Big Sandy Machine Gun Shoot, 2009
So, as I said, I went to the 5th annual Big Sandy Machine Gun Shoot last Saturday. Here’s just a little of what I saw there. To begin with, here’s the backstop with a pan over to the firing line:
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On this end of the firing line was one of the baddest setups I have ever seen: a trailer set up for hosing down the countryside – Texan, of course! (Click the thumbnails for the huge images.)
I should have taken video of that 1919 – smoke was rolling off the barrel. It’s true: Happiness is a warm belt-fed! And yes, Virginia, the one in the middle is a mini-gun. I didn’t get any footage of it being fired, but trust me, it really does sound like God tearing a gigantic phone book!
The firing line was at least 100 yards wide, and there seemed to be at least one crew-served or belt-fed weapon at each position. Here are some examples:
And there was some old-school:
Yep, that’s .45-70 brass. And here’s a very short clip of the owner emptying a stick magazine:
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His loader could have done his job a little better, but the gun worked fine!
Here’s some more old-school:
I didn’t see the cannon fire, and yes, that’s a Henry Yellow Boy in the second shot. I told the shooter that if that went full-auto, I would be running in the opposite direction!
And then there was the more modern artillery:
The first two are 20mm, the third is a 30mm, and the last is a 37mm. (That big mortar fires bowling balls. There were at least two and maybe three of those.) Personally, I think everyone ought to own a field piece or two! Here’s that first 20mm cannon being fired:
And here are a couple of twin anti-aircraft mounts, with one guy taking shots at a model airplane being flown back and forth down the firing line:
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The pilot lost a couple of aircraft, but generally they made it through unscathed. If you look close, you can see one in this clip:
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There was also (I think) a Solothurn and a Lahti, but I didn’t get photos of those.
I had a good time, but I was only there a couple of hours. If you’re not pulling a trigger, there’s a limit to how much fun you can have.
The next shoot, I think, is in April. I may run back up to that one just to see if anyone brought anything new.