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Booshway
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I was talking with a friend today and our conversation reminded me of an incident that happened some years ago when I lived up in Michigan.

In those days of the 1990's I raised English Springer Spaniels for hunting and the occasional field trial. I partnered up with another guy who had the same interest. We trained our dogs at least two or three times each week, sometimes more. We used live pigeons, and we went through a lot of them.

George had a cannon net. It was the best way we had to procure all the birds that we needed. It used four homemade mortar tubes, each one loaded with a shotgun shell that contained 150 grains of 2F black powder. The cannonballs were car pistons, each one tied to the net. An electric wire connected all of the cannons and ran back about 100 yards to George's truck. We would lay out the net, set and load the cannons and when a flock of pigeon had settled on the bait one of us would touch the wires to the truck battery and BOOM. The pistons fired simultaneously and would pull the net up and over, capturing hundreds of pigeons with just one shot.

We usually set up the net at a grain elevator beside the Saginaw River near Saginaw. One winter we made a successful shot and captured about 200 birds, but then I noticed that one of the cannonball pistons was missing. It had broken loose from its tether. We always set up so that the shot would go toward the river in case any of the pistons did break loose we figured they would drop harmlessly into the water.

The river that day was completely frozen from shore to shore. We looked and looked but did not see the piston lying on the ice, nor were there any holes in the ice. However, about 400 yards away, on the other side of the river, there was a small metal pole barn with a large hole in the side of it.

Neither of us thought the heavy cannonball piston would go that far on 150 grains of powder, but neither did we remember seeing that hole before then.


Know what you believe in. Fight for your beliefs. Never compromise away your rights.
 
Posts: 1296 | Location: Cherokee Land, Tenasi | Registered: 06 January 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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Oooppss!


Beer is proof that God loves us,and wants us to be happy-B. Franklin
 
Posts: 2014 | Location: Oreegun Territory | Registered: 24 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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That's a good story, Boartooth... one best told years after the happening! Big Grin

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MountainRanger,


Sua Sponte
 
Posts: 460 | Location: SW Virginia (New River Valley) | Registered: 13 August 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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I'd loved to have seen that!


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3560 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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