I know it's kinda off topic, but I fell in love with trebuchets about 20 years ago after reading Sci. Amer. article, they are a sorta sling/catapult hybrid device. The show depicted two teams each building one, and letting loose. I think 250 lb roundball (rock) would be considered big bore though . Will throw 200+ yards.
I will build one some day, though not THAT big, it took 40 people to 'cock'!
Sorry if this bothers anyone being so off topic. Thought some might be interested.

Yes I saw that show, Wonderful stuff.

The Discovery Channel repeated that show last night. Besides taking forty people to cock it, it takes 12 strong men to pull the "trigger"!

However, I understand Jewell will be bringing out a "varmint" trigger for one, it will only require two men or four boys to fire.

There was a 'Junkyard Wars' show on them once. Their ammo was a bucket of cabbages and the target was a plywood soldier in the window of a replica castle.

I also saw a show on one in England where a 'well to do' landowner launches upright pianos filled with gasoline tanks & lit road flares and also VW Beetles. Oh-Yeah, he's one of us.

They are neat things.

I heard about that VW launch, must have been over 20 years ago, I didn't mention it because I was beginning to suspect my memory of it, thanks, you helped lower my estimate of my craziness. The Brits, they have almost cornered the market on idiosyncracies, cept for me(and most of the people here)
Rob

Somewhere near west Fort Worth, there was a guy who finished his ceramic toilet launcher (Bertha?), and was working on his 4000 lb. Buick launcher ((Thor?)article in very old Outside Magazine; got copy somewhere). He got on television a few times, but I haven't heard anything in a long time now.

I don't know if any of you have seen the sit com, Northern Exposure, but one episode had the resident artist/free thinker build a trebochet. The bush pilot caracter's house burned down, and she was distrought over the loss, including a family upright piano. The artist convinces her that the piano will be perfect to launch from the trebochet, and they do, most impressive!

There was another junk yard wars where they built black powder cannons, to try and destroy a concrete brick wall.

Man, I really need to get some acreage to build and enjoy some of these fun things

Yeah, I remeber that, but was it really a trbuchet or a catapult?

By the way, I feel sorry for you guys in Alaska, there just ain't much open space to do anything at all

We are had a real cold spell here in central texas, the high was 89 deg. Though if I remember correctly it can get to a hundred up there.

Man, something that could fling 4000 lb, the ones that worked with those 250 lb rounds, they were massive. He musta been planning on using metal. Sure would love to see.
I am happy to have not been flamed for this topic, I figured there would be some who would enjoy a little discussion on these wonderful big bore-machines. I guess if they flung a large pig, 'a boar', it wouldn't have been off topic . Sorry, been into puns for way too long, and don't get enough sleep and too much vodka.
rob

I have a great video saved on my computer of some British (I think) guys launching a small car, and round two with a big steel drum of fuel. Very cool, I wish I could do stuff like that where I live.

If Saeed has any interest on putting it in the video section I could send it to him. Or if any of you want to see it I will send it to you. Just mail me at chevota@cox.net and put "Catapult" in the subject line. It's 4.2meg.

Hello people,
Was happy there was so much interest in these 'little' puppies. BUT, we got lucky, Mr. Chevota has the video of the havoc loving brits flinging the car and flaming piano, it is hilarious, see:
[URL=http://www.gvec.net/skoshikin/big_bangs/catapult.mpeg][/URL]

if interested. When the car starts its little jouney, there are pieces flying off! plus, the guy shoots it a couple of times, I think for holes for cabling, near as I can tell, now who would want to shoot a car Can anyone tell what gun he is using? Doesn't look to have too bad a kick. If you want more info, see
[URL=http://asylum.apocalypse.org/pub/u/zonker/fpp/html/trebuchet.html]
A discourse on the whole thing, where the guy who did this is asked:
The big question is why? Mr. Kennedy looks puzzled, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him before. `Well why not? It's bloody good fun!' You could say the same thing about some of the strivings here.
also,:
[URL=http://www.csd.uwo.ca/staff/magi/personal/humour/General_Audience/A%20Scud%20It's%20Not,%20But%20the%20Trebuchet%20Hurls%20a%20Mean%20Piano.html]
there is more, search if innerested

The line 'Keeps them from hunting the poor people, I suppose' is just too damn funny.

rob, the guy outraged at shooting a poor car, hee hee

[ 07-25-2002, 16:00: Message edited by: deranged-havoc-aficionado ]

Just a few quote from article I gave URL to in previous, this is just too funny, couldn't make this stuff up. But, what is wrong with hunting the poor, as long as you get a license?

``If you see the missile coming toward you, simply step aside,'' Mr. Kennedy shouts to the onlookers.

"Several dozen nervous sheep, hearing the tractor and knowing what comes next, make a break for the far side of the pasture."

what spurred him to build one was, as he puts it, ``my nutter cousin'' in Northumberland, who put together a pint-sized trebuchet for a county fair. The device hurled porcelain toilets soaked in gasoline and set afire. A local paper described the event under the headline ``Those Magnificent Men and Their Flaming Latrines.''

"Dead hogs go for about 175 yards"

"In a series of experiments on Mr. Kennedy's machine, they've thrown several man-sized logs and two quarter-ton dead pigs into the air; one of the pigs parachuted gently back to earth, the other landed rather more forcefully.
--Hey, it WASN"T off topic, it is Big "Boar"

Rob, the guy that everyone now knows has really GOT to get a life

[ 07-26-2002, 02:56: Message edited by: deranged-havoc-aficionado ]

Keep up the posts, hearing the same old, same old can get to be a bit tiring.

I e-mailed the link to a few friends with the title: Proof England has rednecks too

The beuaty of Alaska is that folks think it is always dark and cold. Even in the arctic when the sun sets for 2 months, it is still light for ~4 hours a day. To those that haven't seen how light plays on things when it comes in from the horizontle, it is hard to describe, but it actually intesifies the colors.

Down hear we the shortest days have 5 hours of sunlight, though our house is shaded from direct sunlight for ~ 2 month, the downside of living between mountains.

Now we are complaining that the sun sets at 11 pm, and it actually gets dark at night.

To be somewhat more on topic, what big bores do you shoot, or which ones are you thinking about getting?

Hi Paul
I went to Oregon, about 14 years ago, I was surprised at how late the sun set, it was almost 10:30 before there was no twilight. Ya learn new stuff-gain an understanding all the time, ya feel sorry for those that blithely go along oblivious to what surrounds them.

My big bores are a 50 cal BMG, a 10 ga hammer blackpowder shotgun (do smoothe bores count, a 10 ga is >3/4 caliber, .777 I think, don't have the actual number in front of me. 77 caliber ought to count for big bore. And then my revolver, Ruger SuperRedHawk 454 Casull, that is one HELL of a cartridge. All these aquired recently, so most new aquisitions gonna be ammo, it seems the guns just aren't that useful without ammo, they didn't warn me about that. I've seen so many movies where nobody ever reloaded(Woo is a favorite, they must have 200 round clips, or more, gotta count sometime). I am pretty well stuck on side by sides, just wish I didn't have to be an Enron exec who took the money 'enron' early enough(damn, I'll never stop that, ya better block me if it bothers you) to purchase a big bore rifle sxs, haven't been looking long ernough to know what I would want. My biggest cal rifle, other than 50 cal, is a 300 Savage, a very nice gun. So, 44 years ago, in a manger in central Texas...

Way too much about me, but thanks for asking

Rob the guy who needs to win lotto so he can get one of those double rifles