Ah... Tannerite! Fun stuff! A few years ago I was at a vintage military rifle match at the gun club. We had all done the iron sight match, scored the targets, etc. Then it was announced that we were going to have a "sniper match." Yeah. Right. We're all sitting there with garden grade military surplus/CMP rifles of various persuasions and we are going to play sniper. O.K. The target was a head/shoulder shape. We were told that the winner would be the one who hit or was closest to a little one inch white dot in the center of the forehead. We all took our turn and most including me missed. Lots of us came close, but none hit the little white dot. Then, one of the fellows got lucky. All of a sudden the target and cardboard backer was shredded by a small little charge of Tannerite. Seems the director thought it'd be a nice little surprise for us. Nice guy. Nice surprise!
Once upon a time a church member called me on the car phone and asked if I was "busy." Based on prior experience, I politely told him no that I was on the way home and then I asked, "What up?" He said several fellows had brought over a new rifle and that he wanted me to give it a try. So... I drove the three miles out to his farm.
There they stood! All of them looking at the rifle laying on the hood of the pickup truck and standing there w/ smiles on their faces. I figured something was up so I got out and walked over. In short order I was asked to take the little rifle... a little hotted up .17 rimfire of some sort, and shoot a couple of bottles down in the bottom of the peanut field... maybe 150 yds. away. I asked how the rifle was sighted and was told to hold dead on and it'd hit the bottles.
They laughed and picked at me when I shoved in some ear plugs. But, when I got ready to do some shooting, I noticed they all put their hands on their ears and some of them looked like they scrunched down a little bit. All in all, it gave me a nice warm feeling. After all it confirmed my understanding of human nature, especially country boy human nature. I now knew for certain that something was about to happen.
I fired the first round and boom boys! It was a certified hit! I don't know how much of that bang stuff they put in that bottle but it was sure enough impressive! They were laughing their heads off slapping each other on the back and roaring it was so funny to them. That was the biggest thing I'd ever seen go off since the time my brother and I were shooting bottles half full of gasoline hanging over a small fire.
I must admit, it rattled me a bit. I missed the second bottle, the round impacted ever so slightly to the side. I worked the bolt and settled down. The next shot produced a repeat of the first round... i.e., big boom! I guarantee you it was about the most fun I've ever had shooting a rifle with a bunch of good ole boys! My church member had a big time telling the men about me shooting pistols behind his work building, etc. It was a fine afternoon, well worth the time I took to drive over and help them all out! My church member told me that later on he and his son put a scrap of plywood on a old a old tire. They put a larger quantity of that bang stuff in a plastic jug on the plywood and floated it out to the middle of the pond. They were all up at the shop when they shot the jug. Apparently it was most impressive. They got a visit from the sheriff's office. Someone thought they were maybe blowing stumps. Lots of fun living out in the country. Always something interesting going on... or off... or up! Sincerely. brucev.
