![]() And then came the conversation with my Sunday School classmate, and I started getting serious again.Ī friend sold off some of his land to a subdivision developer, and contractors came in and started the digging and installing of the drainage system. But neighborhoods kept popping up across the area - locals selling off family farmland, out of sight but obviously not out of earshot. I would have tried it again with a newer drum - I really thought the plastic was pretty old and brittle - but it was obvious this design was not going to achieve my main objective of muffling the sound at least to some degree. Not only did it not work, but I had a heck of a mess to clean up. I had plastic shards floating down from low-limb level, and the drum was good for the junk pile. ![]() The resulting blast from the end of the rifle blew the top half of the drum to smithereens. I sighted on the target through the far hole, and touched the trigger. I had cut 12-inch diameter holes out of each end of the drum, propped it up and sighted through it, with the rifle muzzle stuck about half way up in it. That is the only way I can explain the reaction of the drum after I fired one shot from a bolt-action 7mm Remington Magnum through it. Of course, I maintain that the plastic 55-gallon drum I used had been sitting out in the sun for too long, and had become brittle. My first attempt didn’t work out too well. I wanted to be a good neighbor, and I certainly didn’t want a nervous type calling the local authorities - not a likely occurrence, since there is still some deer hunting that happens around here in the fall - but when I get started, I really don’t know when to quit, and might end up shooting a great deal. The folks who live in these suburban neighborhoods are used to the sound of rimfires and shotguns going off since there is still a good bit of small-game hunting that occurs throughout the community.īut it is another thing entirely to hear the nerve-shattering “crack” that accompanies a high-powered rifle. Go in almost any direction for a few thousand feet, and you’re likely to run into a housing development of some sort. I often find myself needing to test a piece of equipment, and living in a semi-rural area, I just step out the back door, and shoot into any one of several backstops I have strategically placed on my property for that very reason.Īnd this has worked well for years because even though my community has grown, and become urbanized, I still live down a country lane, surrounded by forest. So from that point, I embarked much more intently on a part-time project that I had been playing with for some time - a noise-reduction device to cut back on the racket made by my centerfire rifles.Īs a firearms writer, I frequently find myself with a gun that needs shooting, and my schedule doesn’t often allow the chance to load everything that needs testing and make my way to Hunter’s Run, across the Mississippi River in Port Allen, or to Sherburne Wildlife Management Area near Krotz Springs, where the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries operates a highly popular outdoor rifle range. He grinned, a little evilly I thought, but then I am always paranoid about my shooting. “It went on for about an hour, and it sounded like it came from your direction. “Oh, around 4 o’clock, someone started shooting a high-powered rifle,” he said. I guessed it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that he had heard me shooting - at least the centerfire stuff, anyway. ![]() But a large part of the ground straight between us is pasture, woods and fields. To get to him, passage is made around several rural roads, and you will travel several miles by blacktop. Now, this fellow lives a goodly long ways from me as the crow flies - like a couple of miles, maybe. I knew I was going to have to do something about the noise when I went to my men’s Sunday School class, and one of the guys said, “You were shooting yesterday afternoon, right?” “Oh,” they’ll say, with a tired smile, “that’s just Gordon’s (or Dad’s) shooting contraption.”
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