I set out Saturday morning to load up 20 cases with a small charge of BE and an unknown amount of Cream-O-Wheat topped off with a wad of paper towel rammed in with a dowel. That all went quite well actually. Well, I live in a VERY urban environment so stepping out the back door a offering up a one-man 20-gun salute is not an option (unless jail time is in the cards). I pondered the situation for a bit and decided it really shouldn't do any harm to touch them off in the basement, right? Well, I'm not just going to take aim at the entrance box and let fly, mind you, after all, I'm not a complete idiot. (Emphasis on the complete.) I have a bullet trap for .22's and occasionally do a little indoor target practice and I figure, 'Hey, that should catch the paper towel wad very nicely!' I was this close =>| | to just letting fly at the bullet trap when I was hit with an absolute brainstorm! I scrounged around and found a 4 foot length of 4" stove pipe (used of course) one end of which I stuffed into the bullet trap and the other was suspended from a string tied to the floor joists.

All set up, I don my earmuffs, chamber up a casing, stick the barrel in the stove pipe, yell "Fire in the hole!" for effect and pull the trigger.

What happened next was not completely a surprise in as much as stuff flying about and all--I expected that. It was more a matter of just how much stuff was flying about! There was a dirty yellowish cloud just hanging there in the air and a fairly perfect V eminating from either side of the down-range end of the stove pipe consisting of shredded paper towel and unidentified debris. And, yes, as noted above, the smell of singed grits. I'm also very certain that the spider, who formerly had a home in the stove pipe, was not too impressed either.

The case extracted without issue and, when compared to a proper case, looked very good. I was so impressed that I repeated the above process another 19 times. I am actually a bit surprised the smoke detectors didn't go off--better check the batteries.

It was right about this time I noticed the basket of clean laundry parked right next to the ironing board just to the right of down-range....




Yep, I sure gave Miss Beth a good listenin' to, all right.

I'll have that laundry cleaned up AND pressed in no time, yessiree.