Surely you’re just closer to the muzzle….
Humane dispatch pistol
- Thread starter Danny25790
- Start date
<chuckle> You have no idea. I was digging in the safe last week, and found a .22 pistol I forgot I owned. Probably been 15 years since I shot it. <shrug> If it doesn't get used regularly, it tends to drift to the back of the safe and gets forgotten.
It really depends on the load. A subsonic pistol load is still loud, but not nearly as loud and a full house load. Heck, snake shot loads would be good enough for dispatch, and much less noisy.
At close range, a 600fps 185gr bullet would do the job, and be pretty quiet (relatively speaking).
What most of us this side of the pond would give to have that problem…it would make for an interesting conversation on a random inspection like I had recently. We don’t talk about home defence as a thing, ever, at all…
salukiwhippet
Well-Known Member
Mine has HD'd everything from cats to cows. Truly useful bit of kit! A tad unwieldy to have tucked in your belt when you're stalking though
They block them with steel I believe, I have not tried to drill them out
They also drill through the side of the cylinder and knock a couple of roll pins though.
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
I don't stalk in town so I'll just use the rifle or knife.Mine has HD'd everything from cats to cows. Truly useful bit of kit! A tad unwieldy to have tucked in your belt when you're stalking though
If I can't own a handgun to hunt with I'm not bothering at all.
Two pet hates of mine is that in Britain I can not hunt with a handgun or archery tackle.
Pathetic.
Leglas
Well-Known Member
That makes sense. Are they quieter? Never heard a pistol fire, presumed they’d be louder because there’s less barrel. I’d also thought, basing this just on my own use of a 22lr that there’d be more ricochet chance from a lighter calibre, but a quieter, lower powered round does make sense.
Perfect for large hands…
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sikamalc
Administrator
Try shooting a wounded Sika stag in failing light in forestry, with the trees about 8ft tall. Then you will know why.
My local feo has direct links to smith and Wesson in the us, who were absolutely horrified to find out it was relatively commonplace in the U.K. to drill the cylinder of revolvers which are after all a pressure bearing component. Completely ridiculous practice.They block them with steel I believe, I have not tried to drill them out
They also drill through the side of the cylinder and knock a couple of roll pins though.
It’s actually very difficult to hit deer or indeed any other animal with a rifle fitted with optics from say 2-20m, even a shotgun can be quite tricky in very close situation. If you can’t almost touch it with the barrel of a rifle, or get atleast 20m or so away, a handgun is a far superior weapon.
Little story for you to illustrate why…. Last month myself and two other members of SD were stalking and had shot some hinds. Whilst sorting out the practicalities afterwards we noticed a roe doe and kid (standing 3-4m clear of the doe) about 100 yards away. As they were in the cull plan the doe was shot in the head with very emphatic results being immediately evident from the single shot. The kid ran off at the report into some marsh grass where it could no longer be seen. We surrounded the area and stalked in to find the kid dead with a wound on its neck. When the kid was gralloched the chest was full of blood and a shard of bone presumably from the mother’s skull was found in the thoracic cavity. The relevance of this story is that discharging a centrefire rifle at close range releases massive amounts of energy that are transferred to the impacted materials which can become dangerous projectiles in their own right. A frangible bullet will only partially mitigate this effect as the energy transfer is still occurring. The sensible solution to me is to use a cartridge of significantly reduced power combined with a frangible projectile. This is where the use of a handgun comes into play. Looking at the image in the best practice guide for HD truly makes me wince as the scene depicted remains incredibly dangerous. Now one answer might be to use a chamber insert allowing the use of a smaller cartridge but there are few suitable smaller cartridge options for many rifle calibres. It may be feasible to fire a .312 calibre .32 bullet through a .308 calibre barrel but I don’t fancy it just as I don’t think a .25ACP would be suitable through a 25/06. I can’t think of any options for 6mm, 6.5mm, 7mm or .270 rifles that so many of us use. Subsonic ammunition is better from one regard but is generally unsuitable for HD due to increased ricochet risk and is not available in many calibres. Pistol ammunition of certain types is generally much more suitable and far safer than using a centrefire deer rifle.
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Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
I had that once from a doe I shot, the kid behind and to the side wobbled then ran off sadly we never found it, lesson learnt I never shoot if there is another one behind nearby.
This kid was stood well clear, no overlap of silhouette at all when the shot was taken. From memory they were facing each other!
Rake Aboot
Well-Known Member
I suspect that many who seem dead against pistol ownership obviously don’t shoot enough to have had a need for one , but the guidelines are clear and as far as I’m concerned, owning a pistol for dispatch should be a health and safety issue akin to the reasons we used to justify moderators in the old days.
Unfortunately the police make up the rules to suit themselves and deny at every opportunity, whether justified or not
To add to this thread , modifying a revolver like this should be illegal as in my mind it’s dangerous and weakens the gun.
Unfortunately the police make up the rules to suit themselves and deny at every opportunity, whether justified or not
To add to this thread , modifying a revolver like this should be illegal as in my mind it’s dangerous and weakens the gun.
HD with a shotgun is probably the "easy button" for most. Shotguns or PCC's are probably what many use here in the US, along with pistols.
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