In an attempt to find out how well I could hit a target I set up my big gun Sunday afternoon. My friend had challenged me to shoot down a dead tree. The day before I had shot a dead tree and it had fallen over. So now I was set out to repeat the event and video it. I found a dead elm tree about 6 inches in diameter that was a short distance outside the yard. Brad(my oldest boy) helped me move the gun into position. I stepped it off and found the tree about 43 paces from the pressure chamber of the gun. I was shooting cans of concrete. They were pushed out the barrel by a empty can sealed in the barrel by a few wraps of tape. In the video you can hear the empty cans banging around as they land right beside the camera tripod. This makes a confusing sound because the thud from the can hitting and the clank from the empty can hitting get all mixed up. I recorded all the shots.

SHOTS 1 and 2 hit low about 3 feet in front of the tree. They both bounced up and hit the tree about 10 inches from the ground. SHOT 3 hit the tree real solid about 2 feet from the ground. I will keep this setting for elevation for the remaining shots. The gun is setting on a slope and moves around a little with each shot. This calls for careful aiming before each shot. I put a little bit of putty on the top of the pressure chamber to act as a rear sight. I lined the putty up with the end of the barrel and the tree. Now that I had the aiming figured out I moved the camera up close to the tree. The cans were passing about 4 feet to the left of the camera. SHOT 4 missed to the left and SHOT 5 missed to the right. One aiming problem I was having was that the tree was leaning to the right. The aim point on the tree was about 3 feet higher than the impact point. This caused me to have to hold off the left of the tree a little so the shot would drop and hit the trunk. SHOT 6 connected and was a little low. SHOTS 7, 8, & 9 all hit very close to the same points and did a lot to weaken the tree. SHOT 10 hit really hard and solid, causing lots of damage. SHOT 11 also knocked off a pretty big chunk, on the left side of the tree. SHOT 12 was the 'coup de grace' striking a deadly blow to the weakened tree.

Here is a couple of photos of the tree after being hit by the cans. The top picture is the Shot 3 hit. The bottom photo shows 3 hits real close together. One in the center, one to the right, and one to the left(in the shadows).

Shots 1-5 (biggun07.mpg 741k)

Shots 6-9 (biggun08.mpg 459k)

Shots 10-12 (biggun09.mpg 831k)

Shots 3,10, &12. The condensed version. (biggun10.mpg 549k)

More about Big Red