Question for reloaders

[tularetom]

I live in snake heaven. Every year I wind up shooting at least 2 or 3 rattlesnakes on my driveway where they crawl at night to sleep on the warm asphalt. I've used a single shot .410 loaded with 00 buck (home defense loads) to dispatch the critters but I don't think I need this much firepower. And I'd rather use a handgun. My question is this.

I have tons of .45 Long Colt brass and several revolvers chambered in .45 LC. What I want to do is load them with powder, cardboard or styrofoam for over powder cards, some 7-1/2 bird shot and a cardboard over shot card (no crimp) sealed with some white glue. Or do the same thing in cut down .410 hulls to be fired from the .45 LC revolvers.

Anybody have experience doing something like this?

[oneshooter]

1. Yes, only mine were rats. When I bought this place the barn was overrun with Norways.

I would put out a handfull of dog food on the ground and sit on the tractor. Range was 10-15ft. Stayed real still and within 3 min. one to three of those big nasty bastads was eating. hammer was back and I took real carefull aim, and if they were real close together I could get 2 sometimes 3 per shot.

My formula is Standard primers, 6gr Unique, thick cardboard, shot to fill, top with a light card board wad, or a plug of styrofoam. If using cardboard then"crimp" by running it through a seating die.

Shot about 2ft dia.pattern at 15 or so feet. The rifleing tends to create a "donut effect" if the range is too long.

Hope this helps. YMMV

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[Buzz cook]

5. Speer sells a shot capsule

Never have loaded rat shot myself.

Consider using a .22. If we're talking ranges in feet instead of yards you should be able to make the shot.

[BiggJawn]

2. What about one of the .45 LC/410 revolvers?

The ones with the cute names like "The JUDGE", "The Governor", etc.

[tularetom]

3. See, I live in CA and those sort of firearms are frowned upon here

My neighbor's son in law, who resides in a state with more liberal gun laws, brought one by here a year or two ago and it would pretty much vaporize the vipers. But again, I'm not trying to pulverize them just kill them. Besides it's more fun when you can improvise. And those .410 shells are expensive.

BTW I hear rumors that Taurus is developing a 28 ga. revolver.

[BiggJawn]

4. Oh, yeah, California... I'm sorry.

When I posted that I thought that you might not be able to have one of those, and I forget that 1/2 the fun of these things is experimenting (within reason) with loads, etc.

28 gauge? Oh, my!