Could you load a revolver cartridge with table salt to shoot bore bee's??

[shawnba67]

Would this be hard to do and would the salt destroy your pistol? Those shot shells are expensive and I assume would burn right thru my tin roof. My thought was to combine a BUG-A-SALT with pistol practice. Is table salt hard enough to ruin the rifling? Ideas on how to keep it in the shell? Any good reasons not to ever think about this idea ever again?

 

[T4rdV4rk]

I tried to find the Rockwell hardness of table salt, but no dice. Anyways I'm almost positive it is not hard enough to do anything to your gun.

Do this - grab some salt and try to scratch a part of your barrel with it. Not the finish on the gun, but the barrel. I doubt that it can. If it can't scratch it then it can't do any damage.

You should cut little discs of cardboard out and load them into your case first. Then pour in the salt and then maybe another cardboard disc. I would try only using primers first with no powder. If you have to use powder I'm not sure this will work.

Give it a try and let us know the results!

 

[Mgderf]

What caliber are you talking?

I have some plastic cases for .38spl that take reusable .38spl plastic projectiles.
No powder, just primers, and you can reload them with your bare hands, no tools.

This would also take a better aim, better practice for precision shots.

 

[sloughfoot]

Shooting wax bullets is great fun too with just primers. Easy to make the projectiles, just push the mouth of the case into some warmed wax.

But, what the heck is a bore bee?

 

[JettaKnight]

But, what the heck is a bore bee?

My guess is a carpenter bee.

I've sat under my pergola and listed to them chew on the treated lumber posts. They're very aggressive (or curious according to the article), but harmless.

OP, Couldn't you give them something else to chew instead of killing them? I use my neighbors house.

 

[Dirtebiker]

He's talking about carpenter bees. They bore a hole almost a perfect 1/2" hole. They can do a lot of damage!
Jetta beat me to it!

 

[Mgderf]

Shooting wax bullets is great fun too with just primers. Easy to make the projectiles, just push the mouth of the case into some warmed wax.

But, what the heck is a bore bee?

Wax is fun, and cheap, but messy.

By bore bees I think he means the large bees I call bumble bee. Large, round, and kind of fuzzy looking. BAD sting!
They will bore into fresh wood, especially yellow pine, which is a common building matrerial.

I have constructed a wall in the morning, leave for lunch, and come back to find bees bored 2" deep into a piece of wood.
They are amazingly fast at boring into wood.

 

[wolfman]

Similar to reloading for a shotgun, you will need some sort of "wad", to seal the bore behind the "load" and in front of the propellant gas, or all you will get is a small weak cloud of salt less than a foot from the end of the barrel.

 

[Sgtusmc]

Spray WD-40 in the holes. Last summer, my GF came in from the deck on the back of the house asking what I'd been working on. I was clueless as to what she was talking about until she showed me the wood shavings that were falling from a hole.

 

[sloughfoot]

So he needs to kill many bees. And he wants to shoot them? I guess that wouldn't be my first choice. They are inactive right now?

But, I still like shooting wax bullets in my baement. Messy or not...

 

[Mgderf]

But, I still like shooting wax bullets in my baement. Messy or not...

You know, the more I think about it, what more appropriate ammo is there for bees?
Really, wax is the ONLY choice, and it's natural.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

You can buy empty shot shells to make your own snake shot rounds.

Speer Empty Shot Capsules 38 Special Box of 50

I never thought of doing it with salt, but that's where I'd start. When I was a boy, my granddad did it with 12g shells to "learn" the dogs to stay away from the chickens. The shot cup stays intact while its in the barrel, so no salt contacting metal or concerns about the rifling.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I pulled the bullets from .22lr rounds and replaced them with little paper packets of salt I made up and load them one at a time to shoot the carpenters bees out of the air with my .22 pistol. Great fun.

 

[wolfman]

Try .22 bird shot shells, not the plastic tipped ones from CCI, but the cheaper ones with the crimped end. They used to be loaded with lead flake, and were great fun with helium filled balloons as a kid.

 

[IndyDave1776]

It has been about 20 years since the last time I fought carpenter bees. I was working on a project which was not movable, the bees wouldn't leave me alone, and I couldn't find any spray on hand, so I used 12 ga 7 1/2 shot. It was an expensive way to kill bees, but it was highly effective.

 

[Chance]

Get Seven dust like you use on garden plants. Load it into a pump duster and pump it into their holes. They will die. FYI this is also a great solution for ground bees or hornets that get behind fascia boards on your house. Just pump in the Seven dust into the passage hole and they will carry it into the entire hive.

 

[IUprof]

I spray the house for them, although shooting would be more fun! I live in a log home, they bore in, lay eggs and the woodpeckers knock the crap of my house going after the larvae.

 

[mkgr22]

I use a whiffle ball bat on them. I call it "bee-ball".

 

[1$Chuck]

a tennis or badmitten racket is also an effective weapon for wood bees

 

[snapping turtle]

Canoe paddle here but have done the bee-ball also. Once you get them in the area they stay.