The amazing things you can load into a shotgun shell and shoot from a shotgun

What can you shoot out of a shotgun? It turns out that there are a surprising variety of things…

Let’s say you are going to use a shotgun for hunting. A typical shotgun shell shoots a small handful of pellets. You pick the size of the pellets based on the size of what you are hunting. This is an excellent video shows you different pellet sizes, all the way from bird shot up to a single one-ounce bullet:

The range of stuff that you can put in a shotgun gets einteresting when you consider what you have here. A 12-gauge shotgun shell has a pretty big capacity. The shotgun itself is essentially a smooth-bore mini cannon. Basically anything that can fit in the shell can be shot from the cannon.

Would you like to shoot fire from a shotgun? There are shells for that and they are startling. They contain magnesium pellets:

Looking for something less lethal? Here is a beanbag round weighing 40 grams:

This video shows a person being shot with a beanbag.

The slug shot from the shotgun can contain an explosive charge that detonates downrange, as shown here:

Flares (e.g. for boating) can fit into shotgun shells as shown here:

Even a Taser high-voltage energizer and its battery has been miniaturized to fit inside a shotgun shell, as shown here:

If you put small steel darts inside a shotgun shell you have what is called a flechette round. A “strung buck” round is two large balls connected together with a wire. The following video shows what flechettes and strung buck ammunition does to ballistic gel:

See also these ammo demonstrations:

Would you like to experiment? What would you like to load into a shotgun shell? Here’s how to load one:

More info:
- Weapons – The XM-25 rifle has programmable bullets that explode automatically at a set distance
- Military shotguns

PS – Tim on Facebook pointed me to a site called TheDepartingShot.com, which will package ashes of a deceased pet in a shotgun shell. More info in this video:

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