.410 For a garden gun?

TBM900, feel free not to comment on this thread, or really, any thread I make. If you have the secret that will save me a million dollars, just keep it to yourself. K?
 
I'll weigh in that an airgun is the answer for rodents.

I have a Diana RWS .177 air gun that is lethal to squirrels at ~12ft, and accurate enough to make headshots, but can't really make it to the boundary of my lot, which I estimate is around 50 yards.

Nothing in that direction for a couple of miles.

I'm not sure how old it is, but I know it is at least 30 years old. Really nice rifle.
 
these are modern 9mm rimfire brass case shotshells with
#9 shot
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, imported from Italy.
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Not the answer. A No 9 shot will fly just as far from a 9mm as from a 12 gauge.

I saw a friend take a squirrel out of a tall tree well out in his yard with a RWS #45 pellet gun. But if he had missed, the pellet was going to leave the premises.

Another guy here cleaned out the feral house cats from around a vacant house with a Feinwerk 124, but I doubt it would be as effective on a bobcat and a single shot on a rattlesnake does not sound attractive.

Mike Venturino described loading .45 Colt shotshells with No 12s for snakes.

Seems to me a snake will be seen on the ground at close range and a pistol shot load would be safe enough.

You might try to trap the bobcats. Or put bait in front of a bullet trap of some sort.
You must have a Texas hunting license or an Oklahoma hunting license and fur license to take bobcats.
 
Are you even legal firing a gun on a half acre lot? My lot is half acre and my .177 air rifle can reach my neighbors on all three sides and across the street to the fourth house. A 410 will easily do that
 
If bobcats are on your property, then there is a food source; eight pet food left out or small pets. Snakes can be handled easily enough, you can always try and find a pest control person who uses ferrets for snakes.
 
I routinely make 50yd shots with 950fps pellet guns. You still have to shoot in a safe direction though, range is about 250yds with a 177.
 
A 45 pound longbow and 125gr judo points does for garden pests in my yard, as even pellet guns are a no-no in town. Lethal on rabbits and squirrels at any range I can hit them ..... dunno about bobcats, but I've never had a bobcat stick around more than 2 or 3 seconds after he realized there was a human present.....
 
FITASC said:
If bobcats are on your property, then there is a food source; eight pet food left out or small pets. Snakes can be handled easily enough, you can always try and find a pest control person who uses ferrets for snakes.
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I've never heard of anyone using a ferret to control snakes, even wild black footed ferrets avoid confrontations with rattlesnakes because their almost always bitten in a fight with an adult snake. Rattlesnakes strike is faster than a cobra, even a mongoose would be killed by one.
If you get rid of the rabbits the bobcats will leave on there own, they don't eat vegetables.
 
jimbob86 said:
A 45 pound longbow and 125gr judo points does for garden pests in my yard, as even pellet guns are a no-no in town. Lethal on rabbits and squirrels at any range I can hit them ..... dunno about bobcats, but I've never had a bobcat stick around more than 2 or 3 seconds after he realized there was a human present.....
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Typically with pellet guns if the projectile doesn't leave your property your legal excepting Hoa rules, of course big cities have much stricter rules but it's doubtful the op lives in Dallas or Houston having rattlesnakes and bobcats in his garden.
 
DoubleK, my neighbor turned me in for using a pellet gun..... and the village sent me a warning letter with the pertinent village ordinance verbatim, complete with penalties ..... even throwing things like darts or spears, even blowguns, was verboten..... but it did not say anything about bows and arrows..... So. Neighbor saw me shooting the bow ..... didn't like it and said she was calling the town board ....never heard anything else about it.
 
Was she a transplant from CA? Every place in NV and FL where I have lived has had folks in their small urban backyards practicing with their bows.
 
.410

Eliminating a poisonous snake off your property seems prudent. I do the same. There are plenty of non-poisonous snakes about to help with rodents and other pests. Yes, if I see a viper first , I can proceed however I see fit, but its the ones I don't see that concern me. I've never lost a dog to snakebite, but I've had a few bit, and it was ugly 'till it healed up. I've not been bit, and don't want to be. Certainly don't want bamawife bit either.

Had a close call in the dark by the AC unit, and bamaboy nearly stepped on one sunning on the front porch steps. Both of those were timber rattlers approaching 4' in length. Copperheads perhaps even more common, but smaller. See a few "ground rattlers", which are likely pygmy rattlesnakes, but they sure are marked like a massauga rattler, but we are supposedly not in the massauga's range. Cottonmouths about, but never seen one on the property, but certainly within a 1/4 mile or so.

Keep an Win37 .410 as a snake and pest gun by the door most times. The 2-1/2" load with #8 or #9 shot will certainly kill any snake, and carry just as far as if it was launched from a bigger gun. Trouble with a .410 is that it is plenty loud, and I would think annoy most neighbors if you live in that kind of neighborhood. The little Ruger Bearcat with .22 ratshot will work too, if close enough, but you likely have to shoot more than once if outside 5-6" feet away. I generally leave a poisonous snake alone in the woods, and I an not one of those fools who nearly roll the truck over trying to run any snake over on the highway.

More than one household out here in the country just keeps a hoe near the back door
 
Haven't you heard the legend of the field hand who chopped at a rattlesnake with a sharp hoe, cut the snake's head clear off and flipped it up into his face, fangs first?
My Great Grandfather allegedly lost an employee that way.

Great Grandfather Hall was an interesting man, well regarded for giving paying jobs to freed slaves. He wasn't an MD but he had medical books and kept a medical bag in his two wheeled buggy and was all the doctor the country folks had.
 
Jim Watson wrote:
No. 8 shot fired at the optimum angle will carry nearly 200 yards. It won't hit very hard, but you wouldn't want a neighbor to catch one in the eye.
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One would hope he's not growing a garden up in the sky!
 
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