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Weapons of minor destruction


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When growing up in Oklahoma in the early 50's, we had weapons we could make ourselves and have enormous amounts of fun with them.

 

DARTS - a wooden match with the end cut off [be sure to save] - a sewing needle pilfered from your mothers sewing box - some thread [pilfered from the same place] - a couple of 3/4" X 1/2" pieces of paper - take a sharp knife and slit one end of the match down about 1/2" & insert paper for flights - insert needle into the other end - wrap tightly with a small amount of thread - - - - - instant DART - good to about 15 feet.

 

RUBBER BAND BULLETS - take the rubber band that wrapped the Sunday paper - put on end over finger - pull back and twirl - keep twirling - twirl some more - pull tighter - twirl more - release at styrofoam coffee cup [5 foot distant], and watch it knot up when released and go thru the cup.

 

CLOTHESPIN BB/MATCHHEAD GUN - a couple of moms clothes pins - a rubber band - some bb's or matchheads - assemble and fire away.

 

The reason for bringing this up, I have discovered recently that none of my friends who were raised here in Mississippi during the 50's have ever seen or heard of the clothespin gun. Are there others out there who never experienced the joy of firing a matchhead/bb at some poor junebug?

 

We would have great safaris in our backyard with our homemade weapons. Junebugs, grasshoppers, moths, spiders, and the occasional wasp - though we did have to have someone with a badminton racket for 'back-up' in case a wasp/hornet/bee, decided to make a counterattack.

 

Tull

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About all we used the clothes pins for was a rubber band gun. Take a strip of inner tube (remember those) about 1/2 inch wide and stretch it over the muzzle of a woodin gun. The longer the barrel the better the ballistics.

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Yep, the ole clothespin gun. We made more lethal items out of bicycle spokes. Twist the spoke around to make a wire handle. The spoke end becomes the barrel and a short cutoff section serves as a ramrod. A kitchen matchhead propels a #6 shot rammed on top of it. Ignition is done by heating the barrel with a lit match as we didn't have butane lighters. A pilfered Zippo worked well too. Hard to aim accurately but it would really zing that shot. A word of caution: two matchheads and two shot burst the improvised gun. Don't ask how I know that. :blink:

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When growing up in Oklahoma in the early 50's, we had weapons we could make ourselves and have enormous amounts of fun with them.

 

DARTS - a wooden match with the end cut off [be sure to save] - a sewing needle pilfered from your mothers sewing box - some thread [pilfered from the same place] - a couple of 3/4" X 1/2" pieces of paper - take a sharp knife and slit one end of the match down about 1/2" & insert paper for flights - insert needle into the other end - wrap tightly with a small amount of thread - - - - - instant DART - good to about 15 feet.

 

 

Variation - Use stick pin, cut head off with pliers, stick pin in match. Then rough up other end on hard surface (or attach a little cotton with glue). Get straw and ----> BLOWGUN! Good for great penetration up to 20 feet! (Also made larger version with welding rod and 1/2" pipe. Now that would really penetrate!)

 

Also had some 22 cal zipgun designs. My cousin made one that had a full trigger assembly and I think it was DA!

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Strike anywhere matches and a co2 bb gun pistol were also a fun combo when the S A match was fired at a hard surface out to about 15 or 20 feet it provided a nice bang on impact also about age 10 I had a 1920s .22 pump up crosman air rifle that would diesel and send a .22 super pell at about 3 times normal velocity if you gave it enough pumps and a drop of lighter fluid in the base of the pellet note this was very dumb as it trashed the seals in the gun after a few hundred shots and it had an adverse effect on accuracy as well took me quite a while to to fabricate new seals (they were leather amazingly) and clean the leading out of the barrel :rolleyes:

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If ya git an invite to a Hansons' backyard BAR-B-Q, come with an appetite, swimming suit and ready for a backyard safari. After dinner, we put on Pith Helmets and arm ourownselves with BB guns or pellet rifles.

Our motto is "If it crawls, it falls. If it flies, it Dies!" We sit in lawn chairs and shoot June bugs, Dragon flies, lizards, (no stray cats Allie Mo) and assorted city type critters. Anaheim is not out in the country. So don't rat me out to the local fuzz. Just sayin'

 

Big(Who think he's Buck Jones)Jake

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In the early days of computers we used a lot of rubber bands. We used to string them together and stretch them half the length of the building. It was called the Endless Rubber Band.

 

Didn't fly TOO far.

 

Leave it to the computer guys to design something unnecessarily complex, difficult to operate, with no practical application, and which goes all to hell if one little part breaks. Bet you found a Marketing guy who was willing to try to sell it, too...... :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

LL

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Leave it to the computer guys to design something unnecessarily complex, difficult to operate, with no practical application, and which goes all to hell if one little part breaks. Bet you found a Marketing guy who was willing to try to sell it, too...... :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

LL

 

No part ever broke but with no rigid mass it all kind of flopped after the tail passed the head. But, heck, it was DEC. We had a whole product line ready to sell it.

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We did blow gun with a straw and used a needle wraped in thread for the Dart

 

Also my cousin and ummm someone else (Hummm) got in to my uncle reloading stuff

and took a few primers and put in a pellet gun .... they hit the wall and explode

and ya get a big flash .... or as a kid it seemed big .... although this is a rumor

i have no personal experience of any such situation.

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Spent my formative years in Columbia, S.C., and I must say, I have never seen a couple of the items listed.

We had blowguns and killer rubber bands, but homemade darts and clothespin guns were not something I am familiar with.

Did a search on the internet for clothespin guns and found a number of different types. They all look interesting and very ingenious.

We had our backyard safaris with bb guns and slingshots. And we also used a backup man with a badminton racquet for attacking wasps.

 

B.-who did not realize he had led such a sheltered childhood-Adder

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Tater Cannons! YOWSAH! Got in big trouble fer ringin' the baptist Church bell from two blocks away once. Took us three rounds to get the trajectory zeroed in, but by then, the city cops had us zeroed in too. :blush:

 

So how do ya assemble one of them clothespin guns? Never seen one that I recall.

 

Bodine

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http://deuceofclubs.com/randumb/clothespingun/



Bodine -
This is the way we made them in the 50's. Youtube also has some different versions/designs.
Here is the address if you have a dial-up internet connection and the above is slow loading -

www.deuceofclubs.com/randumb/clothespingun/

Tull
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About all we used the clothes pins for was a rubber band gun. Take a strip of inner tube (remember those) about 1/2 inch wide and stretch it over the muzzle of a woodin gun. The longer the barrel the better the ballistics.

 

YUP-

Do sum damage at close range---------

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