Buddy from the USA sends me a videoclip of a Future Weapons show posted on youtube . The SEAL is trying out the deadliest shotgun in the world which is a funky looking full auto . I e-mailed buddy back and told him that the shotgun in the program wasn't the deadilest on the planet because i have fired the deadliest . Below is my e-mail to him.
Bill , that Navy Seal may claim that this particular shotgun is
the deadliest on the planet , but it isn't . My grandads shotgun takes that
honor . By the age of 9 grandad allowed me to pick any gun off the racks and
shoot as much as i wanted , with the exception of the two pipe cannon atop
the rack . Dad and grandad both told me that if i ever touched that gun
there'd be hell to pay . I was with grandad once when he loaded a single BB
shot into one barrel of that 10 gague 3 1/2 inch magnum and took a fox down
at 90 long paces . When grandad skinned the fox out we found that of the
full load of BB shot , 2 pellets had hit the fox in the head .
Anyway , telling me that i couldn't shoot that gun was nothing
more than an invitation for me to figure out how . For some reason long
forgotten dad and grandad went to the next farm and although the farms were
very big , i could see the next farmhouse from on top of grandpas hill . The
women were off to town and i was alone so no better time .
I climber up on the sofa , reached for the top of the rack and
almost dropped the shotgun as it was so heavy . I put it over my shoulder
and held it with one hand and used the other hand to grab the arm of the
sofa to steady myself as i climbed down . In the summer kitchen was a large
drawer filled with ammo so i sorted through and found two artillery rounds
that fit the 3 1/2 inch 10 gague magnum .
Out behing the machineshed was the old well with the split cedar
rail fence behind it and i figured one of those fenceposts would make a
great target . I had a bit of a problem as i pushed the lever sideways to
release and unlock the barrels because it was darned heavy for a little kid
and i had to use every ounce of strenght to keep the end of the barrels from
hitting the ground .
I had it sort of resting in the crook of my left arm as i leaned
backwards to maintain my balance and i managed to drop two shells into those
massive 36 inch barrels . With the barrels snapped closed i decided to take
a practise aim at the fencepost and discovered another problem . The gun was
so front heavy , i had to lean way back to counter balance but i did manage
to get the front bead on the post and i figured i could blast the post
completly off with one shot .
I lowered the gun to waist level and cocked the right hammer ,
and tried to #### the left . It wouldn't #### . I could pull it back easily
and it would just fall forward . Clearly something was wrong , but i didn't
know what . Oh well , i was only going to fire one barrel at a time anyway
. At 6' 5" , and 260 pounds grandad was a fairly large man and although i
had only seen him fire that cannon a few times , it rocked him back . I
figued i could cowboy up and let it go also . Heck , i was 9 .
I leaned back , braced myself and as the fencepost swund into the
line of fire , i yanked the trigger . I remember the blast and the sky and i
knew i was laying on the ground but the world was silent . I felt no pain ,
just brain dead numb . I guess my body realized that it wasn't breathing and
i started to gasp for air , but none was coming . A year or two earlier i
had fallen out of a tree and knocked the wind out of myself , but this was a
lot worse . I couldn't move , totally paralized , couldn't breath and i knew
it was blood running through my hair . I could feel the weight of the
shotgun across me and my arms wouldn't even move to shove it off . I don't
know how long i was laying there trying to suck wind when i heard the car .
Grandad had purchased a new 1958 Dodge Custom Royal and i recognized the
hubcap through the dust as it rolled up , 3 feet from my head . I was half
dead and figured that dad or grandad was about to finish off the other half .
.
As gandad pick the gun off me i heard him say , he's hurt pretty
bad and with that , dad lifted me up . The blood that had been running from
the front of my scalp through my hair to the back of my head was now running
in my face and my body wasn't working . The pain was now setting in but my
mouth wouldn't work as did nothing on my right
side . Dad wrapped his shirt around my head , layed me in the backseat and
grandad hit the throttle for the 6 mile run into the little town of Delta to
see old Doctor Vanderbrooks . The pain was killing me but i dared not say
anything for i figured a trip to the woodshed was still in store for me and
i didn't want to make anything worse . Doc Van was a vet but he took care of
people also and i thought that i'd die from the pain as i was carried in .
The Doc stitched my head , without any painkiller , but it was only two
stitches . As it turned out the cut was deep but only about a half inch long
and head wounds bleed a lot worse than they look .
Doc Van didn't have an x-ray machine but figured that i had
things broken so he told dad and grandad to take me to the hospital in
Brockville , about 30 miles away and said that he'd call and let them know
that we were on the way . There was a 400 cubic inch engine under the hood
of that Dodge and grandad used every horsepower to get me there . It was all
gravel road and we were sliding through the corners .
They tried to get me out of the car and it was just too painfull
so a couple of nurses came out with a stretcher and they carried me in . The
Doctor took my shirt off and the upper right side of my chest was almost
black with a gouge out of the skin . As the Doc was putting a dressing on ,
the pain was so intense . He figuered something was broken and then turned
his attention to my face which had dried blood caked all over it and as he
started pushing on my cheek , it brought tears to my eyes . Pain does that
and it was absolutely not a question of being able to cowboy up .
We went for x-rays and the Doc determined that my cheekbone ,
just below my eye socket was broken as was my collarbone . Nothing he could
do about the cheek so he pryed his fingers into my collarbone to see if it
was in line , and it was . He put a dressing in my armpit , tied my upper
arm to my body and put my lower arm in a sling . So a gouge out of the skin
just above the collarbone , a broken collarbone , my upper right chest is
black from bruising , my jaw too sore to move , a broken cheekbone and a
deep cut in my head where the hammer hit me . The Doc gave dad some liquid
painkiller and told him , one teaspoon at a time . Dad would give me one and
20 minutes later give me another one so i was pretty much stoned for a few
days . The beating that i had been expecting never came but i did get a
good talking to .
There was a reason that i had been told never to touch that
shotgun that i had been unaware of . Remember the right hammer cocked but
the left one didn't . It had a broken hammer spring , so the hammer just
flopped . Grandad never loaded that barrel . As i leaned back to keep my
balance while shouldering the gun , i let it rip and when the right barrel
went off it took a millisecond for the recoil to bounce the other hammer and
set the second barrel off also . In fact , both barrels fired at the same
time . Grandad had about 180 pounds on me and was at least a foot and a half
taller and one barrel would rock him . At 80 pounds and 5 feet tall and 9 years old i got
more than rocked when two 10 gauge 3 1/3 inch mag barrels loaded with BB shots fired at the same
time with a steel buttplate and no recoil pad .
I called that the deadliest shotgun on the planet because it
will kill on both ends . I missed the fencepost .
Bill , that Navy Seal may claim that this particular shotgun is
the deadliest on the planet , but it isn't . My grandads shotgun takes that
honor . By the age of 9 grandad allowed me to pick any gun off the racks and
shoot as much as i wanted , with the exception of the two pipe cannon atop
the rack . Dad and grandad both told me that if i ever touched that gun
there'd be hell to pay . I was with grandad once when he loaded a single BB
shot into one barrel of that 10 gague 3 1/2 inch magnum and took a fox down
at 90 long paces . When grandad skinned the fox out we found that of the
full load of BB shot , 2 pellets had hit the fox in the head .
Anyway , telling me that i couldn't shoot that gun was nothing
more than an invitation for me to figure out how . For some reason long
forgotten dad and grandad went to the next farm and although the farms were
very big , i could see the next farmhouse from on top of grandpas hill . The
women were off to town and i was alone so no better time .
I climber up on the sofa , reached for the top of the rack and
almost dropped the shotgun as it was so heavy . I put it over my shoulder
and held it with one hand and used the other hand to grab the arm of the
sofa to steady myself as i climbed down . In the summer kitchen was a large
drawer filled with ammo so i sorted through and found two artillery rounds
that fit the 3 1/2 inch 10 gague magnum .
Out behing the machineshed was the old well with the split cedar
rail fence behind it and i figured one of those fenceposts would make a
great target . I had a bit of a problem as i pushed the lever sideways to
release and unlock the barrels because it was darned heavy for a little kid
and i had to use every ounce of strenght to keep the end of the barrels from
hitting the ground .
I had it sort of resting in the crook of my left arm as i leaned
backwards to maintain my balance and i managed to drop two shells into those
massive 36 inch barrels . With the barrels snapped closed i decided to take
a practise aim at the fencepost and discovered another problem . The gun was
so front heavy , i had to lean way back to counter balance but i did manage
to get the front bead on the post and i figured i could blast the post
completly off with one shot .
I lowered the gun to waist level and cocked the right hammer ,
and tried to #### the left . It wouldn't #### . I could pull it back easily
and it would just fall forward . Clearly something was wrong , but i didn't
know what . Oh well , i was only going to fire one barrel at a time anyway
. At 6' 5" , and 260 pounds grandad was a fairly large man and although i
had only seen him fire that cannon a few times , it rocked him back . I
figued i could cowboy up and let it go also . Heck , i was 9 .
I leaned back , braced myself and as the fencepost swund into the
line of fire , i yanked the trigger . I remember the blast and the sky and i
knew i was laying on the ground but the world was silent . I felt no pain ,
just brain dead numb . I guess my body realized that it wasn't breathing and
i started to gasp for air , but none was coming . A year or two earlier i
had fallen out of a tree and knocked the wind out of myself , but this was a
lot worse . I couldn't move , totally paralized , couldn't breath and i knew
it was blood running through my hair . I could feel the weight of the
shotgun across me and my arms wouldn't even move to shove it off . I don't
know how long i was laying there trying to suck wind when i heard the car .
Grandad had purchased a new 1958 Dodge Custom Royal and i recognized the
hubcap through the dust as it rolled up , 3 feet from my head . I was half
dead and figured that dad or grandad was about to finish off the other half .
.
As gandad pick the gun off me i heard him say , he's hurt pretty
bad and with that , dad lifted me up . The blood that had been running from
the front of my scalp through my hair to the back of my head was now running
in my face and my body wasn't working . The pain was now setting in but my
mouth wouldn't work as did nothing on my right
side . Dad wrapped his shirt around my head , layed me in the backseat and
grandad hit the throttle for the 6 mile run into the little town of Delta to
see old Doctor Vanderbrooks . The pain was killing me but i dared not say
anything for i figured a trip to the woodshed was still in store for me and
i didn't want to make anything worse . Doc Van was a vet but he took care of
people also and i thought that i'd die from the pain as i was carried in .
The Doc stitched my head , without any painkiller , but it was only two
stitches . As it turned out the cut was deep but only about a half inch long
and head wounds bleed a lot worse than they look .
Doc Van didn't have an x-ray machine but figured that i had
things broken so he told dad and grandad to take me to the hospital in
Brockville , about 30 miles away and said that he'd call and let them know
that we were on the way . There was a 400 cubic inch engine under the hood
of that Dodge and grandad used every horsepower to get me there . It was all
gravel road and we were sliding through the corners .
They tried to get me out of the car and it was just too painfull
so a couple of nurses came out with a stretcher and they carried me in . The
Doctor took my shirt off and the upper right side of my chest was almost
black with a gouge out of the skin . As the Doc was putting a dressing on ,
the pain was so intense . He figuered something was broken and then turned
his attention to my face which had dried blood caked all over it and as he
started pushing on my cheek , it brought tears to my eyes . Pain does that
and it was absolutely not a question of being able to cowboy up .
We went for x-rays and the Doc determined that my cheekbone ,
just below my eye socket was broken as was my collarbone . Nothing he could
do about the cheek so he pryed his fingers into my collarbone to see if it
was in line , and it was . He put a dressing in my armpit , tied my upper
arm to my body and put my lower arm in a sling . So a gouge out of the skin
just above the collarbone , a broken collarbone , my upper right chest is
black from bruising , my jaw too sore to move , a broken cheekbone and a
deep cut in my head where the hammer hit me . The Doc gave dad some liquid
painkiller and told him , one teaspoon at a time . Dad would give me one and
20 minutes later give me another one so i was pretty much stoned for a few
days . The beating that i had been expecting never came but i did get a
good talking to .
There was a reason that i had been told never to touch that
shotgun that i had been unaware of . Remember the right hammer cocked but
the left one didn't . It had a broken hammer spring , so the hammer just
flopped . Grandad never loaded that barrel . As i leaned back to keep my
balance while shouldering the gun , i let it rip and when the right barrel
went off it took a millisecond for the recoil to bounce the other hammer and
set the second barrel off also . In fact , both barrels fired at the same
time . Grandad had about 180 pounds on me and was at least a foot and a half
taller and one barrel would rock him . At 80 pounds and 5 feet tall and 9 years old i got
more than rocked when two 10 gauge 3 1/3 inch mag barrels loaded with BB shots fired at the same
time with a steel buttplate and no recoil pad .
I called that the deadliest shotgun on the planet because it
will kill on both ends . I missed the fencepost .
) with a .470 Westley Richards double rifle hoping to bag a Sambhar stag at a nearby water hole at dusk. End result, despite a firm hold/cheekweld and my familiarity with the rifle, I still ended up with a huge bruise and painful swell for a couple weeks and was concerned for a while that I had lost my hearing in the right ear and my folks would find out.
