The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: tombogan03884 on December 28, 2009, 02:46:32 PM
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KPR has been stimulating conversation with his questions about favorite rifles and pistols. The thought crossed my mind that considering the people replying it would be fun to ask what is the STRANGEST "gun" you ever actually fired or owned, from handde gonne's to Cruise missiles,
For me it would be the M198 155mm Howitzer, and M 2 and M60 machine guns, everything else has been pretty common.
How about the rest of you ?
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WW2-vintage flame thrower...yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ha!!!!
mb
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Oddest I ever saw fired was one of those Ares Defence .410 Flashlights. I would love to try out one of those......
Oddest I've ever fired were an Integrally Supressed Ruger MKII and an M60.
As far as owned, never anything really odd. Unless you count the AMT Backup I have, which has a groove on top for a sight. Some may count my SKS that takes AK47 mags as odd. Oh and there's my Mossberg 590 that has a bayonet lug and a laser sight built into the pump. {Takes expensive batteries BTW.}
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WW2-vintage flame thrower...yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ha!!!!
mb
Dude, I am sooo jealous..... Can I like come work for you? I'll even be the mag loader...... ;D
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You,ve seen this odd little .357 Magnum wrist breaker before and here it is again. It makes a S&W Model 500 seem like an easy shooter.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae111/KidShelleen/Cop1.jpg)
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I don't care how ;Dmany times I see it, I like that gun.......
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a sharps and a old lever action 45 70 ;D :o
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WW2-vintage flame thrower...yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ha!!!!
mb
Beats anything I got. But here goes.
I bought an antique shotgun at a ranch auction, cool looking gun in an ugly sort of way I don't even recall the manufacturer, just that when I looked it up later, they got bought out by Ithaca ca. 1923. The receiver was a big blocky shaped thing, but the coolest part of all was the Damascus steel barrel. Absolutely gorgeous metal - and completely unshootable, and not just for the Damascus steel barrel. The shotgun had been left in a shed or something, and although the wood was in better than OK shape, there were dead weeds in the receiver!
I got it for playing with, doing some gunsmitthing on as well, just to have a conversation starter and a wall-hanger. I had not walked 10 steps after securing the win at the auction, and a guy offered me $40 more than I had paid for it. So I said yes. I owned it for all of 30 seconds?
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WW2-vintage flame thrower...yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ha!!!!
mb
I hear Bloomberg is considering banning those in NYC.
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Ward's Western Field .410 bolt-action, that is longer than most full size rifles, threaded barrel, with Mossberg chokes that screw on the end of the barrel.
I own that one still.
Strangest, Ugliest one I've shot, was an old butt ugly "Tokarev Pistol", some tall Merchant Marine fella brought down here recently.
;)
Strangest was a flintlock mini blunderbuss pistol. No sights, only shot it once, loaded the old fashioned way, (by the owner).
Watermelon at 15ft. was torn apart. He was one of those Revolutionary War re-enactors, did some Civil War stuff also, had some "strange" guns in his house. He said they all worked. But they were not supposed too. :-X
::)
Can't beat the flame-thrower,....Just WD-40 and Bic lighter, is all I got,.... :-\
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Shot this one many times: Not super "odd', but not something often seen in these woods....... A good friend of mine has a Marlin 12ga. bolt action, magazine-fed, 'Goose Gun' with a 36" barrel. It will reach out and touch something. Is actually a good shooting gun for what it is, even if unwieldy.
http://www.gunsamerica.com/955146719/Guns/Shotguns/Marlin-Shotguns/Marlin_M55_Goose_Gun_12ga_36_bbl.htm
Not 'odd', but also shot a 1928 Thompson full auto, a 'Grease Gun', and a Mitchell .22lr full auto AK-47 replica that a collector had at our local gun range once. Very cool......... and fun to boot.
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did not own it however I got to shoot it
a Martini Action 12G single shot
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Does a LAW count?
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About the oddest "gun" I ever "shot" was a tennis ball cannon when in middle teens. Today they are potatao guns and more refined.
We made them out of the old heavy duty steel pop cans. The bottom can was more or less intact with a hole in the bottom edge to touch it off with a match. The middle cans had tops and bottoms cut out and the top can had one end cut out and most of the other end cut out except for a ring around the edge to keep the tennis ball from falling all the way down. Tape the whole thing together with electrical tape. We would charge it with lighter fluid, shake it up a bit to vaporize it, load the ball and touch it off. I had seen other do this, but when I made my own I was a little nervous to light it. I placed it on the sidewalk and gingerly reached out to touch it off with a match. Just then the wind tipped it over and I scored a direct hit on the electrical wire to the house. Got lucky that night, as there was a bad storm that was blamed on the wire and meter box being ripped loose from the house and sagging down almost to the ground, but we still did have electric service.
From those crude early tennis ball cannons we refined them and came up with better designs and "powder" choices. Starting fluid was the "powder" of choice, but I saw a few of those blow apart. One kid ended up welding some one gallon cans together and vaporizing the fuel with an air hose. Loaded it with rags for a patch and whatever was handy for projectiles. Worked pretty good until one of the rags had been used with lacquer thinner and came out flaming and landed on a rack of used tires at the gas station next door. The same kid went to vaporize the fuel with the air hose once and apparently there was still a residual flame in the cannon. Ended up like a mini flame thrower with the air hose forcing the flames about 10 feet out the muzzle end of the tin can cannon.
We did some crazy stuff, but luckily no one was ever seriosly hurt.
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I did forget the cannons we made as kids. We'd go to the city dump, old days, where they always had a fire burning unattended. we would find a piece of waste pipe, 4" or so in diameter, and stick one end into the fire. Then we'd scout around and rummage up some aerosol cans - hairspray and shaving cream always worked best - and drop them into the tubes ala a mortar, nozzle down. Got some nice arcs on them old cans.
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Maybe this doesn't strictly follow the original question, but when I was a lad of 7 or 8 (I'm nearing 62 now) my Uncle Jake had a 10 ga. double-barrel that he had got from his old man. Jake was probably about 60 at the time, so the gun was pre-1900 and could have gone all the way back to the mid-1800's. It was an old black powder unit but used store-bought cartidges(I didn't know or care about such stuff at that age, just that it might go bang). But my cousin Keith had been pestering Jake to let him shoot it, and Jake finally gave in. There, out in the north 40, Jake instructed Keith on how to hold the gun just so. Keith was nearly 10 at the time, so he was allowed to do things that I wasn't allowed to do. Keith followed Jake's advice to the letter, pointed the big gun skyward, and pulled the right trigger. Both Keith and the gun spun around several times, and they both hit the dirt side-by-side. Keith was crying and holding his shoulder. The gun just lay there quietly, smoking, content that it had taught a lesson. I wanted to laugh, but I was afraid Jake might make me shoot the thing too, so I kept my trap shut. That experience killed my interest in firearms for the rest of that afternoon. But, it taught me a good lesson. I never asked Uncle Jake to let me shoot any of his guns. But I did ask my other uncle, Uncle Jack, if I could shoot his .22. I got to when I turned 9. Nearly 50-years later when Uncle Jack passed away at 93, he left me that old .22. I still have it and I treasure it for being the first gun I ever shot, and for all the memories it carries with it.
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Not really odd or strange, but in 77 I pulled the trigger on a Terrier surface to air missile.
The picture is not the shot I made, but was taken during the same missile shoot.
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Not really odd or strange, but in 77 I pulled the trigger on a Terrier surface to air missile.
The picture is not the shot I made, but was taken during the same missile shoot.
Ya got me beat. ;D ;D ;D
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I was going to answer tennis ball cannon but then saw that blackwolfe beat me to it...
I shot a .577 Nitro Express once at a range up in Wisconsin. I fella traded me a shot of my .50 BMG for a shot with that. I only shot one. THAT is some recoil. But if m'bogo was staring me down, I suppose I wouldn't feel it...
(http://www.searcyent.com/Archive/577b_files/image002.jpg)
(http://www.bowsite.com/BOWSITE/features/articles/africa/capebuff/GRASSBUFF.jpg)
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Tennis ball cannon plans...
http://www.teamdandy.com/projects/cc73/
:D
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thanks kpr, now my 14 year old son, just spied me reading, and scoped out the whole article from "Team Dandy"....
If we don't build it correctly, he may try it on his own and do something wrong(shoot his eye out),,....now I'm obligated to at least make sure the construction is to spec,.... ;)
seems I have a custom "build" for New Year's.......
;D
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thanks kpr, now my 14 year old son, just spied me reading, and scoped out the whole article from "Team Dandy"....
If we don't build it correctly, he may try it on his own and do something wrong(shoot his eye out),,....now I'm obligated to at least make sure the construction is to spec,.... ;)
seems I have a custom "build" for New Year's.......
;D
Used to shoot one just like it in college (early 90's). Haven't thought about one of those in years. Gotta go make one!
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Not odd but I did get to shoot the MA deuce.
We mad a tennis ball cannon out of an old driveshaft, propelled by oxyacetelene. Light the torch, get a good mixture then put the flame out on the ground, through a hole in the lower half of the driveshaft put the gas mixture, count to 3 was about right, 200 yards, more than that 50 yards as the tennis ball came apart.
2 liter coke bottles filled with the same mix, duct tape tail and a shotgun primer with a BB glued to the cap on top of the primer, make the windows shake for a full city block.
Now something odd that I own, a Daisy VL caseless ammo rifle, only made in 1968.
Ammo 1st
(http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff150/m25operator/100_1757.jpg)
(http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff150/m25operator/100_1412.jpg)
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Great tales, ;D
Bac and CJ, a LAW counts and so does the Terrier missile, that and oddball black powder or odd mechanisms like the Mateba or Calico were what I had in mind when I posted the thread, but I am getting a good laugh from the stories ;D
M25, I forgot about that Daisy, you posted about it once before. I think it's a riot the the makers of "Real guns" are still trying to do what the "toy company" accomplished 40 years ago ;D
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Stinger Missile, Ma Deuce, MK 19, M60, M249, AT4 and M3 .50.
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Tennis ball cannon plans...
http://www.teamdandy.com/projects/cc73/
:D
KPR,
Those instructions are pretty much how we did it, cept I always used black electrical tape and a lot of it. I taped each joint well and then did a spiral wind up and down several times. Maybe I just got lucky, but never had one blow apart, but I never skimped on the tape. I had a friend that lived next to an apple orchard and he would pick up the drops. They were great ammo and if one was a little to big, it just got shaved down a bit when you loaded it the muzzle. One friend was holding one of the cannons bazooka style while another friend reached from behind to light it. It blew apart and did a nasty job on the lighters hand. Other than some bruises and losing a thumbnail he was OK. That cannon wasn't taped very well. I suppose you could try one out of PVC, but I never have. Might even be able to come up with a repeater design and an igniter like the one in the plans. If you google potato gun I think you can find a lot of plans. Ithink the ATF has ruled these legal as long as they are not used in a destructive manner.
Maybe not: http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/unlicensed-persons.html#potato-gun-classification
Seems like ATF has changed their regulations:
http://forum.pafoa.org/general-2/39275-atf-classification-potato-gun.html
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As far as oldest.................................
I own a 1912 Winchester 1894, a 1906 Winchester 1892 & a 1928 Remington 12A.
As far as strangest..........................
M60A3 Tank, consisting of 105 mm main gun, .50 MG & 7.62 mm MG.
Oh yeah, and a LAW and a M2.
Had some interesting years in the 70's and 80's.
Brian
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Any one remember the air powered Sabot cannons back in the early 90'sThose were made similar to the spud gun but had a reservoir for compressed air you could use a Styrofoam cup for the sabot and launch anything from arrows to lead balls, bullets, or ball bearings.
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Not odd but rare. Did fire several mags through one of Saddam Hussans Hi Power pistols in Baghdad in 03'
(http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/BHP-SH-_2.jpg)
Then there's the Mk44 mini gun in 7,62x51
(http://www.hunt101.com/data/548/98092004_0622_101716aab.jpg)
MP44 in full auto (7.92x33)
(http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/9809Blacked_out_George_MP44_sighting_down2.JPG)
and my biggest besides Anti Tank rockets and mortars was the 120mm main gun on the M1A1 Abrams. Fired 3 rounds out to 2000m with first round hits. (here's one behind me patrolling last year)
(http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/2_Mar_08_037_George_in_front_of_M1.JPG)
Does clearing hot for close air support count? I've called AC-130 gunships and fast movers dropping 4ea 1000lb bombs. How about demolitions? Biggest shot was 640lbs of HE.
CD
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That's impressive, CD. But have you ever fired a tennis ball cannon? Hmmmmm?
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CD, I don't know if I would count the Demo, most of us have blown something up, sometimes it was even on purpose ;D
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I've fired a few rounds through the M40-A1.