'I never saw this but was told about a couple of American snipers who did the same trick with some 7.62mm rounds they had hot-loaded over in Southeast Asia ... bet that really blew away those little suckers/ he related. Poisoned, dumdum, explosive, dart, glass, hardware washer-stacks, and ball-bearing loads are all improvised payloads for improvised /modified firearms. They have a common bond among them, namely their capacity to produce a ghastly wound, even with a marginal hit. Their use range varies from a few inches to a couple of yards. Long-range accuracy is not a consideration; short-range lethality is. When there is only one shot, one chance, it has to be good, and anything that will give that lethal edge must be used. This was a lesson taught well by guerrilla soldiers during the Vietnam conflict. USAF S. Sgt. P.D. Long recounted a story in which Vietcong gunsmiths converted ammunition to fire in an existing pistol. 'In 1972, while I was in Southeast Asia working for an explosive ordnance disposal team, an army major handed me a Chinese copy of the Soviet Tokarev pistol,' he said. 'The proper bottlenecked 7.63mm round was extremely rare in this area, so the Vietcong could not get that round. To use the piece, they made their own ammunition. 'First, they took a 9mm Luger round, pulled the bullet, but saved the powder. Then, they took a .32 ACP case, cut the head off, and slipped the case and bullet into the 9mm case. A slight crimp at the joint held the assembly together. . . . The major assured me the combination worked fine.' At this point. Staff Sergeant Long added his most important point: "Mere difficulty of obtaining something— legal or illegal — has never stopped a determined man from obtaining it, or the materials for producing it.'