Vicksburg Dave
04-08-2008, 01:27 AM
Greetings Pards,
In the spirit of our ongoing series of threads on improving artillery portrayals, why don't we discuss some of the real life problems we have encountered.
Here's one that stumped me last summer.
Last summer we were preparing to fire for a crowd of visitors when my number 4 whiplashed the primer out of the vent. Of course I was annoyed, and flashed him a dirty look as we started over from Ready. With the command of Fire, he did it again. This time I became concerned, for that never happens with my crew. He had done everything properly. He hooked the friction primer from the bottom so as not to whip the hook out of the loop, and there was no excess arm movement as he pulled the lanyard, but yet it happened again. By this time the poor #4 was so embarrassed he could hardly function. His father was watching and the rest of the crew was growing restless. We finally got the friction primer to stay in the gun, but I could not figure out what went wrong since all of our early firings had went well.
I knew our vent was in need of replacement, but did not know that some of the symptoms a worn vent would exhibit could be variable. As it turns out, the width of the vent, the height of the #4 man, and the frequency of whiplashed primers are all proportional. I had used shorter fellows for #4 for most of the summer and never had a problem, but on that day, I put one of my tallest crew members in on #4. His height, combined with the wear on the vent increased the angle of the pull on the primer to its tipping point. Go figure?
Got any comparable stories that may save some of us from embarrassing headscratching moments? Share them!
FYI, we use Boom Boom Sieglein's primers, which have provided us with superior results.
In the spirit of our ongoing series of threads on improving artillery portrayals, why don't we discuss some of the real life problems we have encountered.
Here's one that stumped me last summer.
Last summer we were preparing to fire for a crowd of visitors when my number 4 whiplashed the primer out of the vent. Of course I was annoyed, and flashed him a dirty look as we started over from Ready. With the command of Fire, he did it again. This time I became concerned, for that never happens with my crew. He had done everything properly. He hooked the friction primer from the bottom so as not to whip the hook out of the loop, and there was no excess arm movement as he pulled the lanyard, but yet it happened again. By this time the poor #4 was so embarrassed he could hardly function. His father was watching and the rest of the crew was growing restless. We finally got the friction primer to stay in the gun, but I could not figure out what went wrong since all of our early firings had went well.
I knew our vent was in need of replacement, but did not know that some of the symptoms a worn vent would exhibit could be variable. As it turns out, the width of the vent, the height of the #4 man, and the frequency of whiplashed primers are all proportional. I had used shorter fellows for #4 for most of the summer and never had a problem, but on that day, I put one of my tallest crew members in on #4. His height, combined with the wear on the vent increased the angle of the pull on the primer to its tipping point. Go figure?
Got any comparable stories that may save some of us from embarrassing headscratching moments? Share them!
FYI, we use Boom Boom Sieglein's primers, which have provided us with superior results.