Dad didn’t like shooting at anything for the table, and missing. Damn it, a couple of shots needed, and the sod of the thing was forewarned by the first round whistling past its head, and decided to take evasive action, meaning the second round was further from the target than the first. The big trouble with that is..it becomes gun shy, and if other like critters copy its habits, pretty soon there’ll be not very much for the table in the way of easy to get meat. A staple part of the diet that comes from living on a farm far enough away from people so that you really don’t have to worry where your bullets are going to end up..if you miss..which was often the case. Sigh. So, we sight up your rifle, so that the bullet actually goes where the sights say it is supposed to go. In the cross hairs, of a telescopic sight. We used to have what’s called open sights, no lenses or other targeting devices, mounted on top of aforesaid rifle, that provide an enlarged view of your wabbit or whatever. Open sights are a lot more robust, and a darn sight more accurate on occasion. A decent..or not so decent knock to the telescopic sights..of Dads rifle at least, put the darn thing out, and you ended up taking a sighting shot, noting where the round actually went, and adjusting where you aimed next time. Anyway, here’s Dad, in the blacksmiths shop, with aforesaid rifle firmly attached in a vice, with the bolt removed, so he could look through the barrel, and then tweak the cross hairs of the telescopic sight up to match. Then he’d take a sighting shot, to make sure that he got it right, and it was ready for the next affair, with spotlight and ute.
Dad has sighted up his rifle, and is now laying down outside, aiming for a 44 that we used as an incinerator, about oh 20 feet from the back gate. In those days, there was a 5 foot fence around our house, I presume to keep us unruly kids in line and where we could have an eye kept on us. So, here we all are, other side of the back gate, waiting for Dad to get his shot off. He was taking his time, though. There would have been some sort of a mark on the 44 for him to aim at.
Ok, so one of our cats gets curious. What’s this lot up to? It strolls down the path to the back gate, jumps up onto the fence, jumps down, and meanders towards..of all things, the 44 that Dad is aiming at.
At long last, a shot rings out. The bullet zings up to the 44..and goes straight through, heading out across the creek, and thence to..god knows where. A couple of yells happen..hey, we’re down here, don’t shoot..a few council workers were down there. Bullet would have gone over their heads by at least 20 feet..safe enough you would have thought. The unexpected nature would have put the willies up anyone though. That wasn’t the half of it, though. What had us rolling around the floor, was what the blessed cat did. I’ve never seen a cat move quite like that one did. It’s nose was just about to touch the 44, and something God-awful happened, a few inches in front of its nose. It did a quick about-face, tore back over to the fence, jumped over it..it must have cleared it by a few feet, landed the other side..and scarpered. It was a while before it got hungry enough to forget that last indignity…