Smooth bore shoots shot shells. It’s called the garden gun yes for little Vermin like chipmunks and such. What’s people’s opinion on distance and size of vermin. Example raccoon, porcupine. Would have to have head shot. Couldn’t be that far of a distance at all. So on and so on. Just curious on people’s thoughts.

Are you serious? I knew a fellow that once shot a fly off the hood of his GMC with 22lr birdshot and it didn't even chip the paint. Don't try it, that's ridiculous for anything much larger than a mouse or a snakes head at a short distance.

Marlin built some of those in a bolt action few years ago. Not sure why anybody would try to kill schitt with them. Maybe a mouse at 10' max and that would be pushing it.

#12 shot so that's a big no go on your coons and porcupines.

Killed these at about 5' tonight. Killed a couple at about 2' but we couldn't locate any pieces.

Shot these 2 right in the machine shed, one was right on the board and you could even see where the shot hit boards or metal.

Great stuff. Just piss off anything bigger than a mouse. Very interesting little gun.

I have one of the Marlin's I'd sell if you're interested in it.

I bet I've killed 20 of those bastards with my Buckmark in the last 2 weeks. I'm going to kill more tonight. Destructive things. If I wasn't lazy, I'd build a trap for them.

My thoughts are the CCI shotshells suck and despite their marketing hype the old crimped shotshells are better. Back when Jamesway went out of business and had ammo marked half price I bought several bricks of Winchester crimped shotshells. Had a rossi 62 pump gun at the time and they fed through it like shotgun shells through an 870. My brother and I had a ball wing shooting bats in the evening and sparrows during the day around my dads barn with that Rossi and those shotshells. We knocked dozens of bats and sparrows out of the sky at distances of 20-30 ft.. Killed hundreds of frogs and dragonfly's around the pond too. I even killed a cottontail rabbit from about 8 or 10 feet one day but anything bigger and tougher or farther away forget it.

Just buy a S&W Governor and be done with it. Easier to carry and much more effective.

Dad has traps but I fail to see the fun it trapping them when I can shoot the fugg out of em.

I have seen a lot of reviews about the crimped shells vs the capsules. Have a line on the crimped loads and will be ordering a brick later this evening.

After popping a wood rat in the rock wall around the patio with the SP101 in .22 with birdshot I started looking for something a little quieter. Vaguely remembered Whittakers doing a special run of Savage garden guns.

Looks like a handy bolt action so I ordered one for $179. That part was easy, finding crimped shotshells was a little harder but have a brick incoming. Should arrive about the same time.

I'm sorry it didn't occur to me to take a pic of the dead rat.

I own the Marlin which is in Magnum chambering it lives behind front door big difference in the LR and mag just my opinion

They will kill the [bleep] out of nasty birds on my fruit trees 30 ft

Apparently the rifling in most 22 lr makes for lousy patterns. The smoothbore makes a difference at the ranges it would be used.

About 35 years ago, we had a problem with birds getting into our machine shed. Metal pole barn. One shot with a BB rifle convinced my dad to look for another option...those steel BBs really ricocheted. He settled on .22 birdshot from a rifle, forget whether it was crimped or plastic cup.. Shoot a bird at about 20-25 feet, they'd fly off, but would die when they landed...after about 15 seconds. We eventually found where they were getting in and solved the problem. About 10 years later a friend and I decided to have a little sport with mice in an old granary...it was loaded with them. We found that we got sure kills with CCI plastic cup birdshot out of .22 pistols at about 10-12 feet, wounded them at 15 ft plus. Lots of dust and the patterns told us why....pretty thin past 15 feet. Maybe a smoothbore would improve performance, but not sure how much.

Your story reminded me of one of mine. My uncle and cousin had problems in their grain rooms with rats. My cousin and I went the first night with a rifle and 22 birdshot. The rifle was too slow to swing at all of the action. The next night we went back armed with a revolver and 22 birdshot. It was a rat killing machine. There were so many rats running every which way that it was hard to keep straight. It felt like you were in you own first person video game like "Call of Duty". I shot so many rats I lost count. Some even fell on my back from the ceiling as they were panicking. I even remember my trigger finger getting tired from shooting the revolver. When all was said and done we had enough rats to fill the back of a full sized pick-up bed without stacking them. A really crazy night for both of us.

We had fun in that granary. If is an old Great Northern refrigerator car my dad bought for a granary in the 1940s. Lots of old stuff stored in it now, lumber, old tires, etc. We would shoot for about 10 minutes, then close the door and wait. Open it and the fun began again. How far did you find the shotshells to be effective on rats?

Most of the shots were from PBR to 12 feet. I made one shot which was close to 30 ft which I felt was a bit of luck. I think 10 to 12 feet was a sensible max for that revolver. The gun I was using a snub nose revolver made by New England Firearms if I remember correctly. I don't have it anymore.

Something worth mentioning, after the first night I went back the next night with ear muffs and safety glasses. I had a couple of pellets ricochet and hit me in the face.

Barm, good point on the glasses. Sounds like we had similar results with regard to effective range.