I remember working the butts in boot camp. The sonic crack of bullets passing a couple of feet over your head leaves an impression.
TV and movie folks that think that high-powered rifles can be easily silenced with a silencer should spend five minutes in the butts.
One time I worked the butts for a city kid on the firing line that was afraid of the M-14. My arms were getting tired from waving "Maggie's Drawers". Didn't see any snakes, though.
You Marines know what I am talking about.
I know exactly what you're talking about although I was in the Army. At Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, the first time my squad and I were down in the KD pits pulling and scoring targets, the SNAP of those .30-06 (Garand) bullets passing overhead were, uhhh, interesting, to say the least.
Later, we got used to it. Fifty soldiers on the ling firing Garands made it sound like popcorn popping down in the pits.
L.W.
At least there was the opportunity to experience how you could (very roughly) estimate the range and direction from which the shots were coming, from the “thump” which comes after the “crack”.
We would not only work the frames up and down for the deliberate and rapid serials, and mark and patch, but also hold targets on sticks for snap and movers. The movers were the worst: holding up a plywood fig. 11 nailed to a length of 2”x1”, shuffling in a conga line along the trench, and showered with splinters and the odd nail whenever someone hit the target in the midline. Still, everyone had to take a turn.
We had a match held once, after a big match, silhouette target, on a stick. At 300 you engaged from sitting, they'd run it up, walk/trot it down X number of targets, and then yank it. You had to flip it 90 degrees to pull it down between frames..
You were allowed a coach... my first iron sight shots were followed with favor left half. Good. I continued to fire, swapped mags in the AR, and fired and they had a tiny issue at the end, as I fired a shot I saw the target stop and rotate, and I just went back to center mass and fired one more as it was trying to go down and it just went away..
They called back out of the pit... target repair... evidently I'd shot the stick enough, and the last shot they said centered the stick again.... sideways, as they tried to pull it, said it just fell then...
As I recall they had something smaller than a 2x2 more along the lines of 1x2 surveying type lathe to hold it up....
Blind pigs. Better than skill any old day.
We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
