Well how punny of you to mention it... corny...
I am shopping for COARSE corn meal to replace the lead payload in my junk wally world 20 gauge ammo... I will then go out to my dilapidated barn so I can shoot carpenter bees... Gonna be a whole lot more bark then bite and I will be a little better "wing shooter" for the effort.
Brent
Be careful, I was doing that as a kid shooting yellow jackets and had a BB bounce back off the hard surface the bee was sitting on and hit me right between the eyes. Did not bring blood but sure gave me the shakes thinking how close I was to loosing an eye.
Wife and I were in bed one night and you could hear this green tree frog chirping away outside the window. She ask me to go shut it it. Went outside and shook the bushes, it stopped and I went back inside. 3 minutes later he was back at it. This time she promises me "something special" if I shut it up. Out back I go with flashlight and my daughters Red Ryder. Using the stealth and skill of an Army Sniper, I find him perched on a limb singing away. Shot it and brought it inside holding it up by the leg showing Honey with pride. She yells "why did you bring that thing in here" Proof I said. Pay up.
guess i aint too much of an odd ball. sit on my front porch and shoot carpenter bees with my trusty 22 and shot shells. they are harder to hit than one would think.
I've spent more than a few fun afternoons wing-shooting carpenter bees with a .22 loaded with the old-style crimped #12 shot cartridges.
I also spent most of a day at the range shooting a cheap .52 caliber Spanish smoothbore percussion muzzleloader at thistle heads. Loaded with blanks, it did a good job on paper wasp nests under the roof at the firing line, too.
my parents have a large honeysuckle bush. so when it blooms it's insect invasion. when i was young i would sit by this bush all day and pick off bugs with a bb gun. anything from bees to butterflies.
I've only shot one carpenter bee with a BB gun. It was cool, because the thing just hovered there while I zeroed in.
I did go through about ten 410 shells trying to shoot a moth in the air. Either it was wearing kevlar, I'm a really bad shot, or they can fly with a bunch of holes in their wings. After ten rounds, it decided to fly away...
Simon, I priced them .22 rat shot and they are WAYYYY expensive here... Like 12-15 bucks for 50 I did the math and the 100 round brick of 20 gauge ain't much more and the corn meal won't even dent the tin (the wad might though but the barn is literally slowly collapsing) roof. Alot more satisfying to bust off the thunder pipe than the little bolt .22
Brent
The best "juvenile" story i can muster is my wife and i attempting to shoot house flys with my air soft. Twenty shots a piece from a distance of at least 5 feet and the house fly was no worse off than when we began.