that reminds me...i hung out at a marine supply place my buddy worked at, and we use a 4' length of stainless tubing as a blowgun.
amazingly accurate with a simple "dart" made from a nail and paper cone like this.
Green Teeth Jimmy made one of these with a piece of copper pipe, and cut off wire clothes hanger. He used them on targets until he thought he was a pretty good shot. He could sink a sharpened dart into the edge of a 2x4 about two inches deep. When he told me what he planned, I strongly suggested that he not try, as it could only turn out bad. But, NOOOO.
We went under the mangroves where we had a bunch of picnic tables (the mangroves had been trimmed to make a canopy by the artificial beach), one night.
Jimmy's plan was to nail a raccoon, for a documented kill. When we drove the pick-up under the canopy, the coons ran up into the overhead, and sat there hissing at us, or looking us over with beady eyes. Jimmy's job was cleaning up the knocked over trash cans each morning so he had a visceral hate for these animals.
I sat to one side, out from under the canopy, shined the light, and waited. Jimmie walked under, and chose a huge male, that was about 10 feet above him, growling deep in it's chest, and hissing at him. Jimmy raised the tube, which was 4 feet long, the end about two feet from the animal. Couldn't possibly miss. It hunkered and gave out a long hiss, warily. Jimmy took a big breath and huffed the dart deep into the animal's chest.
The coon arched upwards, and fell from the tree, raging, all four feet outstretched. The huge raccoon landed full on Jimmy's upturned face, and wrapped its arms and legs around his head, raking at his face, bitting and snarling the whole time. Jimmy turned and thrashed, and beat at the animal with the blow gun and his fist, finally falling to the ground, kicking and rolling. The animal never let go, and kept up a good fight the entire time.
Finally,Jimmy broke free! He rolled toward me, blood streaming from multiple cuts on his face and neck, one ear torn badly, his nose torn open at the right nostril, his hands cut and scratched. The back of his neck and shirt was covered in liquid raccoon shit. The raccoon scampered off into the underbrush, while the others (at least 10) in the trees kept up a constant din of chittering and low growls.
Jimmy sat up and turned to face me. Deep sobs wracked his chest as he cried out, "Why didn't you help me?"
I said, " I thought you were winning for a little while there!"
We repaired to the residence building, where I patched up his poor head, and then loaded him up onto the big county boat for the ride over to the mainland, and a quick trip to the ER in Miami.
Elliot Key, FL, way back in 1972 when it was a County Park.