Swamp People B.S.?

[Ideal Tool]

Hello, On the last episode, this was the last day of the season..I guess the directors had to throw a bit of drama in there..the Edwards were caught in a downpour while out in their boat. When they came on a hooked gator..Jr.'s .22 wouldn't fire..said ctgs. got wet. Lucky his dad had emergency stash that were dry..only 10ctgs. though...and 10 tags left...more drama!
Now how many times have you had a whole magazine full of .22's fail to fire because of rain? Now I usually try not to get my guns soaking wet..but I did do a test on rimfire reliability. This was years ago..The fall I started 9th grade. I took about a dozen each .22 L.R. & .22 shorts & placed in a little wire mesh cage which I wired on the north side of a tree in middle of yard. Plan was to try them after 1 year. After 1st. year was up..I couldn't bring myself to try them..wanted longer test. I never shot those things until the fall after I graduated from high school..4 years exposed to well below zero & ice, to 90 plus summer heat & rain. The copper coated ones were dark with oxidation, some green spots. The plain lead were turning white. What happened when I finally tried them? Just what I had expected..they all fired without a hitch. So I really don't think getting caught in a rainstorm is going to cause the trouble reality TV would have us believe!

[FrankenMauser]

Water in the disgustingly filthy action is more likely to be the culprit, by causing light strikes.

[youngunz4life]

they only tried 2-3 total(not all of his son's bullets). also, his dad comes off as the type who is always prepared. lastly, the son seems like a goofball who would allow his rounds to be exposed: he is careless, lets the rounds get wet, has forgotten to load the weapons numerous of times, sleeps late, decides to just not get up sometimes when it is time to hunt, etc, etc. All of this allows the story to be plausible. it is tv of course, but these guys are gator hunters, were before the show crew came, and they will be after too.

[jonnyc]

My favorite "goof" is when they change camera angle and the rifle keeps magically changing from auto-loader to bolt-action, and back again...for the same gator.

[Rifleman1776]

There are obviously stage scenes. But overall I really like the show and it does a good job of showing life in bayous. Despite the acting it is a story about America and some of the people who live here.

[chadstrickland]

Me and my brother used to wade/swim in creeks with pockets full of 22lr and 99 percent of them always fired. I agree that if anything was wrong it was the gun that got clogged up, not the ammunition

[JasonG]

I seem to recall a Remington ad from way before my time.
Some guarrantee to the effect of 'Guaranteed to fire after 1 month under water or double your money back'
Hhmmmm, may it was Winchester. You get the idea.

[JerryM]

My wife and I both enjoy the show. Some of the guns are really rust buckets.
I admit that with the gator rolling and fighting it appears almost impossible to hit the quarter size spot on the back of the head. They do a good job of that.

I did not realize that there were so many gators. I think the best can make over $40,000 in that one month. Anyone with accurate info?

I think that the two brothers that live from day to day hunting and fishing make my wife glad that she is married to me.
At least I hope so.

I never had to fire any .22s after they were wet, but I would not be surprised to have a high failure rate.

Jerry

[Sport45]

When I was a teenager, mom kept an old ashtray on the dryer. She'd put all the stuff that came out of our pockets in the wash there. We'd reclaim our knives, catridges, shotgun shells or whatever else we left in our pockets from that ashtray. Funny, I don't remember ever finding money there. (I suppose one of my brothers must have been faster than me.) Anyway, I don't remember any rimfire or centerfire cartridges not going off after a trip through the washer.

The shotgun shells didn't always work so well, but often did. In hindsight firing those wasn't one of the brightest things we did...

I'm betting it was a gun problem rather than an ammo issue as FrankenMauser alluded.

[FrankenMauser]

When I was a teenager, mom kept an old ashtray on the dryer. She'd put all the stuff that came out of our pockets in the wash there. We'd reclaim our knives, catridges, shotgun shells or whatever else we left in our pockets from that ashtray. Funny, I don't remember ever finding money there.

My mother had a similar system. Anything found in the washer or dryer was put in an old aluminum bowl. It was up for grabs, since the 'owner' didn't care about it enough to check their pockets.

However.... I suspect your mom had a rule similar my mine. If she found money, she kept it. She considered it a 'tip'. The only currency that made its way into the aluminum bowl was Canadian.

Like others here, I've fired dozens of rimfire cartridges that spent plenty of time getting rained on, or actually submerged in water. The failure rate is pretty low.

[markj]

"Shoot lizbeth shoot" love that show, them are fine folks there, salt of the earth.

[4D5]

It is entertaining but some of the situations are kind of far fetched.

Like shooting a thrashing alligator in a quarter sized spot from a rocking and rolling boat.

And when the boat/motor dies and they are stranded, meanwhile being filmed from a perfectly good boat across the river that could haul them back.

[Sport45]

I suspect your mom had a rule similar my mine. If she found money, she kept it. She considered it a 'tip'.

Yep, that's the way it worked. I was giving her the benefit of the doubt in my earlier post. My brothers wouldn't have left the ammo if they beat me to the ashtray and found any cash...

[youngunz4life]

It is entertaining but some of the situations are kind of far fetched.

Like shooting a thrashing alligator in a quarter sized spot from a rocking and rolling boat.

And when the boat/motor dies and they are stranded, meanwhile being filmed from a perfectly good boat across the river that could haul them back.

You make some valid points. First off, the ones fiming are in a chase boat(same as deadliest catch w/the crab fishermen. they are not there to help, but obviously in a life threatening emergency they would; besides that they just film and are not involved). Of course the alligator hunters, crab fishermen, etc like the chase boat because they have protection if something literally did happen(example: if on the deadly ocean their boat went caput, there wouldn't be an episode of their demise with the coastguard plucking dead bodies in gumby suits from the ocean like the producers have done and will again - they would be able to be rescued by the chase boat).

as for the quarter size shot. you can miss the shot and still kill the gator but fragments of lead and/or bone can riccochet and inturn hit the shooter(because there is schrapnel//spelling?// so to speak). they do not shoot while the gator is rolling and tossing and if you watch the show you will see this. they have to calm down the gator before he snaps the line or gets off the hook and then shoot. also, at the beginning when they gently pull on the line they can get a quick shot when the gator first surfaces. yes, the 3 reality shows that I watch are deadliest catch, swamp people, and survivor on cbs. I guess you can throw in some police shows like COPS or Alaskan State Troopers too.
\
all the best

[taurus4life]

nothing agaist those people on the show. in real life im sure there fine, but this show is 90% fake. but so is every reality tv show. pawn stars, hardcore pawn, sons of guns, operation repo, pretty much every one is staged to the tee. i hate them. but if you go in knowing what your watching is just a watered down sitcom then its at least entertaining

[youngunz4life]

nothing agaist those people on the show. in real life im sure there fine, but this show is 90% fake. but so is every reality tv show. pawn stars, hardcore pawn, sons of guns, operation repo, pretty much every one is staged to the tee. i hate them. but if you go in knowing what your watching is just a watered down sitcom then its at least entertaining

hollywood is hollywood so there is no getting around that, but:

there is a HUGE difference in shows such as operation repo and swamp people as examples(I use swamp people because that is the thread).

operations repo is 100% fake and completely script written for entertainment such as pro wrestling and is not reality TV. every single scene is acting and not real. reality shows such as swamp people are not staged and script written. they will of course edit and do their tricks to make their show as desireable as possible.

[taurus4life]

while all agree operation repo is 100% fake and swap people is not. i would say that the majority of the scenes on swap people are staged. now i have no proof to back that up but camera angles tell everything there is no way there is a camera at every angle for all those trapping and shooting scenes just by chance. i watch the show and find it very entertaining but i take it with a grain of salt.

[BrittB]

After the cameras are gone and the show's over, the gator hunters will still be there. They have a tough job and my hats off to them. It's a job I would never want to do and these people love doing it. Show or not, these people are the real deal!

[Edward429451]

I wont give those repo shows the courtesy of tuning in. They work for the cutthroat finance companies and prey on peoples misfortune. That's not entertainment.

American Chopper was a good show until they went Jerry Springer. Paul & Pauly sound like a couple whiny crotchety old women.

[Dr. Strangelove]

My club's pistol/rim-fire range is covered in unfired .22s. Seems the old guys just won't bend over to pick one up if they drop it, lol.

I've won many bets with friends, as long as the cartridge hasn't been struck by a firing pin before (and most of those will fire), pick up the nastiest, oldest .22 shell they can find and my Ruger MK II pistol will fire it. That's with the cartridges lying out in the weather for sometimes years.

[M.O.A.]

I like how you see them tugging and thrashing with a big gator and then you get a glance of it and its allready been shoot and there still fighting it or how its allways the same kill shoot or how they tug the line to make the gator go nuts. In all reality its not all that hard to run gator lines. its much like running limblines for catfish.

and before you ask yes i have been down to new orleans and went out with some gator fishers,we run 200 lines in one day and cought 10 gator.it was fun but not nowhere like what you see on tv.

i allso got to go shimpin witch was way more fun but the gator tasted better

[scud]

have never seen the show, & don't plan to.

[gaseousclay]

why the hell would you use a .22 on a gator in the first place? wouldn't that just **** it off rather than effectively kill it?

[M.O.A.]

they dont want it to go though the jaw and neck the skin on the bottom of the gator is worth 2 to 3 times as much as the rest of the skin.The longer shots made with 223 and such go through one side and out the uthere leaveing the bottom intact.

[hogdogs]

UnReality TV...

And anyone that believes that gator called 700-800 pounds and it is easily loaded into the boat needs look no further than TFL's hunting section for "bswiv" gator posts... He has scored some big sumbucks and I assure you he and his huntin' buddy had no chance of loading them so easy... even if they are a bit older than RJ and the ilk on the show.

Heck, the little buggers are 8-10 foot skinny ones... not 13-14 footers with a torso bigger around than a 55 gallon drum!

Brent