Quick step stage design

[Andrew B]

A couple of weeks ago I received a .40 Brazos Limited gun from Bob. 2 friends and I were practicing at a range we have set up in Mississippi. I try to make it up here every weekend to practice and goof off. We have a rifle range and a pistol range carved out of the deep woods. We take our dogs and my son with us when we go.

In 4 of the last 5 weekends, while working out on the rifle range setting up stages, etc., I have literally nearly stepped on a snake. I am bending over, setting a popper, look up, there's a snake. I move a tarp, there's a snake, etc. So far, 1 corn snake, 2 king snakes, 1 grass snake. Snakes creep me out. This always generates a very high pitched yelp, the source of considerale amusement to my friends. I walk around here very carefully now.

It's about 2:30 Sunday afternoon, we are packing up, after we have put over 1000 rounds on 2 plate racks we have set up on the pistol range. One of my friends is walking around the rear of the backstop looking for the kingsnake I nearly stepped on last week, when he freezes and yells for me to get a gun. I looked at him and knew immediately that it was not a kingsnake he was yelling about.

I ran to the bench and got my new Brazos. Of course, by this point in the day, I have shot all my ammo. I run to the car because I remembered that I picked up the ammo bag of my older friend that morning and he must have had 3000 rounds in the darn thing. Bingo, .40 loaded ammo. I shoveled 10 into a mag and ran back to the backstop. My friend was there watching the leaves intently.

He points to the leaves on the ground behind the backstop. I look and eventually see a timber rattler 4 feet long and as big around as my calf, perfectly camouflaged in the leaves. I would have definitely stepped on this rascal, had I just been walking thru. He must have been sitting there, 30 feet from us the whole day, while we were shooting.

My preferred tool for this work is a cool beverage while I watch from 50 feet away while someone else uses a 12 gauge. However, I rise to the occasion and take careful aim at the center of the snake and shoot him, trying to break his back. I see the hits. He slithers off 6 feet under a old steel door leaning against the back stop. I run and reload (full mag this time) and run back. I take careful aim and shoot him again. He is pissed off now and raises the top 1/3 of his body in the classic S. I shoot him thru the neck and he drops. I shoot him until I am out of ammo again. I run and reload again. I run back to the backstop. My friend makes me stop shooting the snake, assuring me that he is dead. There are at least 15 hits on the snake. He is nearly cut in half.

Moral of the story: none. However, seems to me there must be a area match level stage design buried here.

BTW, I leave the other snakes to their eco-niche. Cottonmouths and rattlers must die, just cause they are creepy.

[Matthew_Mink]

[warpspeed]

My preferred tool for this work is a cool beverage while I watch from 50 feet away while someone else uses a 12 gauge.

I'll second that!

[mpolans]

Wow, that's a little creepy! Poisonous snakes freak me out. I remember stepping on a cottonmouth on a golf course (edge of a water hazard) and jumping about 4 feet sideways. Scared the crap out of me.

Definitely keep the king snakes around. They eat rattlers.

[uscbigdawg]

That was awesome!

Rich

[Detlef]

at this time of year we (in Houston) have no snake problem. The mosquitoes eat them...

--Detlef

[shred]

Here's another fun one-- me and a friend were out at his place practicing for the Steel Challenge a few years ago. I happened to look at the berm and a spider had made a web over a hole not far from a plate stand. This spider also happened to be hanging upside down and thus the bright red hourglass on it's belly was very visible.

So there we are with full open race guns strapped on, with maybe a hundred rounds on our belts...

After a few moments trying to decide if we can first-shot hit a 1/4" target at any range not likely to incur bounceback or flip a now-annoyed near-missed Black Widow anywhere else..

We settled on spray-painting it white and hoping it would have an identity crisis.

[dirtypool40]

I could not make this sh!t up if I tried;

back when I was about 12, we lived on a somewhat swampy lake, complete with mox, plenty-o-mox.

The kids (yeah, like was an adult at 12) start yelling, I run to grab a gun and come back with......an iron sited AR? Yeah, good choice butt head.

Honest injun, just as he raised up, I guestimated some holdover at a range of about 4 yards, and hit him first shot, just at the rear of his head, where the jaws meet.

Let me tell you, that little 55 grainer made short work of his head, and his attitude. He kinda slithered towards the water, but sensing a victory close at hand, I remembered I had the rest of the full 30 rounder and....well he got a FEW more holes for being wrong place wrong time.

[outerlimits]

many years ago at the steel challenge in piru, a rattler appears at roundabout...this is after that days shooting. some brave (or crazy) guy catches it and proceeds to show it off to many. the guy turns out to be a snake scientist (whatever they are called). he insists on letting it go up the canyon (outer limits). anyway, suffice to say, a large number of shooters followed him up there and there was lots of noise shortly thereafter...a classic...

[rhino]

Hey! Now you guys know how KimberKid and I felt when we were menaced by that killer groundhog a couple of months ago. We barely escaped with our lives, thanks to my baby AR!

This makes you wonder how well you'd fare with just a pistol against a truly aggressive snake species like the Bushmaster or Fer de Lance. Both of them commonly CHASE people (they both move faster than I can), and of course their bites are typically lethal in the absence of timely administation of the proper antivenin. A lot of people can survive a rattlesnake bite.

If it's hard to kill a heavily muscled snake with a pistol, it makes you think twice about wandering around in the rainforests of Central and South America without a 12ga! I sure as heck don't want to be close enough to use a machete!

[Kimberkid]

thanks for drudging that up Rhino, I was making such great progress with my therapy.

as an aside, my grandfather, who is not a gun oriented person at all, goes to florida every year for about 6 or 8 weeks to fish and visit friends. He does however keep a .357 and a machete in the boat for the snakes and a slug gun in the motorhome for the crocs that have been a problem in the past.

[ima45dv8]

2-1/2".357 loaded w/ CCI snake shot. Very effective out to about 10'. Hit a snake anywhere near the head with these and they look like they brushed their teeth with a chainsaw.

[tightloop]

I just love snake stories....

About 15 yrs ago, I knew a guy who had played for and old ABA team and retired from sports to take up quail hunting and training his dogs...at the time I had a deer lease in South Texas near Hebronville that was alive with quail and rattlers....this guy kept after me till I relented and invited him and his dogs on a quail hunt...

You guessed it....let the dogs out and not 30 minutes later one gets tagged in the face by a fair sized diamondback...she would not come to the whistle and died...

So there you have it..be careful no matter where you are..

[MstngLX50]

I was 14 and dove hunting in central Texas. I had been sitting in a draw right by a corp of engineers tank(or as I call it a pond) all morning and had only seen three dove and hit two. I finally decided to get up and walk around it was past the witching hour anyway. When I got up I immediately noticed something move about 5 feet behind where I was sitting. Realizing it was a snake I immediately dumped all 3 rounds from my shotgun into it. Looking at it I could see that the head was gone. While being incredibly proud of myself it started coming right at me. I reloaded off of my vest and fired 3 more rounds. The snake now in more pieces was still moving and I realized that the rest of my ammo was right next to snake parts and as such for all intents and purposes gone. I uncerimoniously dumped my newish remington 1100 in the dirt drew my Argentine High Power and unloaded that as well. When my father and his friends showed up in the Truck thirty minutes later they expected a 5 foot pile of dove based on the shooting. I had two and upon further examination(theirs not mine, I wouldn't go near it) there were no snake parts large enough to give even a rough idea of what type it had been. All that was able to be determined from my description was that it was in fact a snake and it slithered.

I hate snakes,

Alan

[tightloop]

Alan

You are a wus.....snakes just try to make a living...give them a break...

[zhunter]

OK, here goes...

Mid 90's, my cousin and I are bow hunting on a deer lease not far from Sonora, Texas. It is late afternoon, the first cold front of the year, supposed to hit low 40's that night. Anyway, about an hour before dark, my cousin comes over to my stand, not a big deal, we had been hunting for a week already, and says that he needs help trackng a deer. So I say cool, let's go. So we are tracking a very poor trail and ahve spilt up to try to leep-frog the trail and cut down on the traking time. All of a sudden I hear, "Go get your gun, and hurry!" So I hussle back to the truck, grab my 9mm and hurry ove rto my cousin. He has almost stepped on a 5 foot Diamondback. Now, I have been looking for just such a creature to make a belt out of the skin. I have seen many, some too short, some I didn't like the coloring, but this one was JUST right! So, not wanting to damage the skin, I shot this fine specimen right in the head, actually in one eye, and out the other ear!

Sweet!

So I grab a stick and pick it up, take it bak to the truck, put it in a bag. Get back to tracking, find the deer, load the deer, well, yo know how the story goes.

Anyway, alarm goes off at 4:00 am the next morning to go hunt, my cousin says, "Is that snake still inthe back of the truck?" Yep, it is. BTW, we are camping, tent style! So I get out of my sleeping bag, take the bag out of the truck. Now, we have LOTS of coyotes in these parts, so I am gonna set it up in a tree until I can get back and skin it at lunch. As I am trying to get it in a tree, the F'ing snake falls out of the bag and starts to rattlin'. ( Have I mentioned that I HATE snakes) So now the snake gets backed up to the tree, head up, and ready to strike. This snake is seriously PISSED!!!!!! So, I just walk over and get the machette out, and do what I should have done the night before. Beheaded it.

Moral of the story, Watch out for "dead" snakes too!!!

[zhunter]

BTW, the belt is AWESOME!