Show l' l SPORTS FLASHBACKS x I I Gun enthusiast discusses trick shooting performers r An article that deals with a bang-bang bang subject follows as it was printed in the Vernal Express on May 11 1949 TRICK THICK SHOOTING EXPOSED Trick Shooter are words stranger and smile when you say them to modern modem exl exhibition shooters who perform perform perform per per- form their feats of ot marksmanship legitimately That's the advice of Ernie Lind one of Americas America's top exl exhibition shooters who unmasks unmasks unmasks un un- masks some of the trickery wl which ch e earned time old carnival and vaudeville shooters their name of trick shooters Trick shooters is a name that make genuine marksmen like Ernie and his wife Dot as well as asHerb asHerb asHerb Herb Parsons another crack shot boiling mad The Linds and Parsons tour the country annually shooting at the gun clubs where they perform dozens of real feats of marksmanship under the sp sponsorship p of local clubs and Western TilE THE BALLOON STUNT The time old-time fake shooters used to amaze audiences by breaking tiny targets with blanks or with real bullets even though the bullets missed the targets This sounds incredible and it is because the stunts were done by trickery according to Ernie Lind who has explained how some of these seemingly impossible tricks are per per- formed The balloon stunt is typical Shooting from the rear of ot a vaudeville theatre the trick shooter aimed his rifle at a poker chip squeezed off oft his shot and the chip disappeared The trick was performed by pasting the poker cl chip p on a balloon 18 inches in diameter and letting the chip peep out bel behind nd a hole in the curtain Hitting the 18 inch balloon disappeared the chip The moth ball stunt was even more ingenious In this one the audience saw a tiny moth ball pecking peeking out of what appeared tobe to tobe tobe be a black cloth on the stage The trick shooter raised l his s rifle plink and the moth ball bail disappeared in a puff of powder People in the front rows could even smell the powdered moth ball HOW IT WAS DONE Heres Here's how it was done A big rat trap was nailed to a heavy board The trigger of the tr trap p was fastened to a steel plate about 10 inches across Hitting the big inch 10 plate released the spring of the rat rattrap trap The moth ball was placed where tl this s spring would bang down upon it Thus the trickster shot at the steel plate which released the spring wl which ch broke the moth ball Splitting bu bullets lets with a knife can be done by good shooters but the old phony shooter didn't didn t take a chance They moun mounted 4 a small fragile target on on either side of a knife blade wl which ch faced them and pretended that their bt bullet let would be cut in two by the knife blade Both Doth targets broke at the sound of the shot but wt the secret of ot this one is that there was always a steel plate behind the knife Lead bullets splatter on steel and will break bruk fragile targets even though they may miss them as much a five inches THE TIIE CIGARETTE trick Ernie Lind points out was the safest stunt the trickster tried An assistant held a lighted cigarette between his lips lip while the trick shooter pretended t to shoot off the ashes This was the stunt performed with a blank When the blank was fired the assistant merely blew through a tube in his specially specially- constructed cigarette and off flew the ashes These phony stunts are no longer performed perfo They are entertaining but modern genuine marksmen can per per- perform perform form just as entertainingly using real skill and real ammunition am- am amr r Lind says |