It is dissertations such as this that keep me on this list! Thanks for the entertainment.
Sheryl On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Rod Goke <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't know about those Red Ryder BB guns, but my old single shot, hand > pump style pellet gun used to work great for shooting flies inside the > house. It worked much better than a fly swatter. Fly swatters have two > drawbacks. One is that flies quickly learn to avoid them. In many cases, > it's hard to sneak up on a fly with a swatter in your hand. Get anywhere > close and it'll fly out of range. The pellet gun, however, didn't seem to > scare the flies. I usually could put the gun's muzzle within an inch or two > of the fly without scaring the fly away. At that range its hard to miss! > > The other big advantage of the pellet gun over a fly swatter was that there > was less mess to clean up afterwards. Swat a fly on the wall with a fly > swatter, and you'd have a wet blob of gooey fly guts to clean off the wall. > The pellet gun, however, would instantly dismember the fly into separate > wings, legs, and some relatively solid body parts that would drift through > the air and land on the floor, where they could be picked up easily with a > vacuum cleaner, leaving no gooey mess. > > Sure, you say, but what about all those bullet holes in the walls? Aren't > they worse than squashed fly guts! The trick is that YOU DON'T PUT ANY > PELLET IN THE PELLET GUN. That way you don't shoot holes in anything. When > you pump it up and pull the trigger, all that comes out the muzzle is a puff > of compressed air. If the muzzle is only an inch or two from the fly, the > air blast is sufficient to disintegrate the fly without damaging anything > else. Normally, it's not a good idea to fire the gun directly towards the > wall, since that would splatter fly guts on the wall almost as bad as a fly > swatter. Instead, I'd usually position the gun at an angle nearly parallel > to the wall, such that fly parts would fly through the air and drift to the > floor instead of splattering on the wall. The same technique also worked > well for mosquitoes and small spiders. With small, fragile bugs, the > technique often worked best with the gun pumped to only moderate pressure > (like maybe 4 pump strokes using a pellet gun designed for a maximum of 6 to > 8 strokes). That way the air blast would be sufficient to instantly kill the > bug without turning it into a gooey mess that would be harder to clean up. > Tougher bugs, such as wasps, were hard to kill with an air blast, even with > the gun pumped to its maximum pressure. I killed a few indoor wasps this > way, but I don't recommend it, since sometimes the air blast was just enough > to put them into a bad mood. > > For safety, I'd always double check that the gun contained no pellet before > using it for indoor bug blasting. First I'd open the action to see visually > that it was empty. Then I'd close the action, pump the gun to minimal firing > pressure (one or two strokes on that pellet gun), and fire it in a safe > direction to be sure there was nothing in it. (At that low pressure, even if > a pellet had been left in the gun accidentally, it would have been blown out > the barrel at a low enough velocity to cause negligible damage or safety > risk when fired in a safe direction.) Finally, when actually firing an air > blast at a bug, I'd fire in a safe direction that would not have endangered > anyone even if a pellet had been left in the gun. > > That old pellet gun, which I had had since I was a kid, eventually wore > out, but it sure was a useful bug blaster while it lasted. > > As they say on TV, don't try this at home, kids (at least not while anyone > is watching). ;-) > > Rod > > -----Original Message----- > >From: Andy Gluesenkamp <[email protected]> > >Sent: Feb 10, 2011 11:35 AM > >To: Bill Bentley <[email protected]>, Fritz Holt < > [email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, > "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > >Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, Mandy > Holt <[email protected]>, Jenny Holt <[email protected] > > > >Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Bear Grylls related > > > >Someone needs to. > > > >You'll shoot your eye out. > > > >Fritz Holt <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >>WATCH OUT! My daughters and I own Red Ryder BB guns. We shoot holes in > cans, not > >>birds or other creatures. > >>I am a Bee Gee fan. They make good music. > >> > >>Fritz > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >
