great ideas.
Sometimes I have great ideas. Hay bale forts, picnic table tree houses, walnut fights. Sometimes my cousin Ricky has great ideas, 300mph bicycle ramps, redneck football, pig roping. Together we have splendid ideas, usually.
It all started somewhat innocently. We were just sitting out in the field, passing a warm summer day doing the things Southern country boys do, in our case pass-shooting blackbirds. Being as it was in the middle of the day the birds weren't flying real heavy so we had time to let our minds wander. Naturally we decided to see how a shotgun shell was put together.
I have no idea why we needed to do this, both of our Dads reloaded ammunition and we knew full well how it all worked, but when you're 12, have a sharp knife, (Ricky without at least one knife was as likely as an ocean without water) and some extra shotgun shells.....
A couple quick surgical incisions and the paper shell was laid apart exposing a palmful of #8 lead shot, some cardboard wadding, and something which we probably didn't need to find, a spoonful of smokeless powder. Hmmm, what to do now. Well when you're 12, there's really only one thing to do with powder, and that's to set it on fire. So after a quick sprint back to the house for some matches, something we thought it best to remove without comment, and a nice flat rock, we were rewarded with a somehow satisfying little flash and a "phhhhtttttt" noise. Well after a few more shell surgeries and increasingly larger "phhhhhttttttt's" we felt our expertise had led us to our next step, explosives and cannons.
Now I should make a disclaimer here I suppose as I'm not sure what sort of statutes of limitations are on our activities and I don't need any ATF type people knocking on my door down here in New Mexico.... All 12 year old Southern country boys do this stuff, we were not training to be terrorists.
So anyway, after the removal of powder from some several shotgun shells we had a nice little pile of powder, but what to do with it? Have you ever cut apart a golf ball? I have. Have you ever realized that if you take a golf ball shell and a handful of Nitrex powder and a firecracker you can make a pretty good hand grenade? I have. A word of advice, after lighting it, throw it real hard...
It didn't take us long to realize that cutting up shotgun shells was a lot of work and there must be an easier way. Ricky pointed out that back in the days of the War of Northern Aggression all they had was black powder and they seemed to have plenty of fun with that. He further realized that we both had plenty of black powder laying around for our muzzleloaders and even had handy powder horns to carry the stuff in. Well another trip off to the house and one out to the barn and we were in business. At the barn we found a nice selection of iron pipe, just the right size for golf balls. A hand drill made a nice little hole for fuses, (we used fuses we pulled out of firecrackers), and shortly we were in business with our first cannon. Now at this point you might be wondering just why some dumb, shoeless country boys with an ample supply of firearms needed to build cannons. That should really need no explanation at this point.....
With some experimentation and a fight over who had to light the fuse, we were soon shooting golf balls through the tin siding on the barn. Oh but this was fun. Well for a while, until you realize that if a golf ball can go through the side of a barn, well just think what you could do with a softball.
After a bit of exploring we found a nice pipe that a softball fit into good and tight. It may be that it fit a little too tight but that'll be for others to decide...
Well with this pipe and a fresh supply of black powder, we were ready to fire one of Cliff's, (Ricky's older brother) softballs, (after seeing what happened to golf balls no way were we gonna use one of our softballs) through both sides of the barn and maybe through a particularly ornery bull next door. It was a bit of a surprise when we lit the fuse and nothing happened. It may be that somebody was trying to look out for us. Well no way was this gonna stop us. But after several tries, the fool thing wouldn't light. In retrospect maybe there was too much tension on things and we should have stopped and re-engineered our creation, but when you're 12.....
Well it occured to me that earlier we had great success with using a firecracker to ignite handgrenades. It really seemed like a good idea...
So we managed to shove a couple of firecrackers down the little hole and twist their fuses together. With great expectations of maybe being invited to join the War Department's black powder pipe cannon research program and adoration of high school girls everywhere, we lit the fuse.
After some several minutes, conciousness started to come back. Our beautiful cannon was in pieces, Cliff's softball was nowhere to be found although a suspicious fuzz covered the area, and both of us were missing our eyebrows. At dinner that night Ricky's Father remarked on some holes in the barn, the chickens not laying any eggs and just why Ricky had what appeared to be magic marker for eyebrows.
It all started somewhat innocently. We were just sitting out in the field, passing a warm summer day doing the things Southern country boys do, in our case pass-shooting blackbirds. Being as it was in the middle of the day the birds weren't flying real heavy so we had time to let our minds wander. Naturally we decided to see how a shotgun shell was put together.
I have no idea why we needed to do this, both of our Dads reloaded ammunition and we knew full well how it all worked, but when you're 12, have a sharp knife, (Ricky without at least one knife was as likely as an ocean without water) and some extra shotgun shells.....
A couple quick surgical incisions and the paper shell was laid apart exposing a palmful of #8 lead shot, some cardboard wadding, and something which we probably didn't need to find, a spoonful of smokeless powder. Hmmm, what to do now. Well when you're 12, there's really only one thing to do with powder, and that's to set it on fire. So after a quick sprint back to the house for some matches, something we thought it best to remove without comment, and a nice flat rock, we were rewarded with a somehow satisfying little flash and a "phhhhtttttt" noise. Well after a few more shell surgeries and increasingly larger "phhhhhttttttt's" we felt our expertise had led us to our next step, explosives and cannons.
Now I should make a disclaimer here I suppose as I'm not sure what sort of statutes of limitations are on our activities and I don't need any ATF type people knocking on my door down here in New Mexico.... All 12 year old Southern country boys do this stuff, we were not training to be terrorists.
So anyway, after the removal of powder from some several shotgun shells we had a nice little pile of powder, but what to do with it? Have you ever cut apart a golf ball? I have. Have you ever realized that if you take a golf ball shell and a handful of Nitrex powder and a firecracker you can make a pretty good hand grenade? I have. A word of advice, after lighting it, throw it real hard...
It didn't take us long to realize that cutting up shotgun shells was a lot of work and there must be an easier way. Ricky pointed out that back in the days of the War of Northern Aggression all they had was black powder and they seemed to have plenty of fun with that. He further realized that we both had plenty of black powder laying around for our muzzleloaders and even had handy powder horns to carry the stuff in. Well another trip off to the house and one out to the barn and we were in business. At the barn we found a nice selection of iron pipe, just the right size for golf balls. A hand drill made a nice little hole for fuses, (we used fuses we pulled out of firecrackers), and shortly we were in business with our first cannon. Now at this point you might be wondering just why some dumb, shoeless country boys with an ample supply of firearms needed to build cannons. That should really need no explanation at this point.....
With some experimentation and a fight over who had to light the fuse, we were soon shooting golf balls through the tin siding on the barn. Oh but this was fun. Well for a while, until you realize that if a golf ball can go through the side of a barn, well just think what you could do with a softball.
After a bit of exploring we found a nice pipe that a softball fit into good and tight. It may be that it fit a little too tight but that'll be for others to decide...
Well with this pipe and a fresh supply of black powder, we were ready to fire one of Cliff's, (Ricky's older brother) softballs, (after seeing what happened to golf balls no way were we gonna use one of our softballs) through both sides of the barn and maybe through a particularly ornery bull next door. It was a bit of a surprise when we lit the fuse and nothing happened. It may be that somebody was trying to look out for us. Well no way was this gonna stop us. But after several tries, the fool thing wouldn't light. In retrospect maybe there was too much tension on things and we should have stopped and re-engineered our creation, but when you're 12.....
Well it occured to me that earlier we had great success with using a firecracker to ignite handgrenades. It really seemed like a good idea...
So we managed to shove a couple of firecrackers down the little hole and twist their fuses together. With great expectations of maybe being invited to join the War Department's black powder pipe cannon research program and adoration of high school girls everywhere, we lit the fuse.
After some several minutes, conciousness started to come back. Our beautiful cannon was in pieces, Cliff's softball was nowhere to be found although a suspicious fuzz covered the area, and both of us were missing our eyebrows. At dinner that night Ricky's Father remarked on some holes in the barn, the chickens not laying any eggs and just why Ricky had what appeared to be magic marker for eyebrows.
posted by PK at 10:48 PM
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