Over the course of my hunting career, I’ve come to accumulate cool gear - stands that climb trees, rangefinders, rifles that’ll group penny-sized shots at awesome distances, and fiber optic sights and red-dot scopes. Heck, I even own two .44 Mag. handguns, so I can’t really explain why a Dirty Harry on a stick impresses me so, but it does.
I purchased my bangstick a month ago in preparation for this gator season. I, as I always do when shopping, spent ample time cogitating on what I wanted – though I had no clue what I needed - comparing prices and whatnot.
The winner was Central Florida Trophy Hunts. They offered a .44 Mag powerhead on a 5ft powder-coated aluminum pole for $145 plus Uncle Sam. I was drawn to this product for the price. And the fact I would not have to assemble anything, my talent for doing so lost when I missed that day of shop in 7th grade.
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The design is simple - a .44 caliber stainless hollow steel cylinder with grooves on the outside for rubber O-Rings. This constitutes the chamber. The “firing pin” is located in the base. It is simply a conical protrusion. (BTW – words like "protrusion" and "cylinder" are about as technical as I can get.)
So the deal is, the cartridge slides into the chamber and the chamber is pushed into the base until the O-Ring grabs the edge to hold it in place. A gap is left between the primer and firing cone. An R-Clip is set through a drilled hole to act as the safety. When it comes time to discharge the round, you pull the R-Clip, and thrust the end of the stick at the sweet spot in the gator’s head, in line with the spine and behind the eyes, best it’s been explained to me.
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How does it work? Well. Very well. The 8 feet 7 inch gator Sunday night rolled up three snatch lines and a harpoon rope. The first .44 severely dimmed his lights. If you know anything about gators, though, you know he was still smoldering underneath. Indeed, it was not a perfect shot, and he went to acting up again. The second hit was much more gratifying – as Kate Hudson remarks in Almost Famous, “The truth just sounds different.”
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It’s a pretty small sampling size, for sure. While I don’t have tags myself, I did get the trapper’s license that allows me to hunt with anyone with a CITES. I’m sure I’ll secure a call or two more before season’s end and put Bangstick Betty to work again.
The one whiff with this product is a lack of flotation. With its rubber handle, it would be hard to lose your grip, but in the melee of a hooked lizard, who knows what could happen. I remedied this problem by scissoring 8 inches of a red Styrofoam pool noodle to secure to the shaft.
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After all, sadness would be a sunken bangstick.
2 comments:
Great post Ian. I always wanted to know how one of those worked.
check out www.alligatorhuntingequipment.com they sell gator equipment cheap too..
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