Rooster Cogburn mowed my range!

[huntrick64]

Have you ever noticed that “fun” and “stupid” tend to run around together? Last night I found both of them hanging out on the back of my property. My plan was to mow the range and then do a little shooting before the sun went down. I threw my range bag in the little lawn trailer and hooked it onto my rider, and strapped on my 45 Bisley. While I was bouncin down that rough range I got to thinkin how hard it would have been back in the old days to hit something with that single action Colt while riding a horse. We have a horse on the property but I wasn't willing to catch it, try to figure out how to saddle it, and really didn't want to shoot off a horse that I don't know personally. My friend Austin (cowboy down the road) once told me "you can shoot off the back of ANY horse, it's what they do after you shoot that gets to be a problem!"

I mow that range for about 300 yards long (East to West) towards the targets and about 10 yards wide. So, I saddled up all 23 horses of the Husqvarna and headed West, literally. I was riding into the sun with grass clippings and dust blowing up my nose and into my eyes (now I know why they had bandanas). Bouncing toward the white gong I pulled my trusty sixgun and with one hand, cocked it, pointed and FIRED! I don't even think I hit the backstop. (really need to know where that horse is standing right about now) I was about 30 paces out so I had time to cock it and fire once more, this time at about 20 paces. Still nothing. I quickly jerked the reins (ok, steering wheel) left and headed east away from the hostiles. Although I missed my target, they had not hit me either. Feeling just a little like "true grit", I whirled back around at about 60 yards out, and once again rode straight back into danger. This time I started shooting at about 50 yards and finished the cylinder at around 20. My flying ashtrays hit nothing. You would think this would have been embarrassing enough, right? Nope, I jumped off Husqy (my new name for the mower), threw my brass in the trailer that I was towing behind and reloaded! I did this again and again until it was too dark to see the target. After the gunsmoke settled I had over 80 rounds of brass laying in the trailer, grass clipping in every crevice of my body, a lawn mowed by a blind guy, and not a scratch on that 12" gong. But, I had one heluva time and just hope the neighbors weren't watching.

I think I am on to something! Probably not the safest thing to do so next time I will shut off the blade.

You gotta try this! I could set this up to be a lot more fun. My buddy said next time he will ride in the trailer and shoot as well! Oh yea, if you wonderin, I am getting real close to turnin 50.

[youngda9]

I don't even think I hit the backstop.
I'm glad you're not my neighbor.

Cool story other than that.

[mdi]

Down in L.A. they call that "Drive By Shooting"...

[edler7]

Next time, set up a movie camera first. They hit their mark every time in the movies.

[DonMountain]

Reminds me of the days working on a combine crew in Iowa. When we combined corn all the way to the center of a section all the deer would run out. Sometimes a hundred of them. I was driving a 1000 bushel grain cart behind a John Deere 8300 and the farmer gave us all 9mm semi-auto pistols and told us to shoot all of the deer we could to get them out of his fields. I am not sure I ever actually hit one, but one of the others brought in a Ruger Ranch Rifle in 7.62x39 and hit a few. But one of the combine drivers actually got two of them. With the combine. :holysheep

[greenbud]

If it helps I used to do something like your story. We would "dorow" dads lawn tractor and a painball marker and drive down the side of the light lines infront of my house. There would be milk jugs placed along the way to shoot. It was fun as could be when i was 15. Now 28 my back hurts to even imagine it lol.

[Huntducks]

:bigsmyl2: sounds like fun to me.

Maybe you could start a league and get it mowed at the same time[smilie=2:[smilie=w:

[geargnasher]

Now that's funny right there!

Gear

[oneokie]

But one of the combine drivers actually got two of them. With the combine. :holysheep

Ever had to dig a deer carcass out of a combine?

[SlowSmokeN]

What a great story, brought a smile to my face picturing that.

[codeNshoot]

I can't imagine a better way to spend an evening :p

Feeling inspired, I'm going to have to give this a whirl. I'll tell ya, I never see more rabbits out in the yard than when I'm mowing the lawn. Guess I'm going to have to sharpen those "mounted" shooting skills.

Wonder what the people driving down the road will think ? :redneck:

[fcvan]

Now I'm thinking I'll have to practice up with my left hand while riding the quad. Wax boolits and cardboard bad guys, you know, the ones in the black hats :) Frank

[bfuller14]

That is great, sounds like fun.


Barry

[waksupi]

I used to do drive by shooting when I still lived on the reservation. Lots of wide open spaces, so I would drive down the ranch roads, shooting at various rocks, sagebrush clumps, gophers, whatever was a target of opportunity. The more you do it, the better you get!

[huntrick64]

We really need to put this together for some friendly competetion. I'm not sure it would ever be a spectator sport with the bullets and all, but it could be a great time for all participants.

Disclaimer; You have to go 4 miles past my backstop to find the next house or barn. Make sure if you try this, you are in a very remote area and know what is beyond your target. If we did the wax bullet thing we could probably get more creative. Who has info on that process?

[Jim]

We really need to put this together for some friendly competetion. I'm not sure it would ever be a spectator sport with the bullets and all, but it could be a great time for all participants.

Disclaimer; You have to go 4 miles past my backstop to find the next house or barn. Make sure if you try this, you are in a very remote area and know what is beyond your target. If we did the wax bullet thing we could probably get more creative. Who has info on that process?

Use gluelits (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=17577).

[fcvan]

There are plenty of posts on the wax boolit thing. The short story:

revolvers work better
pick some brass dedicated to wax (I use really dark old brass or aluminum cases)
enlarge the flash hole to 1/8" so the primer doesn't back out and tie up the gun
soften parafin or mix parafin with vegetable oil to soften it, melt it into a pan 1/2" or so deep
push the deprimed brass into the softened wax, primed wax traps air and pushes your wax out
prime your brass. standard works fine, magnum works fine. some drill the brass to take shotshell primers. standard primers give me 400+fps

don't get me started on cast hot glue boolits, those are just a lot of fun too but better when you can reclaim them. Lost wax is not skin off my nose.

Have fun! Frank

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

I loaded a skunk into a truck with a silage cutter once. I'll bet the cattle didn't think too much of that when it made it to their feed bunk.

I've tried shooting dirt clods with a .22 pistol, using my left hand, as I drive down through the field in a pickup. The one's I aimed at were pretty safe. The bystanders, well .... As always, safety first. You could see the nearest neighbor's place, a couple of miles in the distance. There were some advantages to growing up in western Kansas.

[WARD O]

What a great story, brought a smile to my face picturing that.


Wanna bet on how many times this gets tried.....

I am sure there are many concerns here but I know of some places where this would not be a safety issue except to the operator.

It sure reminded me of some times long ago....

ward

[dbarnhart]

Sounds like we need a tournament. Maybe we could have a junior division where you have a sixgun in one hand and a weedeater in the other.

[Marlin Junky]

There ya go... sounds like an appropriate side match to Cowboy Action Shooting. :-)

MJ

[Wolfer]

When I was young I lived down a quarter mile driveway thru forest service land. I had tin cans hung on the trees every few yards and when coming or going in my log truck I'd shoot at the cans with my 22 revolver. Shooting left handed, which I ain't with the truck a bouncing I rarely hit one. Good times!

Maybe you should trade that Bisley for a Asperly-Aimless

[mpmarty]

Most fun ya can have with your clothes on.
forty years ago a buddy and I had a '59 Ford flip top box convertable. We bolted a metal chair on the rt front fender and took turns chasing jackrabbits across the desert and shooting with a hand held spotlight in one hand and a 1911 in the other.

[Nazgul]

My wife and I are laughing hard at this. I got in trouble with her last weekend. Was cutting down a large bush at the property last weekend while she sprayed the eaves for wood bees. They were buzzing everywhere so naturally, being strapped with a 45 Ruger Montado, I started shooting them when they landed anywhere. She did not appreciate it.

So it is not just me. I am 57 so it doesn't get better.

Don

[runfiverun]

you were most likely trying to use the sights.
when bouncing along like that you point shoot,as in shove the gun at the target and pull the trigger.
just about the same principle when shooting from a jeep wih an m-16.
point slightly away from the target then sweep across the intended, watching your bullet strikes and not the sights.
hit's count ,bullseyes not required.

[crowbuster]

Nazgul, we load up our 45lc and 44 mags with our own kind of shotshells. You wanna talk about gettin after the wood bees, boy howdy. They dont like #9's worth a hoot:Fire::Fire::Fire:

[**oneshot**]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing.

[Revolver]

Fantastic. Makes me wish my yard was big enough to constitute a riding mower. Not much fun pushing a mower with one hand and shooting while you walk.

[Chihuahua Floyd]

Well, I used a sliightly larger tractor when I was in high school, but shot rats while running the bush hog in thhe pasture. Used a Model 17 Remington 20 ga, could shoot and pump that thing with one hand, keep mowing or plowing and look for more rats. Graduated to the Ruger SBH with shot shells when I was 21, even got a couple with the 44 cap and ball 1858 replica.
Wish I still lived there, I hear the coyotes follow the tractor and combine now.
CF

[mrbill2]

I need a new riding mower, guess I'll have to look for a Wheelhorse.

[geargnasher]

There ya go... sounds like an appropriate side match to Cowboy Action Shooting. :-)

MJ

The Texican Rangers (local SASS outfit) have an amazing setup near here, over 20 detailed sets plus all the functional buildings for vendors and maintenance. One of the side matches is a "horse" on roller-coaster tracks, you start at the top and they push you off, you have to engage targets on both sides with rifle, pistol, and shotgun, usually shooting with both hands and trying to stay in the saddle. Pretty wild ride!


Most fun ya can have with your clothes on.
forty years ago a buddy and I had a '59 Ford flip top box convertable. We bolted a metal chair on the rt front fender and took turns chasing jackrabbits across the desert and shooting with a hand held spotlight in one hand and a 1911 in the other.

Sounds like The Grasshopper Trap by Pat McManus, that took me back to some childhood imagery!

Gear

[45-70 Chevroner]

Maybe even a moving postal match! and we can tell tall tales about our shooting ability. It might be a little hard to mail in the proof though. I can remember way back in the late 1940's and early 50's in Eloy Arizona I would ride my bike down along side the rail road track and shoot my trusty Red Rider at Chuck.wallas (large edible herbivorous lizards) no I never eat any but I did kill a few of them from a moving bike, pure luck to be sure.

[Jack Stanley]

What ??!! you guys have never shot a bumblebee in half ? I can still find the witness to the event of so many years ago .

But this is a great idea yard equipment and stuff , metal gongs or other real targets to measure the miss and real huntin' loads . Yee gads !! I can just imagine the blast of a full house .44 in the cab of the Polaris ranger .

Jack

[turbo1889]

Used to shoot gophers off of a riding mower with a little High-Standard 9-shot 22-lr. snub-nose revolver loaded with green tag target loads (reduced velocity and thus range for safety) at my first job when I was in high school. Guy I worked for keeping up his grounds and doing odd jobs on weekends have me an extra $0.50 per dead gopher beyond the usual pay. Got real good at it and believe me you don't want to be anything shoot-able as big or bigger then a gopher within 30-yards or less of me when I've got a snub revolver in my hand to this day. Any snub that will shoot to point of aim consistently and that I have had time to practice with works for me to just think that I want to shoot it, decide to shoot it, and all be darn I shot it and I don't even remember drawing or even looking at the gun.

For that reason I still carry a 38 snub as a carry gun for the "first five shots and then drop it and go to the auto" gun when I'm in a really bad area that is close quarters because it is so purely instinctual with a double action snub to this day from all those gophers I shot. Yes, an auto is thinner and easier to conceal carry, a heck of a lot quicker to reload with more ammo capacity, and with a couple of the auto's I personally train with and carry are fully capable of making a shot at beyond 50-yards and hitting a paper plate sized target if I do my part. Two of them are even capable of reaching to to 100-yards with that kind of accuracy and enough power to be effective at that range.

Too bad I didn't shoot all those gophers with one hand while driving the lawn mower with the other using a full size long slide auto chambered in 22-lr. In-fact that is not a bad idea, and why stop just there, why not all the various types and sizes of guns? I know it works to develop the kind of instinctual capability to shoot like that.

I'm not thinking competition, I'm thinking training.

[Gee_Wizz01]

In my younger days (12 years old) my cousin and I tried our hand at rabbit hunting from a horse. We noted that we could never sneak up on rabbits will walking around, but riding grandpa's old mare we could sneak right up to them. Well we got the old Winchester single shot 22 and set out hunting. We spotted a rabbit about 10 yds in front of us, and my cousin leaned forward in the saddle and rested the old 22 barrel between Betsy's ears. When he pulled the trigger, Betsy was startled to say the least, I ended up stuck in a mesquite bush, and my cousin spiraled up in the air and landed on his back in gravel road. The rabbit was unscathed, and it took us twenty minutes to catch Betsy. I have never fired a gun from a horse since.

G

[geargnasher]

For those suburbanites among us, what's wrong with some soda cans and AirSoft guns while galloping along on the wheeled steeds? :bigsmyl2::guntootsmiley:

Gear

[Wolfer]

When taking about Elk hunting at work someone will always ask if we can shoot off of our horses. I always answer the same. You can once!

[TCLouis]

Dang now besides guns, brass, powder, primers, boolits I have to go out an buy a riding mower to try this for myself. I wounder of zero turn is better for follow up shots. Goo thin my berm is over 100 feet high and covered in trees!

[smoked turkey]

This is a great thread. My imagination along with my "minds eye" can see the action as it takes place. During a brush-hogging operation on some of my property I whipped out my S&W .22 cal kit gun and blazed away at a squirrel sittin on a log not too far from me. I still can't believe I missed him. I think more practice is in order.

[Centaur 1]

I'm watching a movie on cinemax called "The American". There's a scene where George Clooney is riding a Vespa scooter while chasing :2gunsfiring_v1: a guy in a car.[smilie=2: George pulls out a suppressed handgun and starts shooting left handed.:Fire: Now keep in mind that these streets are narrower than an average high school hallway, and the streets are rough like cobblestone. First shot takes out the rear window of the car he's chasing. Then he double-taps the right front tire (remember that I said he's shooting lefty :veryconfu, and hits right front tire ), hitting it with both shots hitting just an inch apart. You see Huntrick64, this type of shooting is easy, if Clooney can do it then I'm sure you can learn also. :bigsmyl2:

[waksupi]

I believe at the pistol competitions in Libby, Montana, they still have a part of the course that you shoot from the rear seat of an old Checker cab while moving.

[badbob454]

sounds like a great viral video !

[Huntducks]

I'll tell you what was fun:drinks: when I was a teen my buddys and I would pool are $$$ find a old beater car $20 that was running, trailer it out to the desert line up with a few guns each crank the idle up drop in gear and shoot it as it went past sometime we got 3-4 passes out of it, then pull a bonnie and clyde when it stopped can't tell you how many 52 chevys and 40 fords we shot:groner: there is still a 39 chevy we shot apart out by Red Mtn (SoCal guys)

[MikeS]

Next time, set up a movie camera first. They hit their mark every time in the movies.

NOT TRUE! Well, not totally true. If you ever notice, the guys wearing the black hats (bad guys) can empty their 100 round sixguns several times, and never hit anyone, but the guy wearing the white hat (good guy) can shoot only six times, and hit all 24 of the bad guys! So it's important what color your hat is when shooting!

[Southern Son]

That is just a great story, up there with Crash Corrigan and his "no handled mould." I only live on an acre, and I think that my neighbours may be a little worried if I started riding backwards and forwards on my Cox Lawn Boss at full throttle lighting off a few rounds from my Marlin .44.

[lbaize3]

I want to compete, too! Only problem I see is that I have a zero turn mower. I can see the Deputies standing over my body now.... wondering how the mower got turned over and how the body got a single action 45 colt pistol stuck in its' ear....

[Uzi]

In Texas, scenes like that usually start with the phrase, "Hold my beer for a second, I'm gonna try somethin'' :-)

[tmc-okc]

That is funny -- I do remember when I was a teenager plowing wheat fields after harvest I got in lots of practice shooting AT jack rabbits from a moving tractor. Dont remimber ever hitting one but shot at lots of them. Never started the day without two boxes of ammo in my pockets..

tmc-okc

[KaliforniaRebel]

Did you ever wonder why the oldest Indian motorcycles were a left hand throttle? It's so law enforcement and the military back then could use their pistol with their right hand if need be. That saved Indian Motorcycles from bankruptcy (for a while).

[10 ga]

Back in college (68-74) at VT I had a buddy that had a big old Buick. It had several holes of different calibre in both the left and right front fenders. Roommate had a VW with a sunroof, that was NICE! I really don't know what the statute of limitations is on some crimes so that is enough said. 10

[Captain Midnight]

Thanks guys.... Reading this thread has been a great laugh "Hold my beer for a second, I'm gonna try somethin'' Captain

[crabo]

Have you thought about making this a pay for adventure? I'd love to come do it with you. We used to hunt jack rabits like that. One guy would drive the pickup and the other guy would hang out the window and shoot pistols as we would kick up jacks.

We would load a bunch of pistols and you would shoot whatever you picked up. You might go from a .22 to a .44 mag.

Too much fun. And then there was the time my buddy shot the windshield with his .44 mag. From the inside out..... He ears ran for a long time.

[scarry scarney]

That all sounds like fun. I would love to try it. The closest I ever got, is when a bunch of buddies and I would go out with 22 pistols loaded with rat shot, and walk through a field. When a grass hopper would take flight, you would draw and fire. I was using a colt huntsman, I would have to manually cycle the action. A lot of fun. I also wish I still had that colt!

[John in WI]

When I was a kid, my brother and I got the bright idea that we would have a kind of jousting match on riding lawn mowers. We both missed--but he got mad, dismounted, and ran up and whacked me with a shovel handle!

I can still hear my dad yelling "get your head out of your dufflebag!"

[zack]

Huntrick, you're the Kabota Cowboy.

[olafhardt]

I don't mow to often and rats live in the grass. I have tried without sucess to get them with the mower. I think I will try a revolver and snake loads.

[RACWIN375]

I mounted my Ruger Mini-14 on the hood on my lawn tractor like a I'm ready now

Rick

[beagle]

Good thread.

Last summer, riding on my tractor, I had the 9mm HP with me and jumped a yote. 7 shots later and 2 rolls, he left me in the dust. But it was fun.

Then there's the skunk we rolled in a hay roll last year.

I vaguely recall my dad telling war stories about his days in the old horse calvary (E Trp, 19th Cavalry, NC National Guard). They had a mounted course for sabres and pistols. He said it was fun but some of the old plugs the Army bought back then were wild./beagle

[bbs70]

For those suburbanites among us, what's wrong with some soda cans and AirSoft guns while galloping along on the wheeled steeds? :bigsmyl2::guntootsmiley:

Gear

That sounds like fun for those who live in suburban areas or not.
My neighbors would go crazy if they saw me do that, which makes me want to do it even more.:mrgreen: