RECALLING, AND QUESTIONING, A CHOICE OF DEFENSE ROUNDS
Decades ago, Dave encountered a small businessman who’s
store defense strategy involved the use of a birdshot cartridge
in his .38 Special Smith & Wesson.
Early in my career — serving as editor of a small-town weekly newspaper — one of my duties was to make the Friday rounds to pick up advertising for the following week’s edition.
It was a combination of dread and anticipation. Some stops I wrapped up as soon as possible, while others were a delight, allowing me to spend a few minutes chatting with someone I found to be interesting. I learned from one fellow this bit of interesting wisdom: “The thing this town needs most is a lot of expensive funerals.” It was spoken with a wink, but not much of a smile.
There were a couple of restaurants, a shoe store and a sporting goods store on the route. And there was one businessman who landed on my radar screen one morning when he invited me behind the counter. There, my eyes quickly focused on the J-Frame Smith & Wesson revolver well within reach of both the cash register and the spot where customers might wait for an order — or a thug might pull a gun and aim it at him, demanding money.
The owner glanced around the store — it was empty at this point, just after opening — and reached for the five-shooter to make a point. He swung the cylinder open and showed me how the first round out of this wheelgun was a shot cartridge. Without being asked, he said the idea was to get off a shot at point blank range, presumably to a would-be robber’s face, followed by the conventional jacketed hollowpoints in the remaining chambers.
A small business operator Dave knew 50 years ago had a J-frame Smith & Wesson stashed near his cash register. Dave used this Model 442 in an effort to determine whether the shopkeeper’s ammunition choice was a viable one.
There was not much to say. If I recall correctly, my only reaction was a nod and a “Hmmm, interesting.” Even in my early 20s, I was savvy enough to not suggest an advertiser might be seriously off base, especially to his face. Besides, maybe he wasn’t. Certainly, it was not my call to criticize or condone. The conversation had been surprising, and I did not mention it to anybody, including the publishers.
Now, nearly five decades later, I was reminded of that brief chat only because I was going through some boxes of ammunition and found a dozen .38 Special shot cartridges about which I had completely forgotten. One afternoon on a late-season grouse hunt, curiosity got the better of me. After all this time, I just had to know. Was this fellow’s load nastiness a good idea or a bad one; that is, would his setup really work?
I took along my Colt Diamondback to put the businessman’s strategy to the test. A few days later, I headed for the range to further check out this idea, using my S&W Model 442 DAO snubbie at very close range for contrast; about the distance one might expect between a clerk and a robber on the other side of the counter.
Personally, I would never advise anyone to duplicate this setup. It was something I had never considered. What’s that phrase? It seemed “fraught with peril.”
A shot cartridge at close range can produce devastating results, as this target reveals. This round was fired from three feet. Note the jagged hole where the plastic capsule remnants struck
Wishful Thinking?
At “armed robbery distance,” say a maximum of three to four feet, the shot charge fired at a Birchwood-Casey Shoot-N-C head-sized oval indicated massive wound trauma would result, even if the perp was wearing a mask. Shooting toward the lower part of the face would almost certainly produce a shattered jaw, at the very least. It might rupture the carotid artery. A shot aimed at the nose area would likely destroy the nasal cavity, maybe blind a robber, and quite possibly be fatal.
Dave fired this round also from about 36 inches, aiming lower.
That payload would have shattered a jawbone and maybe
perforated a major artery.
Such “snake loads” are close range only, designed for reptiles and rodents, not self-defense. They consist of No. 9 shot inside a plastic capsule. I set up a target about 12-14 feet away and loaded a couple of rounds into my Diamondback with its 4-inch barrel. The Birchwood Casey self-adhesive oval revealed just how much difference a few feet can make.
At the first shot from the Colt, it was easy to see how wide and quickly the shot pattern spreads after leaving a rifled barrel. Not only did the shot literally fly all over, the capsule left a nasty hole on the left side of the oval target, indicating that an equally impressive facial wound might result, but it likely would not stop a threat. I fired a second shot and again, pellets went all over and there was a second left-side gash where the plastic shot capsule made contact.
These shots came from a 4-inch Colt, fired from about 12 feet away. Notice how the shot pattern spreads pretty wide, but the plastic shot containers left major gashes, suggesting serious wound trauma in a defensive situation.
The down-and-dirty analysis is that the businessman’s load strategy would only work at very close range, but it loses effectiveness rapidly the farther away the target is standing. Up close, however, it could be devastating.
Again, I’m not suggesting anybody try this for personal protection. There are plenty of other options.
With today’s wide selection of self-defense ammunition, the strategy described above would not be my first choice, for any number of reasons. But it does confirm that even a half-century ago, small business owners were already thinking about personal protection in, shall we say, “creative ways.”
What Are the Risks?
The legal risks of shooting someone with a load of birdshot, even if they are trying to rob you at gunpoint — in today’s environment, thugs pulling such stickups might be more prone to pulling a trigger as well — are more in the sandbox of our own Massad Ayoob, or a good criminal defense attorney. There could be all sorts of ramifications, depending upon the prosecutor and your state’s self-defense statute.
A snakeshot load is not a frangible bullet. It is a payload of tiny lead shot pellets held loosely inside a hard plastic shell, whereas a frangible bullet is, according to one definition, fabricated from “mixtures of powdered metals” such as copper, zinc, tin or tungsten, resulting in a compressed material which can be made to form projectiles, “with or without jacketing.”
I have also tested projectiles consisting of bullet jackets filled with tiny shot held together by some sort of resin. They open up almost immediately upon penetration and create wound chaos.
To my knowledge, the businessman’s strategy was never put to the test, and I don’t recall having ever encountered anybody else who loaded a defensive revolver in such a way. Today, most people opt for a semi-automatic, anyway.
In some jurisdictions, a prosecutor might conclude the would-be robber initiated the event and shooting him, even with a load of shot, would be considered justified. Elsewhere, one might find himself or herself on the wrong end of an indictment, followed by a civil lawsuit even if acquitted.
Of course, the risk you only wound someone enough to guarantee they would want to leave you dead is a major consideration. Fifty years ago, it seemed like a good idea to a small-town retailer who, a) was determined to fight back, and/or b) didn’t want to be murdered for whatever small amount of cash might be in his register.