45 / 410 Revolver

[Shamus M]

i just bought me a nice cattleman revolver .45lc. i recon you could bag a nice snake with that. usually if i see a snake its within 5 feet. yeah anything after that isn't very good kill radius with the .22 because the spread gets to wide

 

[crash325]

i just bought me a nice cattleman revolver .45lc. i recon you could bag a nice snake with that. usually if i see a snake its within 5 feet. yeah anything after that isn't very good kill radius with the .22 because the spread gets to wide

Have a 44/40 single action Colt. Nice old gun, does need a little work, nothing serious. ?Same as a Cattleman??

 

[Shamus M]

Have a 44/40 single action Colt. Nice old gun, does need a little work, nothing serious. ?Same as a Cattleman??

yeah looks the same but yours probably worth a lot. mine is a repro . just got it last week. its a uberti cattleman el patron single action.
Uberti 1873 Cattleman El Patron

 

[gwdixon]

Shot shells can be purchased for .38 and .44 cal. pistol. We bought the plastic containers and reloaded our own with a combo of #12 and #9 shot. Worked great. The #9 shot held more energy at longer distances. 5.0 g. of 700X was enough to give plenty of penetration.

I used to raise pigs and would fill my .357 with .38 shot shells and my friend would use the .44 cal in his .44 mag. We needed a couple of back-up guns in our waistbands for when things got exciting. We would put a water hose down a rat hole and blaze away as they tried to get away. We could fill a couple of 5 gallon buckets with our once a month shoot.

Anyway, those calibers are a better choice than .22 for sure...although I have used .22 MAG shot shells with some success. It was used as the last back-up gun when everything else was empty.

.410 has quite a kick in my T/C single shot but if it were more than a single shot it would take a while to get back on target because of the recoil. Not good when critters are scurrying everywhere.

We found that short barrels held a pattern better than long barrels...probably because of the rifling and the pellet damage while going down the barrel.

 

[k0ua]

I wonder if something like a Ruger LCR a small 5 shot polymer frame short barrel revolver with some .38 shot cartridges would be effective and easy to pack in a pocket.

James K0UA

 

[clemsonfor]

I,m inclined to agree with you. 1 intrest is a small frame revolver, even if it is only 5 shot. I don't think that any gun with a rifled barrel will pattern very well shooting shot.

If a small frame is your desire why not get one, just get a 38 in say a J frame or get the tarus in their small frame ohh whats that model number... is it 8??? But whatever the Tarus model is its basically a J frame copy. I would just get a 5 shot 38 revolver. Then get 38 shot shells. Not as powerfull as a 410 but your killing snakes not deer, you would have a true small frame and not that giant cylinder of the 45/410s and then you can have a small carry gun or backup gun as well, loaded with 38P

 

[k0ua]

Taurus 85

 

[clemsonfor]

There you go!! Thanks k0ua

 

[daveshoot]

I bought .38 shot shells to use for snakes in my 6" bbl. GP-100. They gave me a false sense of security for a while.

I finally got curious enough to try them out on some milk jugs. I was amazed at how few pellets (like 2-3) placed on a gallon jug from 6' away. Frankly, I lost interest in them after that. I do not plan to be shooting at rattlers from closer than 6' and my impression was the shells were useless at any greater range. Maybe it was just the long barrel, but they were not a reliable snake-stopper in that rig, which is still my favorite.

The only snake I ever actually shot was with the dreaded Black Talon .357 slugs, which were in there for totally different reasons. Took some aiming at 20' or so, and it was, of course, ridiculously massive overkill on a fairly modest little rattler. It was while prospecting in back country and the snake had all my stuff (which I dropped when I almost stepped on it), or I would've let it go.

Now I try to use air guns for everything and I would be good at 15-20 yards on a rattler head. If he is closer than 6' I am moving, not shooting. On my property, I'd just mark the spot, fetch the Marauder, and put a nearly silent .22 through the brain.

 

[MossRoad]

We used to shoot birds in airplane hangars with .22 bird shot and it did a great job out to 30-40'. However, that was with a rifle. I would think, at close range, say 6', it would kill a snake from a pistol. Most certainly a .38 with bird shot would kill a snake from that range one would think.