After buying our property last fall, this summer has been my first experience mowing/hogging field grass. The first time I mowed I was pretty amazed at how many field mice and rats I scared up which started me thinking about some way to do the critters in while I was on the tractor. The thread about packing while tractoring and discovering that CCI makes shot shells in 9MM really got me motivated.
Back in the 70's when I lived in California and did allot of trout fishing my snake gun was a Colt 45 single action loaded with shot. I had acquired an extra barrel which I smooth bored and my cartridge of choice was reloaded cut down 410 shells. Worked like a charm even though it was illegal as all get out. Any smooth bore gun is a shotgun by the legal definition and then falls under the minimum barrel length laws.
Knowing that a rifled barrel and shot shells do not produce the most desirable results I sat out to find an old worn out barrel for my Browning 9MM auto. A couple of phone calls and a friend of a friend later I had my barrel and the price couldn't be beat (free). Chucked the thing in my drill press and drilled it out to about 8.5MM then went in with a 9MM reamer to clean up the bore. Went to a gun shop and bought a couple of boxes of CCI ammo and a cheap holster I could strap to the tractor. If you do this you are breaking the law, can't imagine an ATF agent going after a guy shooting rats from a tractor but you never know.
Now I am all set but wanted to compare the smooth bore barrel with a stock barrel to see what the difference was and what I could expect out of 9MM shot shells. The attached picture pretty much tells the story.
The pattern on the left is with the stock barrel the one on the right is with the special barrel. Both were shot at exactly 10 feet. This is the back side of a piece of fiber board I was using for a target, it was hard to tell where the shot hit on the front side but you can sure tell on the back. The pattern out of the smooth bore is about 5 1/5 inches in diameter and the one from the stock barrel is about 22 inches in diameter. The big hole in the center is from the plastic casing the shot is loaded in. I believe this will more than double the effective range. At 10 feet with a rifled barrel you can see holes in the pattern big enough to miss a mouse even if your aim was accurate.
The only problem so far is the CCI shells are not powerful enough to cycle the action of my Browning. The hammer gets cocked but the spent cartridge isn't ejected. Next step is to get a spare slide spring and start cutting a few turns off to see if I can't find the right combination that will work with the CCI ammo. However because I am a law abiding citizen I have destroyed the smooth bore barrel /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Back in the 70's when I lived in California and did allot of trout fishing my snake gun was a Colt 45 single action loaded with shot. I had acquired an extra barrel which I smooth bored and my cartridge of choice was reloaded cut down 410 shells. Worked like a charm even though it was illegal as all get out. Any smooth bore gun is a shotgun by the legal definition and then falls under the minimum barrel length laws.
Knowing that a rifled barrel and shot shells do not produce the most desirable results I sat out to find an old worn out barrel for my Browning 9MM auto. A couple of phone calls and a friend of a friend later I had my barrel and the price couldn't be beat (free). Chucked the thing in my drill press and drilled it out to about 8.5MM then went in with a 9MM reamer to clean up the bore. Went to a gun shop and bought a couple of boxes of CCI ammo and a cheap holster I could strap to the tractor. If you do this you are breaking the law, can't imagine an ATF agent going after a guy shooting rats from a tractor but you never know.
Now I am all set but wanted to compare the smooth bore barrel with a stock barrel to see what the difference was and what I could expect out of 9MM shot shells. The attached picture pretty much tells the story.
The pattern on the left is with the stock barrel the one on the right is with the special barrel. Both were shot at exactly 10 feet. This is the back side of a piece of fiber board I was using for a target, it was hard to tell where the shot hit on the front side but you can sure tell on the back. The pattern out of the smooth bore is about 5 1/5 inches in diameter and the one from the stock barrel is about 22 inches in diameter. The big hole in the center is from the plastic casing the shot is loaded in. I believe this will more than double the effective range. At 10 feet with a rifled barrel you can see holes in the pattern big enough to miss a mouse even if your aim was accurate.
The only problem so far is the CCI shells are not powerful enough to cycle the action of my Browning. The hammer gets cocked but the spent cartridge isn't ejected. Next step is to get a spare slide spring and start cutting a few turns off to see if I can't find the right combination that will work with the CCI ammo. However because I am a law abiding citizen I have destroyed the smooth bore barrel /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
