This may seem odd, but up until this morning I had never trod the sacred soil of the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.
From this day until the time I shuffle off my mortal coil, no gun show will ever really seem complete unless I hear the occasional BPTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHPPPHHHHTT! of a General Electric minigun turning cubic yards of money into metric tons of noise in the background...
17 comments:
Good times :-) Only surpassed by shooting a GAU...
The sound of a GAU8 on the nose of an A-10 warthog is one of the sounds that I hear when I go to my happy place. you know, that place you take your mind after your mellow has been harshed by five too many morons before Nine AM.
Never heard a GAU8, dammit. Spent time at China Lake with M61's, but never heard a 30mm fired.
Even when the Air National Guard 3miles away at Bradley Field had a brain fart and dumped an 80 round burst over my neighborhood, I was off at work.
I've worked with people who worked on the program, but it's all 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Damn.
Cool! Looks wet down there.
Wet and Knob Creek are just about synonymous any more.
I'm jealous.
I beg to differ:
The real Mecca for gunnies is down in Arizona at a place known as "Gunsite."
The Knob Creek shoot, while worthy of a pilgramage, is a lesser Holy site.
Despite having had the opportunity to empty a belt through a Ma-Deuce and play with a couple other fun toys in my Navy days, and despite having been witness to a Warthog unloading at an air show in my pre-military days (air shows used to be all manner of awesome), envious, I am.
Hell, now that I am more-local, I almost have no excuse... Maybe one day.
What a spectacular line " cubic yards of money into metric tons of noise"
The first minigun burst I heard ran on for at least six or seven seconds. Let's say it was turning 4k r.p.m.... ~67 rds/sec. ... say he got into some surplus .308 at... oh... $0.25/rd... (stop laughing)... that seven second burst cost $117.25.
Money into noise at almost perfect efficiency. You'd have to buy an old MiG or get into Top Fuel drag racing to do it better.
as a retired military guy i have lusted for the sounds of a belt fed "toy". i love going to the shoots just to hear the music of bolts rapadly cycling, with brass spewing out like beer from a drunken frat boy! I really miss the sound of a m-2 or smaller "toy"
How many IIIper flags did you see there on Sipsey Street, Tam?
Boy, I bet it is IIIper Central there with all the IIIper flags hanging from every available space.
We're still sure that a kilt doesn't count?
What noise does a quad .50 make when shooting?
"Twelve Dollars, Twelve Dollars, Twelve Dollars, Twelve Dollars, Twelve Dollars, Twelve Dollars, Twelve Dollars, ... "
Back in '94 at the SOF Three Gun Match, there was a rental business set up on the long range. They had a mini-gun turret that they priced by the belt. I think it was $100./100 rnd belt. They also had an M79 40mm launcher, but only had marker rounds,(sigh)...
While we were there, two buses of Japanese tourists arrived, and their "expediter" was dropping stacks of cash in front of the manager. I think it was $5k for each bus load, just to get the ball rolling.
wv: intier. Yep, they wanted the intier rental range for themselves.
Sigh...couldn't wrangle the time off from work to go since I'm saving up for Shot Show in Vegas and a some hiking in the Grand Canyon in January. A bunch of guys who just were at our little shoot here in PA were down...the guys from JB Arms invited me to help out at their line position...which would have meant a little trigger time on their minigun. I think I'm go for April 2010 though even though I need to set time aside for SAR East also. Too many events, not enough time.
"Money into noise at almost perfect efficiency. You'd have to buy an old MiG or get into Top Fuel drag racing to do it better."
Thinking about how a 40mm HE round needs an NFA stamp on it, plus whatever bullshit you need to pay to get your hands on one, I'd imagine if you could get into NFA explosive ordinance, you could suck your retirement fund dry PDQ.
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