POTD: Pop Goes The Gopher! – Sure Pop Gopher Trap Gun
Sam.S 08.25.21
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! We have gone over trap guns before on POTD and we have ourselves another one. For those of you who are just tuning in, trap guns are trapping implements in which an animal walks over or through a trap and is shot with a projectile or blasted by the force of a blank. This Sure Pop trap gun used a blank cartridge to kill or subdue a gopher as it walked over it.
Designed for use against gophers and other burrowing animals, the gun is set into a gopher hole, and discharges a .38 caliber blank cartridge directly into the animal’s underside, often crippling or killing it. All parts are casted brass, with the frame cast as one piece. The trap is 6 1/2″ long and marked on top of the short barrel “SURE POP” and “PAT.APR.21.1903” on the bottom. Next to the trip plate is a block marked “UP” that can be removed to insert the blank into the barrel. The striker is spring loaded and locks into a pivoting block between the striker and the trip plate. When set the striker is released it hits a nail, which then sets off the blank.
Lot 78: Sure Pop Gopher Trap Gun [Photograph found in Auction Catalog #52, Rock Island Auction Company]. (n.d.). Retrieved August 25, 2021, from https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/52/78/sure-pop-gopher-trap-gun
