Diamondback in the yard

And since my wife nailed it (we have 2 small dogs), here's the recipe and the gun. I loaded .32-20 brass with 3.5 grains of unique, a .31 cal (I think it was) Ox-Yoke lubed felt Wonder Wad, almost filled the case with #9 shot, capped with an inverted gas check (.32 cal, if memory serves), lightly crimped.

I have this Colt Police Positive that came to me from my grandfather. It's a bastard stepchild of a revolver. It locks up tight, but the bore is on the rough side. The story is that Grandpa bulged the barrel somehow, so he shortened it to 3". Therefore, no front sight. It seemed a good candidate for a backyard snake pistol.

I loaded up 20, gave them a test, had my wife fire it a bit. She's a better pistol shot than I am. Beware. It's been in a kitchen drawer for several months until one of the wee mutts sounded an alarm yesterday. We don't go out of our way to kill snakes, but once in the neighborhood... Arizona is one snake shorter.

"So did I, Uh-Oh!" Funny how my mind 'reads-into' a title now and then.

Attachment 194341

Wow, OS OK-- did you kill that critter with a .45 Cal. foot? That one isn't marked the way the diamondbacks I remember were.

<(my doggie) Bubby found him under the truck, started a fuss. I dispatched him with the 1911.

They come in light and dark shades, depends on elevation, I think. This-un was here in the Northern Sierras.

I took the photo and sent it to the Daughter in a text...said, "I was standing on a snake and Mom's not home to help...I'm afraid to move, could she drive over and get my shovel?"

She didn't fall for it.

ya got ahold of the important end.

My parents had a weekend place that was crawling with Copperheads. They liked to sun themselves on the concrete porch. Walking through the yard one day I felt something hitting my boot. Luckily it was a thick bull hide boot because I had stepped on a copperhead in the grass. All I could do was holler for my dad to bring a shovel.

One day my Nephew and Niece went in to brush their teeth and a baby has poked it's head out of the drain. Seems they got into the grey water system. That caused a bit of a stir.

I HATE snakes. Guess that's o.k., because Indy doesn't like them either, although in his films he has much closer contact with them and in greater quantity than I ever have. Fortunately for him, his are rubber. Copperheads in the drain. Uhhh-uhh! I'm outta there. Permanently. Wouldn't you always be worried when sitting on the pot?

OS OK--in the photo you're about 12 ft. closer to that one than I'd ever like to be, and never with a bare foot. I never consider them truly dead. I've mentioned to you before that where you get off of I-80 and turn right to go to you're place I used to turn left to go to mine, another 50-60 miles, and my dad's ranch had more diamondbacks than it was reasonable to have in one location. They tended to be large, both long and fat, and the markings on the back were distinctly diamonds. They also tended to come in different shades of color, brownish, greenish, blackish--just whatever would allow them to blend into their chosen surroundings and scare you twice as bad when you finally spotted them. 4 footers were not uncommon. The very last one I killed was with an EMF Dakota .45 L.C. using 250 gr. CLFP boolits. It felt good!

That's the first and last snake we have had on this place since 2010...thank God for that.
I scared the spit out of Bubby and chastised him with this dead snake...later that summer took him to a snake training class near Redding...I guess he learned the first time with me because they couldn't get him close enough to any of their rattlers to train him...he wasn't having any of that.
Smart Boy! That's some relief for the future.

Taste like chicken ?

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Originally Posted by OS OK

That's the first and last snake we have had on this place since 2010...thank God for that.
I scared the spit out of Bubby and chastised him with this dead snake...later that summer took him to a snake training class near Redding...I guess he learned the first time with me because they couldn't get him close enough to any of their rattlers to train him...he wasn't having any of that.
Smart Boy! That's some relief for the future.

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A snake training class?????

Yup. There are folks who will do aversion training with your dogz to (maybe) keep them from fooling with snakes. No dogz are gonna be fooling with one AZ diamondback!

Dispatched one on my place with a 38-55 with a Lee 255 grain at 1500fps. Thats good snake medicine.

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Originally Posted by OS OK

"So did I, Uh-Oh!" Funny how my mind 'reads-into' a title now and then.

Attachment 194341

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That's a picture of what I thought I was going to find in this thread.

I've killed an eat a couple copperheads. Pretty good. I dont kill non venomous varieties. Found a prairie king snake in the house last year. Startled me pretty good. I was walking through the door, and he was hanging out of some junk that was next to the door, right in my face. I ended up fishing him out of his crack, and putting him out to chase mice elsewhere. Neat critters.

Today coming back from the neighbors house after doing some pressure cleaning on her driveway, I spotted something in a big clump of grass. Low and behold it was a black snake about 3 feet long. I bent down to check it out and it left in a hurry. Made sure I told the wife so when she walks the dog to be aware of where it was. She's not afraid of them but the dog might try to get at it.

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Originally Posted by merlin101

A snake training class?????

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Yeah...sounds silly huh?
They hide defanged big rattlers under a buckets, one in a small cadge, one in a fake rock and a few right out in the open and a couple handlers keep track of them. They put the dog on a leash to walk him by the snakes, so he will hear their pissed rattling and get a good smell of them. They spend about 1/2 hour with each dog...dumb dogs that don't catch on so well get more attention after the class is over.
Bubby came near the first snake, about 15 feet away, got a good whiff and put the brakes on. The handler had to drag him by the neck to move him.
Thank goodness, I'm not worried about Bubby anymore.

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Originally Posted by Kermit1945

I have this Colt Police Positive that came to me from my grandfather. It's a bastard stepchild of a revolver. It locks up tight, but the bore is on the rough side. The story is that Grandpa bulged the barrel somehow, so he shortened it to 3". Therefore, no front sight. It seemed a good candidate for a backyard snake pistol

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This sounds like the worst backyard snake pistol their ever was to me? I don't live around snakes, but if i did i would want my backyard snake pistol to be in tip top shape, With a sight i was confident i could hit what i was aiming at

When my wife and I lived north west of Cecilia, KY, she found a small copperhead (8-10 inches) in the house which presumably came in through a drain. She looked around for a tool to deal with that critter. Guns were out as the snake was in but she spied her wooden meat tenderizing mallet. She dealt that copper headed Jake like a copper headed step child. Had to get a new meat mallet.

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Originally Posted by 54bore

This sounds like the worst backyard snake pistol their ever was to me? I don't live around snakes, but if i did i would want my backyard snake pistol to be in tip top shape, With a sight i was confident i could hit what i was aiming at

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The point in shot loads is so you don't need bullseye accuracy to dispatch what your shooting at. I like nice guns just as much as the next guy but my "yard" guns are tools not pieces of art.

I sometimes plink at reactive steel while mowing in a "drive by" fashion, using regular bullets sometimes requires a second shot unlike my shot loads for pistols.

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/v...pspdjz4bu6.jpg

We kill rattling snakes and copper heads on the farm now and then. Just saw what looked like a cotton mouth on the paved road Saturday, down by the big pond, it was black and to short and big around to be a good snake, it were dead. Our copper head snakes are black and gray, our EDBs do not rattle and the cotton mouth is just mean and nasty as ever. Our big indigo snakes (6-8 ft long) keep the whole mess down to a medium roar as they eat the bad actors. But they do get into the barn now and then and will scare me bad when laid up on a shelf or such. Then I just run them out of the barn into the woods or tall grass.