Here is one of the Boomershoot 2018 Personal Fireballs and the resultant smile:
Also of interest is this is an immigrant from Venezuela and told me in email:
I hope some day to I can contribute to this great country, my city and community and defending the second amendment, as much as you do.
I usually have QOTDs up for the time before and slightly after Boomershoot so I have time to concentrate on Boomershoot then just veg out and recover afterward. This time I did not get ahead on the QOTD stuff for this blog. I’m going “radio silent” for a few days.
Nothing to worry about. I’ll be back online when I feel like it.
Boomershoot 2018 was a big success!
There were a few minor glitches like the guy that got his trailer and pickup stuck and I had to get a tractor to pull him out. Somehow the number of stakes at the tree line was miscounted and we had a few too many stakes for the number of Sunday targets (879). I changed the way we put the explosives in the boxes which resulted in more explosives per box. No big deal but I forgot to update my spreadsheet with the new weight of the explosives per box. This meant we used up all of the secret ingredient and Barb had to run into town to buy some more. We used up all but about two pounds of the Potassium Chlorate and all but 150 pounds of the Ammonium Nitrate when I thought I would have enough left over for my summer recreational use. I expect there were a few sunburns. I got a small burn on my thumb from lighting a road flare with my lighter. The U-Haul trailer door broke on Saturday and we had to strap things in to make sure they didn’t slide out. The box of flares for the Sunday fireball was misplaced and we scrounged up flares from other other sources. The Wi-Fi was extremely flakey and essentially unusable.
All glitches cause some stress but we found workarounds for most things and there was no significant ill consequences.
But the targets had a very high detonation rate and several people told me they had more boom than normal. This wasn’t just because of the slight increase in the amount of explosives. I think it was the new chemical supplier and/or the new packing method. One longtime boomershooter told me, “Those were the best boomers I have ever shot.” That was my impression too.
The two personal fireballs and the Sunday event fireball all worked on the first try. This was the view from the shooting line 10 minutes into the Sunday event:
It’s only still pictures updated once a minute but you can see what’s happening at Boomershoot today on this web page: http://www.boomershoot.org/Live.htm.
Today was the official first day of onsite prep for Boomershoot 2018. But we left home yesterday with a full load in my vehicle:
We arrived on site late yesterday afternoon and quickly established that the fields are muddy:
That was just the first field. It got much worse after that.
All the shooting positions were dry after we removed a few positions which were unoccupied. So that isn’t going to be a concern. The weather forecast is looking really good and everything is going according to schedule.
All the Boomershoot direction signs are up now:
We put a new canopy outside our target production facility which is awesome:
Tomorrow we begin target production.
It’s going to be a blast!
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes TONIGHT at midnight). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
We like to pretend that genocide is something other people do- the Nazis, or the Tutsis, or the Soviets, or the Chinese Communists.
We Americans practice genocide too.
And just like those other people, we make sure our victims are disarmed before we butcher them.
The Cherokee, Muscogee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole did not have the means to fight back against the genocidal United States.
So they died by the thousands.
Genocide isn’t something only “they” do. It’s something we do too.
Be ready.
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes at midnight Wednesday April 18th). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
Governments love to commit genocide.
Here’s over 25 genocides with enough dead to be recorded. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll)
Genocide is NORMAL.
What’s not normal is fighting back with adequate weapons.
Anyone will fight back with a chair or a garden hoe when they come for your family.
But as Americans we have the rare birthright of fighting back with a level of firepower never before possessed in civilian hands.
Don’t wait for things to get bad before you get serious about demonstrating your skill.
Instead let your would-be rulers know that you can hit a pizza box at half a mile with a first round shot.
Attend Boomershoot.
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes at midnight Wednesday April 18th). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
Let’s stop pretending we are better than the Brits.
We laugh at their knife crime epidemic and their fear of guns.
We laugh at how we had to ship guns to them so they could fight back against the Nazis.
Instead of viewing them as an aberration, view Britain as normal.
When no one stands up for freedom, when no one is willing to take risks to pass on knowledge of resistance to tyranny, that fighting spirit withers.
The spirit of freedom shrinks.
And one day you wake up to find yourself watching a march go by your window of people who support the cops killing you because you carry a knife.
Stop assuming it can’t happen here.
Take your friends to Boomershoot to keep the spirit of freedom kicking.
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes at midnight Wednesday April 18th). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
Doing what the authorities tell you to do is always easier in the short run.
But in the long term it can be devastating.
You could ask these people how following the rules worked for them, but they chose to kneel and do as they were told.
And now they are dead.
These are the stakes.
Attend Boomershoot. It’s not illegal (yet!), and you know your would-be masters would rather you not.
Stop kneeling.
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes at midnight Wednesday April 18th). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
We have this myth of the Militia, of the Patriot, of the 3% who will fight back against an evil government.
But the reality is that many states already outlaw normal handguns and rifles, and we’ve not seen any organized resistance.
And when the government gets really violent and goes beyond passing laws into burning children, still the ‘militia’ is nowhere to be seen.
Don’t count on other people to save you. Count on your closest friends and family.
Bring them to Boomershoot so they can experience the sheer joy of hitting a 7″ target at almost half a mile away.
Don’t practice wishful thinking. Practice fighting back instead.
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes at midnight Wednesday April 18th). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
Universal laws:
1. After a genocide, everyone says “Never again!”
2. Governments keep on committing genocide.
3. Armed populations NEVER suffer genocide.
4. Governments always disarm populations before genocide.Talk is cheap.
Thankfully so is ammunition and gas.
Talk less about how bad genocide is and invite your friends and family to Boomershoot instead.
You can’t stop genocide. But you can stop it happening to you.
Boomershoot 2018 is three weeks away. I just finished the design for the shirts, caps, mugs, maternity clothes, thongs, baby bibs, etc. for this event:
You can get your own items from the Boomershoot 2018 CafePress store.
If can also get generic Boomershoot logo items.
There are still positions open for all the events. Don’t miss this amazing event. Sign up here.
Don’t forget that this is the last call for the Boomershoot Precision Rifle Clinic. And the last day to sign up for the PRC is March 31st. So to get into the clinic you must sign up today or tomorrow. Do it now!
It’s that time of season again—time to go buy surveyors stakes for Boomershoot (see also Vampire season again and Vampire time of year again).
So, after dinner last night we drove over to Lowe’s and bought the stakes. And this time we also bought some lime at the same time to put on the target berm to stabilize all the lead we put into the ground there:
With the addition of the lime I had an additional line of thought for responding to the anticipated question question from the checkout clerk. Once the vampires are dead we need to get rid of the bodies, right? Lime will help with that.
The clerk didn’t quite bite. “Big project?”, she asked. I wanted a bigger invite than that and just said, “You could say that.” Barb thought it was sufficient and offered, “He usually says, ‘It’s for the vampires.’”. So, I ran with it, “Yes, we have a very heavy infestation of vampires this year and the lime is to dispose of the bodies.” The clerk smiled and murmured something in agreement with the plan. Little did she know the real plan is almost as unbelievable.
The Boomershoot Precision Rifle Clinic put on by Eugene Econ and his staff has been a part of Boomershoot since 1999. Yesterday I received an email from Eugene stating that this will be his last year. It’s possible someone else will pick up the “baton” but that is unknown at this time. This may be your last chance to get some outstanding instruction for an incredible price with the opportunity to follow it up with practicing your newly acquired skills with hundreds of highly reactive targets the very next day.
You need to make your decision soon because Eugene also asked that Precision Rifle Clinic registration be cutoff on April 1 this year. This is due to the logistics of getting enough staff for the clinic participants.
Sign up NOW for Boomershoot 2018 and the Precision Rifle Clinic.
Also, of possible interest to previous participants is, the “gravel” driveway has been refurbished. You can now easily drive your low clearance vehicle all the way in without fear of banging up the underside or the need of a snorkel to get through the mud holes. See the before and after pictures to get a sense of the improvement.
What is Boomershoot? Boomershoot is a long range, high-power, precision rifle shooting event with high explosive, reactive targets up to 700 yards away.
Boomershoot 2018 is coming up fast (the weekend of April 21st and 22nd). There are still a number of great positions available.
And there is a very special position available via auction here. This position was donated by Boomershoot to Hamlin Robinson school for them to auction for fundraising. Additional details are at the link above and here:
1) Hamlin Robinson is a Seattle-based K-8 specialty school for kids with dyslexia and language development issues.
2) The package is just for the main Boomershoot day, but it is ideal for newbies or long distance travelers, as the package includes assistance and spotting from Ryan and I, even loaning bolt rifles if we have to.
3) If the winners sign up for events/training on Friday and Saturday, Ryan and I will still assist and lend equipment.
4) I have extra reservations at the Helgeson so the auction winners don’t need to worry about finding accommodation.
Attend Boomershoot, get free coaching and loaner equipment and help a worthy cause at the same time. It’s a win for everyone.
I’m not looking for a rifle like this, but maybe someone else is. Boomershoot is coming up very soon!
From Richard:
I have been following your blog, The View from North Central Idaho for some time. Getting to Boomershoot is definitely on my bucket list!
I wanted to make you aware of an interesting rifle being sold by a friend of mine.
For Sale from original user:
Accuracy International Sniper Rifle in .308
Field tested in the sandbox
Includes original logbook with photos of test results. Must sign a non-disclosure to receive the logbook.
Certificate of Authenticity from Craft International.
Asking $12,000.00The user convinced AI to buyback the rifle from his unit and then sell it to him.
Please contact me if you or anyone you know has a serious interest.
If you are interested send me an email and I’ll forward it on.
I’m offering a discount on most Boomershoot events for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and decided to just make it the entire Thanksgiving weekend. Starting at Thanksgiving morning, November 23rd, at 12:00 AM Pacific Standard time until midnight Monday November 27th, there is a 20% discount on the High Intensity, Personal Fireball, and Long Range events.
The discount is only valid for entries which are placed during that time. Go to the Boomershoot Entry web site and use the code “BLACK FRIDAY” during the sign up process.
Here are some videos to give you a clue as to what you are getting a chance to participate in:
Sign up as soon as you can to get the best choice of the remaining shooting positions.
As I mentioned a few days ago I’m having work done on the Boomershoot driveway. I visited the site this last weekend and am pleased with the progress being made.
The first picture is the view from the road.
This second image is a close up of the location where the potholes and big rocks were at in the bottom of the small draw:
There is still some more work to be done but the main concerns have been corrected. The Boomershoot experience just got a little better.
Update: Here are some “before pictures”:
April 21, 2017
April 24, 2016
As I mentioned at the Boomershoot dinner this year I contacted someone to fix the driveway into the parking area. I told him it wasn’t urgent and as long as it was finished before the roads got too soft in the fall (the county puts load limits on the roads that would have prevent him from hauling the 200+ tons of gravel to Boomershoot). I suggested sometime in September would be the latest that would assure it would get done before it got too wet.
In early September I started bugging him. I was less than happy with the (lack of) response and commitment over the following weeks and had essentially given up on him. Last week he finally called and said he was still going to do it.
Today, via my web cam (see here), I can see work being done:
For the last several years I have been making improvements to safety and target production facilities. This will be the biggest improvement specific to the participant experience I have made in many years. I’m glad it is finally getting done.
My ATF license to manufacture high explosives must be renewed every three years. This was one of those years.
I had to take a day of vacation to meet them because they aren’t allowed to work on weekends.*
Barb and I drove to our motel in Pullman on Thursday night with Heidi (the new ATF “investigator”—it used to be “inspector”) scheduled to meet us at our hotel to do the paperwork side of things at 9:00 AM. She didn’t show up then and she didn’t contact me to let me know. I was a little annoyed and that probably showed in my tweets about it.
She showed up about 9:40 and said when she went to checkout of her motel that morning her government issued credit card wouldn’t work. She had to call “the government” to get things straightened out. Okay, that’s a pretty good excuse.
We went through the checklist of things that mostly didn’t apply to me and then lead her out through the back roads of Idaho to the Boomershoot site where she did about a 10 or 15 minute inspection, took pictures, and said everything looked good. She still needed to go through my records to make sure I had never put more than the maximum allowed 18,000 pounds of explosives in the magazine at one time. Considering that I don’t think we have made that much explosives in the last seven years and the magazine is full with about 2,000 pounds I’m pretty sure that her arithmetic is going to give me a passing grade with that. The only thing I didn’t get right was that I was supposed to send them a signed plot map even though it hasn’t changed in years and it’s on the Boomershoot website. I’ll print out a copy, sign it, scan it, and then email it to her and I will have three more years of being blessed by the ATF.
We also talked about our kids some, the farm land around us, what crops are grown there, the Indian Reservation, all about Boomershoot (she thought it sounded awesome), and how beautiful it is in this part of the country. So much better than Florida where it is so flat and even Spokane where she lives now.
One effect of the license renewal is that all the explosive handlers for Boomershoot have to send me new Employee Possessor forms for me to forward on to the ATF. Everyone that was ATF approved is now not approved (except Barb and I who have already taken care of it).
The bottom line is that it is all system go for Boomershoot 2018. Sign up here.
* While chatting with her doing the inspection I found out that Heidi rescheduled her day off from work to next week in response to my requested day to do the inspection. This allowed me do the inspection on the same weekend as Kim’s wedding and saved me nearly 700 miles of driving round-trip to Idaho on different weekends for the inspection and wedding. Thank you Heidi!