How tough are rattlesnakes?

[historicfirearms]

We are moving to Arizona later this year. I know next to nothing about rattle snakes and am honestly scared of most any snake. If I see them from a ways off, I am ok. But I'd like a little reassurance for the up close encounters.

I've been playing around with a shot load from my 32 single six. Using a 30 cal gas check over the powder, followed by a 32 acp casing full of #8 shot, then topped off with another 30 cal check. I've been using 1.5 grains of Promo for a charge. The shot will go about 1/4 inch into a pine board at 5 feet, the gas checks go a little deeper. Shot spread is about 8 inches at five feet, and both gas checks go roughly to point of aim.

Is this good snake medicine, or am I going to just tick them off?

[jmort]

I have killed in excess of 50 around my house and if shot in the head they die easily enough. A shovel is easier but less satisfying. Watch where you walk and don't reach in places you can't see. Use a light at night. Your ammunition will work. My favorite was a single shot .22 mag rifle. Exactly enough power in my opinion.

[starmac]

Not tough at all, any snake will crawl off and die if you so much as step on it. I have kiled many rattle snakes with a piece of bailing wire. Just for fun if you want to, slowly wave your pistol or rifle back in forth in front of them, the snakes head will follow it and line up with it perfectly when you stop, Ya can't miss their head.

[GRUMPA]

Rattle snakes for the most part will try and get away from people if given the chance. Encounters are generally when people walk out in the wild like they're walking in the city without a care in the world. People get bit when they walk through bushes over logs and put there hands in places that most wont.

I've been around them most of my life, I see them where I live. If one comes around the house I pick it up and relocate it miles away from people. Remember I've been handling them since I was real young, so for me to relocate them is like folks putting on a pair of shoes.

People have a natural reaction of fear when it comes to snakes, that's understandable. I have never seen a trained attack rattle snake in all my life. If given the choice they'll go away from you.

[bayjoe]

I used to live south of Tucson, and in the summer time you could find bunches of them in the concrete culverts under the interstate.
Not to make you worry, but I was more Leary of scorpions than rattle snakes.

[TXGunNut]

Good sharp hoe or shovel works best, I thought this was a cooking thread. Not tough at all, just don't try to filet them. Fry them up like bluegill or perch, just don't overcook them.

[kweidner]

Good sharp hoe or shovel works best, I thought this was a cooking thread. Not tough at all, just don't try to filet them. Fry them up like bluegill or perch, just don't overcook them.

That is funny. True though they are bony. Tastes like chicken ......or does chicken taste like snake..... I wonder.......

[Del-Ray]

Where in AZ?

I lived by Yucca between Kingman and Lake Havasue.

The primary rattlers we had were side winders, whic I saw dozens of. They run and hide, and can't really get any height to pop you over a boot. Me and my dad went out looking for snakes every evening during the spring and fall. We had a neighbor he hated, and his plan may have been to release them all on his property as snakes "don't have no ballistics". But I can neither confirm nor deny that...

The other rattler was the Mohave Green. I love snakes. Always enjoyed them, even got over the shock of seeing side winders everywhere. But when I saw a green it was kill on sight. M dad still caught them, and resettled them allegedly. But I killed them. All four times I saw one, the little wankers popped right up, and took the "come at me bro!" position. Two actually CAME at me.

They may be tough. But a 250gr Keith drops em.

A gaggle of side winders before relocation:

You can tell they are sidewinders as they have the horns by the eyes, and the black before the rattles. And they are pretty small compared to diamond backs, or greens.


A green:


They are much bigger then sidewinders, and have an olive green tint to em. We tossed one of my dads feeder rats in with one. Wham! One hit, and that rat was twitching on it's side. Greens have a venom that contains neurotoxins, and hemotoxins. Destroyes your nervous system, and your blood. You've got about 45 minutes to get anti venom. So in the desert you've got your lat and long for life flight. About 50grand, and need nine or ten units of anti venom. At I seem to remember 5 grand a unit.

Another green, the ONLY one I caught alive to prove to my dad I wasn't scared of em. And two; because it was twice as big as his biggest catch:

COME AT ME BRO!

[jaysouth]

Just don't play with them. Here is a list of fatal snakebites in the US since 2010. As you will see, very few people ever die from snakebite.

Getting bit is very expensive though. You can spend a week in the hospital and get multiple doses of anti-venom at 10,000 a pop.

A limber stick or hoe is the best snake killer I have seen. However, check your state laws, in most states now, it is illegal to harm ANY snake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...d_States#2010s

[HollandNut]

I use a load similar in the 480 , is perfect for rattlers .. My first rattler took five loads of 3" magnum 00 12 gauge buckshot to kill ..

Kill at least one a year around the house

[MostlyLeverGuns]

I don't hate or fear them, but I do kill them because of the damage and misery they can do to people and livestock. I've had two different horses bitten on the nose. Swelling is extreme and horse is really miserable. Takes about a week for swelling to reduce. The threat of suffocation of a horse is real, due to the swelling, A rattlesnake vaccine for dogs and horses has been developed and it does work. I have witnessed its effectiveness. My thick hided little chocolate lab took a bite to the face with just a small lump from the bite, she also grabbed one I had just shot and ran with it biting her. She showed no particular discomfort afterward. Thanks to the vaccine. A shovel or hoe is effective but a small handgun is usually more convenient. The CCI .38/.357 , .45 Auto, .44, and .45 Colt shotshells all work just fine, as does the .22 and .22 Mag shot. The CCI .45 Auto shotshell does cycle the slide but it does not feed in my 3 1911's. Solid bullets do work, a shot in the forward 1/3 of the body stops them, then you can get careful for the second shot. My wife and I kill about 4 to 6 each year around our buildings and pastures. I leave them alone out where there is nothing for them to hurt. They are good mousers.

[snappy]

Great post Del-Ray, and you are dead on re those Mojave Greens, at least from what I've seen. They'll crawl right at a group of people, stop to coil and buzz and then come at you some more. Avoidance is the best option.

[RobS]

I just don't like wild rattlers; behind glass fine, out where I don't encounter them fine but........ I have my limits. If around a house, near work, where kids play or people who don't know frequent I don't have tolerance. In such cases and if appropriate to use a 12 gauge with 4 or 6 shot aimed at the head works nice at about 10 feet.......as close as I prefer to get. Of course any well placed shot will work from just about any firearm 22LR and up but then again I tend to be theatrical at times so a 12 gauge. None the less, shot my first one with a Ruger 10-22 when I was just a little squirt sitting on my Mom's lap hanging out the cab window of our farm truck. We would see rattlers farming and my dad and I would kill them. Imagine greasing a farm implement to meet a Mr. Not So Happy or have one catching the shade under a tractor tire while you are walking around and getting into the cab out he comes all disturbed, again not happy.

[jmort]

We usually have a couple horses die in this area each year due to bites to the face. I have had dogs vaccinated and it seems to lessen the damage. Definitely worth it.

[Mk42gunner]

I don't have rattlesnakes around my place, but do have copperheads and other assorted snakes. I leave them alone, unless they are close to the house.

Inside of five feet the most effective thing I have ever used was a sharp garden hoe, (a dull one works too).

Past that range, the order goes like this:

Shotgun (any gauge) with smaller than #6 shot.
.22 shot- there are so many pellets of #12 that at least one of them will hit something vital and stop the snake, giving you time for another round.
CCI .38/,357 shot- not enough pellets for a good pattern.

I recently bought a ten pound bag of #12 shot from BPI, I figure I am set for home made shot loads for the rest of my life. I have cobbled together a way to make .45 ACP loads that work without buying the very expensive RCBS dies; but am working on making loads for the .32 S&W Long, since the I-Frame is so much easier to carry while mowing the yard.

I am working on using straws from McDonalds for the wad/ shot carrier. Tough thing is it is hard to get the ends to melt and fuse together without melting a hole.

Robert

[jaysouth]

18" stick:

Once upon a time, I was working on a timber cruising crew as the tally boy. We were working this river bottom which was still flooded in May. The water was ankle to chest deep and you had to follow the compass no matter what was in front of you. This being E. Arkansas, anything sticking out of the water had a cottonmouth draped on it basking in the sun.

I was in knee deep water trying to keep my course and tally all the logs called in by the cruisers, when I heard this god-awful yelling and thrashing around in the water. I turned and saw the crew chief dancing in the water. He had got right on top of a large cottonmouth draped on a bush sticking out of the water. He was so close that he started beating it with his Biltmore stick. A wooden scale about 18" long used to measure the diameter of a tree and the number of vertical logs. In about .25 seconds he hit the snake 78 times while dancing and yelling. I laughed at the sight so hard that I almost heaved lunch and earned my boss's stinkeye for a couple of days.

The moral of this story is that an 18" stick will kill large dangerous snakes but is not the optimum solution.

[jakharath]

I grew up in NE Arkansas. We had more than our fair share of snakes. Timber rattlers, copperheads and cotton mouths. Give me a timber rattler any day. They musk and rattle, both are saying: dude, leave me alone. I'd kill them if they were around the house, barns or animals. In the woods I'd leave them alone.

The Leatherman PST is 4 inches long:
Attachment 103232

Those green rattlers sound like our cotton mouths, just plain mean.

[jmort]

Mojave Green is as toxic as it gets. Timber rattlers are similar. Serious serious creatures.

[Bullshop Junior]

I moved to texas not too long ago from Alaska so no experience with snakes at all. I had a copper head in my yard last week so went in the house and got my 20ga to deal with it. First shot at the head from the shoulder. Started to lower the gun and he moved and I touched off three more from the hip so fast I had all the emptys in the air at once. It did him in pretty well...wasnt much left to pick up.

I usualy carry my 20ga if I'm around snakes because it is what I have.

[steve817]

They will continue to move for a while even after a well placed head shot. The first copperhead I killed, I took of most of it's head and it squirmed for a while. After cutting off the rest of the head I picked the body up and started walking back to camp. About three minutes into it it struck the side of my leg with it's now headless body. Thank goodness nobody else was around because I let out a squeal that would put my daughter to shame.