Loading snake shot in .38 special

[CitizenClark]

One of my little brothers is an adventurer, and he is planning a 600 mile kayaking trek in Alabama in late spring and early summer of this year. He decided that he wanted to get some snake shot for his Ruger LCR, to use while he is on the river. (I already warned him that it would be unsuitable for defense use against two-legged critters.)

After looking around, it seems like the only such ammo on the market, from CCI, just isn't around. Every website that lists it has it as out of stock. My brother called CCI and they said they basically only produce it when they get a big order from a distributor, and they haven't made any in a while.

I reload anyway, so I bought some .38/.357 reloading dies (Lee Deluxe), some once-fired .38 hulls, pistol powder (Hodgdon Titegroup) and primers (Winchester Small Pistol), and some shot capsules produced by Speer in .38 caliber. I filled the capsules with #8 shot I got from emptying some cheap shotgun shells. Four 2 3/4" 12 gauge shells loaded with #8 provided enough shot to fill twenty of the Speer capsules. Each capsule loaded with shot and plugged with a plastic wad weighs ~103 grains. I loaded it on top of ~3.0gr of Titegroup to an overall length of 1.500".

I haven't done any test-firing yet.

[NE Bull]

I have some in .357 that came with a grab bag of ammo that was gifted to me.  I used to carry it in the ol Smith while pdog hunting.  It'll stop a garden snake cold in its track.  Fortunately, I never got a chance to use it on anything bigger.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

[shooter]

 A easier way, is to drop your powder into the case, then push a .357 gas check down on top of the powder, then fill with shot, place another gas check on top of the shot, and lightly crimp the case mouth over the gas check,  I have been doing this a long time, they work great for birds in the barn.

[ILoveCats]

I've been wondering where the CCI stuff went.  I still have some old ones a reloading acquaintance made me loooooooong ago.  I used to carry them in "the bush" for black mambas.  (A truly nasty critter.)  I've meant to shoot up my last few rounds and replace them with fresh CCI's, but they've not been on the shelf since the ammo-panic.

They might pattern pretty decently out of his LCR.  I always seem to get better shot patterns out of a short barrel revolver than a longer one.

CCI's .22 shot loads are still around and pattern even better out of my Bearcat than I could ever get the .38s to pattern, but using the highly scientific "How many phone book pages will it penetrate?" test, the .38 loads sure punched through a lot more pages.  I have no idea how many yellow pages equate to a snake's head but I'm convinced that this is the only reason anyone still prints paper phone books anymore.

[CitizenClark]

Here's the first blog post from my brother about his trek, for anyone who is interested: https://www.eaglesnestoutfittersinc.com/blog/alabama-scenic-river-trail/

[SemperFiGuy]

Looks Good So Far.........

But please urge him to stay far, far away from the Chattahoochee.

I saw that movie..................

sfg

[NE Bull]

Cabelas has .22LR and .22 Mag from CCI. I have been thinking of picking up some of the mag for the boy to carry.

[unfy]

Looking good!

Speer does have powder recommendations for such things in their reloading manual.  Did you follow that ?  Or... what recipe did you use ?

[NE Bull]

Here's the first blog post from my brother about his trek, for anyone who is interested: https://www.eaglesnestoutfittersinc.com/blog/alabama-scenic-river-trail/

Why don't you post this in the survival section or such, so that we can follow along.

[CitizenClark]

Looking good!

Speer does have powder recommendations for such things in their reloading manual.  Did you follow that ?  Or... what recipe did you use ?

Speer also includes a little slip of paper with load formulas in the box of shot capsules. I checked this against the Speer reloading manual at Scheels, and all the values were identical.

Unfortunately, Scheels did not have any of the recommended powders in stock. I bought the pistol powder they did have, and then I did some more research when I got home.

In my Hornady handbook, I looked at a few load formulas for other .38 loads and compared the amount of Titegroup used compared to other powders, including those listed in the Speer recommendations (Unique, 700-X, HP-38, Bullseye, and 231). Most of Speer's recommended charges were between 4.5 and 5.5 grs, so I loaded at 4.0 grs for my first batch.  Titegroup seemed to be slightly less potent than Bullseye, so I pretty much looked at that value and rounded down. I'll probably step up to 4.5 grs, but figured I would go light for the first rounds.

[CitizenClark]

Here are the load formulas from Speer:

Unique, 5.5 gr, 1111 fps
700-X, 4.5 gr, 1060 fps
HP-38, 4.5 gr, 1054 fps
Bullseye, 4.5 gr, 1021 fps
231, 5.0 gr, 996 fps

*All loads tested with approx. 109 gr projectiles loaded to 1.500 COAL over CCI 500 primers

[CitizenClark]

Here is the pattern produced from a Colt Trooper Mk. III revolver with a longer barrel, at approximately four feet.