Anyone tried the Cold Steel Blowguns?

No. You will only be maiming animals with very thin wire, and not killing unless you have made a really lucky shot. Even the bladed ones aren't good for much more than target practice.

Real native blowguns used poison to stop their prey, the dart was just a delivery system to break the skin.
 
i bought the cs .625 caliber big bore blowgun last summer and you can definately kill squirrels and rabbits with one shot. the darts that come with the blowgun arent wire. The bamboo darts that come with the blowgun are the best. you can make your own broadheads out of exacto blades and attach them to the bamboo skewers. clothes hangers make great darts too. i have even knocked squirrels out with the cs stun darts(the newer version stun darts). the power from these cs blowguns is unreal. check out blowgun forums they all post pics of their kills.
 
I have killed some larger birds with mine. No squirrels or rabbits yet, though. You can get pretty damn accurate with them, and if you hit them in the head you will kill them.
 
CWL said:
No. You will only be maiming animals with very thin wire, and not killing unless you have made a really lucky shot. Even the bladed ones aren't good for much more than target practice.

Real native blowguns used poison to stop their prey, the dart was just a delivery system to break the skin.
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This is very true, I have a CS blowgun and have pretty much all the darts. I became extremley accurate with it and it is fun to practice and make games out of hitting targets and thrown targets and such. I shot ONE bird with it as I wanted to see how viable it was at killing for food (was a starling and completley legal plus they mess up song bird nests) and thout it went right where I wanted it. The bird just flopped with a piece of metal through it and I had to finish it off by hand. I was much younger but lesson learned. I would certainly not use them on a squirrel or rabbit unless starving and its the only means I had. They do have small game stun darts which I have not tried but again....if you have other means I would use them.
 
I haven't hunted with it, but I do have one. It is a ton of fun to play with shooting targets and such. I prefer to use the stun darts, mainly because the sound upon impact of cans or wood. :)
 
If you pratice and use the right dart for the job you can harvest small game with the cold steel blowgun. They are very fun and well made, get the longer of the two.

Have fun if you get one.
 
Anyone that thinks the Cold Steel Big Bores are supplied with darts that use "thin wire" have not examined one. :D

It was true of the .38 ("Jivaro") and .40 ("Yaqui") caliber blowguns popular in the 70s and 80s, but not these.
 
When I was a kid my cousin shot a dove through the breast with one, it just stayed sitting up on the powerline a second, then flew away. Granted, he didn't have one of the new broadhead 'hunting' darts, but it was a perfect shot, and he did have full penetration...



Also, a friend shot me in the back of my hand when I was younger... The dart probably penetrated about .75 of an inch, but I just pulled it out and disinfected the wound... Never went to the hospital or anything and it was just fine. It most certainly didn't cause much trauma, and it most certainly didn't really hurt 'That' bad.



I have my doubts as to the effectiveness of them for hunting unless you have poisoned darts. In a survival situation it might be good (assuming you used a wooden dart) for frogs and maybe birds... I doubt if it'd be very effective against a rabbit or squirrel however.


As someone who's been shot by a slingshot and by a blowgun, I'd say a slingshot is a farrr superior primitive weapon.
 
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I think in a pinch you could very easily harvest small game with the .625 cold steel blowgun however I don't know about using it as your main hunting weapon they are tons of fun shooting targets though and massive when compared to run of the mill .40 caliber blowguns.
 
Why do people insist on giving information about the smaller and more ineffective blowguns when the thread was asking about the CS blowguns which are entirely different?

Back in the mid-80s, I tried hunting with the Yaqui .40 Cal. and you really would need poison with them and at that point, it's such a PITA, why bother? A real wristrocket is simply an incredible small game hunting weapon. (But you will get people saying that they won't kill rabbits and squirrels either which is B.S.)

Back in the 80s, I would heat up one of the pro-pointed wires with a torch and then smack it with a hammer while it was on a piece of rail road track (my Dad used for an anvil) and you would get the greatest little spade shape by doing that. A great little broadhead. Lay it flat on a whetstone and you could get those little things so they could slice paper and you STILL couldn't kill a squirrel or a rabbit with it! I mean, yeah, if you got it dead center through the eye or through whatever passes for their neck arteries, you might kill it but other than that, forget it.

The CS darts, they're like finishing nails and not simply light piano wire.
 
you can kill squirrels birds rabbits etc very easily iv killed squirrels and birds. i saw a guy on the hunting channel dove hunting with them. after about a week of playing with it it almost becomes a instinct to aim it correct. its actually easy. but yes i would say you can kill anything up to coon size. i killed a coon with mine once. i had to shoot it a few times but it did indeed die. there stun darts are very effective and all the other darts are also. however the tun darts kill birds not just stun them lol. i have stunned squirrels with them it knocks them out cold for about 5hrs. well hope this helps on your decision
 
Don Rearic said:
Why do people insist on giving information about the smaller and more ineffective blowguns when the thread was asking about the CS blowguns which are entirely different?

The CS darts, they're like finishing nails and not simply light piano wire.
Click to expand...

Stone cold truth. Point of fact, I always refer to those darts as simply 'nails'. The generic blowgun experience is, as Don points out with those older, smaller piano wire shooters. The CS Blowguns are an entirely different animal and (provided you do your part) they are pefectly capable of harvesting small game. I have taken dove with mine and had no problem with a quick clean kill.
 
For those of you taking small game with these, what ranges are we talking here?
 
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