From an Old Tractor website
 

http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cg...oard&th=106697

While I found this amusing, it is pathetic how old legends hang on, and how many people still believe them.
Perhaps it's not surprising these guys are primarily Tractor guys who own guns, as opposed to me and many of my friends who are gun guys who also use tractors.

I wonder what camp the guy sleeps in who was expounding the dangers of the Farmall Cub, at a recent event. He said more people have died using the cub because "All you have to do is drive over a rock with your right wheel, and they flip". :banghead:

Sporting Life July 6, 1895
2nd column 1/2 way down
http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrar.../SL2515023.pdf

1902 H.H. Kiffe catalog
Winchester 1893 Repeating Shotgun illustrated - "The barrel of this gun has been proved with 9 1/2 drams of powder, and 2 1/2 ounces of shot."

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../408610473.jpg

The Banc D'Epreuves Des Armes a Feu De Liege (Proof House for Firearms of Liege) First Obligatory Proof Load for 12g breech plugged "rough forged tubes" intended for “Double-Barreled Breech-Loading Sporting Guns” was 21 grams = 324 grains = 11.8 Drams powder and 32 grams = 1.12 oz. shot.

1917 E.C. Simmons catalog - "Bored For Nitro Powder"

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../411286011.jpg

Pete Dickey, “The Winchester Model 97” Feb. 1985 American Rifleman
Damascus barrels were regularly offered up until 1914 [but] cannot be considered “Smokeless Powder” guns.

The "rolled blued steel" was Winchester Standard Ordnance cold rolled Bessemer with a tensile strength about 60,000

I'd be willing to bet that Ken B. form CT. (4th post) is one of you guys from CT. trying to pirate any damascus guns in to your sweaty hands.:nono:


http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cg...oard&th=106697

OK, so that phenomenon COULD HAPPEN (quoting Judy Tenuda) in North America. But what about driving over a rock in South America, say Argentina - would you be OK on the right wheel down there, but at great risk if you ran over one with the left wheel, given the Coriolis effect? Just asking.....

My cub has never flipped! Bobby

My dad let me use our original Farmall cub, when I was about9 or 10. Then gave it to me when he got a new one. If it could have been flipped, I'd a done it. That was my ATV before ATV was cool. Pulled logs, sold firewood and the guy I sold it to gave it his son. I still see it regularly, and it doesn't look upended to me.

My Farmall 100 (improved Cub) no flips, but my tricycle John Deere Styled B, been scared a few times.

must have been a very big rock they ran over with that cub farmall...charlie

My Great Grandfather bought a 1929 Farmall and used it at our farm in Savannah. When my Great Uncle bought a plantation on the Edisto River, Great Grandfather gave him the tractor.

Uncle Hugh used the heck out of that tractor, using it to cut the saw grass in his rice field with an old John Deere sickle bar mower. When it got stuck (which was often), Deemus, his farm hand, would stick a 2x4 in the back tire spokes and back up. Very dangerous - either the tractor came out of the mud or it would flip over and kill whoever was driving it. Somehow it never flipped over.

Uncle Hugh finally decided to get rid of the tractor and gave it to my Dad and we still have it today. It gets light use, primarily cranking it up and driving it around

I have had a couple just like that. Is yours set up to run off gas and kerosene both. Almost flipped my H's a couple of times.Tricycle's are easy to flip. Never came close to turning my cub over.

the old man almost flipped his ...but it was may more than a little rock ....use have me ride the right axle to keep her down ...man o man do I miss that ...still got the cub...nicknamed it "old lobster eye "

Mills, Great picture. Looks like an F-12
Wayne, I had a BR (wide front end) I stupidly sold.
Chris, There were a bunch of overly restored Cubs at the engine show 2 weeks ago (the 38th year of our 4 day camping in NH) My son wants me to get one for his yet to be determined offspring. I agreed, if it's a boy, he'll have one. Wont be the one I cut hay with for years, as a kid, but we won't tell him.

The farmer next to our farm in Michigan hitched a JD trike up to a big rock with a pretty short chain and tried to pull it. Bad idea. The JD did a wheel stand and went over backwards, pinning(mushing really)him between the steering wheel and the rock.

Richard, a friend of ours was nearly killed years ago while pulling a long section of downed tree trunk with a log chain. He was apparently going at a pretty good clip on the tractor when the facing end of the log struck a rock embedded in the earth. The log stopped dead, the torque forced the tractor to rotate upwards and back over the rear axle, and pinned him against the steering column by his pelvis and upper thigh. He narrowly missed losing that leg and spent weeks in the hospital with surgical pinning, etc. to save it.

I own a 1953 Farmall Cub and have never heard this legend. My neighbor owns 3 Cubs and I never heard him mention it. I'll ask him when he returns to his cottage. He's harvesting now. Not with a Cub- hobby tractors. Mine is a mower.

If using some common sense it is safer for your butt on a tractor seat than probably in a car driving down the highway. However if splitting hairs it is older men on old tractors where more accidents occur. I guess old fools and their toys.

Still remember watching my 80 year old gran-daddy bush hog a pasture on the side of steep hill on the old family farm in central Kentucky using his old tractor. Portions of that hill hit 45 degrees. He never rolled a tractor but he came close. He was ornery. Still remember my exasperated grand mother giving him what for about mowing that hill. For the record though that hill had been a pasture for probably over 100 years so it was doable but you had to know your stuff and it was not for the faint of heart.

I guess knowing what your doing on an old tractor is the same with shooting old guns if done right.

Here is some non tractor specific info.

Abstract

Farm tractors have historically been identified as the leading source of work-related farming deaths in the U.S. While data from the National Safety Council show that tractor-related deaths and fatality rates have decreased since 1969, current surveillance data indicate that an average of 218 farmers and farmworkers die annually from tractor-related injuries. Of these deaths, approximately 120 are associated with tractor overturns. Most of these deaths occur to tractor operators 65 years of age and older. Roll-over Protective Structures (ROPS) have been identified as the single best method of preventing tractor overturn-related deaths, yet only 38% of all tractors used on farms in the U.S. were equipped with ROPS in 1993. A major issue associated with increasing the use of ROPS on farm tractors is the cost of retrofitting ROPS on older tractors. The average cost to retrofit tractors with ROPS in the U.S. was estimated at $937, and a cost of at least $4 billion nationally in 1993.

Doing the math that means there are about 4.2 million death traps out there.