Im looking into getting a metal blowgun and a few darts from a friend of mine and I was wondering if any of you guys have tried extracting and purifying your own natural poisons

iv looked online and found that the most poisonous plant in my area would be the castor bean plant, the seeds of which may cause death when consumed in even small amounts

im not going to be stupid and try to actually hit someone with it, im just curious as to the possibility of making them and your experiences

EDIT: also, it seems dipping darts in poison would be very ineffective unless you were using like wooden skewers that could actually hold it

well, you really don't need poison darts if you have a good blowgun- as in at least 5 feet long, and over half and inch thick. the darts just need to be a foot or more long.

however, you could try using nicotine, which in a pure drop is enough to kill a small bird just by inhaling the fumes.

if the poison was oily you could coat it on a metal broad head, but if you can blow well, then putting poison right behind the head wouldn't be a bad idea.

nicotine   :-?
now just how would one go about procuring purified nicotine ( outside of buying a carton of Marlboro's) ?  :-?

Handling pure nicotin is extremely dangerous, and that´s the "not living to tell the tale" kind of dangerous. Don´t mess with this kind of stuff.
Any poison potent enough to be effective in the tiny doses you administer by smearing it on dart tips is (way) too high risk.
Vets use blowguns, but their darts are special syringes that inject on impact (an overpressure mechanism), and even then you have to use a special very strong mix of narcotics for it too work.

gah ;D someone always has to butt in and be reasonable

Get a big wad of chewin tobaccy.  Stuff it in your cheeck, you should look like you got a peach pit in there.  As your mouth starts filling up with brown spit, spit it into a soda pop bottle.  When yer done, leave the cork out and put it in the sun.  Let it cook down until most of the water is gone.  Then repeat.  When the bottle is full of dark brown smelly oily liquid, dip your dart in it.  You will have enough concentrated stuff to kill a bird or a squirrel.  Of course, if you hit the bird in the right spot, you won't need poison.  Bill

:P i was actually kinda looking for a method that doesn't involve getting cancer

btw, my dad already chews tobacco, we have/ he has been trying to quit, and his teeth are bad enough already

Bill Skinner wrote on Jun 21^st, 2010 at 5:04pm:

Get a big wad of chewin tobaccy.  Stuff it in your cheeck, you should look like you got a peach pit in there.  As your mouth starts filling up with brown spit, spit it into a soda pop bottle.  When yer done, leave the cork out and put it in the sun.  Let it cook down until most of the water is gone.  Then repeat.  When the bottle is full of dark brown smelly oily liquid, dip your dart in it.  You will have enough concentrated stuff to kill a bird or a squirrel.  Of course, if you hit the bird in the right spot, you won't need poison.  Bill

A true hillbilly method.
You do do realize one could soak tobacco without resorting to using spit as liquid...? Or am I now a killjoy as well?

one other caution to consider is the recent changes to most state and federal laws concerning the production, possesion, or use of toxins (poisons). what with the patriot act and the concern for biological terrorism, the penalties for violations are now extreme. it would be a real shame to spend the next 40 years in a federal prison for squirrel hunting.  :(

F**k the government.

thats why you don't let them find out.  ;D

Cthulhu wrote on Jun 24^th, 2010 at 10:12pm:

F**k the government. thats why you don't let them find out.  ;D

So that must be why you posted the question on a public forum then. >:(

I have to agree with Paleoarts here. For a start your initial suggestion would be almost entirely useless for hunting, it's a slow poison.

More important, in the heightened state of nervousness around the world nowadays, even the suspicion you might have manufactured it will likely earn you a visit from the guys in Haz Mat suites. You really don't want to go there.

actually ricin is produced quite easily (bound to be a video on youtube) from castor bean oil plants. Very very nasty stuff.

Also most blowgun hunting is done with fairly slow acting poisons.

The indigenes involved just follow the animal till it keels over, or falls out of the tree.

In case you do spike yourself, slow acting poisons are easier to counteract.

The best or worst of the quick acting poisons pretty much only come from the poison arrow frogs. Slow poison is no real defence if someone's trying to eat you, so they produce some serious fast acting neuro toxins.
The ones derived from processing plants tend to act fairly slow.

But it really isn't a good idea to make your own poisons.
You are far more likely to poison yourself than anything else, and it will bring you to the attention of the wrong people very very quickly.

And in most countries it's illegal.

Good to see some other "voices of reason" join in.

wrote on Jun 25^th, 2010 at 6:54am:

Good to see some other "voices of reason" join in.

:) Well, as a voice of reason, I didn't really want to repeat the particular poison name - you can bet it's on the list of 'interesting words' for most monitoring agencies.

Until very recently there were no antidotes, and availability of those is likely extremely restricted. AFIK it has not been used by native hunters, and I believe it would in any case be impractical for a number of reasons. It's mode of action is very different from, and slower than, curare or the other plant poisons commonly used.

Bottom line: Whatever ideas you had about it, forget it!

Its still a better idea than trying to synthesize pure nicotine though. That stuff is terrifying.

maybe we could soak the dart tip with grease from some American restaurant's deep fryer. atta kill the animal in a few minutes.

Yeah, but then you will be eating McRabbit or something.

I was really hoping that nobody would mention Ricin on this thread. This is a public forum and certain words cause alarms to sound in certain governmental agencies best know by their initials. Law enforcement takes a particularly dim view of ricin. You have been warned.

On a gaming forum that I frequent there's a "bombing guide" section -> on how to use bombers (spaceship crafts).

We get monthly visits by DoD bots for that, but no trouble. :P

It's my impression that hunting with poisons is generally illegal.   However, it may interest you to know that there was a campaign of sorts some years back to allow a certain type of "poison".
This would have been for archery hunting.  Instead of a regular broadhead, the arrow would have been fitted with a device very much like a tranquilizer dart.

The substance used would have been (guessing at the spelling) succilinine hydrochloride, which is quite deadly in a large enough dose.  
The idea behind this was the large number of lost/wounded deer.  Deer wandering around with an arrow stuck somewhere, suffering.....That sort of thing.
With the "poison dart" arrow, any good hit would be fatal....No wounding.

I saw this promoted in outdoor magazines years ago, but it didn't go anywhere.