From: CobaltThoriumWhoopse@aol.com
Subject: A Patriot’s Guide to the Fluffy Shoot
Newsgroups: rec.fluffies.abuse,rec.guns,rec.fluffies.management,alt.religion.deathtofluffies,
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1998 19:26:34 GMT
Ah, the fluffy shoot, a great way to pass an afternoon. Not only are you practicing valuable marksmanship skills to help keep our country free but you are also helping rid the world of an invasive abomination. Every spring my family, friends and I pack up our small bore rifles and drive to a field where we challenge each other on who can eliminate the most shitrats with the fewest rounds, followed by the traditional fuffly barbecue.
You may think that going fluffy shooting is as simple as picking up a bucket full of fluffies, tossing them down range and going wild with a Glock, but to have a good, safe and productive fluffy shoot some care and consideration is needed. Here’s some tricks and tips for getting the most out of your fluffy shoot.
- SAFTEY FIRST!
Always wear ear and eye protection, even when shooting silenced guns or a pellet gun, the screams of an injured fluffy can cause permanent damage and getting fluffy bone fragments out of your eye is a painful and expensive doctors visit. And never forget the rules of gun safety
- All guns are always loaded
- Never point your gun at something you are unwilling to destroy.
- Always be sure of your target and what is behind it
- Keep your finger off the trigger until you are aiming at your target
I teach all of my family these 4 rules and we haven’t had a serious injury outside of garand thumb in 20 years.
- Firearm selection
As fluffies are well known for being so fragile as to be broken by all more or less any gun or even a slingshot can be used. Even the lowly Red Ryder can, with careful shot placement, blow through the thin skin and soft skull of the average fluffy. Conversely, higher powered pistols and almost all non rimfire rifles can kill a fluffy with anything short of a limb shot due to hydrostatic shock.
Small bore rifles:
I personally prefer pellet guns and 22’s, mostly because they are cheap to shoot and the blast is less likely to scare the targets. With subsonic ammo and a high end silencer you can render 22’s almost as quiet as a pellet gun. It also makes the shoot more of a challenge and success more of a reward. The greater effect of wind and gravity on the lighter bullets and pellets means you have to be better at reading the wind and range, even when you are 25 yards to your target. The fact that it would take a head, heart or lung shot to ensure a timely death means you have to be careful about shot placement. Fluffy’s quick clotting and collapsing veins means that a gut shot with a weaker round will lead to a slow death by sepsis rather than a quicker death due to bleeding out as you find in most animals. They are also ideal way to get kids into the sport. I still remember the day my daughter shot her first fluffy. It was with the red ryder pink stock model she received for her 8th birthday, the shot going directly into the skull of an equally pink colt. We made the skin into a stock cover and lever wrap, and I recently had the pleasure of seeing her pass that same rifle with that same skin on to my granddaughter.
Pistols:
A great challenge thanks to the shorter site radius and lack of stock, plinking fluffies is an excellent way to improve your pistol marksmanship. Usually this is my exception to the “22’s and pellet gun” rule I use for fluffy shooting because unless you are Jerry Miculek you don’t go for a headshot with a pistol at any real range.
Shotguns:
We always bring my old Stevens 640 to the range. Not for general shooting, as I feel that the slow speed of the fluffies combined with the spread of most shotguns makes shooting fluffies with a twelve gauge like shooting fish in a barrel. No, we bring it for fluffy skeet and for the final cleanup. A quick sweep with some number 5 birdshot will all but guarantee any lingering fluffies will be put down. No disconnecter on the Stevens means all you have to do is hold the trigger and work the slide and you can fill the field with lead.
Full powered rifle:
I love my browning 30-06, some people love their ar-15. These are great options if shooting from a longer distance. Using varmint rounds you also get the satisfaction in seeing the shitrats turn to vapor in front of your eyes. It is not recommended you use any full power rifle at closer than 15 feet due to the risk of splashback.
- Picking the range
We are lucky enough that we have some family property in the country we wer able to convert to our bespoke fluffy range. If you are a city dweller there are still options. Some gun clubs lease land for their members to use for fluffy shoots. Usually there’s an annual fee to join and a requirement that you help out two or three times a year but it’s worth the price for the range access and a great way to meet great people. If there are farmers in your area ask if they have any fallow fields or wooded wind breaks you can shoot on. If you tell them it’s for fluffies many farmers, especially ones who survived the megaherds, are happy to help and can even offer up trapped ferals.
Since wilfully releasing a fluffy is a misdemeanor punished by up to two years in prison or a fine of $5,000 it is highly recommended that you find or make an enclosed area. Don’t rely on bushes or fences, when threatened fluffies can prove to be remarkably good at scaling even steep inclines or wiggling through thorny branches. My fluffy shoot field is surrounded by an electric fence about two inches off the ground followed by chain link. The electric fence keeps them from digging down under the chains and the chain link keeps them from walking over their electrocuted siblings. With this we can safely host dozens of fluffies at a time without worrying about any getting out. It wasn’t that expensive, we did most of the labor ourselves, but for more casual shoots it might be a bit excessive. Simple chicken wire can be used, but be careful, persistent fluffies can dig under it or pull it down. If you can get it surplus, military razor wire can work, just be careful not to let the fluffies create a bridge over it with their corpses. If you use less secure fencing I suggest releasing less than a dozen fluffies so you won’t loose any in case of a breach.
If you are on a budget tethering the fluffy with a harness is an option, albeit one that limits the fluffy’s mobility and some of the challenge. Be careful not to shoot the tether and bring extra harnesses.
Make sure you are shooting in a safe direction. Some people like to have their fluffy shooting range bordered by a lake. Even if a fluffy can break through the “wawa bad for fwuffy!” conditioning they will inevitably drown if they run into the lake. I cannot recommend this; missed shots could potentially hit the water and ricochet, harming a person well down range in a strange direction. Shooting next to a fast moving river with a high cliff on the far side is a safer option, with the added bonus that if a fluffy does jump into the water you have the challenge of shooting it as it’s bobbing up and down before it’s swept away.
- Where to get your fluffies.
The two best ways to get fluffies are capturing ferals or buying bulk feeders. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and I’ll detail my experience below.
Ferals:
Capturing ferals is not only the cheapest way to get fluffy ponies for a shoot but also an expression of a citizen’s civic duty. Each shitrat you find and kill is not just one shitrat taken off the streets but potentially dozens of foals stopped before they are born. A sketty scent trap can be built out of some hinges, magnets and wood and if properly insulated can hold a half dozen fluffies easily.
The disadvantage of ferals are threefold. They tend to be more skittish, when released in your target range it takes a lot longer for them to settle down and become more stationary targets. They also tend to be much filthier and less healthy than store bought fluffies and are almost useless if you want a fluffy barbecue afterwards. Finally Murphy’s law states that if you are going shooting next weekend, either you’ll capture zero fluffies the week you have the shoot no matter how many were begging you to be a new daddah the week before that.
Store bought fluffies have several advantages. You can pick up however many you want in multiple colors. They tend to be healthier and better fed. Food grade fluffies fed on grass or high grade kibble are wonderful if you plan on barbecuing the remains, even emptying out the snake feed bin of poopies and smarties will give more active targets than most malnourished ferals. They are also friendlier and more docile, making handling them before you start shooting easier.
Clearing out almost empty Foal In A Can machine seems like an easy way to get small fluffies cheap if you wait until the machine is about to be serviced. Some machines will sell week old cans for a quarter a pop. I tried this once and only once. By the time the foals are fully discounted they are so full of shit that even a pellet to the gut will cause a massive rupture, stinking up the field and ruining the meat. Unless you’re shooting at an organic farm that uses fluffy manure the cleanup is not worth the savings.
I have a combined approach. There are several live traps with in built feeders around our property that generally supply a few fluffies every time we go up. I also have a good relationship with some fluffy mills in the area for wholesale purchase of feeder grade. A lot of times the owners of fluffy mills is more than happy to work with you for the occasional bulk order. Few breeders sell 100% of their stock so any you purchase are ones that are likely to be reground into food supplements.
I put together a special trailer to haul the fluffy’s out to my family’s range. It’s based off of a standard toy hauler with some extra insulation to make it near soundproof and a battery powered flatscreen playing FluffTV DVD’s to keep the fluffy’s distracted. If the fluffies start hearing the gunshots or the screaming of injured fluffies it stresses them out, making it harder for them to handle. Even if you don’t go for a custom job like mine it is still worth renting a farm trailer or have a dedicated bin as the most docile fluffies still can produce prodigious volumes of shit. Once used as a fluff hauler, it should only be used as a fluff hauler.
- Getting started
I usually start with 5 or 6 fluffies as a warm-up. I drop them off in the field as soon as I get to the site so they have time to get used to being outdoors and in the grass. This gives me time to unpack the guns, make sure everyone is wearing eye and ear protection and set up shooting stations. After ten or fifteen minutes most fluffies will start playing around and frolicking. Smarties will start taking charge, mommas start milking their babies and so on. The first shot is the easiest one to take, but in some ways the most satisfying. The fluffies are calm, some walking, some sitting, some enf-ing. I like to start with a foal, shooting it in the rear hips. This leaves the lungs free so the baby can start screaming it’s doomed head off while simultaneously crippling it is less likely to accidentally run in front of a shot.
Some fluffies freeze, some fluffies try and save the foal with huggies, most foals run. As the fluffy scatters, pick your mark and take your shot. With 22’s and most of the nicer pellet guns any shot to the head or around the shoulder blade will kill the fluffy relatively quickly while gut shots will either make them try and run faster or fall over, screaming or huuing. Fluffies are trickier targets than you might think. The fluff and mane doesn’t stop the bullet but can make hitting the meaty parts trickier and even though they move slow shooting at a bobbing waddling target is a step above shooting at a piece of paper or a can. Even at full gallop at most ranges you don’t need to lead them, as they are slow enough you’ll never be off by more than a fraction of an inch unless you’re going for extreme range shooting with a slow bullet or firing a low powered pellet gun.
In my experience the first herd goes quickly, everyone wants to get their shots in. I gather up the dead fluffies, do a quick clean and skin and toss them in the smoker. Nothing like smoked fluffy brisket after a good long day of shooting. The second herd tends to last a bit longer, with people lining up their shots more carefully and going for one shot-one kill versus letting loose. After the third or fourth herd of fluffies cycle through we start making the day interesting.
- Maximizing your fun
So you have your guns, you have your range, you have your fluffies, how can you make it more interesting? There’s a nearly unlimited number of games you can play with a rifle and a herd of fluffies. Here are a few of my favorites.
Fluffy skeet is a great way to practice wing shooting. Off the shelf clay launchers don’t fair well - the whiplash kills the fluffy before it’s airborne. Home built slingshot style launchers using bungee cords and a bucket are a cheep way to get started, as are off the shelf water balloon launchers. We have a small catapult at our range capable of flinging five full grown fluffies at once for the extra challenge. Since fluffies don’t crack apart like clay pigeons the standard way to score is to make the fluffy stop screaming (or laughing, for some pegasi) before it splats on the ground. Either the shot killed the fluffy or put it in enough pain that shock kept it from screaming. If you’re careful with the propellant, you can launch foals successfully using a potato cannon for a high velocity challenge.
Color calling. Works best with a decent sized herd. Have a friend who is working as a judge shout out a color, then everyone tries to hit that color and only that color. 5 points for a dead fluffy of the target color, 3 for a nonfatal hit, -1 for a miss and -5 for hitting a safe colored fluffy. If there are enough fluffies they eventually figure out which colors are doomed and which are safe, and that’s where the real fun begins. Safe colored fluffies start running away from the “Expwodie fluffies”, sometimes the herd will capture and offer up the target fluffies in hopes of survival. Special friends will try and get in the line of fire to protect their loved ones, which sets you up for the challenging “hostage shot”. This is one of the most fun games but can take awhile to complete. It’s hard to keep a steady aim while laughing your ass off.
Mumma-no-more. I would argue the single biggest challenge to the seasoned fluffy shooter. Best done with a well-silenced 22 rifle or a gas piston pellet gun. Put a fluffy mare with her babies on her back in the field. Attempt to shoot off each of the foals without alerting their mother. This one is tricky. Even a lower end airgun can kill a foal most of the time but doing so without either hitting the mother or alerting the other foals takes skill and patience.
You can have multiple mares in the field for a shoot off. First to kill all the babies or (much more likely) most kills before the mares realized they are holding a bunch of corpses rather than their beloved children wins. The trick is to take off just the top of the skull or sever the spine just above the shoulder blades. I found that round selection has a major impact on the effectiveness. You want enough hydraulic shock to mush the brain but not enough that the impact is noticed by the mother. From my testing, CCI quiet-22 works Ok, aguila SSS works best.
You also need to shoot quickly. I found that it only takes a few minutes for a mare to realize that her foals aren’t moving and the warm fluid trickling from them isn’t urine or faeces. You can coach the fluffies before hand, say “hey, it looks like there’s going to be sky-wawa” and “wow, you’re babies are super sleepy, only a good mummah can have babies that are that sleepy” but that won’t buy you much time. I can count the number of perfect full half-dozen dead foal mumma-no-more games I’ve played without having to take my shoes off or unzipping my pants.
Our rules is once the mare is alerted to still try and shoot the babies before killing her. Usually this mean shooting on the run, or hostage shots as the mare tries to shield the foal from the mysterious “hurties” you are inflicting on them. Ties are broken by the first to drive the mare into a wan-die loop.
- Cleanup
The hard part. It’s never a good idea to just leave the fluffies to rot - the vermin they can attract are almost as bad as a fluffy invasion. I always insist we clean up the carcasses and at least hose down the shit and blood before we eat. After pigging out on fresh killed and smoked fluffy and fluffy burgers everyone is barely able to drive, much less clear the field. If (like me) you’re too far from the city to have a bio disposal bin, the easiest thing to do is either set up a large compost bin or have a burn pit. I opt for the burn pit, throw the corpses in, pour on some kerosene and toss in a match. Nothing like the smell of pine forest and burning fluffies to make you feel proud to be an American.
Once your done it’s time for the barbecue. There are dozens of recipes on line for everything from roast fluffy, fluffy tartare and fluffy jerky. My personal favorite is slow smoked fluffy brisket. The first fluffy targets are seasoned, marinated and tossed in the smoker and are generally done by the time clean up is finished. I’m not a boastful man but after my recipe generated 5 blue ribbons at county fair cookoffs and a “best of Arts Beats and Eats” prize lets me know I’m doing something right.
Can you have my recipe? Sure. Marry into the family or outshoot me at the next fluff shoot. Lets just say there are not many people I don’t call “son” or “daughter” who are in the know.