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Guns’n’Rockets

Sometimes it takes awhile to get around to a story. I was in Huntsville, Alabama in November 2008 and talked my friend and fellow NSS board member Greg Allison into playing hookey from the meetings for part of an afternoon so I could take some of my own photos of the remains of the DCX rocket. When he told me about his classic Kentucky long rifle, I realized this was a photo op extraordinaire for…. REDNECKS in Spaaaace!!

Greg Allison, Kentucky Longrifle and DCX
Three things you do not do in the South. You don’t mess with a southerners dawg, his pickup truck or his spaceship.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Don’t even think it. He’ll shoot off your left at further than you can even see a squirrel.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

13 comments to Guns’n’Rockets

  • Nuke Gray

    Now there is a great title for a series! I’m just not sure you could solve every problem by shooting it, though! Still, a redneck family, lost in space in an alien spacecraft that crashed on their land- yes, it has possibilities!

  • Richard Thomas

    Yep. You’re not a gen-yew-ine redneck unless you have a disabled vehicle in your yard surrounded by long grass. Of course, usually it’s a rusty pickup.

  • RAB

    Is that what is called a squirrel gun Dale?

  • Dale Amon

    Interesting question. In more modern terms I’d use a .22 rifle myself. Some use 30.06 shotguns but then you’ve got to clean out all the lead shot. I can remember my mom doing that for some of the neighbor men. But the Kentucky Long Rifle was the primo hunting rifle of its time and almost certainly would have been used for squirrel as well as other things.

  • RAB

    Thanks dale. All I can say is that I want a bloody go on one, Now!

    But given UK gun laws, some hope. You will be stuffed to go shopping for and air pistol soon.

  • Larry

    30-06 shotgun? You don’t know what you’re talking about.

  • Dale Amon

    Mea culpa. My only excuse was that I have had almost no sleep and been working around the clock (not to mention just doing an international flight) so the mind is not working so good. I should have typed ‘some use the 30.06 or shotguns’. The missing ‘or’ makes all the difference.

    in my neck of the woods some people did use shotgun on rabbit and squirrel as well as pheasant and turkey. I know cause I watched mom cleaning them when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

  • Larry

    No te preocupes. My response came out a little harsher than I meant it to be. You were right, though, about shotgun pellets. I’ve bit into plenty of them at the dinner table. Not pleasant.

  • Nuke Gray

    Dale, do they breed grasshoppers big in your birthplace? Maybe those were Bugs from Starship Troopers! Rednecks have saved the world, already!

  • Rich Rostrom

    “He’ll shoot off your left at further than you can even see a squirrel.”

    Your left what?

  • Sunfish

    .30-06 for squirrel? You guys back east must have some hellacious tree rats. Mon Dieu, when I think .30-06 I think of elk!

    I know a few blackpowder enthusiasts who love using a .32 Kentucky long rifle for small game. I’ve been meaning to try it, just for the sake of doing something a little different for once. Nothing wrong with the .22 in every true American childhood, but sometimes the old ways are worth playing with.

    And the photos are nothing more than a manifestation of a statement by the Fount of All Cinematic Wisdom: you don’t mess with a man’s vehicle.

  • Paul Marks

    Alabama – a State I would like to visit.