{"id":3046,"date":"2020-09-15T08:17:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T08:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ammoman.com\/blog\/?p=3046"},"modified":"2020-09-11T19:05:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T19:05:49","slug":"rock-salt-shotgun-shells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ammoman.com\/blog\/rock-salt-shotgun-shells\/","title":{"rendered":"Less Lethal Loadout: Rock Salt Shotgun Shells"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seasonings Greeting: Testing Rock Salt Shotgun Shells<\/span><\/h1>\n

The idea of loading up a shotgun with rock salt has been around a long time. There are stories from the old west of how a coach gun loaded up with rock salt was used to scatter a pack of rambunctious teenage boys. Another about how rock salt chased a hungry coyote away from a campfire. A rock salt shotgun blast will scare away even the most determined of home intruders and it\u2019ll scare the bad guys away without really hurting them, or so the story goes. Rock salt in a shotgun is, in effect, the original \u201cless lethal\u201d shotgun ammo. Let\u2019s take a look at how they actually perform in an industry-standard ammo test.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s look at what\u2019s inside a normal shotshell. A normal shotgun shell is filled with a varied number of lead pellets of different sizes. A plastic cup called a wad holder those pellets. The wad keeps the pellets together as the shell flies down the barrel. Once the shell leaves the barrel, the pellets and the wad separate. 00 Buck and similar rounds have a small number of large pellets. #8 birdshot and similar rounds have a larger number of small pellets. Larger pellets have a bigger impact on the target. Smaller pellets may have less effect on the target, but the fact that there\u2019s more of them flying through the air means your chances of hitting something are greatly increased.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s Inside A Rock Salt Shotgun Shell?<\/span>\"A<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

A rock salt shotgun shell replaces those pellets with large salt crystals. The brand we used in our test is <\/span>a preloaded version from Gum Gully Provisions<\/span><\/a> and has a small plastic cap at the top of the shell to hold in the crystals inside the shell. There is also a small fiber disc at the base of the shell to push the salt crystals. The shells we tested weighed just .46 ounces on average, almost half the weight of a #7 Federal Target shotshell. The rock salt shells also varied in height, ranging from 2.51 inches to 2.57 long. The Federal target loads, on the other hand, all averaged 2.3 inches in height.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This lower weight had a dramatic effect on muzzle velocity and muzzle energy. In our tests, the Federal #7 12 gauge load<\/a> had a muzzle velocity of 1106 fps at the muzzle when shot from a Mossberg 500. The cloud of salt from our test ammo, however, had a muzzle velocity of 825 fps. This means that the rock salt round has a muzzle energy of 304 foot pounds at the muzzle. This sounds impressive, but given the very light weight of the salt inside the shell, energy from the rounds dissipates very quickly.\u00a0<\/span>
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