Custom Rat Revolver

[JRD]

Are any of you guys into shooting rats? My dad and I got invited up to a small chicken farm that has some old coops with fieldstone foundations. It's rat central there.

We've been shooting .22 Mag revolvers with the CCI shot capsules. They aren't terribly powerful, but they are just right for shooting inside and the rats don't seem to like getting shot with them.

Man o man, it is some fun revolver shooting. So much fun in fact that I decided to build a custom "rat revolver". When we flip on the lights and look in the grain bin, you get about 20 seconds worth of rats scurrying this way and that heading for the nearest hole. You can usually get of a few shots, or if you are lucky a cylinder full with fast DA work.

My rat revolver started as a newer S&W Model 63, stainless J frame with a 5" barrel. First thing was to switch out the cylinder from a 351PD to make it a 7 shot .22 Magnum. (You need to modify the frame a bit to get it to work. It's not a direct swap.) I also put on an XS 24-7 front night sight and a set of Crimson Trace laser grips. Also did a nice slick up job on the action. I didn't clip any springs, just carefully smoothed the moving parts where they rub.

The gun performed very well, but on the really big rats, some required follow up shots, and many get hit and still make it down their hole. (The big rats are about the size of a grey squirrel.)

I decided to pattern the shotshells. Here's what they pattern like at four steps:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/jkdubois724/pictures02-25-2008212.jpg
Pretty sparse. A big rat would have gotten multiple hits, but a #12 shot pellet isn't exactly going to deliver a knock-out blow.

You always read about how rifling tends to spin a shot pattern and "sling" it outwards. To see if this was true, I decided to make the gun into shot shell revolver by removing *most* (but not all) of the rifling. I made the gun "'paradox" rifled. I ordered a carbide tipped reamer to remove the rifling. I had the tip ground down to a pilot so it would stay centered in the bore. I removed all but about .250" of rifling at the muzzle. Legally, it's still got rifling and will engrave a bullet. Here's the difference it made in performance:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/jkdubois724/pictures02-25-2008211.jpg

That is a huge difference. Now a big fat rat is going to be perforated like a piece of screen. (Granted still with #12 shot.)

I guess that says the rifling isn't too beneficial for shot patterns. Unfortunately the gun doesn't stabilize bullets anymore. It's now a dedicated "rat gun", but is it ever a dandy rat gun.

Here are a couple pictures of the gun and a goofy looking guy wearing a headlamp:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/jkdubois724/IMG_2408.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/jkdubois724/IMG_2410.jpg

I hope you guys have found this entertaining.

Jason

[racepres]

Hmm! Our Rats don't die good when hit with 38/357 shot shells, 22's?... never!! I found that my Charter .44 was the best at this game. Don't have to load it any hotter than speer recommends either! No more wingers escaping down the hole!! BTW Did ya notice the terrible commotion when those wounded ones get away??? That's the non wounded ones eatin' em!!!! MV

[trooperdan]

Very Interesting! Looks like you are asking a lot of that .22!

[beagle]

Are you kidding??? See castpics.

http://www.castpics.net/

The Greatest Cast Sport article.

Man, you're lucky to find a place like that. I'd love to have a place to go again. I always found .38 wadcutters about the best fodder around for rats and you can use .38 WC for the price of good .22 LR these days if you reload...almost.

I've tried the .45 Auto and you don't get too many charging rats that way. But it takes a lot of throw a way brass.

I envy you having that place./beagle

[racepres]

Note: We never , ever, used solid projectiles of any kind in the barns!! You put a hole in the barn or anything in it except the accepted target.. and no more funsies for you!!! Spend the $ you woulda spent on ammo on D-Con!! After ya fix the damage!! No,, Shot is the way to go inside! But don't accidently shoot something like a refrigerator w/ it!! Ask me how I know!! MV

[Nueces]

So, how many boar rats does it take to make a dozen tamales? :mrgreen:

Mark

[Bullshop]

Do you square the hides of the big boars to determin trophy quality?
When I lived in the Skelkaho cabin for entertainment I would bait them and shoot wax boolits from a 29 Smith. A couple strategicaly placed lids with peanut butter smeared on and assume an observation position and turn down the Colman to minimum elumination. Very effective but inside about 25' too destructive to the edible meat.
Would you like my resipe for brining the hams?
BIC/BS

[Nueces]

Full disclosure; in the eighties, a family member spent a year in the mountains of mainland China 'teaching English to Chinese tour guides.' Just one place to eat in the little village, with the menu items hanging over the entry door. Rats. "I'll take that one, please." Just like pickin' out a lobster.

eeeew, Mark

By the way, JRD, I do like your devotion to your sport.

[Bullshop junior x2]

Nice!!!

[jackley]

JRD
When we were kids along time ago. We used to shoot pigeons in the barn with rat shot but found our patterns were huge with the rifling in that old winchester 22. So being somewhat adventurous my brother and I weld steel rod to many drill bits we broke alot of bits to hot to fast no coolant. But we finally got a smooth bore sorta and it patterned real nice and could shoot those pigeons on the fly and quite aways out.

Jerry

[JRD]

Beagle I have to say your rat article was very entertaining. My dad and I don't get near that much shooting, but we enjoy what we get. All the shooting we are doing is inside the coops, so it's shot capsules only. The farmer had someone shoot a waterpipe in the barn a couple years ago and they got themselves uninvited. We want to keep our invitation open.

I've been looking for some good rat recipes. I bet my wife would love to cook some up. (Actually, I've never touched one. We leave them where they lie. The farmer doesn't mind. If you saw the junk in his barn you'd understand.)

My dad and I have refined our technique some. We've started wearing electronic ear muffs. You can actually hear better with them turned up than with your naked ear. Glasses are a must. I've felt pellets or plastic bits bounce back on occasion.

The .22 may be a little light for the big "boar" rats, but it works. The range has been anywhere from about 2 feet to 4-5 steps. And they are all on the move. Ironically it's the little ones that seem to run fastest. Maybe just because they're little.

My father just decided to upgrade to the Speer .38 shot capsules. He just bought a case of them and started loading. He's using #9 shot, which is way bigger than #12. I will have to pattern his gun and may see about finding a clunker 38 to make into a rat shooter.

I did give some thought to boring out an old .22 Single shot rifle as you did Jackley, but I decided to go the revolver route. All the work is close in and there are plenty of multi shot opportunities that you'd miss with a single shot.

I wish I had the opportunity to shoot rifles or other pistols at the rats, but I can't complain. It's a pretty good place. I do enjoy the arms race.

Jason

[44man]

You are having just too much fun! :mrgreen:
I have an old WW smoothbore .22 and was shooting those carpenter bee's last summer. Great fun but very expensive. I loaded some shot shells for the .45 Vaquero and could hardly hit them. No, I won't drill that one but sure would like a clunker for it.

[racepres]

JRD : Dad is fixin to have some fun!!! #9 is Very effective IF yer aim is good!! I did 7 1/2 shot.. but patterns get thin.... unless you go to the .44!!!! Note that as the shot gets larger... more care must be taken to avoid damage... Don't wanna become "uninvited"!!! love it while ya got it!!! MV

[jleneave]

When I was about 21 yrs old me and my two house mates used to shoot mice that would come into the house in the winter. I hade a Ruger Single Six that I used to keep loaded with rat shot that stayed on the end table in the livingroom. While watching TV every now and then a mouse would run across the floor and if you were quick enough you could shoot them with .22 rat shot. It was fun as hell. You would be sitting there watching TV and all of the sudden....... POW!! If you weren't expecting the shot it would scare the crap out of you.

On another occasion my wife had put all of her bird seed and flower bulbs in the garage for the winter. The mice started eating holes in the bags to get to the bird seed and it was spilling out everywhere. I bet every dang mouse in the county moved into my garage. Me and a buddy went into the garage and shut all the doors. We had .22 pistols loaded with rat shot and everytime you kicked a bad of seed mice would run in all directions. We had a blast for 2 or 3 days shooting those mice. It was probably one of the funest hunts I've ever been on. When those little suckers are running full speed they make for a challenging shot.

[nicholst55]

Being a .45 Auto kind of guy, I would just HAVE to try that on rats. I've got a spare 1911 barrel or two laying around, and wouldn't feel at all bad about boring MOST of the rifling out to make it an almost smoothbore. Sounds like too much fun!

[S.B.]

Your 63 looks more like a blued casehardened revolver than stainless steel? Maybe the lighting. Please post some closeups of your gun?

[JRD]

SB,
My gun is plain old satin stainless, but the cylinder in the picture was black anodized. I've since bead blasted the whole thing so the finish matches.

I'll try to get some better pictures of just the gun. It looks pretty much like this one, except for what I've done to it.
http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=63570&langId=-1&isFirearm=Y

Nicholst55,
Your 45 auto will most likely be a slide operated repeater vs. a semi-auto with shotshells, but the barrel is easy enough to work on. Good luck.

Jason

[Junior1942]

Rat shot pellets will bounce back. If you don't wear safety glasses, sooner or later you will lose an eye.

[JRD]

Junior,
You are correct that the pellets will bounce back. The plastic bits of shot capsule will bounce back as well. I wear perscription glasses (safety lenses) anyhow, but I insisted that my father wear safety glasses when we shoot.

Jason

[fourarmed]

Back in the early 70's we had a chicken house that was infested with rats. They lived under a siphon waterer made of a 55 gal barrel set on end on bricks in a sheet metal trough, which was in turn sitting on bridge planks. There were tunnel openings on all sides of the trough. We would make up stick bombs by dumping the flash powder from 2 military .30-'06 blanks into one. Then we would stick a 4" piece of dynamite fuse into the neck of the case and crimp it with pliers, then tape it to a stick about two feet long.

We (two dogs, a cat, and whatever layabouts happened to be there at the time) would wait until it was good and dark, and the chickens were on the roost. Then we would unhook the door, light the fuse, burst into the chicken house, switch on the lights, and jam the bomb under the waterer. There would be a fearsome blast, and rats would run in every direction. They were only about 2 or 3 seconds away from escape holes, so the action was fast.

The dogs and cat would usually catch one, and we might get another one with shot. There was one escape hole into the next room of the building, behind which we would put a big wire minnow trap. We almost always caught one alive in that. We would dump it and the dogs into an empty upright silo. The dogs were just pups (pointer and dachshund), but they learned to grab and shake very quickly.

We considered it good, clean fun. My mom eventually posted a sign on the chicken house door that read "Danger! Blasting Area!"

[Slowpoke]

Being a .45 Auto kind of guy, I would just HAVE to try that on rats. I've got a spare 1911 barrel or two laying around, and wouldn't feel at all bad about boring MOST of the rifling out to make it an almost smoothbore. Sounds like too much fun!

If you are serious, get you a set of the 45acp shot shell dies from RCBS, chances are one of your barrels will work good as is.

If you use the rem sp .410 wad, you will get very little spin from the shallow rifling.

And best of all you will have a functioning semi auto with the RCBS acp shot shells.

A more perfect rat killing machine I can't imagine.

good luck

[beagle]

Yeah, at least you have some shooting and my sources have long gone dry.

I know about that shooting around the barn. I once hunted an old hog pen with hogs present and you had to really be careful. That was shooting a .22 short in a rifle and sometimes my old .32-20 lever.

Enjoy the sport while you have a place. That was the finest varmint shooting I ever did./beagle


Beagle I have to say your rat article was very entertaining. My dad and I don't get near that much shooting, but we enjoy what we get. All the shooting we are doing is inside the coops, so it's shot capsules only. The farmer had someone shoot a waterpipe in the barn a couple years ago and they got themselves uninvited. We want to keep our invitation open.

I've been looking for some good rat recipes. I bet my wife would love to cook some up. (Actually, I've never touched one. We leave them where they lie. The farmer doesn't mind. If you saw the junk in his barn you'd understand.)

My dad and I have refined our technique some. We've started wearing electronic ear muffs. You can actually hear better with them turned up than with your naked ear. Glasses are a must. I've felt pellets or plastic bits bounce back on occasion.

The .22 may be a little light for the big "boar" rats, but it works. The range has been anywhere from about 2 feet to 4-5 steps. And they are all on the move. Ironically it's the little ones that seem to run fastest. Maybe just because they're little.

My father just decided to upgrade to the Speer .38 shot capsules. He just bought a case of them and started loading. He's using #9 shot, which is way bigger than #12. I will have to pattern his gun and may see about finding a clunker 38 to make into a rat shooter.

I did give some thought to boring out an old .22 Single shot rifle as you did Jackley, but I decided to go the revolver route. All the work is close in and there are plenty of multi shot opportunities that you'd miss with a single shot.

I wish I had the opportunity to shoot rifles or other pistols at the rats, but I can't complain. It's a pretty good place. I do enjoy the arms race.

Jason

[Glen]

You guys are bringing back all sorts of memories....I recall sitting in the back pasture of my best friend's place, overlooking their dump with a .22 rifle on a sunny Texas afternoon, and just picking off the rats as they showed themselves. Great fun! Oh yeah, and a Stevens .22 rifle works MUCH better at picking off rats than does a cheap pocket .32 Auto! (that pasture is now a sub-division....)

[jim4065]

The best shooting I ever had was on the edge of an 8' bank looking straight down into the Arkansas River. My brother-in-law had a Ruger 10-22 and I had a Remington Nylon 66. Mid-day in the summer with a bright sun behind our heads. I saw a 4" mud turtle come to the surface right below us and popped him thru the center of the shell. He disappears and while we're talking it up another one broke the surface in the same spot. Bang! - he's down and within a minute two more pop up. We stayed there for a couple of hours - shooting every minute or two. Seemed like the River bottom must have been paved with mud turtles - we shot well over a hundred. I later found out that they're attracted to the sound of the bullets hitting the water and all of the blood in the water.

Of course they sub-divided the land and built houses all along that bank. Seems like you could build a covered well in an enclosure on a party barge and have a lot of fun with a 22 pistol. Too many prying eyes nowdays - hard to find places to just shoot. :Fire:

[johnly]

Years ago I went looking for a replacement for the 38 Speer Shot capsules, as I was too cheap to buy them. Back then the local pharmacy would sell empty gelatin capsules in different sizes, I found the size that worked and had a great time with them. The capsules aren't strong enough for autoloaders, but work great in wheelguns as long as you keep them dry. The other advantage is that you don't have to deal with the plastic chards for the Speer capsules.

John

[DLCTEX]

When I was a pre-teen we would take our 22's out onto the railroad trestle over the Colorado River(the one in Texas) and shoot turtles and garfish that came floating under us. We had to keep an ear open for the train, but we scored some really big gars and turtles. DALE

[StrawHat]

Pop taught us how to use our rifles on moving targets at the local dump.

We'd go down there with our 22s and practice. My brothers got real good at it and one used a 30-30.

Too bad open dumping is a thing of the past. Good shooting and sometimes ......... TREASURE!!!

[FISH4BUGS]

(now almost 60) my Dad was the 5th Army Pistol Champion so I was raised with guns and would shoot a lot with my Dad. On the military bases the dumps were usually only open on weekends from 10-3 or something like that. We would go to the dumps very early in the morning or after they closed and shoot rats until we had our fill. We would use 22 handguns and 22 rifles.
I remember one spot that was a "trail" for the rats to go on. All you need to do was sit still, hold your sights on one point on the trail and when they flew by, take your shot.
We killed hundreds of them on a single day. We had more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, did a public service and kept our shooting skills up.
I truly miss that. You can't do that any more these days because "landfiill dumps" no longer exist.....it is now "transfer stations" that have no trespassing after they close.
What a shame.....this brought back great memories.

[trooperdan]

Fish4bugs, when was your dad on the 5th Army team? I shot rifle with them in 1972 as I recall.

[FISH4BUGS]

Fish4bugs, when was your dad on the 5th Army team? I shot rifle with them in 1972 as I recall.

I think it was mid 50's to late 50's. I was born in 1948 so that would make me about 10 years old....maybe 1960. Quite a few years ago........my Dad has been gone since 1965......

[testhop]

there was a write up in a old gun mag about how to make shot shells for the 45 auto iirc
thaycut off o6 308 270s the cases were cut long enough to allowfor some resizing down
to allow enough to some of the case to fit like a bullet was included it was a very involer set up useing washers for sizing the front part of the case gas check over the the powder and felt wads shot size i guessit is what you have around then a gas checkto top it off
now remmberi am a old and i mean old man so some things may left out so go slow

[jim4065]

You're right about shooting at dumps. Our "illegal" dump was on the side of a hill next to the highway. People would stop for a second, throw the trash and garbage off the side of the hill, then drive away. Freedom. Anyway, we went there at dusk and if not already burning, would set one side of the dump on fire. Flashlights taped to 22 rifles or handheld next to 45 autos. Life was grand - and no one was hurt. (Except a few rats - and that gave the survivors more to eat.) The town constable wasn't about to bother us, it always seemed to end before too late, and most people were inside watching TV anyway. We've lost a lot....

[Scrounger]

I remember StarMetal said he had a set Of RCBS Dies that were for reloading those cases for the .45. Very expensive dies, I've never seen any.

[Slowpoke]

He was using the 38-45 clark or clerk dies, close enough probably to the RCBs dies for rats.

I think he said he was using the 45 Win. mag brass necked down

I got my RCBS dies dirt cheap at a swap meet.

good luck

[DLCTEX]

I have made cases for 45 ACP by cutting 308 and 30-06 cases off using a tubing cutter . I cut them at the shoulder then neck them down in a carbide 41 mag die till they will headspace on the little neck. 3 gr. of Bullseye, a wad from a styrofoam tray seated with a 223 case, shot (about 1/2 oz), and another styrofoam wad pressed down with the 223 case and sealed with Dap tub and tile caulk. Just about equals a light 410 load. DALE

[Dale53]

I know a couple of young fellows that were tasked by a farmer to clear out a bunch of feral cats living in and around his barn. There were a bunch of them. Avoiding damage to the barn and machinery presented the same problems you experienced.

I suggested a K-38 with Speer Shot capsules and #9 shot. To make a long story short, the expedition was totally successful (even tho' the cats got really spooky after the first pass and the youngsters had to do a bit of stalking). Problem solved...

Dale53

[JRD]

A while back one of you asked for closeup pictures of my "Custom Rat Revolver". Here she is:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/jkdubois724/pictures03-21-2008034.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/jkdubois724/pictures03-21-2008037.jpg

I've done a full glass bead to the gun and clear anodized the cylinder since the last pictures were taken.

I will be making another rat trip with my father soon. We haven't been in about a month so the rats are probably starting to get tame again.

Jason