Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Making Snake Shotshells????

I've shot 10 of them in my Blackhawk. No cylinder lockup.

I wonder if one could load 45 colt speer shotshell capsules in 45 auto rim brass? The only problem(s) would be the - col of the long capsule - and seating deep into the ar brass - and the chamber length of the 45 auto revolver. I will see if I have any empty AR brass - know I have a few shot capsules.

Nice, but that's a different beast. You also can't run Auto Rim brass in the ACP cylinder.

Do a Google search on using .308 brass. There are videos on using standard dies.

True. As a convertible could probably use the Colt cylinder with the AR brass. No?

Handloader magazine a few years back had a great article on this. One of the few articles it did not involving the .45 Colt or an obsolete cowboy cartridge.

Some interesting info...

http://www.ammochannel.com/45-acp-shotshells-handloaded/

Have you checked the CCI shot capsule for fit in your AR brass? The inside taper of the case might stop you, and so might OAL, but it'd be a very painless way to make ammo if you could swing it.

I've no desire to mess with the plastic shot capsules.

Roger

Steelhead PM DocRocket he posted an excellent primer here a year or so ago on making shot loads.

a primer on shot loads.

Get it?

anyway:

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/6386432/1

I once did the shortened .308 brass trick to make .45ACP shotshells, back in the late 80's. Heavy roll crimped with an RCBS crimping die, thin card over-shot wad, #9 shot as I recall. I used thin cork head gasket material to cut over powder wads. The first couple I applied some clear nail polish to seal the works, the last few I skipped that and it didn't seem to matter. I didn't load them hot enough to cycle my 1911 Colt- should work ok in a revolver though.

The thing with shooting shot out of a rifled barrel is patterns will truly suck. One way to mitigate that to a degree is to go with as heavy a shot charge as possible, and drive it as slow as possible and still get sufficient penetration to kill a snake (and it doesn't take much).

I have lived most of my adult life in copperhead infested areas. (I got struck twice, and luckily had boots on both times that deflected the bites. One of my dogs wasn't so lucky.) I took to carrying either a .22 or .32 revolver and dispatched more of them than I can remember, with "ball" ammo. More often than not it meant multiple shots to hit the wriggling bast*rds, but I always triumphed. I hate those C*cksuckers.

If you want a double handful of #9 shot, Scot, I'll send you some. I'm not shooting much skeet these days and can let some go!

I've decided, since the wife will NEVER use this gun, I'll stick with the SWC's and shoot heads off.

Good call, meatball.

If it works don't try to fix it. I believe you have already proved the 38 does the job rather nicely.

size case,
put powder/primer in
cut with a sharpened mouth of a case some little round circles from a steyrafoam cup, serves as wad to hold powder.
place over powder.
pour shot in
another foam circle to hold in place
hot glue that in postion.
shot load for revolver.

i personally like no 12 shot, which i bought on line. throws a dense pattern really chews them up.
I have used the platic speer cups, but they aren't needed.
cutting the .308 is too much work.

I have the RCBS die set for making 45 Auto shotshells from 308 brass, don't know how they'd do in a revolver but they cycle a 1911 just fine.

One thing I learned that helps shot patterns a lot is using cut down .410 shot cups instead of just filling the case with shot. You can't get as much shot in there, but patterns are generally more uniform.

These do take a lot of experimentation with different powders to find good patterns though; some do much better than others but that probably varies with different guns.

Steelhead - Between this thread and one by DocRocket from April of 2012, my vole infestation may have a happy ending.

Pretty much the entire intermountain west has been infested with voles and you two have provided the incentive to retreat to the man cave for the development of snake/vole.mice loads. I can see a vole safari in the near future.