I was looking through the images snapped by the webcam yesterday at the Boomershoot shooting line and found this one:
I’ve also seen someone visiting the nearby Geocache.
I’m reminded of this image from Boomershoot 2017 via the webcam I had near the road:
Via email from Kris Erickson.
This was putting the camera in serious jeopardy.
It survived.
Boomershoot was muddy for staff this year. Last fall Barb and I restored the berm with a dozer and planted grass on all the bare dirt. The grass was looking pretty good, for new grass. As soon as we started walking in it, it turned to soup (photo by daughter Kim of her own shoes):
The targets started out white but after a nearby detonation would become completely covered in mud. One participant called the targets, mounted on the top of 18 inch tall surveyors stakes, “Mud Lollipops”.
Photo by Kim:
I’m going to have to replant the grass and hope it gets a better chance at survival next spring.
The parking area for participants was soft but not too hazardous. One unexperienced off road person got stuck with a two-wheel drive car but other than that I don’t know of anyone who has serious problems in that area.
At the end of the event when Barb and I were hauling stuff in the trailer back to the shed I was unable to get up a gradual hill:
It was just too greasy. We carried everything going to the Taj the last 100 feet but still the load was just too much for my vehicle to pull up the hill on that grease. I had to unhook, connect with a chain from 90o, rotate the trailer, hook up directly, turn around, and clawed our way out the way we came. We had stuff in the trailer that needed to go to Boomershoot Mecca (our target production facility) so rather than go the short way through the field we went via the county road.
On the way to the county road we had to cross the field past the staff clean up crew. The field had standing water in it and was soft. Each previous time I had driven across it the Escape slowed and I knew we were at high risk of getting stuck. Getting enough momentum prior to hitting the soft spot was essential and I had to make a wide berth around the staff. When you are in danger of getting stuck you don’t want to be making turns, you want to go fast and straight. I didn’t have that option this time and I blasted past in a wide arc as fast as I dared. I made it past, through the standing water and out to the county road. On our next trip back to the clean up crew Barron approached me and said:
None of us in the group has ever seen someone drifting around a corner with a trailer before.
Hmm… I suppose that is uncommon. But these were uncommon times. After all, with all the mud on the trailer Barb and I used rakes to scrape it off:
Update: Barron sent me a link to his video of me going through the swamp. This is not the instance I was talking about above. This was from a little later in the day:
Boomershoot 2017 is over and I have some statistics to share from my entry statistics page (modified slightly to account for last minute changes):
| Total | Average per position taken | Average per total positions | |
| Positions Taken | 51 | – | 0.67 |
| Participants | 100 | 1.96 | 1.32 |
| Friday Field Fire participants | 16 | 0.31 | 0.21 |
| Friday Clinic participants | 4 | 0.08 | 0.05 |
| Friday High Intensity participants | 15 | 0.29 | 0.20 |
| Personal Fireball participants | 2 | 0.04 | 0.03 |
| Saturday Field Fire participants | 44 | 0.86 | 0.58 |
| Saturday Clinic participants | 16 | 0.31 | 0.21 |
| Saturday High Intensity participants | 26 | 0.51 | 0.34 |
| Dinner participants | 65 | 1.27 | 0.86 |
| Sunday Shooters | 85 | 1.67 | 1.12 |
| Sunday Spotters | 5 | 0.10 | 0.07 |
| Media/Bloggers | 7 | 0.14 | 0.09 |
| ATF Approved | 20 | 0.39 | 0.26 |
| Staff | 31 | 0.61 | 0.41 |
Long range shooters had 20 four inch and 187 seven inch square targets available between 600 and 700 yards. They also had 400 four inch and 154 seven inch targets at the tree-line (about 375 yards). At the end of the event there were only 11 intact targets left on the fields. This was the lowest number ever. This is attributed to low wind, good shooting, and no three inch targets.
For all events combined we consumed a total of about 1440 targets filled with nearly 1700 pounds of explosives.
It was a real blast.
Boomershoot was very well received this year even if the fireball was a failure (it didn’t ignite).
Some were via email and text message, but still…
At the Saturday dinner:
That was the best speech I have heard at Boomershoot in the last ten years.
At High Intensity:
This was the most fun I have ever had with my AR.
At the Long Range event:
I usually get about four or five boomers. This year I lost count.
Via email:
Joe as usual, We totally enjoyed Boomer Shoot 17.
Thank you and your crew AND family for hosting and putting on such an unusual and fun event.
The location is absolutely wonderful.
I totally enjoy the challenges of the venue.
It s great to meet new shooters and running into old friends.
I’m glad you feel appreciation for being Mr Boomershoot, because, as you mentioned, this event impacts more than just the attendees. Best Western and High Mountain Resort are both outstanding. The small town atmosphere is a treat when you are coming from Seattle.
Again thank you so very much for the wonderful amazing shooting opportunity.
…
PS… Oh yeah. I’ll be there next year.
Via email:
Thank you for yet another FANTASTIC event.
Whatever you did with the formula, this year, *KEEP DOING IT!!!*. I have NEVER, in my 13 (nonconsecutive) years seen fewer targets for the cleanup crew.
Your stated goal for Boomershoot seems to be bearing fruit: the level of marksmanship this year was outstanding, which directly relates to the lack of cleanup targets mentioned above.
Via text message:
I think I figured out the draw for men of big explosives: closest thing to a female orgasm they’ll ever feel!
Boomershoot 2017 is complete. It was all wrapped up earlier than ever before due to a number of issues. I’ll get into them in a later post but the bottom line is it went well even though it was extremely muddy.
One of the last things Barb and I did before heading down the hill to the motel was to take down the webcam at the road pointing at the shooting area. When we parked Barb suggested we scrape some of the mud off the trailer with the rakes we use for cleaning up target debris. We giggled as we did this after Barb pointed out it was rather amusing to be scraping mud off with a rake. I then wanted to get a last webcam photo with us in a Norman Rockwell pose, as she pretending to do in the first web came image.
We got it:
Last night, after getting someone’s (who shall remain nameless) car unstuck Barb and I hooked up another webcam at Boomershoot. See the results here.
I asked her to stand with me for a couple minutes to see if we could be the first picture it took.
I just (11:51 PM the next night) got caught with things enough to look at the results.
I was successful!
We just love NOT pounding stakes in the rain.
Barb L.
April 20, 2017
[It’s Boomershoot time!
To fully appreciate this quote you need to read this QOTD and see the picture from a year ago and compare to this year.
It was raining hard Thursday morning but the forecast was for the rain to taper off in the afternoon. So, I told the staff to delay the schedule by four hours. Barb and I were still running around preparing but we didn’t spend too much time outside. At least nothing like we would have if we had been setting up the shooting line or pounding target stakes into the hillside. So, Barb was very appreciative of not pounding stake when it was raining hard and there were gusts of wind up to 28 MPH.
Friday and Saturday are supposed to be much drier and warmer.—Joe]
Via email from Dave Bakken who says he will bring the rifle to Boomershoot this year if there is someone interested in purchasing it.
Details on the equipment here. Synopsis:
Q: What happens when a professor in a technical area decides to get into long-range shooting?
A: He ends up with the gear described in this document, after a huge amount of research and trial and error.
==========================
Q: What happens when he is getting divorced later (after not having time to shoot the rifle for 2+ years)?
A: He sells it. This saves those who hope to get into long-range shooting a HUGE amount of time. Especially if you do not presently have time to learn and master handloading…
Summary
OK, so nowadays Dave is selling his rifle and setup. In doing so, anyone who wants to get into long-distance shooting can buy this and save a HUGE amount of time in researching options.
Here is what he is selling:
Item
List ($)
Rifle Setup
3290
Ammo
106
Supporting Gear
398
Gear in the Toolbox
320
TOTAL$$
4114
Asking Price: $3500.
If you are attending Boomershoot this year please prepare for variable weather. It’s only a week away and it was snowing today:
Earlier it was foggy:
There was also some sun at times:
The forecast for next week and during Boomershoot is mixed as well. It’s supposed to be a little warmer and drier than today but don’t count on it. Forecasts more than a couple days ahead tend to be unreliable.
On the bright side, for those people who want practice with “real world” shooting conditions, for several hours today we had sustained winds in the 10 to 20 MPH range with gusts up to 30 MPH.
Among many other things I did over the weekend I got the weather station and webcam working at the Boomershoot shooting line. I created a web page for it so people can check out the conditions as Boomershoot 2017 approaches. I call the webpage Boomershoot Live! It will also allow people who are not attending to get a once a minute snapshot of the target area and weather.
Here how things looked yesterday morning when I was getting the T-Mobile microcell working:
Here is this morning:
Yeah. The weather at Boomershoot is variable.
The weather station uploads data to Weather Underground about four times a minute. They kept track of the weather history as well as make forecasts.
It’s too far away to make a believable forecast for Boomershoot (April 21, 22, 23) but in another week they will start being plausible.
Update: The webcam dropped offline at 3:00 PM PDT April 10th. I don’t know why. I’m over 300 miles away and won’t be able to check on it until April 20th.
Update 2: The webcam started working again at 6:07 PM PDT April April 10th. This was with a few minutes of when I told Barb I would probably buy a newer and better one and take it with us when we went to Boomershoot. Not that this had anything to do with it starting to work, but I thought it was amusing.
I delivered a bunch of stakes and some steel targets* to the Boomershoot Taj Mahal today. It snowed nearly all day today. It wasn’t sticking on the ground too bad but the ground was completely saturated in places. There was water standing in a significant part of the field near the tree line. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it all the way to the Taj and back pulling the trailer through the mud.
I made it all the way there but things got a little bit messy:
As I got close to where I wanted to park, my vehicle started sliding sideways toward the Taj and I stopped before I made a mess of my vehicle as well as the thin steel shed.
I had no problem getting back out. I was a bit surprised at that. I was very concerned about getting the trailer turned around because I planned to pull it another 15 feet forward to get it inline with the vehicle. It was still at a significant angle to the vehicle and I didn’t have much control of direction of travel, let alone orientation, in the greasy mud on the hillside near the Taj.
But I found a different place I could back into to turn around and everything worked out just fine.
I went back to South Road, unhitched the trailer and even made it in to Mecca to deliver the final supplies needed for Boomershoot 2017.
There are still several positions available, Sign up here. It will be a blast!
*These targets belonged to Scott Keszler. He used to bring these to Boomershoot every year from North Dakota. After he died his family gave the targets to Boomershoot. I picked them up at his nephew’s place north of Spokane last night.
Bad Idea T-Shirts
[Boomershoot 2017 is coming up and no one from the future has stopped me yet. I’ll bet no one stops you either. Sign up here.—Joe]
I suspect the Clearwater Tribune needed some filler so they wrote a short article based upon an ad I was running in their paper.
Barb and I were amused by this line:
There are over 1,000 of these targets, rigged with 1,500 pounds of explosives.
The targets are not “rigged with explosives”. The packaged explosives are the targets.
Boomershoot Precision Rifle Clinic instructor Gene Econ has sent me an update to share for the events he is running this year. Basically it is the schedule and some safety issues.
I have completed the CafePress Boomershoot 2017 section. The image used was the beginning of the fireball from Boomershoot 2015. The slogan is from a comment by JFT on one of my Boomershoot postings.
In addition to the usual t-shirts, cups, and thongs (yes, there has been more than one sale of a Boomershoot thong) there are now king-size blankets, coffee trays, cutting boards, pillows, and potholders. For some reason a potholder with an image of a fireball on it makes me laugh even more than the Boomershoot thong.
Take a look and see what you think.
Barb and I went out for dinner for Valentines Day and, among other things, we happened to discuss the possibility I would visit Idaho soon to visit family and do some Boomershoot prep. She reminded me I needed to count how many wooden stakes we have for mounting the targets on. For some reason Barb just loves pounding stakes into the ground (I kid) and she was, as usual, thinking months ahead. She suggested that after dinner we stop by Lowe’s on the way home and pick up whatever stakes they have and then once I know how many we have left over from last year I can pick up the balance in a week or three. Valentines celebration and she is thinking of Boomershoot? This one is a keeper.
Lowe’s in Bellevue had two boxes of eight bundles (25 stakes per bundle) and one stray bundle. I left the one stray for someone else, purchased the two boxes, and now I have this in the back of my vehicle:
As usual (see here, here, here, here, and here), I was prepared with a vampire comment if they asked why I was buying so many stakes. I was disappointed. The guy didn’t seem very bright (Barb commented too) and needed help counting the bundles. I don’t think it occurred to him that 400 stakes was a large quantity. Oh well. Maybe next time.
Barb also made a trip to Costco this week and asked if I wanted her to buy some more of the secret Boomerite ingredient. Sure!
When she brought it into the house she told me she was ready with an answer if they asked what she was going to do with 21 pounds of <redacted>. They didn’t ask. Maybe if she had purchased some anti-freeze at the same time she would have gotten a reaction.
Last night she told me, “I’m just going to keep bugging you until you send an email to the boy scout guy about supplying food at lunch time.” I replied, “I already did that last night. I haven’t got an answer back yet though. Thanks for reminding me.”
Then later last night she showed me the menu for the caterer of the Saturday dinner and asked that I discuss the options with her and make a final decision (we agreed upon roast beef, baked potatoes, fresh fruit, spinach salad, and carrot cake).
This morning she told she realized it was over two months away but she was thinking about what food to bring to the hotel for our personal meals.
She’s got Boomershoot on the brain. No more than I do when we are a couple weeks out, but she, as usual, is planning months ahead.
I think I’ll keep her.
I went a few years ago, and damn it was worth the money.
dagamore
February 13, 2017
Comment in WaGuns.org Boomershoot 2017
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Like fine wine, a quaint B&B situated within stunning Idaho scenery pairs nicely with the guns/explosives, at Boomershoot.
There, you’ll find a rich, crisp bouquet of sugary gunpowder, earthy dirt, and refreshing, airy ammonium nitrate. Strong aftertaste of freedom.
As the April 2017 Boomershoot event fills up, so will lodging. Airbnb offers some charming accomodations for spectators, shooters, and connoisseurs of non-whine.
#Boomershoot
#GunSharingCaring
