Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Taurus Judge or 357 or 44 with CCI Shotshells?

Which would you professionals use / recommend for snakes? The slithering kind not the two legged kind.

Came close to buying a Judge saturday, but decided to do some research first. Lots of negative comments concerning the Judge here in the CF handgun forum. Poor patterns with shot, horrible accuracy with 45 Colt, functional problems , etc.
Yet they are selling like crazy in my local emporium.

So, which would you use or prefer?

Been some years, but if you can still buy the plastic shot cups, load some up with #9 shot. #12 would be the best but I've never been able to find #12. Seems the 357/44 loads come with around a #6 shot.

Killed my fair share with a 2 3/4" Ruger Speed 6

Well, to each his own. You know opinions are like........everybody's got one.

In answer to your question about shot for snakes, all the barrels are rifled, therefore they are going to screw with your pattern. I have a judge, and like it very much. No functional problems, and is as accurate as I am, on any given day. Bought it for home defense, but it would do the job on snakes at reasonable distances. I belive federal developed a shot load, specifically for the judge, although I've never tried them.


maddog

I remember seeing a Speer Manual back in the 70's that had data for loading those. Looked around the Midway site but found nothing. Will have to do some more searching on the web.

...my wife saw a TV ad for a Judge and said, "hey, that would be a neat gun to have." I wasn't about to let a comment like that go unrewarded so I bought one for her. I am NOT a fan of Taurus, and this revolver is "crude" (being kind) if compared to almost any American revolver made in the 50's-70's. Still, it shoots quite adequately with .45 cartridges (I got the short cylinder, not the 3" one). The recoil with .410 cartridges is fairly stout--even lite AA #9 skeet loads--and the word "pattern" isn't really applicable---you could throw a cat thru the pattern at 10 yards. I, like one of the previous posters, have never tried any of the ammo made specifically for the revolver, perhaps they perform better---at snake-striking distance, I'm guessing that the pattern would be quite adequate. Personally, I'd rather have a .44 with shot shells (well, I'd rather have MY .44 with shotshells). The S&W copy of the Taurus that I looked at at the SHOT show seemed to be a definite refinement of the Taurus--if I were to opt for a .410 revolver, that would be my choice. Our local gunshop/indoor range sells a heck of alot of them and they have frequent "issues" with them on their range--cylinders locking up when shotgun shells are used, etc. They're anxious for the Smith's to become readily available.

Having said all of that, my wife likes the Judge and keeps it by her side of the bed loaded with .45LC hollowpoints. They shoot pretty well-and she seems to shoot them pretty well.

JMO-YMMV.
Greg

Used to hunt rattlers and sell the hides back in the day..the .38 with #8 shot was the mainstay...worked really well. Have only shot a few with the .44 and a shotshell..but it worked REALLY well. The Judge IMHO is a bigger, heavier handgun than one needs to carry for snakes....

Will agree with Ingwe on one thing. The judge is heavier to carry. That being said, the 410 shells will throw more shot out there than the 357/44. I guess it's whatever floats your boat.


maddog

There ain't much shot in the CCI 45 ACP shotshells and they're hell on some snakes...

The Judge is another answer to an unasked question. The Speer shot capsules are still availble I think and as I remember,the load data is on th ebox, or it is readily avallable.
I use them in both .357 and 44mag and if they wil kill a grouse at about 10 yards out of a .357 snubby,they will sure as heck kill a snake a lot closer.

Well, now here ya go, this be a REAL snake gun....

http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/the-taurus-raging-judge-28-gauge-revolver/


maddog

I forgot about that...they do put loading data on the shot capsule boxes....true to the data, lighter charges work better, so I learned not to hot rod them. Also as saddlesore said, a snubby works very well. IME the longer the barrel the worse the pattern....I always kinda rode the fence and preffered a 4 "...

The .22LR, .22Magnum, and 9mm shotshells have #12 shot, and they work.

The .38/.357s, .40S&W, .44s, .45ACPs, and .45LCs all have #9 shot, and they work much better.

http://www.cci-ammunition.com/products/pestcontrol_specialty.aspx

Sean, I've had many folks tell me the .22 LR shot cartridge works on snakes...and to be fair, I only have a "sample of one"....I shot a Diamondback in the face from 4 ft. with one, and he taught me to NEVER do it again!!!

Did I say shoot only once?

A couple of weeks ago I loaded up 50 .357 shot shells using the speer capsules and #8 shot. I used .357 brass and 5 gr of Blue Dot. The new boxes don't have load data on them so I just cut a standard Blue Dot load in half (?). The pattern was great at 10 feet (3 long steps). This was out of both a 1 7/8 J-frame and a 2.5 N-frame .357.

I thought a lot about trying a Judge, but didn't like the compromise of the slow twist and reports of inaccuracy on shooting .45 ammmo. The .357 works great with "real" ammo and the shot shells work great at 10 feet but I haven't tested them past that.

CCI .38 Special shot cartridges work just fine on snakes. There is no need for a bulky, heavy .410 handgun as far as I am concerned for dispatching them.

Loading your own is the best option. Get the Speer capsules and load them with the smallest shot you can find. I begged a couple pounds of #9s from a skeet shooter, and that's a lifetime supply. You can get #12 shot from Ballistic Products and that will be enough for your lifetime and three buddies.

Load light. Less velocity means tighter patterns. So does a shorter barrel because the plastic capsule has less time to start spinning in a short barrel.

Finally, here's something I learned: Do NOT crimp as instructed or you will rupture the capsule. Just take out any flare. To keep the capsule in place, run a drop of superglue around the capsule at the case mouth. It works perfectly.

Friends,

Something nobody has addressed here is the question: Why would one want to use shot in a pistol, rather than kill the rattler with a single projectile?

Duhhh, rattlers squirm and move and it's not the easiest thing to hit a snake's head. Also, they are commonly "coiled" and even a .22 bullet commonly screws up several places in the hide. Super-size that to a .38 bullet going though the corpus delicious and you really have a situation of messed up meat and skin.. Also, the damned things wreath like crazy, and it's easy to believe they are still alive and in need of more killin'.

Handgun shotsells simply put the hurt on a rattler. It's like they were swatted with a huge flat spade. He is dead-right-now; the meat is unspoiled and the holes are tiny, so the hide is perfect.

All of the above gives ample reason for the existence and use of handgun shotsells on rattle snakes.

XXX

I've killed (and eaten) literally hundreds of rattlesnakes. Almost all were killed here in Oregon in Hell's Canyon of the Snake River. I always used a Smith & Wesson M-36 Chief's Special with a 3-inch Heavy Barrel (remember J&G Rifle Ranch?) using my handloaded shotshells.

I used Speer Capsules and #9 shot.

I don't have much to add here, but I did some experimentation and the "pattern," using the capsules in a .38 Special revolver opens almost one-inch per foot.

In other words, if you are ten-feet from the rattler, the pattern will be 10-inches. The .38 Special shotshell is absolutely frackin' deadly at 10-feet.

A five-foot shot is, at least for me, a bit too close. Not only is being five-feet from a rattler a bit of a pucker-factor, but the fife-foot shot royally screws up both meat and hide.

The 10-foot shot is perfect; death is most sincerely ricky-tick, while meat and hide are perfect. At 12-feet, death is assured ... 15-feet is OK most of the time and sometimes not, but at 18-feet the pattern is so ragged that you're likely to only wound the snake.

Bear in mind, I wanted the snake for food and for the pelt, so I wanted to kill him like I did most of my elk ... I always thought of it as "Killing Him Lightly." Basically, stopping the LIFE, but with minimum damage to the meat (and in the rattler's case, minimum damage to the skin.}

Bush legend has it that a rattler can strike the distance of his length, so ten-feet is a pleasant distance.I can honestly say that 80% of my rattlers were killed within spitting distance of 10-feet.

As a side note, the crazy-ass outfitter I worked with used to sneak up on a rattler, grab his tail and "snap" his body like a bull whip. He said that the snake's neck was broken right behind the head. Fine for him, but I'd rather stand ten-feet away and swat the rattler dead with a shotshell.

Two final notes, the .38 Special shot loads work well on fool hens and grouse of all types. Same distance applies.

Also, I used to carry one shotshell, with the following rounds being 148-grain Speer Wadcutters with 2.7 grains of Bullseye. One day I was caught while gutting a critter; my rifle was twenty-feet away, leaning against a tree, when a quite decent 4X4 plus eyeguards 175-ish mule deer came sauntering by me.

The range was like 15-feet and I knew I'd be busted attempting to cross-draw my .38. But I had to try, so I sloooowly moved my right hand across my body, withdrew my Chief's Special, cocked and dropped the hammer to get past the shotshell and raised the revolver.

The mule deer must have been a retard ... I carefully line up the sights just at the rear corner of the jaw (to catch both carotids) and fired. The deer dropped, most sincerely dead.

Oh yeah, and he spurted a two-foot fountain of carotid blood straight up in the air ... and onto the snow.

I love it when a frackin' plan comes together.

Lenten Blessings,

Steve

I LOVE retarded critters. Good story

Steel,

Thanks, my friend.

I thought, at the time, that I'd get flamed for descibing the five or six-year old buck as a "retard," but what the hell else could he be?

He was, without a doubt, looking to be a candidate for the Darwin Awards. He was as stupid as a caribou ... and that's going some.

I was between the legs of a big critter, pulling out guts, when this stupid bugger simply walked up. I KNEW he'd blow when I moved, but he had decent horns and I had to try, so I did the three-minute cross-draw, worked past the shotshell, cocked, aimed and BANG.

By the way, the Speer wadcutter broke both carotids and lodged, looking like a half-inch ball bearing, just under the hide on the far side.

He was a really grand old buck.

Steve