Harrell Shoots Dimes From a Shotgun

God bless Paul Harrell. When he gets a request from a viewer about shooting werewolves and vampires with silver coins, he doesn’t just hit “delete” and hope the questioner’s not a stalker. Instead, he drags out his double-barrel side-by-side 12 gauge muzzleloading shotgun and stokes it up with stacks of dimes!

Ah me. Ain’t guns fun?

After the intro, he explains the Meat Target for newbies. Then he tells us his scattergun is stoked with 100 grains of FFFg black powder and 18 pellets of 00 (double-ought) buckshot. This does a pretty good number on the target!

He then loads the front-stuffer with 100 grains of BP and a stack of 18 dimes. This payload weighs less than the buckshot did, roughly 900 grains of buckshot vs. 630 grains of dimes.

At 10 yards, the stack of dimes acted like a slug because they didn’t spread out after exiting the muzzle. So he backs off to 20 yards to try it again. Those results were inconclusive if you ask me, and not very effective on the ol’ Meat Target.

Conclusion: Dimes in a shotgun = not nearly as good as bird shot or buckshot beyond 10-15 yards.

Enjoy watching.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.