My first boomer

One of the things that came up while I was telling Boomershoot stories yesterday was my first successful creation of a reactive target. I told them that I got very excited about it and there was a video. No one had seen the video. It’s here. More background is here.


I suppose I should put it on one of the video servers or something but its been at its current location since before YouTube had even been thought of.


The reason I was so excited was that I had been working on trying (off and on) to make my own rifle detonated targets for over two years. After working on something for two years with nothing but failures to show for it you get really excited when one of your experiments works.


Boomershooters get a little taste of that because I make the targets challenging enough that most of them cannot get a target in a single shot. They have to work at it for a while. When they do connect it is a bigger thrill than if they had plopped their gun down on the ground and got a first round hit 10 seconds after going prone. They have to earn their reward. They don’t get as excited as I did when I got my first one but then most people probably don’t have the patience to work on trying to get one to go off for two years either.

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3 thoughts on “My first boomer

  1. I once went shooting with a friend in the fireworks business. It is pretty cool when you shoot a 3″ titanium salute. I thought steel made for a good reactive target but these are awesome.

  2. I dunno, Joe. Using a huge dose of Beginner’s Luck, I got the first boomer I ever shot at, with the first shot, on Field Fire on Saturday. On Sunday, I fired a “barrel heater” as my first shot, then got a boomer on the next shot.

    It felt G.R.E.A.T.! Sorry about that.

    What felt even better though, was the realization that I did have it in me to be a one-MOA shooter at significant range.

    For me, that realization is PRICELESS.

    I owe you and Gene a debt of gratitude that can probably never be repaid, it is so huge.

    George Schneider,
    aka Rivrdog.

  3. As Rivrdog’s spotter, I have to agree.

    Boomershoot was a GREAT trip, even though I’m still working out the stiffness of the nearly 2000-mile drive home. I’m VERY glad to have been at Boomershoot ’09.

    Through the Rifle Clinic on Saturday, and the real Boomershoot on Sunday, I successfully detonated only one Boomer. But what I DID accomplish, and am probably too proud of, was HITTING several. Something about my ammo (maybe the ballistic tips?) kept my solid hits from detonating – but I HIT THE TARGETS.

    I’ve got a new confidence in my rifle, and my self, that I did NOT have before last weekend. There are not words to express my appreciation and gratitude for that. Not to mention that it was a HELL of a lot of fun, and I got to meet a bunch of really great folks! (Your family goes high on that list)

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