Quote:
Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball
Ahh.... black powder.... at one time we had a two-pounder muzzle-loading cannon on a wheeled carriage... loaded it with extra powder, several pounds of .45 cal round balls, lit the fuse and ran like hell. The smoke cleared sometime later, the cannon was some distance away from where it started, trees at the pointy end were somewhat worse for wear and our box of beer was somewhat depleted. The silliness of youth... 
BTW, the FAL series of weapons is useless on full-auto. Yes, I know the match-stick trick. The AR-10 was much more fun, albeit expensive. Hated the H&K G-3 in comparison.
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Those were the days, weren't they! My love of firearms and things that go BOOM started at a very early age. We were always shooting squirrels and Robins with our pellet guns from before I can remember. At the age of twelve we made our own Black powder...if you've ever been to Vancouver you've probably seen the mountain of Sulphur on the North Shore. We'd go down to the docks and help ourselves. Saltpetre could be bought at the local Apothecary shop and we labouriously ground charcoal briquets to powder and Voila! Blackpowder is much more fun than Nintendo, kids today don't know what they're missing!
Two of my reenactor buddies down here also do Civil War...Confederate, of course...and they own two cannons. They are always inviting me along so I've got that on my to-do list. They hold cannon shoots a couple of times during the year. They build a wall out of logs, place a couple of Union uniformed mannequins on it and blast away! Apparently Campbell soup cans filled with concrete work just fine!
I never liked the G3 much either... the fluted chamber is a poor solution to a weak lock-up and it ruins the brass for reloading, which, of course I understand is not a priority in weapons developement.
I took advantage of every opportunity to fire any weapon at hand during my time in the C.F. Got to play with the A.U.G., Tantal, Galil, and the current Japanese assault rifle (the name presently eludes me), as well as the C6, C7, C9, and M2 QCB. When I fired the Japanese rifle (in 7.62 Nato) I was surprised at the lack of recoil...I thought it must have had a very efficient muzzle brake until Taicho explained to me that the Japanese fired 7.62 Lite. The average Japanese soldier couldn't handle the recoil of the full factory load! Don't ask me why they didn't go to the 5.56 cartridge.
I had a great Master-Corporal during my time in the Golan Heights...he was in charge of the Rapid Response Group and loved weapons as much as I did. We had mass quantities of ammunition for our C7's that was going to soon be TX'd and destroyed. He suggested to the CO that we form a Shooting Team and challenge the Poles, Austrians and Japanese to a competition. Of course, this meant time off our regular duties so we could go to the range and practice...a small sacrifice to make when national prestige was on the line!
the Polish Battalion took up the challenge and a course of fire was agreed to. Each team would shoot their country's weapon, then we would swap weapons and shoot with the other country's firearm. Total aggregate score would determine the winner. We were allowed to practice with the Tantal so it was off to the range. Three loaded mags each were handed out to familiarize ourselves with the weapon at the firing line and the command to fire was given. Brrraaattt!.....Brrraaattt!.....Brrraaattt! Hey Master-Corporal! I'm out of ammo! Uh, Corporal Heuring, you're supposed to fire single shots only. I was such a full-auto whore! Anyway, we Canadians won, much to the consternation of the Poles as we were a Logistics Battalion while they were elite Mountain troops! Sufficient beers were issued at the Jr. Ranks mess later to assuage any hurt feelings!