Maybe the oddest request I've ever heard before

Status
Not open for further replies.

crracer_712

Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2011
Messages
438
Location
Kansas
I have an auto collision repair shop, also do some front end suspension work. Long time customer that runs an Ambulance transport service comes in this morning and is at the front counter and notices some gun related magazines/catalogs on the counter. He asks if I know anyone that loads 20 gauges shotgun shells.

I said I did and that I loaded my own. He says he has a strange request, already asked someone else and was turned down.

He's got a friend that passed away, used to skeet shoot with a 20 gauge shotgun. His wife had him cremated, and she and her kids want his ashes loaded in the shotgun shells so he can go shooting one more time.

He then says he loads 12 gauge, but it had to be 20 gauge to shoot out of the his late friends gun. I told him I'd loan him my press and whatever else he needed. He said he doesn't want to do it himself.

I told him I'd have to think about it. But I'll probably do it for them unless someone can think of a reason not too.
 
I've heard of that many times before. Nothing wrong with it, except for whatever possibility of liability from the unthinkable happening and somehow your load is in a gun when it goes kaboom.

For me, I like the idea of my mortal remains being loaded into shotshells and fired off as a final tribute, but I'm not big on cremation.

So I'm trying to convince my heirs and executor to run a blender for a while... :D
 
That's cool, I'd just never heard of it being done before. I figured I'd see if I could get the shotgun to see how a few loads shot before I were to do this. I don't know if they just want to shoot it, or shoot skeet with it or what.
 
If you loaded normal shells and put the ashes with the shot, kind of like a cornstarch filler in buckshot, I don't see a danger. Some friends of mine had someone load a loved one's ashes into a .308, they use the recomended minimum load and filled ashes to the same volume as the max recommended and had no problem.
 
Never heard of this. To each, his own I guess. Would be kind of creepy to me, especially if I were downwind.

How would you get enough weigh to actually shot him/or his ashes out the barrel without incinerating the remains?
 
As for how would you get.... I don't think you'd ever know the difference between the ash dust and the gun powder, where it went or what happened to it. I think it's more of the sentiment than anything.
 
I think I'd rather have my crispy mortal remains loaded in a black powder cannon...
Sam, put me in mind of the industrial meat grinder scene in The Exterminator. :D
 
I don't know what the density of cremated human remains is, but the ashes alone will not be enough of a payload to get smokeless powder to burn properly. Best bet will be to load a normal load of shot, but keeping out a small bit of weight to be replaced by the ashes.

Swapping out in direct proportion, shot and ashes. Then you or anybody could shoot a round of skeet with a small cloud of "dust" with each shot.

A lot of strange last wishes from people while they're alive. I believe that once you're dead, you do NOT care what happens to your body or what happens after you leave the living world.
 
How would you get enough weigh to actually shot him/or his ashes out the barrel without incinerating the remains?

Wait...you're concerned that one might inadvertantly incinerate the ashes?

How's that again? :confused:
 
A lot of strange last wishes from people while they're alive. I believe that once you're dead, you do NOT care what happens to your body or what happens after you leave the living world.

Yeah, but so what? It's harmless and a fun way to remember the deceased.

Would be kind of creepy to me, especially if I were downwind.
Ehhh, you've had worse. EVERYTHING on this planet is recycled. A few sterile ashes won't bother you.
 
So you're working up a "powder puff" load.. lol
Don't listen to me but I think you are least likely to get in trouble using black powder. Yea, you'll have to clean the gun but it'll get it done and be safe. It's simply a gesture so anything that gets out of the barrel is incidental/does not matter.
Good luck and please keep us informed.
 
How much would you charge for specialty work involving someone else's burnt remains? Cremation and Holy Smoke's work is still cheaper than a casket and a burial. Not to mention awesome.

Since you directed the question to me, I'm not charging anything.

After buring my parents, I do know the price of a funeral. I understand they are providing and service and can charge what they want to charge, the reaction is just a sticker shock for for the price of the loaded rounds, nothing more.

I have a little more to the story. Apparently the widow didn't have a problem until the Urn was placed in her home, so her and the kids came up with this idea, because she wanted the Urn out of the house.
 
As a shooting enthusiast this has always sounded like a cool idea. How some people choose to be honored and how they are honored is not for another to judge, the main point being is that they are honored.
 
Yeah, but so what? It's harmless and a fun way to remember the deceased.

Ehhh, you've had worse. EVERYTHING on this planet is recycled. A few sterile ashes won't bother you.
Recycle like they did in the movie "Solent green". Grade B, or worse movie from the '70s where futuristic earth had a huge food shorted. As folks died, they were process into Solent Green to help feed the masses.

I was fishing on a "T" shaped pier off Fort Desoto Fl several years back. This couple came up to meet me. Said they were getting ready to bury her dad and wondered if I wanted to move since I was downwind. Too me a bit aback as I initially had trouble figuring out it was ashes they were going to dump, ahhh, spread on the water. I moved. Didn't want to end up breathing in old man Jones though it was most likely safe. I watched their service from my new fishing spot. It was quite touching, flowers in the water, a preacher and others.
 
Had a friend that was into the cowboy action shooting that added glitter to his shot for some events. Dont see a problem with ashes just mix them in with the shot.
I think this is a nice gesture you are considering.
T
 
Hey folks,

My mother's body was cremated in December 1998, and she requested that my older brother and I place her some of her remains in quite a number of places including places we lived, a creek where we learned to swim and fish, on our fathers' grave (he died two years earlier and was buried), and all kinds of places we traveled around the country. I filled over 200 empty plastic 35 MM film canister with about half of her remains, and then my brother and I buried the remaining half of her remains just under a spade of sod atop our father. We then went around our old home area and threw her ashes in about a dozen places in the area as she requested. Since then I have carted the film canisters with her remains all over the country as my wife and I traveled in our 5th wheel camper. I keep a list of all the places where we placed her remains, and it reads pretty much as a travelogue of our journeys over the past years. If her remains theoretically flow downhill with the rain water, then her remains will eventually reach the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Bearing Sea, and the Arctic ocean. Some of her was placed fairly close to the North Pole as well as on Anarctica. My brother is the world traveler; I keep my travels in the lower 48 states. That gal is getting around. I still have about 15 more containers to deposit, and then she will be gone.

My grandaughter agreed to do the same for me when I die, but after reading the idea of being shot out of your shotgun, I think it is a great idea. I am going to tell my grandaughter about it and ask her if she could make up a box of shells and give me a scattergun ride along with being deposited wherever she may be able to take me.

I think that is a great idea crracer_712, and I would not hesitate to load them for a friend.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top