soft pellets in a shotgun shell?

Question

I was wondering, I have heard about putting rock salt into shot gun shells home defense. I live in an area where I could use this, hopefully not, but being in California, home intruders have more rights than I do. Because I do not want to kill or mane the person, I thought about just inflicting enough pain that they won’t not be able to move until the police showed up. I have tried rock salt and was not impressed. I was wondering if anyone has just for sh*ts and giggles put those yellow sift pellets into a shotgun shell and blasted it? Would it do some pain at about 10-15 yards away? Not trying to kill the person, and I don’t really want to hear about sawed off shotguns or tazers or pepper spray or using a 357 magnum. Anybody else know where I could get rubber bullets? Any ideas or suggestions? If you leave a dumb answer so you can get your kudo points, it will be erased from this column; I don’t want to hear stupid remarks, thanks.

Answer 1

First off if you are not reloading from a reloading manual DON’T.

To do as you were suggested is foolish, anytime you change a component in any shell you take a very good chance the chamber pressure will jump and exploding the weapon in your hands.

To shoot to wound is also foolish, do you realize that in today’s court you could be sued and made to pay for the intruders eyes, knees or any other part damaged.

Do you wont to support a intruder for the rest of your life.

You need to call an attorney for advice before you go any further in this wound the intruder thoughts.

There are non lethal shot shells out on the market that shoot rubber balls.
But you are still liable for your actions whether it’s a intruder or innocent bystander.

Get a big dog if you cant finish what you start.
If you ever pull a gun you had better be willing to kill the intruder.

You need to check with your local State laws to see just how much trouble you can get in to just injuring an intruder.

don’t expect the intruder to confess to any crime, his attorney will make you the attacker.



D58

To the Childish ones that are playing the games.
I love it when the inept thumb me down, it don’t dissuade me it inspires me more.


Hunting with Rifle, Pistol, Muzzle loader and Bow for over 3 decades.
Reloading Rifle, Pistol and shotgun for over 3 decades.

Answer 2

I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6.
Shoot to stop (read "kill," though that's not taught for legal reasons). If that doesn't make you happy, lock your gun up and try a baseball bat. You won't incapacitate a determined (he's already invaded your home with you in it, hasn't he?) attacker with "less-lethal" rounds until the police show up. Good 911 response times in an urban area are around 5 minutes. "Less-lethal" munitions are designed to stun or incapacitate subjects for mere seconds, and allow law enforcement officers to take subjects into custody during their moment of disorientation or incapacitation. And like somebody already said, these rounds can and have been lethal, they are just less likely to be lethal. While we're at it, don't use birdshot either. While this can be lethal, it rarely is. It was designed for little birds, and should be used for little birds, not big biped assailants. Spend some time checking out the link in my sources. You'll learn a great deal about using firarms (particularly look at the shotgun sections) for home defense. 000 or 00 buck is the best option. Anything less and you are inviting lawsuits, and probably will be dead anyway.

Answer 3

you can use those air soft pellets in one when you go to do this i would use a piece of tin foil on the bottom 1st so it will not melt the pellets get as Meany as you can in to the shell then take out 2 or 4 so you can close up the end of the shell next get you a target cardboard can paper what ever and see what happens i hope you get the results you want and try different air soft pellet there not all the same some are softer than others have fun

Answer 4

try www.alstechnologies.com

They sell bean bag and rubber bullet ammo.

Some warnings for you:

Just because it is labeled "non lethal" does not mean you can't kill someone with it. A riot cop shot a rubber bullet and accidentally hit a young woman in the eye. The projectile penetrated the brain and killed her. Close range shots with a 12 ga. bean bag have also killed people.

DO NOT RELOAD YOUR SELF DEFENSE AMMO. I can not stress that enough. Should you kill or injure your intruder your reloading skills and ammo will be immediately called into question. You will be accused of "hot loading" the ammo to cause sever injuries or death. Proving you did not is almost impossible. Use factory ammo only.

I answered an Intruder Call once and found a badly beaten man who had attempted to enter a single woman's apartment. He was immediately set upon by the woman's large and aggressive Rottweiler and then she soundly beat the man with a Cat-a-Nine Tails whip. That is a short handled whip with nine, two foot long, whips tipped with metal. About flayed the man alive.

Good luck. . .

Answer 5

Alright!!! Time for me to step up and take responsibility for my answer from yesterday.

I forget sometimes that we deal with varying levels of maturity and skill on the forum and sometimes my answer reflect my lack of thinking in that direction.

If you are not familiar with reloading do not take my salt rock and rice advice (that should have been a disclaimer!) Thank you D58 for keeping me sane.

However, E.S. kimo is pointing you in a good direction. One great thing about shotguns is that they can manage a HUGE variety of loads. I would NOT put rubber bullets into a shotgun shell.

One technique that is VERY effective is one adopted by many prison systems and one that I learned while working with the Bureau of Prisons in DC.

They load a light or NON lethal shell as the first round. The second round or two is buckshot. The last rounds loaded are heavy slugs.

When loading this way it enables the officer to deal with escalating violence and gives them some leeway in making decisions on whether to subdue or kill. The first shot is to get your attention, the second is to bring you down, the third is to kill you.

I would remember that when loading in defense so that it will limit the risk of killing your neighbor, but still give you better options than salt rock or rubber bullets.

Thanks for teaching me a valuable lesson. I will think a bit more before providing off handed responses on this forum.

Just for giggles, how did you test the salt rock?

Answer 6

first off, shooting an intruder with any type of homemade or reloaded ammunition is guaranteed to get you arrested and guaranteed to cause you to lose in court. No one wants to take a human life. Only in the most extreme emergency woud I even consider it. But if your life is threatened and you feel you must shoot, then use good quality commercial ammunition. The best bet is to ask local law enforcement what ammo they use. Then use it. That way it is much more defensible in court. Also, you never shoot to "kill". You fire at center of mass until the person stops his aggresive act, then you stop shooting. You only shoot to stop, not to kill. I seriously recomend that you take some self defense firearms classes. Read some of the writings by Masaad Ayoob on self defense.
On a lighter note, back when I was a kid, and before everyone got sue happy, I was where I shouldn't have been, doing something I should not have been doing.Riding my mini bike up and down a guys private road and un intentionally scaring his chickens. For my trouble, I got a backside full of rock salt from the ol guys double bbl 12 gauge. It didn't stop or slow me down. In fact, that was the fastest I ever moved in my life!! Today, it would have put him in prison, back then, it taught me a valuable lesson in private property and common sense.

Answer 7

You should be able to go to a toy shop and buy these plastic little balls about 4x bigger then shotgun pellets but lighter so they will travel faster for a short amount of time which is all you need for home defence. you could eaisly fit 40 of them into a 2 3/4 inch 12 ga shell

Answer 8

This is advice passed on to me by a retired SWAT team commander.
#1 Never shoot to kill. "I shot him to make him stop doing what he was doing"

#2 Don't leave the bad guy in any condition to contradict you.

#3 Don't have any entry wounds at low angles.

It's great that you don't want to kill anyone. That being said, aren't the bad guys really putting themselves in harms way by being in your living room at 2:00 AM? In that situation I'd come down on them like a bag full of hammers. I have a wife and kids to think about, maybe you don't. I've seen real people shot with real bullets, through non-vital areas, and the effect on old SGT. Jordon was to get pissed off. But he might not be the best yard stick, in his carrier he'd been shot like Democrats vote. (Early and often.) But the other guys didn't really react all that badly, certainly not incapacitated.

Answer 9

I don't believe in, nor would I condone less than lethal rounds in any gun used for home defense. My theory is, if you have to use a gun, you shoot to kill. Having said that, if you feel you can't do that for some reason, they have pepper spray, stun guns, and tasers. The problem with beanbag rounds and rubber bullets is that they can still be deadly if not used incorrectly, and rock salt keeps animals and teenagers off your property, but it won't keep real criminals from doing you harm.

Answer 10

yeah they have bean bag rounds for shotguns police use then all the time when they don't want to kill a crazy person, or they don't want to look bad. Or if you have a lot of time you could use a sabot and a rubber round so you don't get a scatter