Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Sh*t You See Working In A Gun Store...

Try 250 firing spots at Perry at once, Viale, Rodriguez both firing at the same time in rapids... that was what we said popcorn...

Impact into Lake Erie... CG had tough time keeping boats out at times, the impacting bullets supposedly looking like schooling fish on top...

I just discovered a good explanation of "Maggie's Drawers" and where the term actually came from on The Southwest Rifle Shooting Blog:

The History of "Maggie's Drawers" by Hap Rocketto

"As you so well know from your days at the Recruit Depot the term Maggie’s Drawers refers to the red flag waved vigorously across the face of the target to signify a complete miss of the target during practice.

Flags are no longer used, being replaced by value panels and chalk boards. However, one term from the flag days has held on with a tenacity that is indicative of the strong traditions of the high power community. If a shooter had the misfortune of firing a miss a red flag was waved across the front of the target. The flag is commonly known as “Maggie’s Drawers” giving us the term now generally used to refer to a miss.

I thought you might like to see this poem by James Stockton, a gunner with C Co., 5thTank Battalion, 5thMarDiv on Iwo Jima (WW-II).

"Maggie’s Drawers"

A hundred Marines sat on the line,

Rapid fire, and all was fine.

The rifles cracked, Bull's Eyes, we know;

Down came the targets, now they'll show.

White spotters adorned targets left and right,

Looked like snow, a pretty sight.

But Wait!!!! What's that where I shot?

Not a single one! . . . not one white spot.

I look for black ones 'round the "bull,"

No luck there either, I feel a chill.

They start the disks, white for bulls,

None for mine . . . there they were still.

A single pole rose o'er the butts

Waved back and forth, like in a rut.

A red flag waving, a miss of course,

And that red flag is "Maggie's Drawers."

The term Maggie’s Drawers seems to be based on, as many things are in the military, a bawdy song. Prior to The Great War (WW-1) there was an old music hall song entitled "The Old Red Flannel Drawers That Maggie Wore" which became bowdlerized, as things tend to be by the troops, into something less delicate than might have been sung in vaudeville in the United States or in British music Halls of the day? Below you will find a variant.

"The Old Red Flannel Drawers That Maggie Wore"

On the night that Maggie died
she called me to her side
and gave me those good old flannels

They were tattered, they were torn,
'Round the [bleep] they were worn.
Those old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore.

When she stooped to fix her shoe
You could see her ring-dang-doo
Those old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore.

When she stooped to fix her lace
You could see the promised place
Those old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore.

When she stooped to fix her garter
You could see her red tomato
Those old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore.

When she threw them in the sea
They came floating back to me
Those old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore.


While I have no definitive proof that this is the origin of the term I feel it is as rational and as reasonable a source as any. As I have not heard of a competing story I feel pretty comfortable supporting this Etymology of the term.

You mean you haven't sold anyone a side by each, or a side by twixt, a mouser or one of them there moisten nuggets?

Sounds like our old friend "Larry Root"

moisten nuggets!!! LMAO...

Glad to see my old coworker and I are not the only ones who delight in using that term!

Man I love this thread...stuff a gifted storyteller couldn't make up. Not so amazing that the MSM can say crap that would have most of us saying WTF while shaping the opinion of the non-shooting community.

Sounds like many here have actually been within a mm or so of death.

I've told this one before here, but it deserves another:

25 years ago the then head of marketing at Swarovski told me he'd often visit stores that sold a lot of Swarovski scopes, but not tell them who he was just to get some honest feed-back.

Apparently Swarovskis first became popular in the Southeast, because of the really bright view, and a shop in Birmingham, Alabama was selling more than any other store in America. My buddy dropped in one day and wandered back to the optics counter. A big 'ol boy was standing behind it, and my friend pointed the Swarovski scopes on display under the glass, saying: "You sell many of these expensive scopes?

The guy said, "Yeah, we sell a bunch of them Sooverwhoskis!"

My friend said, "I believe it's pronounced Swar-off-ski."

The ol' boy said, "Not in Alabama!"

JB: glad you checked in..


There was a time when JB didn't completely believe the stories I told him about the gun counter..

But one day he was there and we were conversing when a customer came up, holding up a bullet " I need some of these, Im doing some reloading".

What calibre is it? " Don't know"

Who made it? " Don't Know"

Whats the grain weight? " Don't know"


Thats when I shot the glance at JB, with the obvious " You see!" overtone to it.


True story.

We need to swap subs over to methane from propane and then trench in some pipelines from big pork, dairy, and beef producers and send all that methane into the ocean and have free fuel.

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.

Always loved husbands that would send there wives in with the guns they themselves had phuqued up.

Chick came in on day with a new M1A holding the bolt in her hand, "my husband and my brother were shooting this rifle they just bought downstairs and this thing fell out!!! They want their money back!"

I figured the reason you were upstairs was to get away from all that!

Tom,

One I really liked happened with Dave. A young guy came stomping into the gun section, one hand clenched in a fist. He saw Dave behind the counter and held out the fist, then opened it to reveal an expanded bullet. "Your recommended this POS Nosler Partition to me for elk!"

Dave looked at the bullet and said, "Yeah, I did. One-eighty .30's if I recall correctly."

The young guy almost shouted, "I shot a bull and it went 20 yards before falling over! And the damn bullet didn't even exit!" He lifted his palm under Dave's nose, apparently to prove his point.

Dave looked at the bullet very carefully, then said matter-of-factly, "Looks like perfect performance to me."

Whereupon the young guy went stomping out again, mumbling something else about never coming back in the store ever again. Dave looked at me, smiled and shrugged.

Not at the gun store, but at a bbq a cousin-in-law who was in the marines for a short time informed me that if a 50bmg round got even within a couple feet of your head, it would blow your head clean off.

Well it didn't work, Ben!!!

Years ago some guy came in to return one of them big Sharon Tate commemorative Buck knives (General?). Said when he bought it the sales person told him it was a "gutless" knife!



Always wondered what that mess looked like????

That same shop would give you a great deal on one of those "Stire Man-licker" rifles to put under that scope. The Steyr importer was in a Birmingham suburb. Lots of Bubbas running around the swamps with fine Austrian equipment.

I believe I've told the story here of the old black man (and I mean old! Had white hair) that came in asking for a box of .32's for his revolver. When he was asked if he needed .32 longs or shorts he replied, "jez gives me da long ones, I jez snips dem off til they fits!"