# Back in the day.



## Nest Buster (Nov 22, 2010)

]attachment=4629:1997.jpg] I Ran across this old picture the other day, and thought I would share it with you all. It was taken in 1997. You are looking at the two best squirrel dogs that ever looked through a collar. They are very much missed. Thanks Nest buster.


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## Chuff (Dec 25, 2009)

Fine looking dogs mate


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## jmplsnt (Jan 1, 2010)

Yes, they do look quite the pair. I'm sorry they have passed on.....I have my own dogs that have been a significant part of my life that I hope to see on the Other Side someday. I also like the Old-School Y-harness you've got in the pic....donned those a few times myself.

Chuff, how does your chimeric chicken-dog in your avatar work out? Any good in the field?

Finally, with the recent posts by yourself and Frogman I bought some tubing last night on ebay. I'm a committed chains user and am not moving away from them at all, just going to try some tubes with my gypsy naturals. Like I said before your posts are a good reminder that tubes never stopped working when everyone jumped on the Theraband bandwagon.


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## Nest Buster (Nov 22, 2010)

jmplsnt said:


> Yes, they do look quite the pair. I'm sorry they have passed on.....I have my own dogs that have been a significant part of my life that I hope to see on the Other Side someday. I also like the Old-School Y-harness you've got in the pic....donned those a few times myself.
> 
> Chuff, how does your chimeric chicken-dog in your avatar work out? Any good in the field?
> 
> Finally, with the recent posts by yourself and Frogman I bought some tubing last night on ebay. I'm a committed chains user and am not moving away from them at all, just going to try some tubes with my gypsy naturals. Like I said before your posts are a good reminder that tubes never stopped working when everyone jumped on the Theraband bandwagon.


Thanks jp you cant teach dogs what these two could do! How about that old natural killed a lot of game with one. That old harness was nice back than, we would carry some serious lead with us so had to rig up something. I am using a new system know that wont brake your back lol. I have started working on my first chain set this week. How long do you think the will last?


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## jmplsnt (Jan 1, 2010)

I have had chain sets go 650-700 shots, with an average now of roughly 500 shots before they break. The greatest thing about the chains is when they fail it will be only one single individual rubber band in the bandset. This spares you from the snapping of a tube, which at times (as you well know) comes back after your face. I once suffered some temporary (thank you Jesus) vision loss after being struck in the left eye by a broken Daisy tube.

When I began making chained sets, they didn't last very long. On average I was getting a few hundred shots and then one would break. I forced myself to slow down and really pay attention to what I was doing and both the quality of my sets and their lifespans has increased greatly since I "retrained" myself. My advice is to keep the rubber wet when pulling them tight and also pull a little, put the set down, "choke up on it" (move your grip closer to the forming hitch), and then continue to pull once you have re-gripped close to the hitch. I also have learned that after you hitch the first two links together, shake them to remove all the twists, then lay them flat to add the third and final link.

I don't have the thread handy but if you will go the blogs section John/Bane of Small Game has compiled the links for both Nico's excellent tutorial on this very subject and mine on the gypsy tabs, a great way to set up a natural for the chains.

If you are wanting a cheap, yet good material to make these out of the Walmart #64's are pretty good in a 5x5x4 or 4x4x3 configuration. The 554 is a pretty manly band. For a pocket shooter the 332 on my Dayhiker board cut is outstanding in performance. You will probably have to adjust the length of these as the finished set will probably be too long and far too weak for the manly shooting you and Frogman do. I use the length between my thumb and pinky finger, fully outstretched, to measure WORKING band length from fork tip to pocket. Hope this helps!


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