Reeder Custom Guns - It has been rainy which gave me an excuse ...

to hang out in the shop and load some ammo. I had been shooting the 480 Achilles last week. Pictures are posted somewhere below .. and I decided to clean the brass and load them while it rained.

I decided to use the Huffaker hollow-base heel bullet that was designed for the .476 Ely. I cast these from fairly pure lead and they are nominally 290 grains.

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I loaded these over 7.0 gr. of Unique. The hollow base adds room to the "combustion chamber" and thus lowers pressures. The 7.0 grain load with the hollow base bullet produces right at the same velocity as the 6.5 gr. load produces with the solid base bullet ... 850 fps.

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I lubed the bullets with Paco's Apache Blue Lube.

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A Sheriff style. Mike Venturino, God rest his soul, toted one around for snake patrol. I never thought much of them but seeing his in his back pocket tucked so neat made me want one. I know Gary could make one from a .45 Colt by boring the cylinder straight through (removing the chamber bullet throat) and installing a 3" .475 barrel. Jim says you can still fire .45 Colt for short range emergency loads.

Jim has never said such but with a full length cylinder brass case made from a .460 &W oe .444 Marlin it would make a SNAKE BLASTER!

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as many as 18 in 4 months ... never used snake shot. Used .22 Long Rifle ... .357 Magnum 170 gr. cast bullet ... .45 Colt and the Keith 260 gr. SWC ... 12 ga. shotgun ... but I never have shot one with snake shot. Strange.

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better shot than I am) but most of my snakes were Copperheads and Cotton Mouth Water Moccasins and Cotton Headed Rattle Mouths, but I have never shot a snake with shotshells.
Many years ago Kase and I were hunting squirrels in Tennessee and walking slow and quiet thru the woods when Kase whispered for me to stop. I stopped and he pointed at my feet. There was a smaller Copperhead at my feet. I had already stepped over him with one foot and the other was on the other side of him. It was like he couldn't make up his mind which foot to strike. We were walking on a path that I had cleared out a year or two before that for one of our combat shoots, so the snake was very obvious, not covered up with leaves or anything,.
I told Kase to slowly back up about 10 feet. When he did that the snake was still bobbing his head back and forth like he didn't know which foot to hit. I had my favorite 22 rifle at the time, a Marlin 99M1 22 LR.
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I put the end of the barrel down next to him so that the bullet would go straight down and when he did a semi-strike I pulled the trigger. The bullet went right down his throat.

I have shot quite a few Cotton Mouth Water Moccasin snakes and I really hate those snakes. They will just keep right on coming at you, until you kill him. I had one get in a canoe with us once and I ended up beating him to death with the paddle. And even then he still wasn't going to give up. He was beat to a pulp but still trying to strike.

I think these snakes were over in Jim Taylor's part of the country years ago.
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This is one or two too many snakes for me.

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And no .. I am NOT a better shot than Gary.

When I lived in Oracle, Arizona the Assembly of God Pastor was a good friend. He knew where all the rattlesnake dens were for miles around. In the Spring he would go out and catch them when they were first coming out. He took me with him and had me shooting their heads off. I stayed in the Jeep, standing on the passenger seat with my 12 ga. single shot. He would throw a snake down into the wash in front of the Jeep and I would take its head off with #6 shot. He kept yelling at me .. "DON'T RUIN THE HIDE! JUST TAKEN THEIR HEADS OFF!"

We would get 10 or 15 an outing and he would skin them and make belt buckles and hat bands that he sold.

He had two metal snake catchers that he caught them with and then he would fling them out in front of the Jeep. It was all quite exciting.

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It has been rainy which gave me an excuse ...

They look like WWI artillery rounds!

I'd like to have a short horned version

I've killed a lot of rattlesnakes ...

I am sort of like Jim (although he is a lot

That's the stuff of nightmares!