"Ringing" a shotgun shell???

G

Gary L. Griffiths

New member
Has anyone ever heard of a practice called "Ringing" a shotgun shell? A letter my wife found in The Backwoodsman magazine asks about it.

Apparently it involves "cutting in front of the brass on a shotgun shell lightly so when it is fired that part breaks off from the shell and goes to the target.":eek::confused::confused::confused:

Sounds idiotic and dangerous to me, plus I fail to see any purpose to it, other than to convert a shot shell into a pseudo-slug. I guess that might be the purpose, since The Backwoodsman is chock-full of info on survivalist and free-living tips such as how to reload .22 rimfire cartridges using match heads for priming compound, etc.

I doubt it could be done with a modern plastic shell, though it might be possible with an old high-base paper shell. I don't think it could be done successfully without sealing the crimp so it wouldn't open, and I would think it would be just asking to leave the front of the hull in the barrel as an obstruction.

I'm posting this in the General forum to get wider exposure. Mods feel free to move this to Shotguns if appropriate. I had never heard of anything like this and am wondering if anyone else has. :confused:
 
I doubt it could be done with a modern plastic shell
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I can be done and is done with plastic hulls. The cut is not done where the brass meets the plastic. It is cut somewhere near the middle of cushion part of the shot cup. Not more likely to leave anything in the barrel. You're just taking part of the plastic hull out with it, and there's very little resistance in a smooth bore. Works in a pinch at closer ranges, and is lots less expensive than buying slugs. There are several videos on youtube showing how it's done.
 
I shot some OLD paper 12 gauge shells that had some pinholes at the edge of the brass. everything but the brass went out the end of the barrel. I'm not sure what it would accomplish doing it on purpose. I can't imagine that it would offer any kind of accuracy or pattern
 
Old time gimmick to make a makeshift slug. I would not do it in any of my shotguns because the case was not meant to go through the choke and all of my guns are choked. Buy slugs and forget this ringing funny business.
 
It was a practice pre 1900's and during the great depression to hunt bigger game like deer for the table. Not a small thing in those days. Slugs and .30-06 rounds, not to mention rifles were expensive and most or a lot of people couldn't afford them but they needed the meat and most every family had at least one shotgun. So this was a stop gap for near shots at game. Its till taught for survival situations but it is dangerous outside the old paper black powder shotgun shells.
 
Weren't they called "cut" shells?
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Same exact thing, depends on what side of the county you come from. Up on the ridge they is cut shells and down in the holler they is ringed shells, either way I will hurt anybody who tries to shoot one in my gun.
 
I have done this.

1. I've only used them in my unchoked 590A1.

2. They cause absolutely massive destruction.

3. I think they are more damaging than slugs, they absolutely blow 5 gallon buckets of water apart.

4. My grandpa used them in the depression because slugs were so expensive.

5. You should try it sometime.
 
I had never ever even heard of this and now I find out there are youtube videos about it.

Guess you can learn something new every day. Now that I have I can relax for the rest of the day.

Thanks Gary L. Griffiths and teeroux and everyone else.

P.S. Never going to try this myself but it's still interesting stuff to know.
 
There is a video of someone doing it on youtube, the damage the shells did was pretty impressive. They had a comparison of a normal birdshot shell vs. the same shell but cut about halfway down the shell.

If I remember right, they shot some milk jugs, the cut-shell milk jug was messed up pretty badly.
 
I shot a couple ringed shells several years ago after I heard of the practice (they were plastic hulls). Forgot all about it until this thread. Shot them from my old H&R single shot break barrel 20 gauge with modified choke. IIRC they shot a bit high and right at 20 yards. Didn't seem to cause any harm to the gun. I would use them in a pinch, but obviously only in a single or double shotgun.
 
You pretty much have to use them in a single-shot or AS a single-shot.

Example...you have a side-by-side. You can load a cut shell in one barrel and fire it just fine. Load 'em with two cut shells and the recoil from the first will screw up the second...possibly enough to cause it to detach and make all kinds of mess inside the second barrel.

You could put a conventional shell of any sort in the second barrel, as long as you knew which barrel was going to go off first and that it would be the cut shell first at bat.

Same with a pump or auto-loader: manually put a cut shell first up the pipe, conventional rounds after that.

On edit: think of these as the Glaser's bigger older and meaner brother :).
 
My grandpa used to tell me about "ringin" shotgun shells. Said they were more accurate than the old slugs outta tight full choked shotguns and were also a way around the law against the use of one piece projectiles while bird/small game hunting with a shotgun. If a warden checked your shells, he knew damn well what the intended use of the ringed shells was, but by law they were legal until used for that intended purpose. Kinda like the drag rope and the oil paper for the heart/liver. Those were the old days when folks sometimes needed to violate to survive. That is not the case nowadays, and there are much better alternatives to "ringed" shells.
 
I am not that old but am surpised that so many have not heard of this. Heck even in the Michgan hunters guide book put out every year they still talk of the legality of using "cut" shells. And what game you can and can not use it on.
 
jim march said:
You pretty much have to use them in a single-shot or AS a single-shot.
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No, you don't. I can tell you for a fact that they function perfectly fine through a Mossberg 590 pump and a Remington 1100. I used them in a 3 gun match (probably about 2 dozen rounds each) just for the heck of it several years ago.

There is no need to completely cut through the hull. Either score it all the way around without cutting through, or cut completely through it from 2 sides stopping short of the middle, leaving a couple of 3/8 inch wide bands to hold it together.

If you don't cut far enough, the worst thing that happens is the shell functions normally.
 
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