Walter “Jim” Hosey (courtesy thespectrum.com)

“LaVerkin resident Walter ‘Jim’ Hosey went out with a bang,” thespectrum.com reports. Several of them, actually. The Vietnam War Army veteran, who died Jan. 2, received a sendoff from family members and friends Saturday at the Southern Utah Shooting Sports Park in Hurricane where he had spent so much of his life. In addition to an American Legion rifle salute, Taps and honorary presentation of the American flag to Hosey’s son Clint and daughters Emerald and Heidi, the deceased veteran received a special kind of tribute in keeping with his personality . . .

Clint loaded 50, 12-gauge shotgun shells with his father’s ashes and fired them off.” Holy Smoke, that’ll be me someday, via a Benelli SD shotgun. What kinds of firearms-related send-off would you like?

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65 COMMENTS

  1. No thanks, I don’t find much appeal in such a thing. I am a recluse and want my disposal to be similar.

  3. As an assaultman…. It would have to be 21 SMAW salute. No earpro allowed. The mere thought makes me all tingly inside.

  4. Damn, I’ve that this idea floating around for years, but glad to see I’m not the only one. If money could afford it, load me in .50bmg and let me go out of an M2…

  5. Cremate me load my ashes in military rounds and use them agaist whoever the nazi,commie,isis is when I die.

    • I kinda like that idea.

      Mix my cremains with 180 lbs (my weight) of Tannerite and detonate it with .50 BMG at 1,000 yards…

        • “All your friends take one shot each at 1K yards.”

          With iron sights…

          Make them work for it…. 🙂

        • I like that. Anyone who doesn’t know how to shoot doesn’t deserve my stuff anyway.

          Actually, my “stuff” is mostly bills. The winner gets my gun collection, and the worst performer at the family range day gets stuck dealing with everything else.

  8. Could always go the Hunter S. Thompson way and have my remains blasted out of a cannon. I’d prefer to draw as little attention as possible myself so probably no ballistic sendoff at all would be best.

  9. My Dad passed away a few years ago: my brother and I followed his wishes and had his remains cremated. When the funeral director took us to his showroom to select an urn, we looked at all the options, from cheesy cheap plastic things to ridiculously expensive and totally inappropriate containers. My brother nudged me and made his suggestion – to which I heartily agreed.

    Dad was a prolific shooter – practically every week for much of his life, he’d grab one of his many rifles and walk down to the 200 yard range on our farm to light off a few rounds, then spend time that evening cleaning or tinkering on a gun, reloading some ammo, or reading a gun mag. He also cherished his enlistment years in the US Navy, spent as a Machinist’s Mate and AA gunner on the USS Shangri-La during the latter part of WWII.

    So – Dad’s ashes were transferred to the empty 4-inch casing of the naval artillery shell he proudly displayed on the gun safe next to his workbench. He rested there for a few years, until my Mom joined him, and last summer my brother and I took them both to the forest where we used to camp, fish and hunt from the time my brother and I were little boys.

    At Dad’s funeral service, our choice of “urns” was well-received by his friends and co-worker’s, all of whom agreed that they couldn’t think of a more appropriate receptacle. There was also strong consideration of tamping a half-pound of FFG and a wad into the bottom of the casing, adding Dad on top, and adding a bit of cannon fuse to the drilled out primer, but we were a bit concerned about the shrapnel aspect in an unchambered casing.

  10. Given my life so far, its likely I’ll have the kind of death where it would be unsafe and impractical to recover the body.

  11. Scatter my ashes in front of one of the firing positions on a TTVIII range at FtHood. I’ll be getting up in their faces every time a TC says ‘Fire!’

  12. I want to go with as little burden on my people as possible. I figure that’s cremation. Other than that just plant me in the ground as close to those I love as possible.

    I guess that’s not firearms related, though. So uh. Make sure my guns are never sold. Ever. Just pass them down and use them until you can’t use them any more.

  13. I’d like to die in my sleep. Like my grandpa did.
    Not screaming and crying like the passengers in his car.

    Then tannerite my ashes!

    • A few years back, don’t recall where I saw it, a guy who regularly frequented the Knob Creek machine gun range died, and his amigos helped with his request. After cremation they loaded up his ashes with all the tannerite everybody had brought that day, downrange, and then returned to the line and prepped every manner of machine gun you could imagine. When the “fire” command sounded, all hell broke loose for a couple seconds before someone choked it down enough to hit the correct target stand, and then the explosion was incredible! The video was a real prize.

  14. A good buddy of my step dad’s and life long elk hunter has his ashes inside a large cedar stump overlooking his favorite spot to sit and glass for elk on the Oregon coast. We must have fired well over 1000 rounds the day we held his wake, I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to one of the kindest souls I ever knew.

  16. I don’t know how I want to be sent off, but I DO know how I want to go…

    It involves an apple core, rubber gloves, a chicken (alive or dead), one tub of lard, a snorkel, a hamsters wheel, a bottle of Tequila, jumper cables, a midget prostitute, one trombone, Selma Hayek, and mound of blow… I cannot really discuss it any further seeing as how it’s really only, currently, legal in Thailand.

    Though, I’m not sure how I feel about the current prospect that the prostitute will likely be Thai. But, you know, some times you gotta be willing to bend a little.

  18. The wife’s uncle, Pete Dickey (for whom the Star PD is named) had his ashes fired out of a cannon on the family farm. Popper firecrackers were passed out and everyone set them off during the firing celebration.

  19. For me personally? Probably buried with some ammo, and a large donation made to pro-gun groups as part of the division of my estate.
    I found an astonishing level of camaraderie among some of the guys who went to my old range in Ardsley (It experienced a headline-making controversy and closure due to an alleged escapement) . It speaks volumes that I witnessed two scatterings of ashes up there, and heard that there were at least 11 over the seventy years of operation. The manager of that place had no related heirs, so his guns were willed to one of the members, a very close friend who worked at Kimber in Yonkers. That fellow predeceased him, surprising him from beyond the grave with a magnificently worked-on Pro Carry. Now with an extra pistol, the manager willed his stuff to yet another shooting pal who frequented the place.

  22. I want to be cremated and then have my CO2-aerated ashes used to choke Al Gore to death. Its the little things in life…

  23. Mine requires a 1979 Firebird with my high-test fuel-soaked body strapped to the hood, The Door’s “Light My Fire” playing on the 8-track, a fairly tall cliff, a firing-line of friends & family set up with my tracer/incendiary-loaded rifles, and a lot of command-detonated explosive (with a wireless claymore trigger) packed into the car.

    Place a brick on the accelerator, lock the steering, put it in gear, and send the Firebird towards the cliff. About halfway there everyone lights me up with tracers, my bitchin’ corpse-torch goes hurtling over the edge, and before it hits bottom someone works the claymore clicker.

    Afterwards, to the sound of Scandinavian black-metal, a D9 will entomb the wreckage with an appropriate amount of boulders ‘dozed from above while everyone does absinthe shots.

    • Spoken like a true metalhead.

      The only thing I’d change would be the on-your-way-to-the-pyre song. I’d go for Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction, myself. Or anything by Rush. After that, any music the onlookers want — as long as it rocks.

  25. Not really firearms but I told the family I wanted to be poured into a weather balloon set to burst at maximum height, and turned loose. Figure I can circle the world for a while that way at the edge of space.
    If not that then set me on a giant size binary target send me off with a bang.

  26. I want a flock of endangered California Condors released above my funeral.

    Then I want the cast of “Duck Dynasty” to shoot them out of the sky, and then cook a meal for everyone.

  27. Wrap my ashes in a brittle plastic bag and throw it in the face of Shannon Watts, Mark Kelly, Ladd Everett, Josh Horowitz, or one of the many other Anti-gun attention grabbers. They can choke on my lifeless remains.

  29. My grandpa always jokes about wanting him to be buried under the garden so we can use his body as a fertilizer. As for me just make sure whatever dogs I have with me at the time of my demise are at the funeral but they better not piss on my grave.

  30. I’d like those that survive me to all to introduce a newb to the shooting sports or maybe enter a competition shooting event. Even if just once. They don’t need my remains for any of that.

  31. Creamated.
    Loaded into shotshells for my own 21 gun salute.
    Anything left over goes into the chili so everybody takes a little bit of Maynard home with them.

  32. What kinds of firearms-related send-off would you like?
    I am still trying to get the family to send me off in a Viking funeral.
    No one wants to buy me a Viking long boat for my send off in Lake Michigan.

    • Let’s see. Arson. Unlicensed boat. Illegally disposing of a body. pollution…..and the list goes on.

      Why do you hate your family?

  33. String me up by my thumbs at the gravel pit and blast away…. Whoever is high left or right has the unenviable task of re-tying me back up.

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