I agree that shot in a handgun is a poor choice for actually killing something-I was messing with some and shot a piece of corrugated cardboard at about 10 yards. The shot didn't even penetrate both walls. I shook the cardboard and could hear the pellets rattling inside. This isn't reinforced stuff either-just the layer dividers that Walmart puts between bags of meat in the boxes. The box will have 2-4 bags of meat, each with 2-6 individual packages in it. These dividers make great targets, so I have them save me 20 or 30 at a time. If the pellets wuldn't go through cardboard I wouldn't trust them to kill a starling, much less something with rabies.