Wouldn't a solenoid, wound of say, 50 close-spaced turns of fairly heavy guage insulated wire, and wrapped/taped well (to resist the sudden mechanical forces deriving from the ampere-turns of the coil) - be a good compromise between 'dead-short' poultry-bars and the 'resistance' kind?
The idea being that a step-function wavefront would encounter the reactance of the coil, damp itself a bit, ring back and forth, and still have a low-Z DC path to ground - kind of a "soft-start" approach. I do agree - I'd be leery of any kind of regular resistor (that I could easily lift) in that path of a hefty HV cap discharge - if not the first time, then how many subsequent blasts before the resistor changes impedance to the meg-ohm range....?
Another point: I have several TMs and training manuals from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. ALL of them show grounding sticks made of wooden dowels or 1X1 lumber, with the usual heavy braid and hooked 'business end'. As late as the mid 60s these are shown.
Cheers John KB6SCO
