I had an idea of using a paintball gun and frozen paintballs to shoot coons out for two reasons. One without actually injuring the coon and just hitting it with a frozen paintball the dogs should get a better fight, and two I skin the coons and am wanting to start tanning, so I thought the hide would look better without a bullet hole in it.

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As far as hide quality goes. Your better off with a small well placed bullet hole you can sew up, than letting your dogs chew it up. Dogs do alot of damage to a hide by pulling out guard hairs and damaging the leather. The fur graders at the auction house can tell by the leather if a hide has been mouthed by dogs. If there is any dog bite sign at all, the hide gets graded as slightly damaged or damaged and turns a good 20 dollar hide worthless. I tie my dogs back before I shoot out any game and if I can help it the dogs never get it in their mouth.

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Thanks for the advice. I've never done any tanning so I didn't know if that made a difference or not.

If your gonna tan some hides yourself it probably won't hurt to let the dogs maul em' a little.

I question how effective a paint ball gun will be at knocking a coon out of a tree. You might check the local game regulations to make sure it is legal, here in Missouri it would not pass because there is no permissive language in the codes.

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As for me and my hound we will serve the Lord

I wondered the same thing, but i believe if you froze the paintballs and had an accurate enough paintball gun that it would knock them right out.

I've used marbles and they kill rabbits really well, but you don't always recover the marble

I DON'T KNOW NOTHING ABOUT TANNING HIDES OR ANYTHING ABOUT THAT PART. I KNOW A LIL BIT ABOUT DOGS. I SHOOT THE COON IN THE HEAD.
WHEN I GET A COON OUT OF THE TREE,THE LAST THING I WANT IS MY DOG CHASING IT AWAY FROM A TREE. SAME REASON I DON'T SHAKE COONS OUT TO DOGS. THE TREE SHOULD BE THE END OF THE DANCE.
IN MY OPINION AND FROM WHAT I HAVE EXPERIANCED, THE FASTEST WAY TO GET A DOG TO LEAVE TREES IS TO SHAKE THEM OUT OR KNOCK THEM OUT SO THE DOGS HAVE TO CHASE IT AWAY FROM WHERE THEY TREED IT. THEY WILL START MILLING AND LEAVING LOOKING FOR THE COON BEFORE YOU GET TO THE TREE.
AND MOST COONS KNOCKED OUT OF THE TREE RAW WILL GET AWAY FROM THE DOGS MORE TIMES THEN NOT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TREE.

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RED EAGLE MACK & RED EAGLE STYLISH BOOMER
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Randy Raper

Toe cutter we,hunt for meat no hides. I disagree walk the coons down the tree. An have never had one get a way from my dogs . I shoot a front foot an a back one an they climb down. I use a 6.5X20X50scope so the feet look like bear feet in the cross hairs lol. It makes them dogs hard to bet to have to fight a live coon

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i thought i was posting to tn tree dog about shooting coon with a paintball gun.
so i compared it to not being shot at all.
with our coon being as much as up to 35 to 40 pounds. a dog aint gonna hold up night after night, all night long, having to fight every coon it trees.

Thanks for the advice everybody, and I know what you mean TC about not beating your dogs up night after night like that. Here in mid. TN we don't have to worry about that to much considering in the two plus years I've been hunting the biggest coon we've got was 21 pounds lol. I wasn't planning on doing it every night, a lot of nights we leave the coon just like it is up the tree, but every once in a while we like to see a good fight.

Toe cutter buddy I would look to get one of them big coons out on one of my dogs like that 24 is biggest I have treed . Brother got a 31 but I wasnt with him

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Paintballs usually bust or expand into a awkward shape, just like soda in a can explodes when froze

im gonna try that sounds like it shoud work. i would bring a rifle along in case it didnt work . now where im from we dont have enough coons to be shooting alot so the more the coon fights the better. a coon shot out dead is a waste in my oppinon . no offense to the hide hunters .