One of the low points of my shooting "career" is about to be recapped below.
I was single-handedly responsible for getting fruits and vegetables banned from the range I went to in my early 20's..
I was on my way to the range with my son, and one of the farmers along the road had a pumpkin stand in his yard - his yard was FULL of pumpkins of various sizes and shapes. Everything from hand-sized to beach ball sized.
I was driving behind some random car that was spitting oil on my windshield, so I needed to pull over anyway to clean off my car.
I asked the farmer "how much will $20 get me? I'm heading to the shooting range!"
Farmer said "as much as your car will hold!"
Oh hell.
Oh hell.
I never should have done it.
At the time I was driving a Lincoln Towncar.
We filled up the trunk, the back seat, and my son's lap with pumpkins.
And we shot them all.
Well, the part where fruits and vegetables getting banned comes in. I didn't bother cleaning up the pumpkin remains at the range. There wasn't much left of them, anyway, they were pretty fresh and solid (only few were hollow), and we were using 22-250 and 300 win mag to shoot them.... Great glorious arcs of pumpkin flesh flying in the air 50 feet with every shot.
By the time we were done that day it looked like the front row of a Gallagher show. The entire end of the shooting range was draped in pumpkin guts, a bright orange band of sinew and hull coating the ground in a nice 30 foot deep, 100 foot broad swath of carnage.
The seeds took. And the next year pumpkin vines kept growing.
Since they didn't mow that often, the vines got pretty big and sturdy the next spring before the first groundskeeping work.
And... that's how fruits and vegetables came to be banned at Midwest gun club.
My apologies to the decade and a half of shooters who followed my footsteps, it's my fault you can't shoot fruit there anymore.
But oh, what a day it was.
I was single-handedly responsible for getting fruits and vegetables banned from the range I went to in my early 20's..
I was on my way to the range with my son, and one of the farmers along the road had a pumpkin stand in his yard - his yard was FULL of pumpkins of various sizes and shapes. Everything from hand-sized to beach ball sized.
I was driving behind some random car that was spitting oil on my windshield, so I needed to pull over anyway to clean off my car.
I asked the farmer "how much will $20 get me? I'm heading to the shooting range!"
Farmer said "as much as your car will hold!"
Oh hell.
Oh hell.
I never should have done it.
At the time I was driving a Lincoln Towncar.
We filled up the trunk, the back seat, and my son's lap with pumpkins.
And we shot them all.
Well, the part where fruits and vegetables getting banned comes in. I didn't bother cleaning up the pumpkin remains at the range. There wasn't much left of them, anyway, they were pretty fresh and solid (only few were hollow), and we were using 22-250 and 300 win mag to shoot them.... Great glorious arcs of pumpkin flesh flying in the air 50 feet with every shot.
By the time we were done that day it looked like the front row of a Gallagher show. The entire end of the shooting range was draped in pumpkin guts, a bright orange band of sinew and hull coating the ground in a nice 30 foot deep, 100 foot broad swath of carnage.
The seeds took. And the next year pumpkin vines kept growing.
Since they didn't mow that often, the vines got pretty big and sturdy the next spring before the first groundskeeping work.
And... that's how fruits and vegetables came to be banned at Midwest gun club.
My apologies to the decade and a half of shooters who followed my footsteps, it's my fault you can't shoot fruit there anymore.
But oh, what a day it was.
