That's gonna leave a nice scar.

All women and some men are aghast at the thought of a scar on their face. But REAL men delight in the addition of a new battle scar on their face, it adds character and makes people wonder how you got it, a kind of rugged masculine thing.

Well I finally got to fire the Thompson Impact yesterday, it was a clear sunny day with low humidity (for this area). I measured off 25 yards in the back yard from the big pile that used to be an old house before it burned down and was dozed into a pile. I had a 100 yard target and there was a stack of cinder blocks that I'll soon use to level the other mobile home. I used the cinder blocks as a steady rest.

Having never fired a 50 caliber, I was very aware of holding it tight against my shoulder and maintaining proper eye relief. I sighted at the bulls eye, took a breath, held it and squeezed the trigger. To say that it was loud was an understatement, it was like a clap of thunder being released in less than a second. The dogs yelped and ran into their dog house, not to be seen for another hour. The smoke cleared and there was no hole in the target, but it fell.

I walked up to it and the bottom was blown out of the box. I set it back up and made a big move on the vertical adjustment, then sighted again and still didn't get on paper so I moved up to 20 yards. The third round hit very low, about 5" low and just a tad to the right. I made another big move and it eased up some more.

By the 5th round, I was getting very comfortable shooting it, almost totally relaxed you might say. I concentrated on holding steady on the bulls eye, squeezed it off, forgetting that it was a 50. The gun boomed and the scope got me just inside of my right eye, a nice arc of blood appeared on my palm when I put my hand there. I got a paper towel and held it there, again there was a perfect arc of blood.

By the 8th round, I was dead on target, now I need to go to the river bank and move the target out to 100 yards. But, it is gonna make a nice scar.

We did do fireworks last night and nobody was injured. Vicki managed to blow up a launch tube the first time she dropped an artillery shell down it, never seen that happen before.

Scars, men wear them as a badge of honor, let me see...

I have a through and through bullet wound on my right leg, a stab mark from a pencil on my back that my shoulder blade stopped, a three inch long one on my right triceps from barbed wire, one on my right cheek where I tripped at work while carrying a crow bar, a goat gored me in the right cheek, a vertical one above the left eye where I was drunk and walked into a door, two teeth marks on my right hand from feeding a really big grouper while scuba diving and now a semi circle along my right eye from the scope.

And yes, the goal is not to arrive in heaven in pristine shape but to come sliding in sideways, covered with nicks and scratches and say, "Did you see that? Man, what a ride!"

I got snipped after child number 2 and it left a .....uh, well, never mind.....

Back in the day I was temporarily assigned to our combat range to backfill for some guys who were off work due to injuries. They had a Thompson machine gun in the armory and one day actor Brian Keith came out and they broke out the Thompson for him to shoot. I shot the weapon after Keith left and was amazed at the lack of recoil. You could actually hold it up to your chin and fire a burst and the impact from the recoil was minor.

I never shot a 50 caliber but heard them shot from time to time and the noise always made me jump....

Getting popped in the eye from the sights of a 50 caliber is probably like over-gripping on a semi-auto and having the slide come back and take a chunk out of your thumb... You do that only once....LOL...

Black powder weapons have a way of making you pay attention. The loading process is very meticulous. I'm using preformed pellets now instead of loose powder as I couldn't find any. You drop two of the pellets down the barrel giving you 100 grains of powder. You then place a 250 grain sabot round in the end of the barrel and push it down with your rod. It is very tight in a Thompson so you use a little "Bore Butter" a lubricant. When it is firmly seated, you mark the depth of the ram rod, I used yellow electrical tape. This is called a "witness mark", so from then on, if the bullet does not seat where it should have, you know that you have a problem and not to fire the weapon. Perhaps you already loaded it and forgot? Or the bullet is not seated properly and needs to be extracted.

Then you break the barrel over and place a primer in it. It's now ready to fire. Black powder burns very nasty and fouls the barrel quickly, you are always swabbing and cleaning the barrel which looks cool and is very relaxing in a way.