Showing posts with label firearms safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firearms safety. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Exposing Your Horse to Gunfire - Part III



My next step in sacking my horse out to gunfire was to move him forward and rate his speed as I fired blank .45 LC cartridges off to either side of him.

Sometimes if you move a horse away from smething that is a problem for him or something that causes him anxiety, you are confirming to the horse that moving away is a good idea,...sort of like validating his fear. So for me success in shooting from the saddle during forward movement would be to rate his speed on loose reins,.... where it would be a different measure of success for training to shoot off your horse for hunting purposes. For preparing a horse to shoot off of for hunting, I would think I would be okay with a horse that moved alittle after the first shot, settling down as I worked the action and readied for a second shot.

To take a shot off a horse at a game animal, you should be pretty sure that you have a valid shot where you can kill or stop the animal. No sense in shooting just to shoot or otherwise just wounding.

In any event, when doing anything involved with firearms, even shooting blanks, abide by the four safety rules: Guns are always loaded until you have physically determined that they are not; Never point your gun at something you are not willing to destroy; keep your finger off the trigger until you are sure of your target; be sure of your gun to target line and what may be past your target or coming into the gun to target line.

Safe Journey.