REPEATING CROSSBOW

For that I much prefer an M79 with buckshot round!

I do detest the expending of gubment resources on inappropriate targets.

If Y'all ain't a good enough shot to hit a chipmunk at fifty yards (with the required delivery device and scoping) with ball ammo, I'd advise you to join the Air Force.

The zoomies have a different ethic with the regard to accuracy.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

As a junior member of the local NRA while in high school, had access to the target range which included an unused pasture field with lots of up rooted trees that had fallen over exposing the roots and thus providing a home for thousands of chipmunks.

My buddy and I, equipped with a fresh box of 500, .22 cal, long rifle hollow points and iron sited rifles spent many a Sunday afternoon thinning out the chipmunk population.

BTW, we were quite good at it.

Still have that rifle although I don't know why.

Haven't fired it in at least 40 years.

Lew

Absolutely on point, Lew.

Chipmunks were made for plinking.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

The reason that I still have one is that I have a ten year old boy who will eventually be a twelve year old boy, who will then learn the joys of working an iron sights 22.

He's been shooting BB guns at paper for a couple of years.

He can't wait to get to the point where the gun makes a bang and a smell.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

Yabbut, that chipmonk was probably "enraged" 'cuz he saw the latest gubment budget ... you can't be too careful in that case.

Being a good coonass you can bet I'm good enough of a shot. It's just that I've subscribed to the "lead in the air, meat in the pot" theory since I was old enough (9) to hunt my grandfather's old damascus twisted steel barrel 12 ga, the one with the steel forearm that dropped down to load (weighed about a pound/gauge).

... it wasn't quite so long between meals that way.

Was recently going thru some of my mother's things and found the spent .22 shell casing from the first rabbit I shot as a 10 year old boy hunting with my dad.

Pop pointed him out sitting in a brush pile and handed me a single cartridge (I carried an UNLOADED, single shot rifle) which I placed in the chamber, cocked the hammer, squeezed off that round, then claimed the prize.

Even learned how to dress out a rabbit that year.

As I remember, my rabbit tasted much better than those shot by my father, at least it seemed that way to me.

Still have that single shot, it is for a young boy, quite small.

BTW, BB guns will kill water snakes if you hit them often enough.

DAMHIKT

Lew

Lew

My father grew up along the Ohio River in southern Indiana when times were lean.

Don't know if it is true or not, but he told me that as a young boy, he was given a single shot .22, and a single cartridge, and was told, "Go git breakfast".

All that I can tell you is that at the age of 40, he could "bark" a squirrel at the top of some pretty good sized trees.

THen his eyes changed, got glasses, and couldn't hit a bull in the ass at 20 ft with a shot gun.

His pool playing went to hell also, I could finally beat him.

Lew

Swing:

I envy you being able to shoot a true Damascus bbl.

I don't think I'd have the stones to run a high brass shell through such a contraption.

Beautiful pieces of work, though.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

Lew:

My first shotgun was an Ithaca SuperSingle.

Had a lever on it like a Model 95 but it was only used to open the breech.

Learning how to shoot with a single shot was how we all were raised.

Don't ask for the second cartridge if you didn't do good enough with the first.

Do you remember the old Lee Loaders. Reloading shot shells one at a time. I believe they sold for $9.95 a piece back in the fifties.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

Sorry.

My first shotgun was a off brand, single shot 12 gauge with a 40" barrel, choked to the point a dime would not fit thru.

At 40 yards, it would pattern every shot inside a 30" circle.

Strictly a duck gun.

Bought it used in the early 50's, from my father's lodge brother, for $10.

Still remember the guy telling me, "When you get around to selling it, you'll get your $10 back".

I Guess.

Lew

Thu, Jun 28, 2007, 5:43pm (EDT-1) snipped-for-privacy@nospam.com (Swingman) dotrh sayeth: For that I much prefer an M79 with buckshot round!

Where's your sporting instinct? Besides, where you gonna get a legal M79? I"d go with a pump 12 ga and slugs instead. Or, if you want to go for biger game -

- General George S. Patton

Thu, Jun 28, 2007, 11:03pm (EDT+4) snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net (Lew=A0Hodgett) doth sayeth: My buddy and I, equipped with a fresh box of 500, .22 cal, long rifle hollow points and iron sited rifles spent many a Sunday afternoon thinning out the chipmunk population.

Technically, 500 rounds of .22 ammo, packed like that, ten 50 round boxes, in a larger box, is called a brick.

Uwed to piss a buddy off immensly. He'd shoot a scoped .22 rifle at soda cans out abot 100 yrds, and I'd shoot a High Standard Victor,

JOAT If a man does his best, what else is there?

- General George S. Patton

Thu, Jun 28, 2007, 7:24pm snipped-for-privacy@erehwon.com (Tom=A0Watson) doth sayeth: The reason that I still have one is that I have a ten year old boy who will eventually be a twelve year old boy, who will then learn the joys of working an iron sights 22. He's been shooting BB guns at paper for a couple of years. He can't wait to get to the point where the gun makes a bang and a smell.

If you want an in-between piece, get one of those inexpensive Chinese army style single shot air rifles, with the under barre cockin lever.

I piecked up one years back, for about $28. Amazingly well made, and astonished me with the power. I doesn't just bounce off th side of a 55 gallon drum, it punches in and sticks. As soon as I can figure out exactly howI want to pt a ceekrest on it, I'll scope it. Definitely NOT a toy. The only bad thing about it, it's a .177 and with my stubby fingers it's not easy for me to chamber a pellet on the first try -but I think I've figured ut how to make a pellet chambering thingie, no prob.. =

JOAT If a man does his best, what else is there?

- General George S. Patton

Fri, Jun 29, 2007, 12:22am (EDT+4) snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net (Lew=A0Hodgett) doth sayeth: BTW, BB guns will kill water snakes if you hit them often enough.

You probably weren't htting them n te wright place, head shots should doit. Used to get one shot kills on sparrows wih a lever action Red Ryder BB gun. It'd shot finishing nails, single shot, nicely too - less accurate, ad les range, tho, but definitey better penetration.

JOAT If a man does his best, what else is there?

- General George S. Patton

Thu, Jun 28, 2007, 8:41pm snipped-for-privacy@erehwon.com (Tom=A0Watson) doth sayeth: I envy you being able to shoot a true Damascus bbl. I don't think I'd have the stones to run a high brass shell through such a contraption. Beautiful pieces of work, though.

All the Turkish farmers the Rod & Gun Club as beaters for wild boar hunts while I was there all seemed to have one. A few of them probably reloaded, but every gun shop I was in sold boxes of new black power ammo, I would say because of the large amount of old shotguns still in use. Saw one that a farmer had accepted a smokelless round from one of the club mebers - he a hole about 1/2" by 2" blown out of one barrel just ahead of the chamber. And NONE of the oones I saw over there could be considered beautiful pieces of work, even though they were certainly suitable for use with black-power rounds..It woul have been way to expesive for a farmer to replace on, unless absolutely necessary, so they were well taken care of as a rule - at least the ones I saw were.

JOAT If a man does his best, what else is there?

- General George S. Patton

Thu, Jun 28, 2007, 8:47pm snipped-for-privacy@erehwon.com (Tom=A0Watson) doth sayeth: Do you remember the old Lee Loaders. Reloading shot shells one at a time. I believe they sold for $9.95 a piece back in the fifties.

One of this type, eh? Still got one in .12 ga, in about as new condition, circa mid '70s. Dunno if they still make 'em for shotgun reloading or not, didn't check.

- General George S. Patton

My first, at the age of nine (times have changed), was a Winchester Model 69 bolt action .22. That little rifle was the instrument for the untimely demise of many a squirrel, nutria, coon, and even my first buck.

Mine was Remington Model 11 20 ga (Browning Patent), which I still own after

Still an excellent dove/quail gun ... for those who like a challenge.

Next was a J.C. Higgins 16 ga pump, which I traded for a guitar in HS (the beginning of a long slippery slope).

Followed by a Browning A5, 12 ga which I also still have.

Then a Browning O/U, 12 ga Mag, which I plumb wore out in 15 years of hunting white wings in Mexico (a record 286 doves in one afternoon ... counting the inevitable misses, that's helluva lot of shells, which wasn't unusual back in those days).

I no longer hunt at all ... had my fill of the killing part, but not the eating part (had to keep my registered coonass status)