Pretty Darn Good Shootin'

I first became a police officer in 1969, when I joined the Police Department in San Leandro, California. After some time on that Department, I had my first experience with 38 caliber "Snake Load" ammo. I'm not sure they're still around, or even if they are still called snake loads, but they are basically a shot gun style round for pistols in that they fire a spread of small BBs.

I lived with another cop on a little ranch about halfway between Castro Valley and Pleasanton in the canyon there (I can't remember the name of the canyon but it is now where a major freeway goes). Anyway, we discovered snake loads and I got this brilliant idea about how to embarrass a particularly loud mouthed sergeant and make a few bucks as well.

The sergeant's name was Charley and he could shoot pretty well. In San Leandro, we had a pistol range in the basement of the police station and the firing stations were divided by metal bins. One day I told Charley that I knew I was a much better shooter than he was. Of course he scoffed at the idea. Really, he was better than I, but that's another story.

I told him we should go down to the range and we would tape two balloons in two adjoining firing lanes. I would fire one round from my 38 directly at the metal divider between the two lanes and that the one round I fired would cause both balloons to burst. The implication was that my bullet would hit the divider, split and the fragments of my bullet would hit each balloon (but I carefully avoided saying that).

Of course he found this to be a ridiculous claim and I had to talk like Bill Clinton to get him to bet me that I couldn't do it. We finally agreed that if I succeeded he would give me ten dollars. If I failed, five dollars would be his.

Down we went, with a few curious observers. I taped up the balloons and began to line up my shot very carefully. It almost all came apart when he asked to see my gun. The snake loads are easy to see because where the projectile (bullet) normally sticks out of the casing, there is a yellow plastic cylindrical projectile instead.

Charley took my gun opened the cylinder and looked at the back of the bullets but not the front, closed it up and handed it back to me. No problem. In order to make it look real serious, I asked if I could use a bench rest position. He was nice enough to allow this.

So I took the shot, popped both balloons and took ten of Charley's dollars.

A couple of days later the word got out somehow and Charley asked me about it. I gave him his ten dollars back even though I had carefully avoided cheating. He was after all a sergeant. But it was fun while it lasted.