I got to try out my brake pad reinforced cowbell today.
I used both JB Weld and Gorilla Glue on it - mostly Gorilla Glue. The end result is not a pretty sight. Besides that, it took a solid 36 hours for the brake pad residue plus glue/weld to wear off of my fingertips.
The brake pads kill the vibration of the bell itself, so the original clapper only provided a dull, short "clank". This would not be audible at long range, so I bought a big jingle bell from the craft store and replaced the clapper with that. That helped a little, but not really enough.
The pads themselves did pretty good. Direct hits will pockmark and blow off the remainder of the pad material, but not the core.
I had one hit on the cowbell itself, and that put a nice dent in it. Wasn't full penetration, but about 1/4" deep and very distinct. I think it would penetrate if I hit the same spot another time or two. Eventually would make the bell so ricochet-prone as to be unsafe in my view.
Sound was audible, but not very effective. Spectators will be able to hear it better than the shooter will.
The range was about 60 yards. The target was difficult to see at that range for me, even painted orange. I used open sights.
It was a cool experiment; not quite as successful as I had hoped. Just wanted to share all this with the group. The cowbell (unaltered) might actually be better suited for 150 yards with a scoped rifle, maybe it wouldn't dent as bad.
