Talk:Rat-shot

Clean-up
Added more links, fixed the reference citation, and, in general, cleaned-up article. Have also recommended it for a merger, as it is still somewhat short for a full-fledged article. Yaf 05:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with the merge. Arthurrh 22:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Angels on call
I don't trust this source saying that rat-shot would have difficulty penetrating paper at a distance of 10 feet, and suspect it was an exaggeration or some artistic license made by the author of a book meant for a popular audience. I've never used rat-shot though, so if anybody has any experience or a source, could they confirm if this claim is true? If it isn't, I am going to remove the passage from the article. Buttonwillowite (talk) 11:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It is definitely NOT TRUE. And it is not in the current article. Thank goodness. At the risk of being accused of original research, I taped a paper target on a phonebook and fired a .22 shotshell from a 16" barreled rifle at distance of 10 feet from muzzle to target. The #12 rat-shot penetrated the paper, the phonebook cover, with most pellets penetrating 26 sheets and some pentrating to 50 sheets. The target included two approx 2"x2" outlines of birds; one had 6 hits and one had 9 hits out of approximately 165 in the cartridge. The pattern was about 9" in diameter. The limitation is the spread of shot beyond 10 feet range, not necessarily the lack of penetration of the individual shot at that range. --Naaman Brown (talk) 00:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Confusion
The into says **for use in rifled firearms as opposed to more traditional smoothbores such as shotguns.** Uses says **Rat-shot cartridges are best used in dedicated smoothbore firearms**

I have no idea which should be correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.165.3 (talk) 06:23, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

It was not very clear. Rat shot and snake shot cartridges (shotshells as opposed to shotgun shells) were introduced to allow use of rifled firearms for close range pest or vermin control. As a dedicated pest control weapon, though, a smooth bore garden gun works better with shotshells giving a tighter pattern at greater distance than a rifled firearm. --Naaman Brown (talk) 00:21, 1 December 2015 (UTC)