Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading

Loading snake shot in .38 special

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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/

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