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Not to be a smart-alec, but something came to mind. Seeing as there have been a couple comments about the GW being outnumbered/outgunned/and with little or no chance of backup arriving in time, and knowing that most if not all the people he will come across in a HUNTING area will be armed in one way or another, wouldnt that be another reason to be courteous to people you come across? I am not a LEO, so please forgive my ignorance on this topic, but seems more likely to avoid trouble if you dont get more agressive than necessary. I understand that the officer wants/needs to remain in control, but if you and i--as the people being stopped--are cooperating, trying to be helpful, and being respectful, why the attitude/aggression? Is it something they are taught as part of their training, or just an overinflated ego? In his case at least, as much as he turned his back to me, and turned away to get on his radio and various other tasks, if i'd been a criminal intent on causing him harm, he wouldnt have had a chance. He just didnt seem aware of the situation and when he wasnt being aggressive, he was just kinda there. Seems someone in a line of work where everyone you come across is going to be armed would be paying more attention, and would need to be more level headed than openly threatening another armed individual. Anyone with LE experience have an opinion on weather maybe this was training kicking in or maybe just a swollen head? Thanks.

didn't you mean... "hey, Bobby, you hold my beer. Now the rest of y'all, watch this!" ???

buckshot strings almost straight up and down in mine with sometimes 2 feet between the top and bottom ball, and since there's only 3 of em, ell, not good enough for what i want. I havent seen .410 slugs in a long time, and always keep forgetting to ask about them so cant report on what they would do. The .45Colt loads, are fairly easy to keep ona pieplate out to 15 yds or so, but it isnt as fast as i'd like mostly cause of me, and partly cause of the sights. I have carried this and will do so anytime i need a small belly gun. Especially if i am going somewhere where it is more the attention the specific weapon will provide than the firepower itself. And if that is needed, i load it with blackpowder and a 255 grain flatpoint. Word of warning though. I would hope AmericanDerringer has addressed this, but on my Cobray, there is no provision for ejecting the fired case. I take along a brass rod with me if i take that thing to the range to ram down the muzzle and eject cases. And most of them try to stick a little, no matter how light i load them. I did get curious a while back, and try something. This little handgun will chamber a .45-70 round. But i have to confess i didnt have the stupidity level required to actually drop the hammer. It's something that i've been thinking about, but am not about to actually try.

Sorry, i should have clarified. The derringer is a handgun, even though it will fire shotgun shells. I cant say i agree with or understand with the logic, but from what i have read, to be a handgun, it has to be rifled. If it was smoothbore, it would be considered a shortbarreled shotgun. I'm not sure what good that little rifling will do, esp with birdshot, but if that is the law, i'm not gonna argue the point in court. As far as a "shortbarreled shotgun" itself goes, that would be like that miniature m-203 we made in 12 gauge while overseas. Or that double barreled one that was mantioned as being sawed off very short, also while over seas. Those would be the legally frowned upon ones as they would both be smoothbore and quite a bit shorter than the legal limits allowed. These would both be examples of the ones you would need permits and such to buy or make. The handguns like the Derringer are not controlled any more than any other handgun. Having said that, mine is about useless with birdshot so it stays loaded with .45 Colt loads. I can usually hit a silhouette with it at 25yds if i take my time doing it. Bordshot wise, it shoots a pattern as wide as a mans chest at about 5 yds or so, and with the small size of shot and the wide patern, i wouldnt expect it to do anything other than making them real angry at me.

As far as the derringer goes, it is classified as a handgun. It has to be rifled, and i believe there is a caliber restriction. If you ever take a look at one, look down the bore and you will see rifling. I have a little side by side .410 made by Cobray. The thing barely has any rifling, and i think it is all of about half an inch long, but it fulfills a legal requirement. As far as the toy we made and the one your friend has, it is a "short bareled shotgun" and can be bought or made, as long as you're willing to file the proper papers and wait for the ok from the ATF. We never bothered asking anyones permission cause we didnt have to follow those laws over there. If i was gonna do it over here, i definitely would as i dont wanna be guest of honor at Club Fed. Last time i looked into it, it was a $200 manufacturing ;icense/permit if you wanted to make one yourself, or a $5 transfer tax if you buy it ready made. Been thinking about buying one, but havent made the leap yet and more than likely wont til after i get done with school. Figure that gives me plenty of time to decide if it's really even worth bothering with.

We used the thing we made as a close range deterrent. It was short, and the pattern sucked for normal use, but for clearing buildings where most of the shots were across a room or down the hall, it was a god-send. Whoever's turn it was to go in first had that thing if they wanted it. Then we appropriated several shotguns and that thing became a backup for opening doors and for when the rifle ran dry and we needed one more shot, or just wanted to make people duck and stay behind cover the extra second or two it takes to slap another mag into the rifle. Anyways, i'll get myself into trouble if i go into details so i better shut up now. Anyways. I'd like to have another one, but it was a limited use weapon and i hope it's serving the Marines left over over there as well as it did for us. Best of luck to your friend and anyone with him, as well as all our people over there. We had a lot of fun, as strange as it sounds, but several of us shouldnt have made it with the way we did things. Then again, we didnt follow the rules one bit because it upped our chances to come home. Worked well, but we were asking for forgiveness A LOT, which is still easier to get afterwards than permission ahead of time.

rodnocker1 wrote:Lonegun, I like the Idea of the golfball cannon. My In-Laws live in Houston and my F-I-L is a golf nut. With the cannon, I could go with him for some "Quality/Bonding" time. Yea, that would liven the game up!

well, if i ever hear a loud shot go off when driving past a golf place, i'll assume it's you and wave instead of returning fire. Do me a favor though. Dont hit a lifted tan chevy silverado with that ball. It's probably me driving it. On second thought, if it's a really ugly guy or a good looking small blonde driving, let it pass. If the driver fits any other description and it happens to be MY truck, shoot it as it is being stolen. And i dont care what you shoot it with in that case either, the bigger the better. Might as well get a laugh out of the incident, right?

DWS,
Any chance of some pics or some idea of how he made that launcher? I have a feeling my AR could use one. Then again, a few friends of mine and i made a m-203 scaled down to fire 12ga shells. We got a few days access to a machine shop on a boat and got busy. We were gonna bring it back til we realized it was severely frowned upon back over here. So it was passed on to another Marine over there and as far as i know is still in use. Who doesnt need a 12" barreled 12 gauge attached to an AR/M-16? Now if it had been longer, well, we might have had to make a few more, but we couldnt get much longer than that without the shotgun muzzle sticking out past the rifle muzzle. So if there's any way to get an idea of what and how it was done, i'd appreciate it. I'm just trying to stay out of jail while i'm at it too. You know, how that goes.

If you saw my place, you'd realize just how correct you are. And by the way, you say that as if it was a bad thing....

Mec,
I wish i could disagree. I like fishing as much as the next guy, but for some reason it just isnt nearly as satisfying as hunting. And i'm not about to take up golf as a replacement. well, I'd try it if it involved a golfball cannon, but it still wouldnt replace hunting.

glock75 wrote:Ditto on Couzin's remarks. But I have also seen this same attitude and similiar grilling on numerous occasions from other game wardens. Usually the younger ones. I suspect its their way of trying to get you to confess that you really were up to something and that there is hidden game that you left somewhere in the woods that you will come back to later. It actually happens often particulary in east Texas. And as Forrest Gump said....that's all I have to say bout that...

Ok, here goes. I have "poached" if that is what you choose to call it on several occasions. None of them was inside the US. And it was a matter of running out of MREs before the mission was completed so we supplemented our food supply as needed with plants, animals, and fish. Having said that, I do obey game laws, and wont poach unless i absolutely need to to feed myself or others--at which point in time, i dont see it as poaching but rather as survival. Playing devils advocate here for a second about the GW trying to get a confession. Personally, if i WAS poaching, and had a choice between a rifle and a bow, and knowing i am in a patrolled area, it just seems to make sense to use the quiet weapon--the bow. And considering that at that time and place, i wasnt restricted to bucks, and could take just about any deer i could get in range of, what did i really have to hide if i had shot one? I still have all my tags cause i didnt get one all season, so it isnt that i was out of tags. The worst thing i had done that he could have accused me of was that i didnt get within range of a deer. I think i will email TPWD and get some answers on the regs as was recommended above.

Well, i'm not sure if i should be admitting this, but a very good friends dad has been telling both of us since highschool that both of us have a lot more balls than brains. If he's right, it would explain a lot of the things we have done over the years. He also said i have gotten more mature and calculationg, and at the same time worse about it during my time in the military. Great, so now i'm an idiot that plans ahead. Maybe i should ask if that's what he meant...

You may be dead right about getting that recorder, and last i heard, you can do so as long as at least party knows about it. I know a lot of LE does so, so why cant i? Honestly, i'm not that worried about my behavior, as i try to behave as a habit, but it cant hurt to have that reminder either way. Would have been really nice to have some of his comments on tape though. And that dead buck you mentioned would at least partly account for his attitude. If that is the case though, i guess he thought he was dealing with a poacher. Just love being convicted without even finding out what i was convicted of til months later. I guess it's just a case of d****d if you do, d****d if you dont. Also, hate to tell you this, but when you had that trouble in 78, well, i'm glad itworked out well, but i wasnt even born til 79. Yeah, i'm just a pup compared to some here, nut hopefully yall wont hold that against me too much.

TXInvestigator,
I think you and i are seeing this almost exactly the same, if not the same. Difference is you know the law much better than i do.

KB,
I doubt i'd have gotten the same restraint, especially with some of the comments he made, but no blood, no foul.

Couzin,
I totally agree with you that all LEOs have a dangerous job, and that they do need to be able to remain in control. At least in this case though, I think he was overly forceful. As far as being able to hide the rifle, yes, easily could have, except that the terrain/brush made it impossible to even see the road until you were about 10 feet away so we wouldnt have known he was there. The magazine was empty, and i'm sure he'd have heard gunfire if there had been some. Also, now, any LEOs please step in here as i am not one so am working under an assumption here. As an LEO, when making a stop, I'm assuming most depts have some sort of guidelines as to how to initiate contact with the person being stopped. I opened with "how are you doing, Sir?" and he responded with a threat. I stayed respectful the whole time, or at least thought i did, got harder as things went along. I'm just happy things didnt turn violent cause he had me on edge enough to just react with all the threats he threw around. I totally agree with playing by his rules so he remains in control of a stop, but if you or i are stopped, and we are being respectful and cooperating with him, he's going to get much more cooperation by treating us with at least some respect than he would by acting like the playground bully with a badge and a gun that just hasnt grown up yet. Any LEOs, or anyone else for that matter, have any advice on how to defuse someone like that? I mean, cooperating and being respectful is a given, but any other advice would be very useful for next time--which hopefully isnt gonna happen. Thanks for all the great responses and advice so far.