Monthly Archives: April 2016

Polymer tipped bullets

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I have often wondered about the polymer tipped bullets from various manufactures. I have read of people seeing wisps of lead on paper targets that apparently came from lead tipped bullets that melted in flight. If the heat at the tip of a bullet can melt lead then the type of plastic used for bullet tips needs some serious consideration. But, I figured the bullet manufacturers knew a lot more about this than I did and had it all under control.

It turns out this was not the case:

the Hornady engineers observed a convex hump form when charting the new bullet’s drag. The hump was relatively small and usually occurred within the first 100 to 200 yards of flight, and following the hump the drag curve returned to its expected concave climb and drop. The irregularity may have been small and short-lived, but the shift from concave to convex, and back again, seen on the Cd vs. Mach Number graphs could only have one explanation: The bullet itself was changing shape in flight.

It did not take long for the Hornady team to realize it was not the whole bullet changing shape, only the non-metal component—the polymer tip.

The solution, of course, was to find a new polymer:

New polymers were tried and tested, and one was found that met the company’s criteria. With the new material, the Heat Shield Tip was born. Molded as precisely and consistently as previous polymer tips, the Heat Shield Tip boasts glass transition and melting points hundreds of degrees greater than the previous generation’s—475° F and more than 700° F, respectively.

This resulted in higher ballistic coefficients (BCs) which translates into less windage and drop.

My favorite bullet for .30 caliber long range shooting has been the Berger 210 grain VLD bullet. It has a G1 BC of .621. The Hornady 30 Cal .308 208 gr ELD™ Match bullet has a BC of 0.670. From 700 yards away with a .300 Win Mag with Boomershoot conditions this increases the velocity by 60 fps and decreases the drop by 2.6 inches. This isn’t enough of a difference to throw away my existing bullets but I think this is what I’m probably going to replace them with.

Overheard

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Barb is a very happy person and expresses this in many different ways. One of the ways is that she makes funny sounds at various times.

She works from home nearly all the time and sometimes when she “commutes” from the bathroom to her desk in the bedroom 15 feet away she will make sounds. Along with the hand motions of driving a car she will make sounds like, “Putt, putt, putt…”.

Yesterday she was kneeling on the floor next to a dresser as I was about to walk past. The area was a little tight for her kneeling at the same time I was walking through and as she shuffled back to get out of my way she started making the sounds of a truck backing up, “Beep! Beep! Beep!…”.

I couldn’t tell you how many different sound effects she has implemented. I just know they all make me smile and laugh. But I do know my favorite so far.

Last night she told me that sometime during the day she put on her holster and was practicing drawing and dry firing as it was suggested in class and the sounds sometimes just spontaneously came out during the practice session. The sounds? It was that of the spurs she imagined she was wearing, “Ching! Ching!”

Quote of the day—LRRPF52

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When you put your crosshairs on a small little target 400-700yds away, break the shot, and feel the earth shudder under you, your pants start to get kinda tight…

LRRPF52
Message posted on AR15.com March 7, 2016
[That’s probably not the reason most people find Boomershoot rewarding but if that is the way it works for some people I’m okay with that.—Joe]

RIP Smokey

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Remember Smokey? He was 17 and 1/2 years old when Brother Doug and his family had to put him down today.

Ammunition versus training and practice

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From here (via Say Uncle):

It should be obvious that choosing ammo carefully is important. But I hold the opinion that what we carry and shoot in a crisis has a lesser importance than how well we shoot it. In the final analysis, we are all pre-occupied with the wrong ammunition. We should be far more concerned about the ammo we did not fire in practice sessions that precede the day we have to shoot for real.

I am in full agreement. I have had no inclination to change my opinion since I first put up a web page on the topic in 1998.

ZORE X, a high tech gun lock

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I received an email the other day:

Hello Joe.

My name Is Yachdav. I’m part of an Israeli team that developed a unique gun lock called ZORE X.

Our bullet shaped lock prevents the gun from being charged and when unlocked it ejects by just charging the gun. It also notifies the gun owner if someone tampers with their gun. Is this something you’d write / post about?
We believe ZORE X will save many lives by both preventing unauthorized use of guns and at the same time making guns more accessible for their gun owners when they need them.

This is our website: http://zore.life/
This is 1 minute a video showing our lock: http://zore.life/youtube

I’m attaching some material about us. I’d be happy to send you more information about ZORE if you’d like.

Thank you very much,

Yachdav

I watched the video and was bit annoyed with the falling brass without primers from the simulated gunfire but my only real concern was battery life and how they handle the dead battery situation. I read their FAQ and found:

What if my battery runs out, will my gun disable with no way of opening it?

No.

  1. Your battery will last for more than a year.
  2. Three months before your battery drains, ZØRE will send you notifications, reminding you to change your battery.
  3. One month before the battery drains, when unlocking ZØRE, it will not allow you to re-lock without changing the battery.
  4. In addition, you are able to set your ZØRE to open automatically before draining out.
  5. If your battery drains out nonetheless, you are able to connect an external battery to give it power, enabling you to dial your code and open it.

And:

What if someone removes the battery from my ZORE?

That is impossible – as long as your gun is locked, no one can remove the battery from your ZORE. The battery is only accessible when ZORE is open.
The battery is accessible only when ZØRE is open. Therefore, when your gun is locked, no one can take the battery out of your ZØRE.

All my concerns about “smart guns” (this isn’t really a smart gun, but it achieves some of the worthy goals of them) were well addressed except for the potential to have them become government mandated. I liked the phone app that tells you if someone has moved (probably accelerometer based, it doesn’t use GPS) your gun. The app also allows you to unlock the gun remotely and helps you train to get to your gun and unlock it quickly.

It would appear to be a good solution for many situations.

Update: I received another email after they read my blog post above. Here is most of the email:

It is important for me to say that the option of government mandating it is something we gave a lot of thought to.

We wanted to make sure there’s no [way] to force anyone to use it – that’s how we came to the conclusion we must separate the lock from the gun itself (or from the magazine – anything that’s involved in actually using the gun).

We’re a company that strongly believes in freedom – and ZORE X’s market is people who make the choice of locking their gun, enabling them a reliable and fast to remove solution. For those who don’t lock their gun – ZORE X is irrelevant. We are making a notification-only device that might be relevant for some of those people – but we intentionally avoided making a products that could [not] bring with it any type of legislation.

I’m attaching pictures of the ZORE Watchdog.

Thanks again,
Yachdav
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Boomershoot 2016 speaker

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We now have a speaker for the Boomershoot 2016 dinner this Saturday. It will be Brian Keith. I’ve mentioned him here before:

I just read his outline and I’m okay with it. He includes me in a list of “gun rights heroes” which makes me uncomfortable but other than that I think it should be excellent.

Quote of the day—Alan Franklin‏@alanfranklin

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Classy guy! Maybe we get you some therapy for your firearm penis compensation issues first. #gunsense

Alan Franklin ‏@alanfranklin
Tweeted on December 4, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Via a tweet from Robb Allen.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Noah Rothman

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Owen took his vision to Indiana where he pursued a radical new experiment in social organization. In 1824, he purchased an existing settlement and founded the town of New Harmony. This was a truly socialistic society in which private property itself was done away with. The fate that befell New Harmony is a familiar one. The idealists who were attracted to this communal society were intellectuals and experts, and not the workers whose lots he had so hoped to better. Productivity collapsed. Industries that had once thrived under Johann Georg Rapp – a German philosopher and leader of a religious sect called Harmonists who initially founded the settlement – withered or collapsed entirely. Within two years, and following a substantial amount of instability and tumult, the experiment failed. To account for this disaster, Owen did what all revolutionary socialists have done ever since in order to exculpate themselves for failure: he blamed the ignoble character of the participants in his great experiment.

Noah Rothman
April 14, 2016
The Character of a Socialist
[And as we have seen in dozens of other places like Cambodia, USSR, and Communist China when the intellectuals try to remake the character of man or eliminate the “limiters”, all in the name of doing good, to make progress, the death toll rises into the tens of millions.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Hal Lillywhite

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Actors are good at acting, at pretending to be what they are not. They earn their living in a fantasy world, and I fear that many of them lose touch with reality. Their talent does not include any particular wisdom; if it did we would see fewer Hollywood stars in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Hal Lillywhite
2015
From chapter 27 in Freedom or Serfdom?: The Case for Limited, Constitutional Government and Against Statism
[Via a comment to Dear Julianne Moore: Strict Gun Control Makes Single Women Prime Targets For Rape and Murder.

As I have said before:

Think of it this way. In this case we have the police and the military on our side of the issue, as well as nine Supreme Court Justices who agree the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. The anti-gun side has someone who plays make-believe for a living.

They get a lot of attention but convincing friends, neighbors, and politicians to vote your way is easier and more important than convincing actors to read your lines.—Joe]

Update the software on your Apple device

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Just setting the clock on your Apple device to January 1, 1970 will permanently brick it. And it overheats as it dies…

By setting up your own time server and Wi-Fi hotspot it can be done remotely to most Apple devices that come within range.

Update your Apple device software. Or, considering using it to fry an egg on as it’s last functional activity.

Quote of the day—Scott H. Greenfield

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So make your case. Advocate your position. Persuade everyone you see that your position is right, that the demise of humanity is imminent and that we must act immediately to stem climate change.  Yes, go for it.

But never by silencing critics, no matter how wrong you are certain they are.  This subpoena cannot stand, no matter how strongly, how passionately, you disagree with CEI.  There is a line that cannot be crossed, no matter what, and that line has been crossed. Prevail because your ideas are better than theirs, but not because government has the means to bludgeon ideas with which it, and you, disagree.

Scott H. Greenfield
April 8, 2016
The CEI Subpoena Cannot Stand
[H/T to Alan Gura on April 8th for the retweet of Greenfield’s tweet.—Joe]

Quote of the day—M.E.

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Perhaps this is almost too obvious/tautological/stupid to say, but although widespread change must eventually reach the majority, it does not often start there. Writer Rebecca Solnit put it this way:

Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they’ve always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it’s compromising: it recalls the mainstream when the mainstream was, say, rabidly homophobic or racist in a way it no longer is; and it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark around the edges, not the limelight of center stage. Our hope and often our power.

I understand this, but thing that has always bothered the sociopath in me is the collective amnesia that everyone experiences. No one admits, I used to be homophobic but then I realized I was wrong. Instead there is rampant hypocrisy. There is no humility. There is no healthy skepticism of their feelings of moral certainty. The moral certainty just shifts beliefs, from anti to pro or vice versa.

M.E.
April 1, 2016
Changing our minds
[I read M.E. because of the insights she has into the population at large and to a certain extent her self analysis. She, in essence, has no empathy for other people and tries to make rational sense of their actions. Because of her somewhat unique viewpoint she sees the nonsensical behavior and can generalize more quickly than I do. I find it fascinating to catch a glimpse of the world through her eyes.

The shifting of moral certainty applies to so many things. Gun ownership, religion, freedom of speech, due process, enumerated powers of the government, recreational drug use, equal rights for women, global cooling/warming/climate-change etc. People, in general, do not know and/or care to distinguish truth from falsity or right from wrong. They “just know”.

Politicians take advantage of this and claim political positions which they believe will yield the most votes. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Chavez, and many others in all countries were extremely popular in the beginning and in hindsight extraordinarily disastrous. It shouldn’t have taken hindsight. And with so many examples in history it shouldn’t take hindsight to see the errors being made today. But yet it appears to be the case.

Why is this? I think there are only three relatively easy to discern conditions necessary to predict the worst of, but of course not all, disasters.

  1. Many political options can be eliminated as “a bad idea” with very little analysis. But they are not eliminated because they are the same political options that are among the most powerful vote getters in a population that is unable to distinguish truth from falsity.
  2. A government which has essentially no limits on power.
  3. High social and/or economic stress.

When such a government is directed by people who either have no interest and/or ability to distinguish truth from falsity then disaster is nearly inevitable. It can easily become a powerful monster with an agenda of destruction with absolute moral certainty.

Welcome to the current political world of the United States.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Basepaul Season @paulbensonsucks

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@_Stars_Stripes_ @NRA ban all guns for the actions of the majority. Gun owners are terrorists throw them in prison

Basepaul Season @paulbensonsucks
Tweeted on April 12, 2016
[This is what they think of you.

This is typical thinking of statists. They refuse, or are unable, to think in terms of individual rights and responsibilities. If one, or a small minority, of people do something wrong it is justification for punishment of an entire class of people. One of the problem with this type of thinking is that you can justify almost anything. People could justify prison for all young black males because the statistics show young black males commit crimes at a higher rate than young Asian females. Our nation, and to a certain extent Western Civilization, was founded upon the principle of individual rights. People like this appear to think in terms of group responsibility. It’s a slippery slope to the good of the many outweighs the good of the individual and to everyone according to their need and from everyone according to their ability.

Then look at potential consequences of what he is saying about gun owners being terrorists and belonging in prison. Do these people think things through? This is very dangerous talk. I keep thinking that if this is what they really think of us then why would people bother to try and convince them otherwise? If one is told they belong in prison for simply existing, and there are people actively attempting to put them there, then what is the downside for doing something the actually earns a prison sentence? It would be easy for people to rationalize showing them the contrast between the way things are now and the way they could be if typical gun owners really were terrorists.

And finally, don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Consolation prize

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This is very, very cool:

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner plans to spend $100 million over the next few years to begin developing the technology needed to build a giant laser array to propel swarms of postage stamp-size spacecraft off on 20-year-long interstellar flights to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the sun, the internet investor announced Tuesday.

The tiny 1-gram nanocraft, or “StarChips,” would be equipped with small, ultra-thin light sails and accelerated, one at a time, to 20 percent the speed of light by a powerful half-mile-wide array of ground-based lasers, boosting them to a cruise velocity of some 37,200 miles per second in a few minutes.

From that point on, the tiny spacecraft would sail on their own across the immense 4.3-light-year — 25-trillion-mile — gulf, flying through the Alpha Centauri system about 20 years after launch. Each surviving “spacecraft on a chip” would snap pictures and beam the data back to Earth using tiny on-board lasers, the faint signals arriving four years later.

The G-forces are very high and that would make scaling it up to be a manned starship a huge challenge:

The collimated beam hitting the sail of a nanocraft would accelerate it to cruise velocity in about two minutes, he said, briefly subjecting the craft to 60,000 times the force of Earth’s gravity

When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969 I expected I would be alive to see colonies on the moon and perhaps even visit the moon myself. That seems very unlikely at this point. But it’s plausible that I will be alive to see the pictures taken from within a million miles from Alpha Centauri. That’s something I didn’t imagine and is a certain amount of consolation.

Quote of the day—Carry Sword in France

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Because-as society evolves, governments can no longer deal effectively with violence ever-present in our streets. Because-all citizens should have the right to defend itself, to ensure its security when the forces of order are absent or impotent. We French of all backgrounds, faiths and political tendencies united in this petition are asking the legitimate right to carry a firearm.

Carry Sword in France.
We ask the government to order the establishment of a decree authorizing all citizens to be entitled to carry a firearm in France
[I’m not sure about the organization, the date, and the translation in general, but the sentiment is fairly clear.

As Paul Koning said, “If that petition succeeds, the French will have a concealed carry system about as friendly as that of California. I suppose it’s a start.”

H/T to Andrew Benghazi.—Joe]

1990 interview of Donald Trump

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I found this 1990 interview of Donald Trump fascinating. He wasn’t trying to get votes at the time and perhaps it gives us better insight into his, if he has any, basic principles.

Attention coin collectors!

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I don’t collect coins but maybe someone else would be interested in this. It’s definitely not something you are going to be finding in the change you get at the grocery store:

Million_Dollar_Coin_MountiesThe coins were minted by the world renowned Royal Canadian Mint, which operates world-class refineries, as well as minting Canadian bullion coin products including the popular Canadian Maple Leaf gold and silver bullion coins (0.9999 pure or 24 karat).

Coin Specifications

  • Face Value: $1,000,000
  • Composition: 99999 fine gold
  • Weight (troy oz): 3,215
  • Weight (kg): 100
  • Coins in Existence Worldwide: 5
  • Coins Currently for Sale Worldwide: 1

Quote of the day—Leftside Annie‏@LeftsideAnnie

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@BrowningMachine Even more ironic that one who substitutes an instrument of killing for their tiny penis projects that onto me. #justsaying

Leftside Annie‏@LeftsideAnnie
Tweeted on October 20, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a Tweet from Linoge.

It’s very telling we have the facts and SCOTUS decisions on our side and the best they can muster is childish insults.—Joe]

Steel challenge match results

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I attended the Steel Challenge match at the Renton and Fish and Game Club today. I’m moderately satisfied.  I was first in Iron Sighted Pistol (ISP). But there were only three of us in that division. I came in 5th out of 13 in Rim Fire Pistol Iron (RFPI) sighted. I had two jams with the rim fire pistol. I called mulligan with one of them and got to shoot that string over. I was 12 seconds down from the next higher scoring shooter. The four shooters above me are all in the super squad of junior shooters who won nationals last year so I don’t feel bad getting beat by them. They are out of my league.

Compared to last month my ISP time went from 91.41 seconds to 78.37 seconds. I was shooting the reduced power Blue Bullets which almost for certain accounted for some of the improvement.

Comparing my RFPI time to last month I went from 64.47 seconds to 66.19 seconds. This difference is in the noise because we were shooting different courses of fire. These differences will easily account for the differences in time.

Steve, from work, showed up and watched the first stage we shot. He also took some great pictures of me. My favorite is this one:

1039-017

Although there is one picture with brass in the air and another with the gun in recoil that are also pretty cool.

The results:

Combined
Final Name SCSA Class Division Time Stage 1 Go Fast Stage 2 New Steel Stage 3 Focus Stage 4 In And Out
1 Miner, Bradley Jr U RFPI 40.83 8.53 9.76 10.79 11.75
2 Sailer, Christian A86982 U RFPI 41.16 7.35 10.47 12.61 10.73
3 Hong, Robert U RFRO 44.44 7.58 13.87 10.80 12.19
4 White, Alex U RFPI 46.12 10.02 11.22 12.92 11.96
5 Mon Wai, Damon U RFRI 48.91 9.37 13.10 13.17 13.27
6 Alvarez, Cel A15861 U RFPO 49.22 9.23 13.91 13.82 12.26
7 Sailer, Christian A86982 U PROD 50.33 9.86 13.87 13.32 13.28
8 Komatsu, Jeff U RFRO 51.74 12.86 15.58 11.90 11.40
9 Larson, Addison U RFPI 54.09 7.85 15.28 14.94 16.02
10 Kanter, Jeffrey U RFPO 54.54 10.19 16.58 12.13 15.64
11 dong, james U RFRO 58.24 9.93 15.20 17.30 15.81
12 dong, james U OPN 60.48 10.72 16.95 16.73 16.08
13 Meisner, Matthew U RFRO 61.61 9.65 17.06 14.26 20.64
14 Rich, Troy U RFRO 64.13 11.28 16.51 15.28 21.06
15 Huffman, Joseph U RFPI 66.19 10.32 16.85 18.88 20.14
16 Cheesman, Enrique U OPN 66.55 11.42 18.03 15.82 21.28
17 Miner, Bradley Jr U PROD 66.78 13.07 20.11 18.24 15.36
18 Eyi, John U OPN 66.86 12.02 16.11 17.00 21.73
19 Tsang, Keith a71578 U OPN 70.04 15.05 17.92 19.40 17.67
20 Firth, Sam U RFPO 71.30 16.42 17.60 18.27 19.01
21 Mortell, Jeffery U RFPI 74.48 11.58 20.27 19.88 22.75
22 Waak, Jim U RFRO 75.49 10.74 17.81 22.25 24.69
23 Meboe, Greg U PROD 76.31 13.24 19.65 19.82 23.60
24 Meboe, Oscar U RFRO 76.31 11.16 25.78 18.49 20.88
25 Bakken, Lance U RFPI 77.55 15.10 21.03 20.69 20.73
26 Huffman, Joseph U ISP 78.37 13.40 21.12 21.44 22.41
27 Bakken, Lance U RFPO 78.45 13.99 19.71 23.39 21.36
28 Meboe, Joey U RFPI 79.00 10.10 25.02 22.17 21.71
29 Mon Wai, Damon U PROD 79.90 12.52 20.59 24.23 22.56
30 Rich, Troy U RFPO 80.16 16.13 22.42 20.51 21.10
31 Jackson, Duane U RFPI 84.23 12.77 20.00 24.55 26.91
32 Mortell, Jeffery U PROD 87.48 15.57 22.29 25.53 24.09
33 Lai, Daniel TY44166 U OSR 87.70 15.82 20.52 25.63 25.73
34 Lai, Daniel TY44166 U OPN 88.52 15.28 22.24 22.12 28.88
35 Miner, Bradley Sr U ISP 89.35 17.47 25.88 24.22 21.78
36 Komatsu, Jeff U PROD 89.82 16.36 25.68 23.57 24.21
37 Pacczosa, Dan A492542 U PROD 90.23 12.91 20.89 24.74 31.69
38 White, Eric U PROD 94.78 13.64 24.01 29.42 27.71
39 Gile, Conner U RFPI 95.31 10.21 24.97 25.83 34.30
40 Hong, Robert U PROD 98.11 14.55 29.67 27.56 26.33
41 Meboe, Isabelle U RFPI 99.67 11.04 25.66 33.40 29.57
42 Jackson, Duane U ISR 100.72 13.84 26.49 29.15 31.24
43 Kanter, Jeffrey U ISP 101.33 13.62 25.38 28.09 34.24
44 Wood, Sabrina U RFPI 158.27 17.46 42.64 46.29 51.88
45 Whitlock, John U PROD 162.33 23.83 42.29 47.12 49.09
46 Arthur, Alan U PROD 168.60 22.39 58.19 48.84 39.18
47 Gray, Jeff U PROD 179.84 32.85 62.02 38.86 46.11
48 Wood, Sabrina U RFPI – – – – –

As a counter to the claim that old, fat, racist, white guys dominate the gun ownership ranks I found it interesting that of the seven guys on our squad only two were white guys. There were four people of Asian descent, and one Hispanic.