A carefully aimed shot with a .22 solid bullet is much more effective than .22 CCI birdshot. The heavier calibers do a much better job...
Try it on a piece of paper sometime...a snake could "walk" through a pattern much beyond a few feet and that being the case why shoot the snake...
Bob
I completely disagree, .22lr is one of the better rounds for snakes.
It doesn�t take much to kill a snake, so you�re best off using very small shot; #11 or #12. In the .22 calibers, CCI uses #12, but when you get to larger calibers, they go to 7.5 size shot. This really decreases the effectiveness of shot cartridges on snakes. Using a .38 Special, 9mm or .45 ACP CCI shot cartridge will not kill a snake ANY faster than a .22lr. .22 mag is actually better than all of them. It�s not until you get to .44 special/.45 Colt that the larger shot loads do any better than .22lr. When using CCI shot cartridges, regardless of the caliber used, I haven�t noticed that any of them actually kill better than the .22lr. All snakes get 2-3 shots, which will both kill them, and stop them; and even if I�m shooting them with a .45 CCI shot cartridge, it still takes at least 2 shots, if not 3 to completely stop them from moving.
Now if it were a REALLY big snake, then the switch to larger shot could be of some benefit, but in Arkansas, we really don�t have truly BIG snakes; copperheads & cottonmouths are what we worry about most.
Now if you were to load your own using #11 or #12 shot, then the larger cartridges can make a BIG difference. It�s the shot size that makes the biggest difference, and the smaller shot makes for fuller patterns and more pellets on the target.
Just my experience.
