Beyond the Back Yard
by Mark Thompson
My interest in long range shooting started a long time ago when I was five years old. Yup! Five years old.
It was a dart gun with suction cup darts. With just the right amount of saliva, I could hit Roadrunner on our black & white TV screen from seven paces back.
As I stretched the distance to the full length of the living room, the arc of the dart was too much at the point of impact to stick to the TV screen. That is when I modified the dart gun and put a double spring inside. I guess this is the same time that I became a self taught gun smith.
The next step in my quest to reach a longer distance, was to have a Red Rider BB Gun. I drove my parents crazy until they caved in and purchased one just to shut me up. I was king of the backyard. Everything that moved or that previously contained a beverage had holes in it.
The biggest challenge were the butterflies that would fly from dandelion to dandelion. It took tremendous skill and accuracy with a gun that averaged a 10″ group at forty feet.
I was so proud of that BB gun that I even took it to school for Show-N-Tell. (I Don’t think I would try that now!) My teacher allowed me to demonstrate my abilities to the whole class by plucking a pine cone from the pine tree outside the school. I remember that it took a few shots and I think that I was the only one that was impressed. Nobody else cared.
After school I would watch Lassie and on one episode Lassie saved Timmy from a mean stray dog while he was riding his bike. I was convinced that I had to have the BB gun with me all the time. My mother tried to help by tying it to the bike with butcher string. With tears in my eyes I told her I had to be quick. I didn’t have time to stop and untie all of her knots. That was the day she invented , the first ever, butcher string shoulder sling.
It wasn’t long until the effective distance of the Red Rider wasn’t enough. Pigeons would just roost in the top of the barn and let the BBs bounce off of their feathers.