One of my local gun clubs hosts two Military Gun shoots each year. One of them is held over Memorial Day weekend. These shoots are a real hoot anytime, but especially this weekend when we are all thinking of our veterans. Lots of them came out to the range today to chat and remember some of the guns they used to shoot. Most of you have probably heard of the Knob Creek machine gun shoot. Well Ft. Harmar has a smaller one day version. A firing line is marked out with white plastic tape about 100 yards wide. About 200 yards down range are the targets. They included two cars, a motocycle, about 50 propane tanks, several balloons and some other stuff that was hard to make out with the naked eye.
I arrived about 9:00 AM this morning 5/24/09. Lots of guys were just getting their guns and ammo set up on the firing line. At about 10:30 the shoot organizer John Miller got on the loud speaker system and went over the safety rules.
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Then he gave the range commands, "Ready on the right, ready on the left, ready on the firing line?" "Commence firing."
The first shot was from a cannon that fired 16 lb. bowling balls . . .
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This photo caught this bowling ball cannon in full recoil. The black bowling ball arched up over head and nearly went out of sight before falling fairly close to the taget cluster two hundred yards down range. Just awesome!!
Here is the firing line . . .
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One of my favorites is the Ma Deuce mounted on the trailer hitch of a pick-up truck at the near end of the line. In the above photo you can see it pointed skyward.
Here is the target zone 200 yards away . . .
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Following are some of the many photos I took today. Many of you will recognize some of these guns . . .
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Probably the loudest gun was this Russian anti tank rifle in 14.7 mm . . .
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It didn't take them long to set one of the cars on fire with the explosive rounds from the 14.7 . . .
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Even the little kids got in on the action . . .
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And the older too . . .
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And the ladies . . .
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This is my first attempt at posting a video. Hope it comes out OK. You will want to turn up the sound!!
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What a great way to spend Memorial Day!! The sound of thousands of rounds going down range in full auto, the smell of burnt powder, and the comraderie with lots of really nice shooters and veterans.
Ft. Harmar Rifle Club also hosts IDPA matches on the fourth Sunday of each month, so after enjoying the machine gun shoot I headed over to the pistol bunkers to shoot the five stage IDPA match. But that deserves another seperate post, since I have several pictures of that event too!
Hope you all enjoyed this post half as much as I enjoyed being there today!!!
Thank you to all you veterans and Happy Memorial Day ! !
Jim
Wow, great post. Anyone of them guns would get you in deep, deep doo doo up here. Thanks for sharing that with me.
Yeah I know pitw. We are fortunate to have kept our right to keep and bear arms here. Let me tell you, everyone at the machine gun shoot, probably several hundreds, shooters and spectators alike all had these big grins on their faces. Kind of like, "We shouldn't be allowed to have this much fun, should we??" We need to be sure we never loose our firearms rights!! All of us should be NRA members!!! :yoyo: :yoyo:
Jim
Great pictures and I am really glad you shared them with us.
Jerry
Thanks for sharing, thats the stuff you only see on tv :yoyo:
THAT is something I've always wanted to participate in. :eyebrownod:
Thanks for bringing it in. :eyebrow:
If you like machine guns, check out the largest machine gun shoot in the U.S. at Knob Creek Gun Range near Louisville, Kentucky. Awesome!
Here's a pretty good film clip. KNOB CREEK (http://current.com/items/87302871_machine-gun-shootout.htm)
That was extremely cool Frog, thanks for sharing and the video worked. Ya by chance did geta video of the bowling ball launcher did ya? :biggrin:
Todd,
No video of the bowling ball cannon. I havn't used the video feature on my camera much. Since they only fired the cannon once while I was there I wasn't ready with the video mode. Sorry. Now that I know how to do the video and get it posted on Photobucket I will try to do more videos!!
It was very impressive though to see that ball arch up nearly out of sight before coming back down very close to the target zone!!
Jim