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- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!darwin.sura.net!dtix!mimsy!amc.com
- From: reb@amc.com (Bob Brunjes)
- Newsgroups: rec.guns
- Subject: Re: distance a .22 lr travels
- Message-ID: <1992Nov18.211813.8073@amc.com>
- Date: 19 Nov 92 15:14:45 GMT
- Sender: magnum@mimsy.umd.edu
- Organization: Applied Microsystems, Redmond, WA
- Lines: 61
- Approved: gun-control@cs.umd.edu
-
- In article <1992Nov17.122407.5488@nntp.hut.fi> mjalava@lk-hp-17.hut.fi (Mika Matti Jalava) writes:
- #In article <1992Nov16.220548.10244@CERIS.Purdue.EDU> jheath@fieldofdreams.npirs.purdue.edu (Jim Heath) writes:
- #
- ##Well, I don't believe I've ever heard of or seen anyone try to
- ##wingshoot birds with a rifle. The shotgun won't carry far (200
- ##yds? for birdshot).
- #
- #In Finland many hunters shoot game birds sitting in trees. As .22
- ---------------------deleted-----------------
-
- #
- With all the talk about ground-sluicing birds, I'm
- surprised no-one has brought up wingshootin deer.
- In Western Washington state, the most common game is the
- western flying blacktail, indigenous to the forests of the
- Western slopes of the Cascade Mountains.
-
- The flying blacktail is not a true flying deer, but is
- instead a soarer, gliding from tree to tree, or from tree
- to ground, with some bouyant action from the animal's
- flight bladder.
-
- The actual aerodynamic surfaces are not true wings, but are
- large flaps of skin stretched between front and hind legs,
- in the fashion of the flying squirrel. The flight bladder,
- which gives the deer buoyancy, is a modified rumen, or
- stomach, located under the animal`s belly and chest. This
- bladder is inflated with gaseous digestion products, mostly
- hydrogen, methane, and hydrogen sulfide, in a
- lighter-than-air mixture.
-
- In flight, with legs extended and flight bladder inflated,
- the animal looks like a cross between a hairy kite and the
- Goodyear elk. When threatened, the deer can decrease
- bouyancy, increase speed, and drop to cover by the simple
- expedient of expelling stored gas from the flight bladder
- with sufficient velocity that Newtonian reaction
- accelerates the animal. Although the characteristic
- ripping sound of this expulsion would at first seem to
- allow predators or hunters to locate this ballistic
- venison, eye-watering due to exhaust gases makes the deer
- hard to find.
-
- Because of the soaring flight, most deer hunting involves
- pass shooting with, of course, buckshot. When such a shot
- is made, there is little concern (acknowledging this
- thread) with the remaining trajectory of the shot.
- Instead, the remaining trajectory of the deer becomes the
- major safety issue, for the punctured animal follows the
- rapid and erratic path of an inflated, released balloon.
-
- Although occasional hunter deaths are recorded from falling
- venison (known locally as Fthbbbbbbbbbbbwhap(sp?)), the
- near miss is common, and a source of jocularity, with rude
- noises and the hand-waving gestures seen in the movie
- "Blazing Saddles."
-
-
- Bob Brunjes Applied Microsystems Corp
- Redmond, WA
- reb@amc.com
-