Historic gun firing and ballistic gel fun!

        Hi everyone! In this week’s intern diaries my first entry will start off with a bang! And I do mean that literally!

                Monday morning I went to the local police department’s firing range with our Executive Director George.  We were going to be firing a replica 1850 rifle with realistically weighted molds of Civil War bullets into ballistic gel.  This exercise was broken into several parts. 

1.        Place realistic uniform fabrics from both Union and Confederate troops over the ballistic gel with lots of dirt and/or mud rubbed into the fabric.

2.        Fire bullets into the gel to see what sort of particulate if any is dragged through and if so how far.

3.        Evaluate the effects this could have had on the wounds and survivability of troops.

                We set the gel up at a fair distance from our firing point and pinned Union jacket, Union pant and Confederate coat replica materials to it.  Each had dirt rubbed into them and one had mud to represent first hand accounts of what uniforms sometimes looked like after a hard march.  We then moved a large wooden stand to help us ensure rifle accuracy and I watched as an ENORMOUS spider crawl off of  it and onto George.  I can’t remember ever seeing one so big in California but George remained calm and swatted it away into the grass.  Some staff at the museum think we saw a Wolf Spider and I suppose it does bears a resemblance.  After that hiccup we put in ear plugs, George loaded the rifle with a bullet and black powder that he then tapped down and I stepped back as he shot. 

                We walked to the gel and looked at and were a bit surprised.  The bullet traveled the entire length of the gel and had exited (that wasn’t a surprise) but the dirt went almost the whole length as well.  We had not expected it to go so far.  It was a distinct trail of dirt so there was no mistaking it either.  In the trail we also saw black powder and bits of fabric.  The exit site also had fabric on it so it travelled quite a distance since our gel was the width of an average male chest cavity! It was an exciting result for both of us! George fired another shot into the next section of fabric and we made note of the results.  He then asked if I wanted to fire the gun and I said yes!

                So he loaded the gun, showed me how to correctly hold it and where to look.  I did not aim into the gel so I shot into the dirt barricade.  I was very surprised at how easy it was since the gun has some weight to it (11 pounds to be exact) and there was no recoil.  I fired twice so that we could take a picture and video of it and also because it was FUN! I, a historian and intern, got to fire a gun for my museum job! It was awesome to hold the gun and watch the smoke and smell the air.  It’s hard to describe the experience since I’m so novice at it but under proper supervision of someone with firearm experience I recommend it!

Ready...aim...
  

                                                                          FIRE!

So many people assume that history is a stagnant subject that does not change and that my work will be dull but there are new things being discovered all the time and I am having fun! The Hunley, a Confederate submarine that sunk in 1864 was discovered just outside of Charleston Harbor in 1995! Being able to travel to different areas such as Harpers Ferry, Antietam or even historic Europe and see beautiful scenery and buildings is amazing.  The architecture is different and it almost transports you to that time.   Talking to people about how an object was used or how life was and explaining how that connects to our modern lives is also fun because seeing their interest and understanding grow are great feelings.  I really enjoy this work and I hope I continue to have a lot of great experiences here though I’m sure I will.  (Besides, a few friends of mine think shooting a replica rifle was super cool to do and wish they were out here too!)

                Anyway…after I took my shots George resumed shooting at the different cloths and we found the same result each time.  Each bullet entered and exited the ballistic gel and each one dragged dirt and other particulate like black powder through it with most leaving fabric on the exit site.  It was a surprising result but a thrilling one to see.  To think that the soldiers had all of that in their bodies while bleeding and in pain was a striking thought to me as I imagined them in the chaos of battle already dirty and then a surgeon trying to work through all that mess and trying to help them quickly and get to the next patient.  After we had finished the test we packed up, thanked the police for allowing us to use their gun range and went back to the museum.  We showed some of the staff the gel and discussed how we could use it as a teaching tool.  I’ve seen some docents already include the information in their tours.    George plans to take it down to the conference later this week in Georgia also.

                Anyway, that was my awesome adventure for the day so I’ll end it there.  Later!