Hi everyone,
I recently picked up a new single-seven in the .327 flavor. Easter weekend was going to be my first time really getting to put it through the paces. I was spending the weekend out at my parents ranch. And since my dad has had some health issues lately, I was staying all weekend to help with some chores. Anyways, they live in a shall we say "snakey" area, and while I had various handloads ready to go, I decided to load up some 327 snake shot just in case. None is available commercially, but I've done enough reading here and other places to have a good idea on how to throw some together. I took some once fired Federal cases, threw in 3.0gr of Universal (i could probably up this a little, but I wanted as much shot as possible in this little case), then a 30cal gas check over the powder, filled the case up with #9 shot, then finally crimped on another 30cal gas check to hold everything in. I was hoping to pattern a couple of these just to even see if they would be effective, but never got the chance... sort of.
Fast forward to the morning I got there, and started my inspection of their irrigation drip lines. The critters like to bite the lines to get at the water since its so dry out there. I fixed a few leaks then went to the gate valve to test it out. Walked over, leaned over the hose and happened to look down. FREEZE... there's a coiled up rattler about 8" from my foot. Ever so slowly scoot my foot back while reaching for the Ruger. Man, as soon as my foot was clear of the shot path that single seven came out and Click, BOOM. Stepped back quickly at the shot since I didn't really know if it would even work. But luckily I saw the rattler got flung back a bit, and it was dust. The snake loads worked!! Good way to find out right? I try to keep any eye out for these things, but they have a way of finding the most discreet and unexpected places to hang out in the shade. That and with my dads failing vision/health issues, and that dopey lab pup they got runnin around, I couldn't let this one go being so close to the house. It was a baby, only about a foot and a half long, but as you know that doesn't make them any better.
So I guess it was just my lucky weekend, because after that even the varminting was good. Was able to take a little jack rabbit and a few ground squirrels with the little revolver. I used mostly 32 sw long loads, to keep it easy on my ears. Everything I hit with the 115gr swc was DRT, with very little meat damage. I didn't chrono the loads but they're only doing an estimated ~850 fps, but the little 32 is really impressing me across all the loadings. I'll have to work with the snake shot a little more, as I still never got to pattern them on paper. Though upon disection of the rattler, it seems even the gas checks did work. One check blew a hole straight through and the other I found lodged in the body. No pics of the varmints unfortunately because I don't carry my phone out there, but I took a couple snapshots of the snake I'll try to put up later. Hope everyone had a good weekend! And keep an eye out, it seems its going to be a snakey spring/summer.
-Sam