Speer shot capsules in a rifle cartridge ?
- Thread starter bat119
- Start date
Rifling does unspeakable things to shot patterns, so unless you are planning on shooting them at 5-10 feet you'd be better off with a pistol bullet at around 800 fps, or best if all- get a shotgun and a dog and take them on the wing.
And even if you could get that close I don't want to think about the problems of loading shot into shouldered cases.
The capsules were intended for straight wall handgun cases. So right off the bat they are sized to handgun calibers instead of rifle calibers. So good luck getting a capsule that fits.
Second issue is that you don't need or want to use much powder and what you do use should be faster shotgun or handgun powder. Yet you have all that case volume to fill with something. It sure can't be a wad of any sort because you won't be able to get it down the neck and past the shoulder and into the body of the casing.
So all this along with the nasty things that the rifling does to the shot pattern means it's best to move on to something else.
Now if you hunt with a straight wall caliber then that's different. IF you can get in that close to the grouse and have time to load up a shot round it's pretty easy to make any straight wall rifle casing into a shot round
The capsules were intended for straight wall handgun cases. So right off the bat they are sized to handgun calibers instead of rifle calibers. So good luck getting a capsule that fits.
Second issue is that you don't need or want to use much powder and what you do use should be faster shotgun or handgun powder. Yet you have all that case volume to fill with something. It sure can't be a wad of any sort because you won't be able to get it down the neck and past the shoulder and into the body of the casing.
So all this along with the nasty things that the rifling does to the shot pattern means it's best to move on to something else.
Now if you hunt with a straight wall caliber then that's different. IF you can get in that close to the grouse and have time to load up a shot round it's pretty easy to make any straight wall rifle casing into a shot round
After doing a little digging the problem is not the fit, the capsules are .357 and the rifle takes .358 the problem is length they have to be seated deep into the case, during ignition the plastic case would be crushed releasing the shot instead of traveling down the barrel, in other words it won't work. Oh well it was just a thought the gamegetters work well except for 35 cal hole it puts in the birds LOL
Shot through a rifled barrel is super hard to make work. I've fired .22 shot shells through a rifled .22 as well as buck shot through a rifled slug barrel. The pattern is a donut that completely avoids what you were aiming at. You'd almost need to aim to the side and hope the donut ring puts at least one pellet where you want it.
As for the gamegetter, love mine, but have been thinking of experimenting with it: What if... Instead of resizing shot to fire, you took two fishing sinkers and crimped a 6 inch piece of 50lb or more line between them. Then pounded them into wider disks and ran them through the resizer, and seated both of them in the casing with the line carefully spooled and sandwiched between. When fired, (my hope is) the rifling and centripetal force would cause each sinker to fly out and act like a bolo. You could just aim for the neck of the grouse, and as long as you're within 6 inches, it should slice the head right off.
Should be easy enough to test on paper or a stalk of celery. Now where'd I put my tackle box...
As for the gamegetter, love mine, but have been thinking of experimenting with it: What if... Instead of resizing shot to fire, you took two fishing sinkers and crimped a 6 inch piece of 50lb or more line between them. Then pounded them into wider disks and ran them through the resizer, and seated both of them in the casing with the line carefully spooled and sandwiched between. When fired, (my hope is) the rifling and centripetal force would cause each sinker to fly out and act like a bolo. You could just aim for the neck of the grouse, and as long as you're within 6 inches, it should slice the head right off.
Should be easy enough to test on paper or a stalk of celery. Now where'd I put my tackle box...
Have you considered the possibility of making up some grouse loads using a .38 wadcutter bullet (.357 / .358 diameter) and a *small* quantity of pistol powder?
I made up some load in 30-06 using 32 wadcutters and about 2 grains of bullseye. They were enough load to go through most of the 2" dimension of a 2x4, and not much louder than a .22LR....
I made up some load in 30-06 using 32 wadcutters and about 2 grains of bullseye. They were enough load to go through most of the 2" dimension of a 2x4, and not much louder than a .22LR....
Agreed. These Speer .38 Specials were fired at varying ranges and were only effective pattern wise at less than 10 feet for small game.
Last year I shot two grouse with the Hammond game getter in 338 using the green loads. One wasn't bad hit from the side missing the breast the other took it in the chest leaving a nasty feathered hole in the breast meat. This season I'm taking the 350 so the holes could be even bigger I'll just have to shoot three this year to make up for meat loss. A 1902 win with shorts is my primary grouse killer I keep it on my quad, when walking around its hard to carry two guns if it wasn't for the stupid gun laws I would carry a .22 on my hip.
BTW I has shooting 3 shot 1" groups at 20 yards with my 338 game getter about 2" lower than the POI of my 338 hard to make a head shot though.
BTW I has shooting 3 shot 1" groups at 20 yards with my 338 game getter about 2" lower than the POI of my 338 hard to make a head shot though.
