Any other crazy kids out there?

Got one of hose pistols for my 6th birthday in 1960, way before pirates was built. Next to the real shooting gallery in adventure land by the tiki hut. That's all gone now. And yes we had orange groves every where and had BB gun fights regularly. Daisey lever action was good but the Daisy pump was the best gun of choice. LOL

Late 80's Camp Perry Ohio at the high power rifle nationals every morning at 8am they fired a 105 field gun and raised the flag. One morning they fired the gun and a 2X4 went down range several hundred yards. During the night some smart azz put it in the barrel as a joke I guess. Luckily no one was down range. A metal bar of some kind was welded over the muzzle that day to prevent it from happening again. People do the darndest things.

We had the full length muskets. My older brother figured we could put firecrackers down the barrel and stick the fuses out the vent hole and drop a marble down the barrel. Would shoot about 30-40 feet.

godutch said:

OK, I give. What was it for ? I ask because there was one of those in my uncles old room at 'Gram's house when I was little. He was a WWII combat vet.

Click to expand...

I used to have a pair of them. Let my daughter and their friends play with them when they were little. Ended up giving them to a Boy Scout Troop after the kids got too old to be interested in them. This was many years before cell phones.

the usual stuff, mostly jumping off of things not suited to the purpose.

then i "grew up" and went to college and joined the Army and went to (wait for it...) Jump School ... i do miss being young and stupid.

flatcreek said:

Don't really want to admit it, but on occasion I still do stupid ****. 75 years old, I guess some of us never grow up.

Click to expand...

Me too as recently as a couple of weeks ago, using cannon fuse, black powder and empty medicine bottles. To make a signaling device to get the dogs to come home when they ignore the whistle. For some reason when they hear gun fire or any loud boom they come a running, probably think I've shot something and they would get treats.

My neighborhood had fireworks in the street for July 4th. The next day me and a couple friends would pick up all the unpopped fire crackers (mostly black cats) we'd open them up and dump the powder in a container. After a few hours work. We would wrap it all up in newspaper. Tape it up with electrical tape, more paper, more tape. Then wrap it up with wire. Duck tape that and find a trash barrel. 50 gallon drum. Light the fuse and haul butt. One time the drum ruptured. You could hear the boom all around town. Nowadays any little bang brings the police.

rafterob said:

We had the full length muskets. My older brother figured we could put firecrackers down the barrel and stick the fuses out the vent hole and drop a marble down the barrel. Would shoot about 30-40 feet.

Click to expand...

My brother had an old Springfield musket that was missing the nipple that we would shoot the same way. Back then we could get cherry bombs and M80 firecrackers. We would pull the fuses out, stick it in the nipple hole, then cut them open to drop the powder down the bore then pack newspaper in for a wad and just about anything that would fit for the ball. One of us would shoulder & aim the gun while the other would light the fuse.

We would take it over to the rock pit that was on the far side of the field that was across from the house and no longer in operation. Remember the cherry tree?
One time we were there and there was a lake/channel that formed when they dredged up the rock. Across the channel from where we were there was an old black gentleman who raised free ranged chickens. See where this is headed.
My brother got the idea to try and shoot a chicken. We were using marbles as projectiles. The first shot scattered the flock but didn't hit any. The second shot hit a chicken, killed it dead. While loading another round we didn't see the gentleman had come out of his house with a double barrel shotgun. That was our first and only taste of a load of rock salt, we never went there again.

As a teen I put 1/2 pound of 5 year "old" GOEX 3Fg in an aluminum potato chip bag, twisted it shut, rammed a long fuse down the middle and set it in a bowl shaped depression of fresh green pasture grass.
I lit the fuse and  started to run. I got about 3 steps when there was a loud Whoosh! and I felt what was like an instant sunburn all over my back under my white t- shirt.

I spun around to see a perfect mushroom cloud 10 to 15 feet high and still rising. The aluminum bag was vaporized, all grass was gone and the bare ground was seared black. My 6 y.o. brother standing 50 yards away said "Boy, that was close" and I learned
blackpowder never gets "Old" if its dry.

MSW said:

the usual stuff, mostly jumping off of things not suited to the purpose.

then i "grew up" and went to college and joined the Army and went to (wait for it...) Jump School ... i do miss being young and stupid.

Click to expand...

I used to be young and dumb, but I am a lot older now.

SOLANCO said:

My brother and I fought with lever action Daisys. Light a wooden kitchen match to fire harden the end. Carve to a point and drop down the bore. Would stick in the wood of the outhouse. or 1/4 inch into your skin, depending on range. It is a wonder we never put an eye out.

Had an uncle who was known to fish with a stick of dynamite. We never did find where he kept it hidden. Probably a good thing.

Click to expand...

A piece of sandpaper taped to the end of the barrel would light a kitchen match on the way out for incindiary/tracers in the evening.. OMG I miss those days..

Or how about cast HP 45/70. Fill the hollow cavity with blk pwdr then pull the bullet out of a .22 short and insert it over said load. Shooting old car bodies with my trapdoor 1884 rifle! Made two BOOMS then a generous hole in the car. Also used lg rifle primers for more reliable ignition. Not QUITE that dumb at pert near 80

I always say I'm still17 on the inside! About those bb gun wars....never even thought about it. My pop was a cop and teaching the officers gun saftey etc., he INSTILLED in me the never point any gun at any person you are not ready to kill. Just made sense. I likely would have though if he was a plumber or whatever. AND I was not allowed to own a bb gun and had to sneak mine in/out of the tenant's cabin (great hippe guy hot for my sister). I killed probably 200 black birds with yellow eyes though. At age 10 I got a 30-30 for Bday and exalted said "YES now I can get a BB gun". Pops said the heck you will. Me, but you gave me a 30-30? Him, yea and you wont be shooting street lights out with it either will you? Pop knew me well.

godutch said:

That's right up there with gluing field corn to the pan on a muskrat trap and setting it in shallow water for ducks. Back in the eighties I worked with an old Marine who knew every dirty trick in the book.

Click to expand...

HA HA I got a buddy that duck hunts by sitting in his boat with a bag of orange cheesey puffs. Swears the ducks swim right up to him and whamo... He claims its legal because he isn't feeding them he is just eating them himself.

azmntman said:

pop was a cop

Click to expand...

Mine too and my brother and I thought we could get away with anything. We both learned different and the other officers knew us, never chased us when we ran but would be waiting at our house with ticket book in hand. We had half our bedroom wall papered with hard copies.

snakebit said:

It's an old outlaw trick. I'm pretty sure it's illegal everywhere now except North Carolina I believe.

Click to expand...

We just used an M-80 tied to a rock

An old farmer who I stayed summers with when I was young taught ne to fish trout using an old glass just bunch of pebbles and quick lime. Take the cap of the bottle fill in the pond cap and let it sink. Whoosh water shot up and the fish floated. We stuck them with the frog spears and hauled them aboard. then left quickly.

It was cheaper than the dynamite and caps we got at the local hardware store, used that to blow the beaver dams that would flood one of his fields.

A neighbor that lived about a mile down the road from me called me and asked if I could help him blow up a huge Oak tree stump. Lighting had hit the tree and ruined it on top of killing several of his hogs. Although I was new to blowing stumps and in my early twenties. I had used a lot of dynamite setting utility poles in swamps where no Truck could go to auger a hole.I went to his farm and the first thing I saw scared the proverbial you-know-what out of me. They had taken the ground off the lead wires to the cap which can me set off by certain sound waves if not grounded.The cap was inserted into three sticks of dynamite!They had tried to blow the stump a few times but with no success . They had blown the dirt from around the roots and severed on huge root with the previous tries. I quickly grounded the leads and pulled the charge from under the stump. I recharged the stump the way I thought was best and back filled under the stump.I put several half stick charges around the stump to sever feeler roots. Now for the scrariest part of all. I got the trucks and people a safe distance away and used the battery on one of the trucks to set the charge off and it worked like a charm laying the root over in what looked like slow motion. The problem was the blast had blown a section of root in the air and was headed towards my friends house. The root was about a foot in diameter and almost two feet long, not a small piece at all. I told Russell that it doesn't look good as it was headed towards his house a hundred yards there about away. The root landed beside his house in his driveway. I breathe a sigh of relief. I told the fellows I knew where the root was going to land with a laugh, nothing needed to be said. . They looked at me and smiled. I told them that I had rather be lucky than good any day.

I can see I am in good company here. . My claim to fame was an oversized sling that I would launch potatoes and green apples during dirt clod wars. Peek up your head, one more time!
Had a friend who poured a gallon of gas into a storm sewer. When he lit it, the manhole cover flew. Our neighborhood veteran thought we were under attack. My grandfather was a big fan of shooting anvils, till it landed on the chicken coop.

SOLANCO said:

About summer dusk uncle Fred would load all available kids in the bed of his pickup and drive us down the holler to the country store at the two lane for pop.
One time we were riding back up the holler afterwards and a snake dropped out of a tree into the truck bed. Wish I had a video of that!

Click to expand...

Ha! Ha! Reminds me of the time we boarded our horse in a bar with 50 stalls. One day one of the lady's was riding her horse down the aisle towards the door when the biggest black snake I've ever seen dropped out of the rafters right on to her. That was some good entertainment for about 10 seconds. Funny thing is her horse just stood there and did nothing. The snake lived in the barn and every horse knew it well...."Hey Fred! What are you doing in the rafters? Neat stunt dropping out like that. Sure scarred the dickens out of her though. Yeah, she's dragging me out into the Virginia summer sun again. At least it's not snow. My feet get cold. Wish she'd lose some weight though. I'm not as young as I use to be."