pickle barreln.adj.

1839 W. McNally Evils & Abuses Naval & Merchant Service x. 87 The punishment..was inflicted with the cats, just taken out of the pickle barrel.

1872 O. Optic Northern Lands 265 ‘And you are a seaman?’ ‘Salt as the inside of a pickle barrel.’

1929 E. M. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs ii. 28 Lorry liked sliding thru the butcher shop sawdust and leaning over the pickle barrels to get the smell of them in his nose.

1992 D. Weale Them Times 27 The woodshed was filled with wood, the cellar with potatoes and carrots, and the pickle barrel with herring or pork.

1940 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 26 June 7/4 The dive-bomber is absolutely indispensable if..you lack the kind of a bomb sight which makes it possible to drop a bomb into [a] pickle barrel from a safe height.]

1940 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 27 Nov. 12/6 Known in the States as the ‘pickle barrel’ sight, because they are supposed to be able to drop a bomb in a pickle barrel with it from 2,000 feet.

1944 Official Guide to Army Air Forces 369/1 Picklebarrel, shack or target in bombardier training.

1962 Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 7 May 1 The Polaris missile fired from a submarine in the Pacific dropped its nuclear warhead ‘right in the pickle barrel’.

2001 J. P. Craven Silent War v. 75 The bomb exploded over the South Pacific, more than a thousand miles downrange, ‘right in the pickle barrel’ in the phrase of the day.

1945 Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Indiana) 15 Nov. 4/1 The courage and effectiveness of American airmen who hit targets with pickle-barrel precision.

1955 C. M. Green et al. Ordnance Dept. xvii. 472 Another important conclusion of USSBS was that precision bombing of the ‘pin-point’ or ‘pickle-barrel’ type was a myth.

1995 Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.) (Nexis) 1 Sept. b1 The huge 16-inch main battery guns that could hurl a 2700-pound high-explosive projectile more than 20 miles with pickle-barrel accuracy.