Shooting at trees

[XJ]

I am not prepared to eat paper targets, or Sight-N-See stickers either.

Assclown needs a target stand, they are inexpensive or may be home-made. He must be quite a forester to be able to determine if a tree is alive or dead during all seasons.

[Gman]

If it's a conifer, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if it's alive in the winter.

...unless we were in Louisiana and discussing the bald cypress.

[marty]

This summer my family and I were camping out in the backcountry down a 4WD road near the La Garita wildneress area. We had a storm roll though with winds that I'd guess were in excess of 50 mph. The wind blew down a live, green needled ponderosa pine tree that was about 30 inches in diameter and perhaps 60 feet tall. The tree landed a few feet away from our tent. Way too close for comfort. When I inspected the tree at the point where it broke, about 5 feet from the ground, I found an extremely large number of .44 mag bullets lodged inside the wood, and a lot of sap that had oozed out of the wood. I'm assuming someone had fixed a target in that area, did quite a bit of shooting, and weakened the wood to a point where the wind was enough to break the tree. If that tree fell a few more feet in the direction of our tent it would have been a disaster.

[wolfpack_one]

So would it be safe to conclude that .44 mag would be the preferred caliber for hunting wild trees, but takes a long time for the kill?

Kidding aside, glad to hear you and your family were safe. Hard to believe that a 30" diameter tree could be sufficiently weakened from being shot to actually fall. Curious, what was the reaction in your tent when it went down?

[marty]

The reaction from the tent was suprisingly calm. Glad that the tent was not a few feet over into the wrong direction. I think the tree must have been weakened by the large number of .44 mag bullets. The wood in that area was dried out from where sap had oozed.

[Gman]

Holy moley....my entire house is made out of dried out wood.

[WillysWagon]

Holy moley....my entire house is made out of dried out wood.

Then 'NO' shooting in your house
Seriously guys, thanks for the replies and web info, I'll put it together and give it to my coworker.