.410+Laser Sight+000 Buck= Armadillo Medicine

[ulav8r]

I was fishing in our stock pond one spring many years ago. The overflow spread out about 50 feet but was only and inch or two deep. I was looking for high spots, trying to keep my feet dry. Had made it about 20 feet when I heard splashing behind me. Looked back and saw a cottonmouth coming toward me. I no longer looked for high spots and hightailed it out of there. Another time when the water was much lower I was fishing from a spot that was usually under water. It was a small spit with water on both sides. A moccasin poked its head up out of the murky water about 6 feet away. After a couple of seconds it went down and then came up about 3 feet away for less than a second. When it went down again I cleared out.

I have killed copperheads with an axe iin my youth but consider a shotgun the best medicine for a cottonmouth. Have never seen a live rattlesnake but there are a few in the state.

[steve urquell]

I was fishing in our stock pond one spring many years ago. The overflow spread out about 50 feet but was only and inch or two deep. I was looking for high spots, trying to keep my feet dry. Had made it about 20 feet when I heard splashing behind me. Looked back and saw a cottonmouth coming toward me. I no longer looked for high spots and hightailed it out of there. Another time when the water was much lower I was fishing from a spot that was usually under water. It was a small spit with water on both sides. A moccasin poked its head up out of the murky water about 6 feet away. After a couple of seconds it went down and then came up about 3 feet away for less than a second. When it went down again I cleared out.

I have killed copperheads with an axe iin my youth but consider a shotgun the best medicine for a cottonmouth. Have never seen a live rattlesnake but there are a few in the state.

Wise strategy on cottonmouths--get the heck out of their way.

I have killed 3 copperheads with my shovel and they didn't even budge as it was on the downstroke.

[barnetmill]

Wise strategy on cottonmouths--get the heck out of their way.

I have killed 3 copperheads with my shovel and they didn't even budge as it was on the downstroke.

When I was bit younger was riding a 28 inch snapper mower along a fence line and saw one about 40 ft ahead of me. Parked the mower with the motor running and ran by the moccasin really and buried a machete in ground as I went by without stopping. The machete went through the snake and was was stuck in the ground. It was about the biggest moccasin I had seen on my place being close to three feet. Funny thing even though the machete was buried in the ground the thick ventral skin was not severed because the ground was soft. I recovered the machete and several times tried to completely separate the snake and could not. I finally destroyed the head. About a month later I beat a smaller moccasin to death with an 8' section of 2x4 and then decided to use a pistol after spraining my wrist a little bit. I was walking to the mail box and a one of the dogs was in front. A small moccasin stood on its tail to face the bulldog and dog stopped retreated. I got to about 10 ft and with a 9mm S&W sigma VE, horrible trigger pull and all nearly severed its head with just a strand of what look like a bone hanging connecting to the body. The snake was standing on its tail I think because of the dog. I had once saw a red rat snake do the same to a fox. The fox was injured and very hungry let us get close to it before it withdrew. I suspect it came back eventually get that red rat snake.

[steve urquell]

When I was bit younger was riding a 28 inch snapper mower along a fence line and saw one about 40 ft ahead of me. Parked the mower with the motor running and ran by the moccasin really and buried a machete in ground as I went by without stopping. The machete went through the snake and was was stuck in the ground. It was about the biggest moccasin I had seen on my place being close to three feet. Funny thing even though the machete was buried in the ground the thick ventral skin was not severed because the ground was soft. I recovered the machete and several times tried to completely separate the snake and could not. I finally destroyed the head. About a month later I beat a smaller moccasin to death with an 8' section of 2x4 and then decided to use a pistol after spraining my wrist a little bit. I was walking to the mail box and a one of the dogs was in front. A small moccasin stood on its tail to face the bulldog and dog stopped retreated. I got to about 10 ft and with a 9mm S&W sigma VE, horrible trigger pull and all nearly severed its head with just a strand of what look like a bone hanging connecting to the body. The snake was standing on its tail I think because of the dog. I had once saw a red rat snake do the same to a fox. The fox was injured and very hungry let us get close to it before it withdrew. I suspect it came back eventually get that red rat snake.

Same with the shovel. That skin is tough. .410 #9 or handloaded #12 in .45, .454, or .444 cases is best.
No head left, just a bloody end.

[rfesk]

I purchased B specifically for stacking by two in 410 wads in plastic hulls. I just don’t remember which wad. Anything larger didn’t stack correctly. I didn’t stray from proper accepted 410 powder types and suspect the light payload would have been better suited to a faster powder.

But in brass hulls, larger shot than B might work. Or it might tend to migrate to the wad slits?

I’m very interested in other size shot stacking in 410 like buckshot stacks in 12 gauge. It would be very useful out on the farm, or “the back 40”.

The thick TPS 410 wads from BPI held #1 buckshot fairly well iirc. The bottom pellet seemed like it might stick, but might not once it left the muzzle.

Way back in 12/8/2007 post on Shotgun World a fellow posted the following. I have made some loads following his recipe. 24 chrome plated BB's were used. According to the Lyman's catalog the velocity would be approximately 1500 fps for the powder I used.

I was attracted to this load after reading that chrome plated BB's at 1500fps would completely penetrate a coyote - but haven't had the need to use them to date.

(How to Reload 410 Shells With Lead BB Shot According to Turbo1889 ~

So okay if you want to load any gauage shot gun with shot pellets that have a diameter equal to or greater then about 1/5 internal bore diameter your going to have to stack the pellets in a particular arrangement inside the shell to get them to all fit. In addition the larger diameter of the pellets means they are going to take up more internal case capacity then the usual smaller size shot does per a given shot weight.

So with that in mind it can be easily seen that the BB size shot with a diameter of 0.18" is over the 1/5 bore size threshold when loading it in the 0.410" bore shotgun shell. So with some BB pellets and an empty 410 shot shell one quickly discovers that the shot stacks real nice in layers of three pellets in a triangular formation. But we have a little problem when we try to stack them inside a 410 shot wad. The petals on the shot cup are just thick enough to mess up the stacking layers arrangement for at least the first two layers in the bottom of the shot-cup where the petals are the thickest. This in turn messes up the stacking arrangement of the upper layers. Some 410 wads are worse then others but they all seem to have this problem !!! {F* {F* {F*

So what to do now? Well lets go backwards into time about 60 plus years. Guess what back then there were no shot cup petals. A thick cardboard or felt wad was placed over the powder and the shot just pored in on top. That would sure be nice for loading our BB shot stacked in layers of three. Next came another thin card and a roll crimp. Problem was that these older nitro-card wad loads just didn't seal as well as modern plastic wads and you had to put in more powder to get the same pressure and velocity out of the load. They also just didn't burn as clean and left more crud in the barrel. In addition the roll crimp requires a special tool not found on the modern day 410 press. It's a simple tool and the process is not difficult but it's just one more thing to go buy that you will only be using for a select few loads. If you load slugs you'll probably have other uses for it but if your just loading shot loads it's just going to gather dust most of the time.

So okay how can we hybred these two loading methods to get what we want without the inconveniences of having to go do things way, way old-school. Well we simply cut the petals off the wad and valla !!! we've got a modern gas seal so we can use modern load data and still load our bigger BB pellets in nice neat layers of three. Not so fast though. We now have a wad/gas-seal that is significantly bigger round then it is long. In other words a pancake going down the barrel behind the shot. Any bets on wether or not the pancake is going to stay perfectly alligned to seal the bore behind the shot for the whole trip down the barrel ??? Fact is it's probably going to tip sideways and then things go south for our load real fast !!! So how to prevent this? Well we load a nice thick 1/4" card or felt wad on top of our gas seal to give the wad assembly the necessary length to maintain proper orientation during the trip down the shotguns bore.

So now we just lost a 1/4" heigth that was formally reserved for our shot column. That's a whole lot of shot column space to loose especially for a shot load that's going to take up more space then usual already so how do we deal with this? Well, we just use the longer 3" shells with 2-1/2" load data. Most 410 shot shell hulls have identical construction in both the 2-1/2" and 3" lengths except for of course that one shell is a 1/2" inch longer. Notable examples from Fed., Rem., and Win. are clearly shown on pages 42 & 43 of the Lyman 5th edition Shotshell Reloading Handbook everything is the same as far as the internal structure of the hulls except for their length. So in a normal 2-1/2" shot load in the 410 ***** you have about 1-1/4" of height for your shot column. When we add the 1/4" card wad we loose a 1/4" and then when we bump up to the longer 3" shells we gain a 1/2" for a grand total of an extra 1/4" of space for the shot. When loading 1/2oz. loads of BB shot namely 24 pellets in 8 layers of three pellets this works out perfect.

Finally a picture which is worth an additional 1,000 words beyond what I've already written:



Think that about does it except for I should say that depending upon powder/hull/wad/load-data used sometimes the 1/4" card or felt wad just isn't tall enough to keep from getting the crimps too deep so you sometimes have to add another thin card or two to get things at just the right height. I buffer my loads and use the nickle plated shot to keep patterns nice and tight. Buffer is self explanatory and the nickle plating keeps the shot from being deformed by the barrel since their is no wad petals to protect the shot from the barrel.

So basically suggested items to add to your current reloading supplies for such loads are:

Nickel Plated BB Shot
1/4" Thick Fiber Wad
Thin Card Wad for Fine Spacing Loads

Now depending on exactly what combination of components you are loading you might be able to go with a 3/8" thick wad and forget the thin spacers. I would check this by loading up a mock up shell. Take the hull you intend to use and cut off the crimp portion of the plastic so the hull is know the length it would be if it were crimped closed. Then add your powder charge, the wad with petals cut off, and the BB shot charge (as long as you don't actually shoot the mock-up you can use the steel airgun shot it's the same size as the lead). Then use the back end depth measuring stick part of your calipers to measure the extra space you have. A quarter inch is 0.25" and three eighths is 0.375".

I think that about does it !!! Have fun and good hunting !!!)

[Barry54]

rfesk, Thanks for sharing that!

As to the shot not stacking well in the bottom of the shotcup, I’ve considered a single buckshot pellet. Then begin stacking the mini-buckshot.

[steve urquell]

rfesk, Thanks for sharing that!

As to the shot not stacking well in the bottom of the shotcup, I’ve considered a single buckshot pellet. Then begin stacking the mini-buckshot.

Barry, I tried the staggered small .310" buck but it was not accurate. The .360" is pretty accurate.

[barnetmill]

Barry, I tried the staggered small .310" buck but it was not accurate. The .360" is pretty accurate.

I am thinking of cutting the petals off and coating the OOO buckshot and let it ride bare on the barrel.

[Barry54]

Barry, I tried the staggered small .310" buck but it was not accurate. The .360" is pretty accurate.

I was saying to place one .310” in the bottom of the shot cup and then stack the B or BB on top of the single .310” pellet. Use it to get above the tight section so the rest will stack properly.

And #1 buck. The BAM stuff from BPI anyway fits their TPS wads pretty well. I’d hope it would pattern better without being stacked offset/staggered.

[Barry54]

Have any armadillos volunteered for a 900 FPS 000 penetration test?

[steve urquell]

Have any armadillos volunteered for a 900 FPS 000 penetration test?

Nope. I've been out with it 4X and haven't seen one.

[Barry54]

https://palmettostatearmory.com/amer...iac410bbb.html

I’m intrigued by this BBB “buckshot” in 410 gauge. They used 12 pellets for 1/3 oz payload.

[Mk42gunner]

Nope. I've been out with it 4X and haven't seen one.

So is this proof that armadillo's read the internet?

Robert

[steve urquell]

So is this proof that armadillo's read the internet?

Robert

Ha, ha! I hope not. I will say this. They have become more wary here since I've been regularly killing them. I used to be able to walk right up on them and they were completely oblivious to my presence.

They have become increasingly aware of me and have ran when I have been within 40ft of them in the last 5 years. The only 2 I have gotten close to stood up on their hind legs and were sniffing the air. They knew something was up.

[steve urquell]

Finally shot one tonight but thru my fumbling with the safety and 3 clicks against the hammer block he was right near his den and flopped into it under a tree. So no ability to see what damage it did. It was doing the death flopping so I am certain it is toast but no corpse to examine dangit! Probably a 20lb'er.