THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 TAG: 9601300150
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Education
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Steven Nelson, an estimator at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, was no sharpshooter when he first started firing his new, black-powder rifle last fall.
If anything, he was a frustrated marksman who more often than not found himself standing in the woods scratching his head and wondering why the new gun, patterned after those used by early pioneers, seemed never to find the same place on the target.
``He test fired it over and over again,'' says Nelson's 14-year-old son, Nicholas. ``He'd stand on a hill at our hunt club, and the ball never hit in the same place twice. He tried everything - different powder loads - everything.''
So Nicholas, the youngest member of the Double X Hunt Club in Surry, did a little head scratching of his own.
That isn't uncommon for the Smithfield Middle School eighth-grader.
``At home, when something breaks, I try to take it apart and fix it.''
This time, not only did Nicholas fix the problem for his dad, he turned the experience into an award-winning science project.
Competing against more than 200 other entries last week, Nicholas took Overall Best in Show at the school's annual science fair with ``Snap! Crackle! Boom!'' - an experiment that demonstrated the right percussion cap in black-powder shooting can make all the difference in accuracy.
The project was born when Nicholas thought he might be able to do something about fixing his dad's aim.
After observing the frustrating shooting sessions a couple of times and watching his dad do one thing after another differently in his quest for a sure shot, Nicholas decided the problem could be in the percussion cap.
In a black-powder rifle, the percussion cap is a thin metal cap containing high explosives. When the striker in the trigger mechanism hits the cap, Nicholas explained in his exhibit, hot gases erupt onto the end of the rod in the barrel, causing the black powder to explode and project the ball or bullet along the barrel.
After he hypothesized that his father's varying accuracy had to do only with the percussion cap, Nicholas had to devise an experiment to test that.
He used no black powder or shot in the long rifle. He tested three brands of caps by inserting a wooden dowel into the rifle barrel, exploding the cap by pulling the trigger and accurately measuring how far the dowel exited.
The results were amazing, he said. And to make sure the results were perfectly clear, Nicholas fashioned an intricate computer graph to explain that his initial hypothesis was correct.
``My hypothesis was that the most expensive brand might perform best,'' Nicholas said, pointing at his exhibit. ``The two less expensive brands were very inconsistent in how they exploded. I discovered you need a powerful cap to set off the explosive and a consistent cap so the bullet will hit in the same place every time.''
Science fair judges were impressed with the way Nicholas executed and displayed his project. So was seventh grade life science teacher Milton Kemp.
``Wow!'' the teacher said, as he looked over for the first time the charts, graphs and illustrations Nicholas used. ``I wish I'd known this before hunting season. It cost me an eight-point buck last fall because the cap I was using didn't go off. This is a great project!''
Nicholas tested 20 caps each of three different brands.
``I really did this project for my dad,'' he said. ``Now he's assured, when he sees a deer, he has a much better chance of hitting his mark with the black-powder rifle.''
Nicholas already is a devoted deer hunter. He's not ready yet, though, to tackle it with black powder.
``Maybe I'll try it in a couple of years. It's a responsibility I don't think I'm ready for. But it does intrigue me. When I watch my dad, it makes me think of how the pioneers used to do it.''
Nicholas received a ribbon, pin and trophy. And the middle school honor roll student will go on in March to compete in the Tidewater Science Fair, this year at Lake Taylor High School in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LINDA McNATT
Nicholas Nelson with his award-winning project.
AT A GLANCE
BEST IN SHOW
[For a list of winners, see microfilm for this date.]
by CNB