I hit him and damaged his wing muscles/wings but not enough for him to NOT fly away. The first one took one of his wings out completely and penetrated the thorax, the second added more holes to the thorax and abdomen. **UPDATE** Did some more hunting and got some really good kills after penning this. I also like using granulated salt over the larger kosher salt, as the smaller grains seem to penetrate much better. Better to shoot into the surface the insect is on to get the most penetration of salt. So shooting a bug on the wing is overall ineffective, as is shooting an insect parallel with the landing surface. Further even a single grain of salt is a big deal on a small fly, so poisoning via salt is also a possibility.ДЄnother thing to note about the Bug-A-Salt is the muzzle velocity is VERY slow, this means that a bug hit may be able to recoil with the impact enough to prevent ballistic penetration. A puncture to the exoskeleton will likely be fatalвЂ¦just maybe not within the hour. So what does this mean for Bug-A-Salt hunters? Just because your fly got hit, doesnвЂ™t mean you donвЂ™t have a kill. FYI Insects breath through a passive trachea system. Also since the blood is not the primary oxygen delivery system, hypoxia to the brain will also not be caused by a ballistic penetration. This means the big stopping power in most hunting and defensive shots, the catastrophic loss of blood pressure. So #1 insects donвЂ™t really have what we consider blood pressure, as their heart-like aorta works more like a fan circulating air in a room, than a vertebrateвЂ™s pump-like heart that actually circulates the blood through a pressurized system. Hemolymph is usually green or yellow in color. The insect circulation system does not carry oxygen, so the blood does not contain red blood cells as ours does. Insect blood is only about 10% hemocytes (blood cells) most of the hemolymph is watery plasma. Like an aorta (7), the vessel simply directs the flow of hemolymph to the head. Muscle contractions push the hemolymph from one chamber to the next, moving it forward toward the thorax and head.In the thorax, the blood vessel is not chambered. Perforations in the heart wall, called ostia, allow hemolymph to enter the chambers from the body cavity. In the abdomen, the vessel divides into chambers and functions as the insect heart (14). Insect blood, properly called hemolymph, flows freely through the body cavity and makes direct contact with organs and tissues.ДЄ single blood vessel runs along the dorsal side of the insect, from the head to the abdomen. When blood is moved without the aid of vessels, the organism has an open circulatory system. Insects donвЂ™t have veins or arteries, but they do have circulatory systems. Well insects are a LOT different than mammals and birds, the big one being the circulatory system: Still being a biologist this got me thinking of terminal ballistics and вЂњStopping PowerвЂќ that is generally discussed in terms of firearms, and mammals or birds.

Bugs with thicker shells like beetles, bees, and wasps donвЂ™t have even remotely the same results. Inspection found that indeed the shots were connecting AND penetrating softer insects like flies and ants. Still some of my hits have been HEARTBREAKING! IвЂ™ll shoot the bug only to see it fly away, or worse yet, see it roll over, and as IвЂ™m preparing a 2nd shot the bug вЂњrecoversвЂќ and flies off.ДЇurther IвЂ™ve pumped a TON of shots into a single fly and still had the bug crawling around. Which is a VERY short effective range, but when shooting flies that small reach is enough to get close enough to consistently shoot the bug without spooking it. Still I find IвЂ™m VERY accurate at the very short ranges this gun is effective at.

Now the sights on this thing are GARBAGE, its a V rear-notch that only protrudes when the action is cocked and a V FRONT NOTCH. Still I was a bit surprised after seeing videos like this at the terminal performance of the Bug-A-Salt

Its been a great stress reliever to go on a quick hunting trip in the day.

Bug a salt 2.0 mods