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K

Kevin the grey

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Aug 26, 2005
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In a couple of "Billy The Kid" movies you see a shotgun load that uses silver dimes . I remember one movie in which you actually see glints of silver flying through the air . How feasible is this and would it have to be some kind of unchoked barrel .

Talk about "dropping the dime" on someone . L:O:L
 
Probably about anything you could think of half way useful has been stuffed into a shotgun shell, and the blackpowder shotguns get real creative.




munk
 
Kevin the grey said:
In a couple of "Billy The Kid" movies you see a shotgun load that uses silver dimes . I remember one movie in which you actually see glints of silver flying through the air . How feasible is this and would it have to be some kind of unchoked barrel .

Talk about "dropping the dime" on someone . L:O:L
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Those old side-by-side blackpowder coach guns are just cylinder bores. It should be no problem. It would just fit. A dime is about .70 caliber in diameter and a .12 gauge is about .73 caliber as I recall.

Even if the bore were skeet or I/C or _maybe_ even modified it should still work, but I have no idea if they even had chokes on shotguns back then. On a coach gun I'm sure they didn't.

Norm

Just checked the encyclopedia and a shotgun reference. A dime is .71", and a .12 is .729. So skeet or I/C would work, but modified would be tight, at technically 1 mil too restrictive.

N.
 
It would work but on a show about billy the kid they tested it out on some meat. The dimes penetrated the skin but not very deep at all.
 
RedEdge77 said:
It would work but on a show about billy the kid they tested it out on some meat. The dimes penetrated the skin but not very deep at all.
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Do you have any idea as to distance the test was conducted at ?
 
RedEdge77 said:
It would work but on a show about billy the kid they tested it out on some meat. The dimes penetrated the skin but not very deep at all.
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Makes sense, but bet it would give you a hell of a slap and a bruise.

Now if they were solid silver dimes, which they of course would have been at that time, then any vampires would have been in serious trouble. :rolleyes: :D

Norm
 
The "flat" 12 gauge less-than-lethal beanbag round is being phased out by most (if not all) agencies currently because under the right circumstances, it can land edge-on and penetrate deeply enough to kill. At least one fatality that resulted from this has been documented. The newer "teardrop" beanbag can also kill if the shot is placed incorrectly but that's due to simple blunt force trauma, not penetration.

Granted, a dime weighs much less than that, but it's considerably thinner as well. I wouldn't want to get hit with any of them.
 
Hhhhhmmmmm i can't think of the distance tested.:rolleyes: For some reason i think it was 15 feet?

Next time the shows on i'll let ya know and to check it out.:thumbup:
 
I don't doubt that their test resulted in minor penetration. I'm just saying that stuff happens.

I mean, come on now...a cloth bag full of lead shot hitting just right so that it cuts instead of deforms? It almost never happens, but it has happened a few times and it killed someone at least once. And by kill, I mean that it penetrated and killed; had it deformed as designed, it would not have killed in this particular case. (It's worth mentioning that this particular phenomenon also involved the beanbag "inflating" and travelling like a disc at unexpected times, causing it to deviate from its point of aim; this may indeed have contributed to at least some of the injuries.)

Keeping all of this in mind, if the optimal shape for the projectiles in a shotshell were thin discs, we would not be fooling around with this shot business that we're currently using and we'd be referring to shotgun ammunition as "discshells" or something similar. (And please no one bring up quadrangle, as that's something entirely different.)

Einstein didn't like quantum physics because it didn't make sense to him. Quantum physicists avoid exterior ballistics because it gives them headaches.
 
Come on Dave We could start a new science called quadrangular ballistics .

My question is would the dimes have less impact due to inflation ? L:O:L
 
Dave I would suspect at close range the dimes woud be devastating . I think the flat sides of the dime might drag through the air much more than the relatively small surface area of a round shot of the same weight . .
 
Maybe dimes were used because of their silver content. Remember that the only way to kill a werewolf is with a silver bullet. It's best to always be prepared by having your shotgun loaded with silver.

Regards,
Bill
 
I understand that in some cases during the vietnam war handloaded shotshells filled with washers wer used as a "terror" weapon, the whistling projectiles suppossedly confused and frightend the enemy. Another handload was supposed to be tightly wrapped piano wire that would expand when shot and slice the enemy up. Was this possibly true? Or just a bunch of good timing veterans jacking their jaws? As far as silver coins go, that would have been awfully expensive in those days. As was mentioned.
 
Bumppo said:
Another handload was supposed to be tightly wrapped piano wire that would expand when shot and slice the enemy up. Was this possibly true? Or just a bunch of good timing veterans jacking their jaws?
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I'm not much of a gun guy, but that sounds like improvised "strung ball" (am I getting the name right?).

~tmd
 
I heard he used the roll of dimes because that's what he had. Assuming the rolls were the same as they are now, that's what, $5? I doubt he was worried about the $ since it probably wasn't his anyway.

Norm
 
Nasty said:
I believe 10 ga was common then...
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I tried to get this 10 ga off a gentleman who had bought it and decided he liked his shoulder too much .
I figured it would make up for the lightness of steel shot .
 
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