Bug-A-Salt 2.0 from Skell Inc.

Super happy with this product!

I always wanted one, oh man this did not disappointBuy one and you will be looking for flies.

Wow, this was the most exciting and useful item I think I ever ordered. This took the war between man and housefly out of the dark ages and into the future. To be honest I didn't expect this weapon of mass destruction to be the actual highlight of 2020 for me. Yes like so many others living in these dark times small things can hold a surprisingly large amount of happiness. My bug-a-salt rifle gave me an advantage over my sworn enemy. The enemy of all things fun and outdoors, the terror of family picnics, the destroyer of unwatched food and drinks. In less than an hour after opening my package I found a new purpose that could lift my world weary soul and turn the tides on the war that man has been fighting since the beginning of time. I named my new weapon proudly, for I knew very quickly how it could turn the tides in our favor and be the light that is needed to aid us in never having to dispose of delicious food items that through no fault of there own were accosted by the disgusting enemy by landing and vomiting on everything in order to feast and grow stronger. Excalibug, was such a game changer. Many of my knights in arms were impressed with my new prize. They saw how it could change everything. How it could make the spies sent inside our very homes to cause mayhem and destruction into nothing more than a sweep of the broom and a flick of the dustpan. Gone were the days of the greasy stains left behind by the kamikaze suicidal fly agents that snuck through the borders of our doors. My knights saw how useful and how much fun Excalibug brought to me and they too chose to invest in this new weapon and leave behind the old ways of the archaic and sometimes more messy than the enemy itself, the Fly Swatter. Oh the days became glorious and turned into tales spoken of in times of peace, like campfire war stories that would incite others to take up the mantle and be a member of the Knights of the Picnic Table. I was a leader who always lead by example and encouraged others to take the fight to the enemy. But as most things do my time with Excalibug came to an end way before it was time. One morning when I was patrolling for the enemy my friend, my constant companion in the war of the flies simply stopped cocking. I have since laid it to rest in a place of honor on my bookcase for all to see. The insperation of so many purchases of the same kind that I could not ask anymore from it. The spring inside must of broke so I know not my future in the war only that the 3 months of utter and total destruction we became were the stories of legends. Excalibug boasted a kill count of an unknowable number and even set records that will be hard to beat like downing 7 flies in one killing blow. Maybe one day my old Knights of the Picnic Table will reward me with a new magical salt spewing weapon that can leave a trail of dead fly carcases when unleashed. Oh how I miss my Excalibug, the nightmare of fly dreams forevermore. I only wish I knew why the insides that held the spring mechanism failed so early on. To this day none of my friends have had to retire their fly destroying weapons. Excalibug must of had a flaw inside, but we will never know because I refuse to desecrate it's ever growing legend with a screwdriver in some vain attempt to recapture the glory days of the beginning of our time together. Maybe one day after the freshness of Excalibug's spring mechanism failure has eased I to will once again purchase a bug-a-salt rifle and take the fight back to my sworn enemy. There are rumors and rumblings of a huge armory in my town, I believe I have heard it called Bass pro shop and there some say is a whole isle lined with the bane of all house flys, The Bug-A-Salt 2.0.

Obwohl ich im vierten Stock wohne, werde ich immer wieder in meiner Wohnung von allen möglichen fliegenden Plagegeistern heimgesucht. Gegen Fliegen und Spinnen habe ich nichts, die wurden bisher von mir eingefangen und in die Freiheit entlassen, per Freiflug übers Balkongeländer. Aber bei allem, was größer ist, gehe ich freiwillig auf Abstand. Nennt man Phobie, und bringt einem immer wieder ungewollte Lacher ein. Damit sollte endlich mal Schluss sein.Zuerst hab ichs mit einer elektrischen Fliegenklatsche versucht. Das Ding hat die Größe eines Tennisschlägers, bei einem Treffer in der Luft knallt es ganz ordentlich. Kleinere Ziele werden pulverisiert, die Größeren fliegen dann schon mal in mehreren Stücken brennend durch die Gegend. Und zusätzlich musste ich immer noch recht nah an meine Nemesis heran.Dann traf ich auf Youtube auf eine Bewertung dieser Schrotflinte - und habe einfach zugegriffen. Kurze Zeit später hielt ich sie dann in meinen Händen. Mit Salz geladen wartete ich auf mein erstes Opfer. Vergebens. Als hätten all die kleinen Biester die Gefahr erkannt und sich in sichere Distanz begeben. Es dauerte 3 Tage, bis sich die erste Fliege in mein Wohnzimmer verirrte. Mit der Flinte in der Hand lag ich auf der Lauer und wartete, bis sich die Fliege irgendwo nieder ließ. Ich zielte, drückte ab... und war begeistert!Weniger begeistert waren dagegen die drei Wespen, die wohl das vorherige Gemetzel mit angesehen hatten und nun Rache üben wollten. Zum Glück starteten sie ihren Angriff nicht gleichzeitig, sondern nacheinander. Trotzdem war es ausgesprochen spannend. Ich, mit meiner Phobie, gegen eine Wespe, die nichts anderes zu tun hatte, als ohne Unterbrechung durch den Raum zu fliegen. In einer Ecke lauerte ich auf die passende Gelegenheit. Mit der Flinte im Anschlag hoffte ich auf einen Moment, in dem die Wespe einen Moment im richtigen Abstand innehalten würde. Der Moment kam und ich drückte ab.Ich weiß nicht, ob ich tatsächlich getroffen habe und ob die Wespe verletzt wurde. Ich sah nur eine Wespe, die sich plötzlich sehr schnell in meine Richtung bewegte. Und die sah extrem wütend aus. Meine Instinkte übernahmen die Kontrolle und ich machte einen Sprung rückwärts durch die offene Tür und schloss diese. Hauptsache Abstand.5 Minuten später hatte ich mich wieder soweit gesammelt, dass ich es wagte, mit Waffe im Anschlag das Wohnzimmer wieder zu betreten. Ich lauschte, aber es war kein Summen zu vernehmen. Ein prüfender Blick auf die Wände des Raumes, leider keine Wespe. Auch auf dem Boden war nichts zu erkennen. Na toll, dachte ich mir. Mein Gegner könnte überall stecken und plant vermutlich gerade eine fiese Racheaktion. Ich war bereit, beim kleinsten Summen den Rückzug anzutreten.Ich scannte jeden Teil des Raumes, jede Ecke, jedes Möbelstück - und entdeckte das Mistviech schließlich gut versteckt an der Seite eines schwarzen Ikea-TV-Boards, wo es sich scheinbar putze. Langsam näherte ich mit der Schrotflinte im Anschlag bis auf einen halben Meter, zielte und drückte ab - und nichts geschah. Ich hatte das Nachladen vergessen.Nochmal einen Meter zurück, langsam die Feder gespannt, dabei jede unnötige Bewegung vermieden. Wieder näher an meinen Feind, wieder gezielt und abgedrückt. Und diesmal traf ich. Die Wespe wurde getroffen, flog gerade aus durch die Luft, an eine Wand und von dort zu Boden. Und rührte sich nicht mehr.Ich startete einen Siegestanz, dieser währte allerdings nur kurz - ein Summen unterbrach mich. Ein prüfender Blick auf die Wespe am Boden zeigte mir, dass sich noch mindestens eine weitere im Raum befinden musste. Meine Füße drehten sich bereits in Richtung Tür, doch dank der Schrotflinte in meiner Hand lief ich nicht los. Ich drehte mich im Kreis und versuchte, die Richtung aus der das Summen kam, auszumachen. Schnell entdeckte ich die anderen beiden, vorhin erwähnten, Wespen an meiner Balkontür, leider auf der Innenseite. Ich lud die Waffe und schoss auf die erste Wespe auf der Glasscheibe, welche sofort zu Boden ging. So schnell, dass die andere Wespe das ganze gar nicht mitbekommen hatte und noch immer auf dem Holzrahmen der Tür saß. Ihr Fehler, mein Glück. Kurz darauf lagen zwei Wespen am Boden, und zappelten.Nachdem ich kein Tierquäler bin, wobei ich bei Wespen wirklich gerne eine Ausnahme machen würde, lud ich die Waffe wieder und verpasste beiden armen Kreaturen den Gnadenschuss aus kurzer Entfernung. Wobei, eigentlich hatte ich nur Angst, dass die beiden Viecher nur unter Schock standen und sich kurz darauf an mir rächen würden.Seit diesem Tag liegt die Bug-A-Salt geladen in meiner Reichweite. Egal, ob es sich um Fliegen, Wespen, Mücken oder kleinere Nachtfalter handelt, ich betrachte mein Wohnzimmer als Flugverbotszone und sorge für eine strikte Einhaltung. Und mein heiß geliebter Saugroboter räumt hinterher alle Spuren weg.

A long time ago (I think close to two decades), my family and I were having dinner at the home of our good friend, John Coningham, at this home in Campinas, Brasil, and after dinner the conversation moved towards guns.I can only describe Mr. John, as we cal him, as a renaissance or maybe encyclopedic man, due both to his abilities and broad interests and field of knowledge. In over seven decades Mr. John was a non-commissioned officer in the Brazilian Army (first Coastal Artillery, then Cavalry), a technician at the Winchester Ballistic Laboratory, cattle manager at one of the largest ranches in the world (Fazenda Bodoquena), bridge builder in the Amazon in the 1970's, languages teacher and nowadays a tourist guide in the Brazilian Pantanal do Mato Grosso. Besides all that, he is a great writer (his books are finally available at Amazon Kindle), sketcher (the cover of the superb "Bodoquena - An Odyssey of the Brazilian Pantanal was done free hand with color pencils), accomplished artisan in both leather and wood, and a better than average naturalist.But let's go back to our distant dinner conversation. As we were discussing guns and ammunitions, their designs and uses, Mr. John made the point that at that point in time, every gun that needed to be invented had already been invented, with one exception: a very precise gun that had enough power to kill a fly, but not enough power to damage walls, windows or household furniture.And it is difficult to disagree with Mr. John. By the late 1990's, and to be truthful, much before that, the standards by which every other guns are measured were already mostly in place, and in my opinion they are the following:•Revolver: the Smith & Wesson K-38.•Semi-Automatic Pistol: the Colt 1911 Governmental Model.•Hunting or target rifle: Mauser "98" action (the Blaser R-93 has great merits, but I just don't see it unseating the Mauser "98").•Shotgun: here things can get a little more complicated depending on your personal preferences. There were no breakthroughts in side-by-side (lets select the Holland & Holland sidelock action, but from a functional standpont we could also pick the much simpler Anson & deeley boxlock), over-under (the Browning Over-Under, Beretta 680 or Perazzi MX-8 are all great examples), and pump-action (Winchester Model 12) shotguns. The exception is that the Italians continue to be particularly successful in developing the semi-automatic shotgun, and I am particularly fond of the Beretta A-400 design.But back to the "fly gun" concept. The one downside of Mr. John concept is that he called for a highly accurate gun that could consistently hit a fly at one or two meters, but the problem is that not every user would be able to do so. Accurate rifle shooting requires training and technique, and that really limited the potential market.We eventually took different paths, Mr. John relocated to the Brazilian hinterlands and I moved abroad, first to the Netherlands, and then to United States, where I live today, and the "fly gun" became a distant memory, until early this week.During a business trip to Georgia, my colleague Bill Bridenbaugh told me about a Christmas gift that his son gave him, a plastic shotgun that shot table salt to kill flies or other pesky pests. That immediately got my attention and I had to find out more about it.This "shotgun" is the Bug-A-Salt (www.bugasalt.com). Basically it is a pump-action single-stroke pneumatic airgun with a magazine that is loaded with table salt. Everytime you pump the action a pinch of salt is loaded in the barrel or chamber, air is compressed and a safety engaged. When you shoot the gun that pinch of salt comes out like a minuscule shot charge, and depending on the distance puts a pattern a couple inches in diameter over the intended target.Since it is much easier to hit a close target with a shotgun than a rifle, the Bug-A-Salt designer effectively by-passed the "rifle training" issue and presented us a concept that can be used by basically anyone with minimum hand-eye coordination.I just ordered one and will eventually report on its performance, but I already foresee that this breakthrough gun can have siginificant impact on our future: Obama and Feinstein will want it banned due to its 80 shot magazine capacity, ATF will want to regulate it because it has a barrel under 18 inches and overall length under 26 inches, PETA will try to impose a ban on fly, in particular, and pesky insects hunting and culling in general, and the states DNR's and Fish-and-Wildlife will want to regulate "fly season"!In the mean time, I just wanted to congratulate Mr. Lorenzo Maggiore for bringing us the gun that needed inventing!Follow me at the A Wild Beast at Heart blog.

I was introduced to the Bug-A-Salt at a friend's home and had a blast picking off flies with my oldest son and had to have one. Two days later mine arrived and about the first 10 shots went off without a hitch but then the Bug-A-Salt started having issues and the safety would remain off after each shot instead of returning to safe after the shot (not too big of a deal) and would only fire intermittently, getting worse with each attempt until I was unable to get it to fire at all. I was disappointed in that I had planned to take my Bug-A-Salt camping where we could have a field day busting horse flies. The problematic Bug-A-Salt came along camping in the hopes that I could figure out what gives. I worked with the action and found when I pulled the slide fully to the rear and then applied significant force (~20-30 lbs) to the slide the Bug-A-Salt would properly cock and fire. After doing this a dozen or so times the force required to successfully cock the Bug-A-Salt started to drop to a reasonable few pounds and now it has worked flawlessly since.Now on to engaging pests! I found that the large flies at our campsite in the high Sierra Nevada could be completely downed at 12-24" and stunned enough for a follow up shot or hand-to-hand engagement from about 24-36". Back at home we don't have much of a fly problem but we do have quite a few Black Widow spiders and Solifugae (aka Sunspider, Wind Scorpion, Camel Spider) that roam our yard along with the occasional large Grasshopper that we find chewing on one of our trees.Black Widow spiders: WOW!!! The Bug-A-Salt is incredibly effective! I often hunt these spiders in my backyard at night with a headlamp to keep their numbers and size low enough to reduce the probability of a bite to one of my young children or any friends that we may have visiting. In the past I've used wasp spray, butane lighters, sticks, or my foot, each of which has it's negatives. With the Bug-A-Salt I've never tipped off a Widow to my intentions and can blast them from 12" and they fold up like a tent! I sometimes find webs with a few Widows (usually a mature female and a few males) and I can blast one and the others won't scatter so one-by-one they fall.Solifugae (Sun spider, etc.): Incredibly effective! Mature specimens can grown to 3" here in the upper Mojave Desert and they are numerous in the 2"+ range. These critters appear scarier then they really are but mature ones will often stand their ground and can be somewhat aggressive. Well, the Bug-A-Salt puts a severe hurting on them even out to 3'. My guess is their soft bodies are easily penetrated by the "shot". When you try to use your foot you have to be very quick since these critters are very agile. I've also found that they can sense an incoming jet of wasp spray and can often avoid the poison unless you're right on top of them and even then it takes a while for the critters to succumb. With the Bug-A-Salt you can place the muzzle often to within 12" and they suspect nothing until it's too late. Very, very effective!Grasshoppers: We seem to attract the occasional really large grasshopper (3-4") to our Palo Verde trees and I've used an air rifle (without a pellet in the tube) to get up close, blast them (which only temporarily stuns them) and then follow up with hand-to-hand. The Bug-A-Salt really doesn't pack enough punch to do much more than annoy these armored foes. The most effective path seems to be to hit them in the abdomen at point-blank range and then resort to a boot to the head. You'd need a high-powered version (rock salt version, anyone?) to really topple this formidable foe!With about 200 shots on the clock everything seems to be working well except for the safety that doesn't always reset but aside from the initial issues in cocking the Bug-A-Salt, I'm a satisfied user!

It's a great concept, but it needs some improvement. The power is barely enough for a fly at 3 feet from the muzzle and you can forget about a wasp or anything else with a tough hide even at point blank range. I bought it to knock wasps and yellowjackets off my hummingbird feeders and it usually just pisses them off. The sights are worthless too. They are extremely low. I am a deadly accurate iron site rifleman with almost 50 years of experience, and I can't hit a darned thing with the Bug-A-Salt 2.0. I drew bulls-eyes on sheets of aluminum foil in an attempt to figure out the sights and I just gave up after an hour of frustration. The sights are so far off from acceptable that I can't find a reasonable way to compensate and have reliable accuracy. Really the only way I can use it is to stand back, reach way out with my arm, put the end of the barrel right up to the bug (practically touching it), squeeze the trigger, and hope like heck I remembered to release the AGGRAVATING little automatic safety. I have probably missed more bugs because of this than any other reason actually. FINALLY, you get a pest to sit still long enough for you to practically massage it with the end of the barrel, then you squeeze the trigger only to watch it fly off because the safety was on. I don't care how much experience you think you have with guns, releasing the Bug-A-Salt's auto-safety will not become an involuntary reflex, at least it hasn't for me. As if the pitiful sights aren't bad enough, that safety just adds insult to injury.It also needs a loop somewhere so you can tie a shoelace through it and hang it on a wall hook. The trigger hole just won't work well for this purpose.Other than these complaints it is okay. And still, I am having tons of fun with it and have hardly put it down. If nothing else, it does seem to be durable. That's why I gave it 3 stars in spite of several complaints. I will be waiting for one to come along with decent sights right on the barrel though.UPDATE - I am finding out this thing will often kill fruit flies in spite of the accuracy problems. Go figure. I guess if a single grain of salt strays off course during a shot and strikes a fruit fly anywhere it is going down. And I have found a method of using the auto-safety that is better, at least for me - switch it off right AFTER every shot, BEFORE you cock the gun. The safety will then remain off till your next shot no matter what. I just upped it to 4 stars too. And please don't shoot anyone in the eye. I am sure that would be very bad.UPDATE - I am having great fun with this gun and have come to realize that, accuracy problems aside, it will kill pesky fruit flies better that any other method ever devised. Just aim high and blast 'em into oblivion. It has definitely proven to be durable too and has held up extremely well. I have two teen-aged sons that have hardly put it down and constantly abuse the snot out of it. Curiously, they don't complain about ever missing a bug either, so maybe I am just an ornery old codger or something. I can't wait to try the lawn and garden model that is just becoming available.LAST UPDATE - I have now owned this for over a year and it has killed at least 500 pesky critters. I have also learned to quit over-thinking it and just ignore the sights. It works best when you just point and shoot.