So, someone brought an interesting piece to the range today: A replica of an old handgonne that he had fashioned himself, complete with a repurposed shovel handle for the stock.
I tried my best to look all nonchalant as other people were taking their turns firing it, stuffing cannon fuse in the touchhole and igniting it with a cigarette being used as an impromptu slowmatch on the windy prairie, but when offered a chance to try it out, it didn't take a lot of arm-twisting before I was stuffing a patched .54-caliber ball down the muzzle and tucking the stock under my arm and leaning into it and...
ka-BWOOM!!!
... with a ball of fire and a cloud of smoke, a hole appeared in the middle of the plywood target backer downrange, and, grinning like an idiot, I couldn't help raising that staff-mounted miniature cannon overhead and crowing "This... is my boomstick!"
.
Awesome ! Hope you got a pic for posterity.
ReplyDeleteClassic!
ReplyDeleteWV: quisig
Someone who really like Sig Sauer products to the exclusion of all others?
Oh, man, now she'll want to go to Friendship.
ReplyDeleteShootin' Buddy
HA!
ReplyDeleteI dunno Shootin' Buddy. She resisted SASS, even when I pointed out you could take an M1917 MG to a Wild Bunch sidematch.
ReplyDeleteOf course, shooting smokepoles with the beads and roadkill crew is a damned sight cheaper than cowboy shooting.
And just how long did it take to get the grin off your face?
ReplyDeletePics, or it didn't happen...
ReplyDeleteI third the call for pics!
ReplyDeleteAnd Friendship is a darned sight closer to Indy than Rocky Mountain College! Bet you could get Nancy R there, too, and have a full complement of Amazons...
This is one of the reasons you should plant some willow trees around your place, and sneak into one of those places where they keep all of that excess unsalable sulfur and chip some off, and encourage all of your neighbors to keep piles of cow poo, sheep poo, and goat poo. (Carnivore poo doesn't seem to work for either plant fertilizer or generating potassium nitrate.)
ReplyDeleteWe will just have to put up with the flies, for the sake of being able to make powder.
Drang,
ReplyDeleteI'll bring the Bess, the Spanish musket AND the matchlock.
Blammo.
Heh. We shoot 7" rebar out of my handgonne .... when THAT keyholes, it MEANS IT.
ReplyDeleteLate commenting but I've been away from my computer and keeping up via my phone. The Hand Cannon is a ton of fun... we haven't tried rebar yet but there was some play with modified shot for it using recycled .22 brass. Just imagine several very much grown men running around along the pistol line going "Ooo! There's another one!"
ReplyDeleteShop smart - Shop S-Mart!
ReplyDeleteHey, I go to school with that guy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, why didn'tcha tell me you were in Raton? ;)