Just wondering how many people grew up believing their older siblings when they told you - Stay away from the old farm up the road. There an old guy living there who will shoot you with rock salt!

Or maybe it was true?

What makes you think it's a myth? Now it is even easier.
12 Gauge Rock Salt Ammunition – Gum Gully Provision

If you was to take a look at my butt you might see some small scars from a rock salt load. I was lucky as I was on the fringe of the pattern, my buddy caught most of the load.
Hurts like H#%&!

Oh yes.
Usually a warning to stay out of somebody’s Watermelon Patch.
That could explain all those old Farmhouse Shotguns with Rusted out barrels.

__________________
NRA LIFE MEMBER

Unless I am being attacked by a horde or snails I don't see the need for salt in a shotgun tasked with self defense. Birdshot at the very least.

__________________
Music/Sports/Beer fan

It was TRUE! My Father talked about it many times...

These boys gave it a try:

https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box...-in-a-shotgun/

__________________
Rule of law, not a man.

Raise hand slowly ...

__________________
Some collect art; I shoot it!

Knew several farmers that kept double barrels loaded with rock salt shot. Never knew any guys that got shot with it but heard stories from the farmers that were LOL funny. Grew up with a black guy out in the country, his Dad “ had been a moonshiner”. Anyway some punks from town would come out and bust country road mailboxes with ball bats. My black friends dad stuffed his mail box with dynamite!!!, my friend took it out before it got dark. Lots of crazy funny stories…

In the Spring of 1968, a girl in my brother's High School class, had problems with a stray dog trying to breed her pedigree dog. My brother took two 12 gauge hunting loads and removed the lead shot and replaced it with Rock salt. On Monday she walked up to him and slapped his face, then burst out crying, The dog she shot had died. When ask how far away she was when she shot the dog? 5 or 6 was the answer! 5 or 6 what? Feet was the answer. The gathering crowd burst into laughter.

That is how my brother had to get a date to the Junior Prom at the last minute. And that is how I got a sister-in-law two and a half years later! You might say, A totally different type of shotgun wedding!

I am so glad he married the smarter one!

Ivan

IIRC, Granny from Beverly Hillbillies shot rock salt and bacon rinds in her double barrel.

__________________
No baby we aint

There was this extremely crotchety old man that owned a farm where exit 23 of the New York Thruway is now in Albany NY. He would most definitely shoot rock salt at people that did not belong on his land stealing produce. It was well know by us kids and in fact many older people told us to stay off his land. His land was Eminent Domained by the state about 1956 and he went to parts unknown.

Of course today he would not get away with it but back in the 1950s he did.

__________________
14 S&W Revs none with locks!

Hey, it worked for Lucas and Micah in a "Rifleman" episode.

That was the version the quasi-delinquent kids on my block told. I was naive enough to assume it had to be true; never considered it could just be an attempt at getting the suburban middle-class version of "street cred."

I've herd that story but, don't if it was true or not.

Old man Kaulb's house was on the other side of a country club golf course. The story was if your golf ball landed in his front yard you better not go get it or he would shoot you with rock salt. I never did hear of anyone getting shot but, every time I drove past his place there were 20 golf balls on the front lawn. That was 40-50 years ago when I still drive by Old man Kaulb's place I look to see if there are golf ball on the front lawn.

It's true, my late grandpa used to do it. He used it mostly for unwelcome critters on the farm. Said he could hear yelps from "fearless" coyotes until they were out of earshot. Always had a smile on his face whenever he told those stories...

When we still lived on the farm in Alderwood Manor, WA, a neighbor up the road kept rock salt in a shotgun. I don't know if he ever shot any of the kids there abouts but I was witness to him shooting a stray dog. Must have been 20 yards away and never got any closer. He used his 30-30 to kill a rabid dog that was chasing his son.

When I was very young my brother & I attempted to load a couple shells with rock salt. We dumped the lead pellets out, replaced it with rock salt and re-crimped it. The shells did not function - just went poof. We speculated that more mass was required than the light-weight rock salt provided, to create a bit of back pressure / resistance for the gun powder to explode. My hypothesis might be wrong why they didn't go bang, but nevertheless, they didn't go bang.

True. Ole man Blakely use to guard his apple orchard with a side by side full of rock salt. We got "peppered" more than once trying to get our fill of apples and the dog got a double blast one day. Stoopid days of our youth. Today they would throw the guy in jail...and take away the key.

__________________
Remain Viable

Rock salt out of a 12 ga with leave a mark but more important is that it will leave a memory!

A few friends and I used to do a midnight watermelon feast on a farm that was known for rock salt usage. We hit the farm at around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, we would each have a large knife, whack the melon in the center, carve out the core and feast til full or tired of melon...laying waste to maybe a dozen or so amongst the three of us. After our fill a couple of us decided to take a few home to the family. We each had a melon under each arm and were behind the lead guy when we got hit with the light and a very unfriendly "Ok you little B######s drop them melons". I looked at my buddy and gave him the high sign, dropped the melons and headed for the barbed wire which had a run off ditch on the other side then a roadway where the lead guy had his truck parked. I remember flying through the fence and hitting the ditch when the first barrel went off and heard a howl, I went into high gear with my chin nearly on the ground when the second barrel went off and felt the sting. We all made it to the truck and got out of there. My buddy had caught the first barrel in the upper leg, I caught some of the second barrel in my right butt cheek and levi jacket, it didn't penetrate the Lee Storm rider because of the blanket lining. I got home and went into the bathroom, running water to soak the few holes in the cheek. I worked the chunk of salt out under the hot water. My dad knocked on the door and said "What are you doing in there?" I said "Taking a bath pop." He said "On a Friday night?" That was not my regular bath night, I told him about the rock salt, his reply was "Burns don't it?"
Rock salt was used with regularity at junk yards, farms and orchards, it was common practice. I even knew a guy in town that shot a kid with a .38 pistol and got away with it, didn't kill the kid but he was in the process of stealing something valuable. A buddy and I got caught siphoning gas and ended up mowing the old man's yard over the summer, big yard too, push mower...better than the beating our dad's would have inflicted on us. We have a local river that if you own land on both sides you basically owned that stretch of river, guys would fence it off to keep their cattle under control. One crotchety old man would unload a shotgun at you if he saw you floating the river, he had signs up about private property, etc.

I experimented with rock salt loads way back when. I found the salt rocks generally became course rock sand and the effective range so limited as to be useless.

Grew up surrounded by agriculture of all kinds. Heard all the stories about rock salt in farmer's shotguns. It remained a rumor to me for one simple reason. Tresspassing and stealing produce were against the law. If I wanted an apple or some cherries or some berries, I asked my neighbor. Nicely. Don't remember ever being told no. Of course, said neighbor usually got some prime cuts of venison come deer season. And his driveway shoveled out when it snowed. Seemed to work better for all involved.

__________________
The best I can with what I got

In the town that I grew up in there was an eccentric old lady that owned a large property and was what today would be referred to as a hoarder. The rumor was that she kept a double barrel shotgun loaded with rock salt to deal with anyone who dared to scale the cinder block wall around her property.

Her property was also protected by either her son or son-in-law, I'm not sure which but he was referred to as "Hatchet Man". He carried an axe handle and would chase kids off with it.

One night a couple of buddies and I decided to see if the rumors were true and in short time we were being chased by Hatchet Man. We all went in separate directions and one friend who was on the portly side decided his best bet was to hide under a parked car.
Hatchet Man spotted him, grabbed him by the ankles, pulled him out and thumped him across his chest with the axe handle. Just at that moment a cop car pulled up and stopped Hatchet Man from any further assault. He made no arrest and told my friend to stay away from the property.

On another occasion a group of acquaintances were cruising down the alley that ran behind the house late at night and someone stepped from the shadows and threw a pitchfork at the car. Hatchet Man was suspected. The car received four good sized dents from the pitchfork tines in the door on the passenger side just a few inches below the window.

No one was ever shot at though and some years later the house burned to the ground. The fireman said there were stacks of old newspapers three feet high throughout the house with narrow paths in between along with all kinds of other hoarder activity.

Chinese proverb ~ Never stop to tie your shoes when walking through your neighbor’s melon patch.

__________________
and what his trumpet saith

Count me as another victim. When I was a semi-wayward ute, my friends and I would ride our dirt bikes in the many desert areas of Tucson. There was one old guy-probably younger than I am now lol-that didn’t care for our 2-strokes running expansion chamber exhausts. Thankfully the worse damage I received was to my leather riding pants! My buddy Tom wasn’t so fortunate one time, wearing jeans and caught almost a full load in his butt.

My neighbor and I share a large garden tract on our rural properties. We've shot a few deer in the butt with salt to get them out of the garden. Works good, but you've gotta be close. Neighbor figures if we kill the most frequent intruder next fall, we'll have pre-salted meat for jerky and sausage.

__________________
John

The lure of caramel dipped apples and homemade chocolate candy was the only thing that overcame our fear of the crazy old man, I believe it was Mr. Chasnis, living across the road from my grandparents. The rock salt myth was alive and well in the community since every Halloween, small groups of kids would congregate on the country road in front of the infamous house. The ritual was that each time a group of kids got up the courage to start down the driveway, the old man would charge out of his front door and shoot off both barrels of his 12 ga. into the sky.

Some kids left screaming, while others persisted, and if we made it to the front door, Mrs Chasnis would start bringing out trays of her candy and finally a caramel apple wrapped in wax paper and carefully tied off with a colorful ribbon. Usually, the apples were eaten and our faces were covered with caramel before we got to the next house!

Could you imagine trying this today!!!!!!!

__________________
Gary
SWCA 2515

A pellet gun works great for keeping deer out of the garden. They jump straight up when hit in the rear hind quarter.

We've used pellet guns on occasion, But a couple years ago, my neighbor hit a yearling in the butt, and unfortunately, the little thing bled out and died right in his back yard. Obviously severed an artery. Our wives found out, and that was the end of the pellet guns.

__________________
John

We had a crazy old man in the neighborhood who at various times, used the following to "Keep my yard clear!".

A pitchfork. He went after my dog with one when he committed the crime of getting loose and going into his yard. I explained to him what I would do with that pitchfork if something happened to my dog. He called the police, who took my side of things. He was not at all happy about it.

A pellet gun. he shot all kinds of wildlife that dared to come onto his property. Until he shot a skunk one night and it went under the next door neighbor's house to vent his rage, and the neighbors on both sides of the skunked house, had a talk with him about shooting animals.

A slingshot that he shot peach pits and walnuts with. Again, he shot a skunk and that finally got him in trouble with the police.

Just before his wife and family decided that he needed to be taken care of, he had a meltdown when a pair of buzzards were eating on the corpse of a possum, and he chased them off repeatedly, and finally came out with a hatchet, screaming at the buzzards. I guess that was what finally got him taken to a home. About 2 years after he lost his mind..

rock salt & lots of bacon rind makes long blue flame at night,works on horses in the corn patch.

The number of liars exposed by this thread is a bit surprising.

I had always heard about rock salt, but I think it’s a myth. My 870 slide just jammed up solid.

My friend claimed to have good results with un-popped popcorn.

I have heard OF rock salt loads all my life. I have never heard of anyone who claimed to have used them or to have been on the receiving end of them. It was always "some guy..."

__________________
John 3:16 .

12 gauge Rock Salt loads sold by Gum Gully Provisions. Not cheap--$20.00 for 5 shells.

__________________
John

Not rock salt, but real shot. We were stealing melons from a neighbor one night and he blasted the corn field we ran through with lead shot. Nobody got hit but the sound of shot cutting through the corn is unmistakable. If I had to guess it was #6 and a full choke.

__________________
That's just somebody talkin.

We had local farmer who’s farm was being encroached on by suburban sprawl. The suburbanite youth of the area enjoyed stealing his produce at night. He however did not use rock salt in model 97. He used #2 high brass. In his advanced age and anger he shot out 2 passenger side windows and a windshield from his truck. I work on a farm that cut hay for his cows. I had no doubt he would have killed somebody if could have gotten close enough. I always made sure I stopped at the house before I went hunting or fishing there. He did have the best sweet corn!

__________________
There are no bad pig parts!

My friends and I believed it. Thankfully never found out from actual experience.

__________________
Life Member SAF, CCRKBA, FOAC

I believe it would work if black powder was used. I can’t think of much it won’t launch.

The incidents I was aware of in my youth the gun used was a fixed breach. I know of 3 friends that got shot at, two got hit.

As for me I never trespassed on his land, I knew better!

__________________
14 S&W Revs none with locks!

My granny, who chain smoked Malboros and made the best country ham biscuits and red eye gravy, was a firm proponent of rock salt shotgunning. And she kept a single barrel muzzleloader behind her door, which was so old that the lock had been converted to percussion from flintlock! She would definitely not lie, so the stories must be true. Makes sense to use a muzzleloader, as the salt could be easily loaded and a large quantity used to give mass.

Uh huh, right. Another confirmation of the old saying about opinions.

Take a new shotgun shell. Any brand, any gauge and pull the crimp and dump out shot. Fill with rock salt or table salt, to your taste. Then put in any brand, any model of gun and fire it. Then report back the results.
There was a show on TV that set out to prove that Billy the Kid didn’t really kill a guy with a load of dimes out of a double barrel 12g. They proved dimes wouldn’t have had the velocity to be lethal. This was actual on screen test. They were 100% correct, when using smokeless powder. I haven’t shot dimes but I wouldn’t want to risk my birth certificate if Billy was using Black Powder, which would be in use during this time period.

I'm wondering how airsoft bb's would perform?