{"id":1596,"date":"2011-10-03T01:08:35","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T08:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/?p=1596"},"modified":"2011-09-20T06:22:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T13:22:08","slug":"the-great-grocery-store-shootout-%e2%80%93-a-tale-of-carnage-flying-lead-and-edibles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/the-great-grocery-store-shootout-%e2%80%93-a-tale-of-carnage-flying-lead-and-edibles.html","title":{"rendered":"The Great Grocery Store Shootout \u2013 A Tale of Carnage, Flying Lead, and Edibles"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is now incontrovertible evidence that I should not be allowed to watch television late at night. And certainly not without serious supervision, the kind of high-level supervision that involves electrodes, neurologists, and technicians squinting at readouts.<\/p>\n

Why? Because I blew the hindquarters off a camel today with an air pistol, that\u2019s why. But I get ahead of myself. Let\u2019s hit the rewind button for a minute and get back to the beginning.<\/p>\n

It all started innocently enough. Some months back, El Rancho Elliott decided that we would subscribe to the online streaming version of Netflix. Then one day my Better Half discovered that the first season of Top Shot was available for instant viewing.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re unfamiliar with Top Shot, here\u2019s a quick synopsis. It\u2019s a History Channel show that each season brings together 16 shooters to compete in a series of challenges. The challenges might involve shooting a .50 caliber Barrett, a .22 Ruger, throwing a tomahawk, shooting sporting clays, popping balloons with a blowgun, or nailing targets while hanging upsidedown. The challenges are fun, often difficult, and frequently involve not just accuracy but strategy. Week by week competitors are eliminated until there is just one remaining \u2013 the Top Shot \u2013 and he or she goes home with $100,000<\/p>\n

Both my wife and I got hooked on Top Shot pretty quick.\u00a0 By the time we had finished watching the second season (I had been staying up late so I could see what happened in the next episode, and the next, you get the picture), my wife asked if we couldn\u2019t create some similar challenges using airguns. Sure, I said.<\/p>\n

Then, for some reason known only to the Powers That Be, the following popped into my head: why not go to the grocery store and buy some targets that the wildlife in the neighborhood could eat when we were done destroying them?<\/p>\n

So I trundled off to my local supermarket and purchased the following: some big round crackers, some medium-sized round crackers, some cheese puff balls, and some animal crackers. I was on a roll now, but how was I going to secure the aforementioned targets to a board in front of my pellet trap?<\/p>\n

Out of my fertile brain came the answer: frosting! Spread a generous portion of frosting on the edge the board and then stick the crackers into it. It would work, I thought; it had to work. I decided to get chocolate frosting for contrast in the photograph and also because I like chocolate frosting.<\/p>\n

Arriving home with the goodies, I clipped a fresh target into the holder on my pellet trap and grabbed a hunk of 2 x 6 board that I usually use to support cans in front of my pellet trap. I buttered the thin edge of the board liberally with the chocolate frosting and then began sticking crackers into the goo. They stood up pretty well. You can see the results in the picture below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The scene of the great grocery store shootout.<\/p><\/div>\n

Next I needed to select a pneumatic weapon. I didn\u2019t want to make it too easy, but neither did I want to make it too difficult either for my first experiment.\u00a0 So I chose the Smith & Wesson 6\u201d revolver in black. Mine has a red dot mounted, I figured at 10 meters, I ought to be able to hit the large round crackers easily, but the cheese puff balls and the animal crackers might be difficult.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

My weapon of choice: the Smith & Wesson 6" revolver with a red dot..<\/p><\/div>\n

I inserted a fresh CO2 cartridge, loaded Crosman 7.9 Premier pellets into the rotary magazine, and let fly. Bang! My first shot was obviously high. I steadied my grip and fired again and again. No telltale holes appeared in the paper behind the targets, and none of the edibles had moved.\u00a0 I strolled up to have a peek, and I could see there were holes in the big crackers.<\/p>\n

Aiming a bit lower, I knocked one of the big crackers off its perch. Next, I blew the hindquarters off one of the animal crackers, the camel. Aiming lower, I found it was easier to break the targets or send them flying.<\/p>\n

In all, I used up some 40 pellets before just one of the cheese puff balls and some fragments were left.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
The aftermath of the great grocery store shootout.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Who knew that chocolate frosting splattered so easily? It cleans up fairly easily with a little soap and water. Maybe peanut butter will work better next time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Still more evidence of the carnage.<\/p><\/div>\n

Bottom line: It was a lot of fun but messy, and definitely worth doing. And it wasn’t bad eating the leftovers.<\/p>\n

So now, dear reader, it\u2019s your turn: how about sharing some of your favorite fun targets? You can post a response to this blog or email jock.elliott@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jock Elliott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is now incontrovertible evidence that I should not be allowed to watch television late at night. And certainly not without serious supervision, the kind of high-level supervision that involves electrodes, neurologists, and technicians squinting at readouts. Why? Because I blew the hindquarters off a camel today with an air pistol, that\u2019s why. But I…»<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,68,16],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1596"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1604,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions\/1604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}