Originally Posted By: ironraven
Blowguns... *shakes head*

Every culture that I'm aware of that has used the blowgun has used poison darts. Without that, you've stabbed them with something like a hat pin if your tube is skinny and short enough to be mistaken for a trekking pole. And not stabbed them very deep.

A good blowgun is BIG- six feet or so in length, and fires something about the size of a chopstick. But it is still SLOW, with very limited range.

You are at least as well off with a pocket full of steel balls and a good pitching arm.


Not everyone that has ever used a blowgun has used one with poison. See: http://www.geocities.com/blowgunhunter/

ON the FAQ page this person states:

"I stay far away from poison and have never tried hunting with it. A blowgun is only a small game weapon. Since I can kill rabbits and squirrels without poison, I don't see the need to risk messing with it. Going after anything large enough to require poison seems like using the wrong weapon for the job to me. However, in the book "A Sporting Chance" by Mannix, the author gets a permit to acquire some kind of poison, then gets special one-time permission to use it hunting and is sucessful at killing a small deer with a poisoned blowgun dart."

If I was going to have one, it would be at least five feet long, over 1/2 inch in diameter, and it would shoot something like a chopstick, trust me. But It's primary purpose would be to look like a walking stick, but be available in case I needed to swing it like a club. As far as using it to hunt, I hope I never get that desperate. I won't ever want to use it for with purpose whatsoever, same thing with a some of the other things I have for just in case.

Is this an ideal thing to have, absolutely no way. It stinks relative to a lot of others things one could have. But when the local laws put serious legal hurdles in the way of owning what you would like to have, you begin to think "Well, what else could I have and use." And my pitching arm is not what it used to be.

I like the combination of a .22LR, 12 gauge and 30-06 Sprg. But in order to own any one of those legally in NYC, I would need to go through a costly permitting process, plus a few other onerous things, with no certainty that I would be granted a permit.