most of what he told us.)  If the snake is close enough to be dangerous you don't need a shot load, just point yer pistol toward it's head and the snake will line himself up for you.

[Grapeshot]

Here is one way to do it.  Now that I've read your post again I take it you have a cap and ball revolver.  This lends a bit more difficulty.  I've done this using .45 Colt cases and smokeless powder a gas check, shot, an inverted gascheck seated below the case mouth, then roll crimp.  Does wonders on snakes and rats.  Same procedures with .44 Spl or Magnum.

I don't think you can stuff a gascheck into a C&B chamber cup side up or inverted without having the rammer bend.

You really need something that will be a very tight fit in the cylinder as your overshot wad,

[St. George]

What Keith said was true then - and true today.

I used to use a snake load for .45ACP that worked well - and the 'overshot card' was an inverted gas check.

That always hit center - at snake distances - so I went back to carrying Ball.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Howdy!

I've got no experience in this matter, but I have heard that the pattern will deteriorate quickly out of a rifled barrel ... but, as others have said from experience, it seems to work at snake distances.  My point?  I doubt I'd try it on birds or squirrel/rabbit distances.


But it's a neat idea!

[Will Dearborn]

FUnny you guys should post on this thread, right now.  I just bought a brand of lubed wads that I hadn't used before... and in the package, it talks about using shot in a revolver.  They say to use another wad as an over-shot card.  I'd been pondering this idea for a few days, as it's not something I'd heard grey beards talking about before.... so I was curious if it was ever REALLY done, or if the manufacturer of the wads had found a way to make me use twice as many. 

Long days and pleasant nights,
Will

[Wills Point Pete]

What caliber is your revolver? I am not real big on cap 'n ball but I wonder if a Speer shotcap would fit in your chamber. If so that ought to be the way to go.
In my .45 Colt loads Black powder works just as well as anything else, for a couple shots. Then the lack of soft lube to keep the fouling slick starts to show. No biggie, I only shoot one or two, then it's time for the Big Lube Boolits.
The finer the shot, the better. I've had my best results with #12 shot, it's hard to come by, though. I usually use #9.
Anybody got a couple-three pounds of #12?

[hellgate]

I used to carry my '61 Navy as a sidearm when greydigger shooting (Spermophilus beecheyi I think) in snake country. The first chamber was about 10grs powder, a card wad (tablet backing), birdshot, and another card wad. I did kill a squirrel that popped up onto a tree trunk about 5 ft from me. Otherwise the pattern is pretty pathetic & thin. Finer shot is better. The riflings tend to throw donut patterns as the shot column gets rotated. My navy has real shallow riflings like the originals. I would recommend you try a few rounds at paper so you can get a dose of reality to determine the effective range. A 44 would be better than a 36.

[willy]

Been there done that!
I was looking for a close range rabbit or bird gun (close range= 10-15 yards)
 I took my Walker out and filled the chamber with 30gr. 3fg and a 410 shotgun wad.filled rest of chamber with no.6 shot and sealed with candle wax.
I hung a piece of note book paper on the barn door and backed off about 30 feet.
BOOM!!---When the smoke cleared i had 2 hits on the paper the rest were scaterted in about a 8 foot pattern.
I really think I could get a better pattern if I  just filled a plastic sandwich bag with shot and hit it with a bat.
I don't know how close you would have to be for a good pattern on a snake. But anything from 10 yards or farther and the snake has a real good chance of not getting touched by any shot.
Just my opinion though-Of the few snakes I've killed with a pistol ,I never needed a shot load to kill them.
I always had time to pull and fire(none were striking or even comeing at me, most were just trying to get away )


Willy

[rickk]

I used to work with the company that started "BBM", a now defunct company that specialized on 45 acp shot cartridges,

What can help a little is a teflon sleeve and a base wad under the chot column to protect the shot. The speer capsules may work as well, but they won't stay put very well in a BP gun without help up front. If you just load shot you can try an inverted copper gas check on top of it (if you can find one of suitable size), possibly with a lubed felt wad going in last. The BBM design used a copper jacket that looked like an actual 45 ACP jacket (minus the lead core) to cap it off. That allowed it to feed properly in anything that would take 45ACP (including the full auto Tommygun we had)

The rifling still messes the pattern up quite a bit. The screw in chokes ala TC Contender that are nothing but a straight (non-rifled) section of rifling will do wonders to improve a pattern. A compensator to drop pressure before the shot leaves the muzzle will help alot as well. We had a couple of experimental extended (about 12 inch) 1911 barrels with straight rifling (to keep them legal), and porting holes out near the muzzle. Half way decent patterns were produced by that barrel. Stock guns were less effective, although load developement (and the teflon sleeve) improved the pattern quite a bit over the first random attempts at loading shot.

Think #9 shot if you want a pattern with less holes in it. You ain't gunna take down a deer with it though 

[Delmonico]

Takes an awful big snake to be dangerous beyond 3 feet, they can only strike about half their length.

[Will Dearborn]

Ya know... if ya grab em behind the head, ya don't have ta shoot em.



Long days and pleasant nights,
Will

[reloader4410]

The black powder handgun by Fadala chapter 21 tells about loading a handgun basically it uses them felt wads over powder & over shot. Once had a problem on my carport with carpender bees used a load of rice killed the bees & didnt shoot holes in my tin roof.

[Adirondack Jack]

Best snake gun I have is a .22 pistol or revolver.  Either has a 9 or ten shot capacity, and there ain't a snake in north america won't die when hit with a .22, and they will retreat instantly when hit.  If ya can't hit even a small snake at 6 feet with a .22, (might take two or three shots) ya need to practice.

[litl rooster]

   I use a Black Powder coated Spade..........4 foot handle whop and chop  hoses off clean without Moose Milk.   I still have some store bought snake loads I believe they are #11 shot really fine, they are only good 10 to 12 feet.  I load every other hole with one then a lead round when I am riding fence this time of year.

[Delmonico]

If you want #10, #11 and #13 shot, these guys have it.

http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/products.asp?dept=68

A Meca for anyone who wants a shotgun to be more than a water pipe blowing shot down range.