What sort of "home brew" shotgun loads are legal?

skimmer

skimmer

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I'm wondering what I can put in my shotgun shells for general dicking around without getting into legal trouble.

Smarties, sawdust, etc.

Are there any laws or regs on this? I see a lot of Americans making some pretty strange stuff to shoot out of their guns and figured I'd ask before trying it up here.
 
More information? Okay.

How about flamespitting loads? Not Dragonsbreath loads (Youtube it if you haven't seen it) but maybe something similar. Glitter or confetti? Why not trying to shoot a deer whistle out and see how hard it screams at bullet speeds? What about a single spike-like slug - would that be approaching the flechette territory and thus illegal?

Aside from the obvious safety concerns and the need for an expendable shotgun, does anyone know if there are legal issues?
 
I played around with some stuff.
I loaded some 12gauge rounds with rock salt to try on grouse.
I figured it would beat picking pellets out.

it works but not great.
 
Pretty simple. As long as it isn't one of these you are good to go. Also, don't confuse armor piercing rifle rounds with the bold below. My best guess is they said the P-90 cartridge because of the FN Five Seven.

PROHIBITED AMMUNITION


  • 1. Any cartridge that is capable of being discharged from a commonly available semi-automatic handgun or revolver and that is manufactured or assembled with a projectile that is designed, manufactured or altered so as to be capable of penetrating body armour, including KTW, THV and 5.7 x 28 mm P-90 cartridges.
  • 2. Any projectile that is designed, manufactured or altered to ignite on impact, where the projectile is designed for use in or in conjunction with a cartridge and does not exceed 15 mm in diameter.
  • 3. Any projectile that is designed, manufactured or altered so as to explode on impact, where the projectile is designed for use in or in conjunction with a cartridge and does not exceed 15 mm in diameter.
  • 4. Any cartridge that is capable of being discharged from a shotgun and that contains projectiles known as “fléchettes” or any similar projectiles.
 
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One issue you'll run into (at least I did) is that a lot of the time the powder wont ignite. Modern smokeless powder needs a certain amount of pressure to combust properly. If it burned fully at ambient temperature it would just detonate in firearms. The "slower" the powder, the higher the pressure it needs to burn well. Shotgun powders are generally quite fast but you still need some back pressure for it to burn. Sometimes I'd load something silly into a shotgun shell that was really light and just fire a huge flame out of the barrel. The projectile would plop out a few feet. In those cases the primer pushed the payload and the powder just burned in the air like it would if you put a match to it.
 
Pure Energy said:
Any cartridge that is capable of being discharged from a commonly available semi-automatic handgun or revolver and that is manufactured or assembled with a projectile that is designed, manufactured or altered so as to be capable of penetrating body armour, including KTW, THV and 5.7 x 28 mm P-90 cartridges.
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Question, would AP 556 rounds fall under this as the LAR-15's are considered commonly available pistols?
 
HammerHeade said:
Question, would AP 556 rounds fall under this as the LAR-15's are considered commonly available pistols?
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Funny you brought that up. I always wondered this too. At first I thought there was no .223 pistol or revolver that was "commonly available" as if the Five Seven is... The way the law is written right now, AP .223 is prohibited, if they consider the LAR 15 as a common handgun. Which also had me wondering, are the LAR pistols stamped .223 or 5.56? If they are stamped .223 then is 5.56 AP legal or vice versa?

Not that it really matters, I have never seen AP .223 or 5.56. Even M855 greentip is not considered AP IIRC, so the odds of ever buying any or seeing any is slim.
 
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Pure Energy said:
P90 and the semi auto only version is considered a rifle in Canada, so it is either non restricted, restricted or prohibited. The prohib ammo is because the Five Seven is considered a commonly available semi automatic handgun.
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Yes I realized that was what you had meant after I reread your comment. I believe what they thought they were doing though was specifying the different variants of 5.7x28, there are one or two commercial sporting variants and a few that are military/le only AP. As 5.56 has variants xm855 or m193 5.7x28 has ss190 AP, L191 tracer as well as SS196R and SS197R sporting rounds.
 
LUTNIT said:
One issue you'll run into (at least I did) is that a lot of the time the powder wont ignite. Modern smokeless powder needs a certain amount of pressure to combust properly. If it burned fully at ambient temperature it would just detonate in firearms. The "slower" the powder, the higher the pressure it needs to burn well. Shotgun powders are generally quite fast but you still need some back pressure for it to burn. Sometimes I'd load something silly into a shotgun shell that was really light and just fire a huge flame out of the barrel. The projectile would plop out a few feet. In those cases the primer pushed the payload and the powder just burned in the air like it would if you put a match to it.
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If you youtube "demolition ranch" you can see a bunch of stupid shotgun tests and like lunit says you will notice that unless there is sufficient weight to it it will barely make it out the barrel so glitter and table seasonings are out of the question.
 
A long as the loaded round does not have an exploding or incendiary projectile you're fine with any daft thing.
Youtube is Latin for "Hey, Bubba. Watch me do this."
 
I once cut the tops off of a few trap loads, dumped out the shot and replaced it with a whittled down sidewalk chalk slug. The idea was to have it hit the target with a great flourish of coloured dust. It didn't work out well. The shock if being fired instantly pulverized the slug and a great puff of dust from the barrel was all that happened. :(
 
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