Standard Mischief

While writing up the post on “cut loads”, I had a sick idea. What would happen if you did this with either the much maligned Taurus “Judge” or a M6 survival rifle? Both of these take the .410 sized shotgun shell, which is marginal for self-defense as is. I don’t expect the load to be a bear killer, but it might be something to try in desperate times.

I don’t own a Judge, but I’d be interested in seeing someone try this. (Viewing from a safe distance, of course!)

The load would be jumping the gap between the cylinder and the barrel, and that worries me. I’m also unaware if the judge has a forcing cone in the revolving cylinder. The whole deal might actually engage the Judge’s rifling, so the results might be pretty interesting.

Of course, someone had my same sick idea first. He didn’t try it either. He’s worried about the gap and the forcing cone too, and afraid there would be a barrel obstruction. But every non-muzzle-loading shotgun since before the Great Depression has a forcing cone and if it caused all sorts of issues with cut shells, I think we’d see a lot more broken guns.

If I can ever get a Judge in good shape south of $150 or so and can round up a high speed camera or two and a very long string, you will be sure to see the results published. Just don’t hold your breath.

a/k/a “cut shells” or “ringed load” or “ringers”.

Apparently this was an old Depression era trick one could do in the field to convert a birdshot load into a slug. It’s easy to do outdoors with a pocket knife and has historically been used to poach deer during waterfowl season. When a shell is cut in this way the upper part of the hull keeps the wad and shot all together from the barrel to the target. The drawback, besides the safety issues, is that the you need to load these as a single shot. Also, waterfowl are generally hunted nowadays with steel shot. There’s plenty of skeet loads still on the market, though.

This is something I’m glad to know about, but not too eager to try. Still, I’ve highlighted this video by Iraqveteran8888 because it’s about the clearest demonstration I’ve seen from something I’ve only heard rumors and hearsay about.

The lost art of “Cut Shells” 3:53 min.

Click here to view the video in a pop-up window | Direct link

As a commenter stated over on the youtube page, “There ain’t no school like old school.”

Here’s another vid from the same source about improvised slugs made from shotshells. The improvised brenneke slug made with a drywall screw and a fishing sinker is cool, but I’m not sure I’d try it.

Lost Arts Part 2- Improvised Shotgun Slugs 4:23 min.

Click here to view the video in a pop-up window | Direct link

Here are a few more links I managed to search-fu up from around the web about “cut shells”. None of them are as good as the videos above though.

http://www.go2gbo.com/forums/index.php/topic,178695.30.html…

http://thehunterslife.com/forums/printthread.php?t=627

This last one is a copy of an article about cut shells in an NRA publication¹. E. H. Harrison found that the practice actually reduced chamber pressure, but please note that the shells used were all paper hulled – none of which are on the market today. Nowadays our litigious society, not to mention backlash from advertisers, would make an updated version of this article impossible in mass-market media. Too bad, as I’d really like to see the results with modern barrel pressure measurements and various choke settings.

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/003175.jpg

Be cautious with plastic shotgun shells. All the reloading manuals caution against working up your own recipes, unlike when reloading the metallics. I’ve always assumed that this is because the plastic hulls do not show the same signs of over-pressure like brass does. It would be easy to get into trouble, even using factory loaded shells, by say dumping out 3/4 ounce of lead shot and then gluing in a 1.25 oz. sinker.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the tremendous price difference between mass-marketed skeet loads and hunting slugs, but please don’t do this to save money. In fact, don’t do this.

¹ Unknown issue month and year. If you know, please leave a comment.

Not here, over at New Jovian Thunderbolt’s place, his first.

My first was a yearling buck, and I nailed it with a projectile in the “over 35,000,000 grain” class, if you know what I mean. There I was, minding my own business when Bam! My first hunt ended on a successful note, with the meat already tenderized even.

A passer-by wanted it, but I parleyed a half steak^H^H^H stake into skinning lessons. After showing me where the scent glands were and removing the skin and guts, he quartered the meat with a sawzall. (This is not something I’d do nowadays because we cut right down the spine. Prions scare me, so avoiding brain and spine matter seems prudent.)

I took mine home and brined it in a few 5 gallon buckets in the fridge. That weekend, not knowing any better, I took a hunk of meat right from the tenderloin and ground it up in the Cuisinart. I mixed it about 5 to 1 with some pork sausage, and that made some pretty amazing bambi burgers.

Yea, it was taken out of season by accident, and possession of a member of the state’s herd of deer without a permit seems to somehow be illegal, but on the flip side, I’m pretty sure the state would balk at paying for the damage the deer that it asserts it owns caused against my personal property.

Besides, I already managed to take care of all the incriminating evidence.

Apparently there are shortages of the liquid version of Tamiflu, so the CDC has published a handy recipe for whipping up a batch for your kid that has issues swallowing pills.

I find this interesting because it already takes, starting from scratch, six years of study nowadays to become a pharmacist in the US. While they them may be able to technically compound at that point, I believe that many go on and take on additional training to specialize in that branch of practice.

In fact, if I had to wager, I’d bet that compounding without a licence was illegal, (but I don’t carry two lawyers around in my pocket along with the entire US and Maryland state code, so don’t take this as legal or medical advice)

The Brotherhood and Sisterhood of the Collective Compounding Pharmaceutics weigh in:

I originally got wind of this story via Lifehacker, where there’s this comment from a member of the Pharmacist Guild:

@idleuser: I completely agree. I’m a pre-pharm student that works part time as a pharm tech and there’s no way we would recommend patients make their own Tamiflu suspensions. Half the time they can’t even take the correct amount of pills. None of the chain pharmacies around our area compound though. Our store and maybe a couple other local pharmacies do regular compounding. I would urge people to find local pharmacies that can compound Tamiflu for them instead of taking risks with their health or the health of their kids.

here’s a more useful comment further on down the page:

Alot of the Tamiflu coming from pharmacies is in capsule form from the Strategic National Stockpile. These are 75mg capsules only. For most kids under age 10, 75mg is too much; so the above method doesn’t work for them.

For patients mixing Stockpile-supplied drug from home, my state’s Health Department recommends mixing the powder from a full bottle of ten 75mg Tamiflu capsules with 50mL fruit juice. This makes a 15mg/mL solution.

I’d say that if you can’t multiply 75 mg times 10 and then divide the results by 50 mL, if you were never any good at word problems and don’t have or can’t purchase something to measure liquid in cubic centimeters, then perhaps you should leave the math and mixing to a compounding Pharmacist.

Cranky Consumer

Also, someone at Consumerist is angry that a chain pharmacy didn’t volunteer information that they can actually do compounding inhouse right off the bat. I’d say the guy was lucky he was offered that as a solution at all. I once took a prescription that required compounding to a pharmacy on a Friday before a holiday weekend and was not only told they did not do the compounding there, but that the one store that they did do the that was already closed for the holiday. I was more upset at my physician that handed me a Rx that I could not read. Had I done so, I’d have asked her to allow the pharmacy to give me two tubes of ointment and a stir stick. I eventually got my ointment, and I was just charged my usual copay instead of an expected premium.

Additional link

N.J. pharmacists face shortage of liquid Tamiflu, offer alternative

How many safety violations can you spot? While this looks like a “here, hold my beer and watch this…” moment, there are no famous last words spoken. He’s either got stainless steel balls or has already drunk too much. The classic line here is “..they only blow up in Hollywood”.

I understand what he’s doing, you spray a huge amount of inert CO2 liquid into the gas tank that is both heaver than air and will displace all the oxygen. The MIG welder too, also sprays out CO2 as a gas (If, of course you haven’t forgotten to turn the gas on first). If there’s no oxygen, there can’t be a fire or explosion (as long as everything works out as expected). Dave also knows what he’s doing. Note the cardboard placed beside him to keep the wind from blowing away the shielding gas.

If he wanted to score the safety violation hexfecta, however, I suppose he should forgo the welding mask altogether and just closed his eyes before pulling the trigger. I’ll confess to doing that before when I’ve only needed a quick tack weld or three. That welding mask is the only piece of equipment he isn’t misusing. Note how he carefully places the fire extinguisher completely out of reach.

I’ve got an urge to mail him some JB weld or a pair of jack-stands.

Weld fuel tank with gas in it 3:24 min.

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