Category Archives: Gun Fun

Barrett Firearms is now Australian owned

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NIOA Acquires Barrett Firearm

Australian defense contractor NIOA Group announced today that it had acquired 100 percent of Barrett Firearms, expanding the company’s global reach. In the same announcement, NIOA Group CEO Robert Nioa confirmed that Barrett would continue to operate under its own brand. All management and staff at Barrett’s Murfreesboro, Tenn., manufacturing facility will be retained, and production will continue as normal. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

It sounds as if civilian sales will continue.

I don’t really have the money to buy and feed a Barrett but I want that possibility to exist for other people.

There could be a problem here

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Via Rolf who says, “I detect a problem”:

Meme-TargetShooting

I think someone needs to put a little more spin on their bullets.

Although, if the distance is short enough and/or the target big enough this probably has more stopping power than a soft or hollow point bullet.

Boomershoot 2023 entry opening soon!

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Registration opens for staff 1/9/2023 6:00:00 PM Pacific Time.
Registration opens for previous year participants 1/14/2023 9:00:00 AM Pacific Time.
Registration opens for everyone 1/21/2023 9:00:00 AM

As Boomershoot 2022 participants know we had some issues with placement of long-distance targets.

Due to issues mostly beyond the control of the landowner we were only able to place a few targets near the 700-yard area berm. Most of the details have been worked out for this year with a different area for some of the long distant targets.

You can see the new target area by visiting the entry website Available Positions web page.

Select an available position and you will find an image with all the target areas for a given position. Some shooting positions will have parts of one of the available target areas blocked by the tops of trees. The shooting position specific image (the bottom image) is several years old, and the trees have grown. The top image of available target areas is from August 2022 and closely represents the view from the East (left) side of the shooting berm. Choose your shooting position to take this limitation in mind.

Prices have increased. Boomershoot was losing a lot of money on the dinner and breaking even on the High Intensity event. There have been donations offer to cover the price of dinner for ALL participants. If one of these generous offers comes through refunds will be given to everyone who has signed up for dinner at the new price.

Let me know if you have questions or see typos or errors on the website.

Sign up here.

Quote of the day—Just the News Staff

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Democrats with ambitions of broad gun control in the United States face a major stumbling block in their efforts to enact those policies: American voters themselves.

Gun rights remain broadly popular in the United States, even after years of Democratic efforts to turn high-profile mass shootings into major gun control initiatives.

A long history of gun ownership, coupled with robust constitutional protections for firearm ownership here, have led to one of the largest private gun stocks in the world.

The enduring popularity of guns in the U.S. was underscored by a recent RMG Research poll conducted by Scott Rasmussen, one that earlier this month found some support for new gun laws among voters  but far more overwhelming favorability toward gun rights.

Just the News Staff
December 30, 2022
As Democrats ramp up gun control, a supermajority in U.S. think gun ownership good for society
[This is essential. Over time, SCOTUS rulings will match the culture more than the culture will match SCOTUS.

Keep up the good work. Take a newbie to the range.

Yesterday I took a new coworker to the range. He is former military and likes guns but all his guns were stolen a year or so ago and had not replaced them. I took him to the range and let him shoot several of my handguns and introduced him to Steel Challenge like shooting (with multiple paper targets) and USPSA stages. He said he really enjoyed that and it was nothing like he had ever done before. He plans to get a new gun soon. I plan to take him to a Steel Challenge match when the weather gets better.—Joe]

Supersonic rifle bullet at 5000 meters

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Via email from Rolf.

The 14.9x102mm SOP wildcat cartridge:

.. is made by necking down a 20mm Vulcan autocannon shell casing. It was developed as a collaborative project among members of the Snipers Hide online forum. It has undergone several revisions since 2010.

It’s usually loaded with a hand-crafted low-drag 1,690 grain solid copper bullet, which it fires at roughly 3,350 fps. The projectile itself is roughly 4 inches long, with driving bands and an aggressive rebated boat tail to reduce base drag.

The sectional density is around 0.70, which is an astoundingly high measure of the mass-to-diameter ratio. It’s very heavy for it’s caliber, nearly a quarter pound.

The ballistic coefficient is about 1.85, which is an astoundingly high measure of how aerodynamic the bullet is during flight.

And, of course, because it is more that .50 caliber (for now) it must be registered as a “destructive device.”

Wow. Nice ballistics! But I wouldn’t want to pay the price to feed it.

Quote of the day—Tom Gresham @Guntalk

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Mental Health Reminder: Before you get into an online shouting match with someone, remember that it’s quite likely that there is no one there. It’s a bot. Often best to move on, putting your efforts into something that’s actually productive. Like reloading. 😉

Tom Gresham @Guntalk
Tweeted on October 21, 2022
[This is probably good advice.

Reloading, practice, and building your underground bunker.—Joe]

Free stage design tool

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This stage design tool is cool:

image

This is a web application. No installing on your local machine is required.

Other features (from an email I received from them):

  • Easy to use – Simply drag and drop the props onto the stage and arrange how you like. 
  • My Stages Library – By creating an account in our Stagebuilder software, you will be able to save stages in your own “My Stages” library to come back to later.
  • Custom Props – We have included a wide selection of props to use in your stages, and you can even upload your own images to use as props. You can also add a text box to the stage to include specific instructions or notes if needed.
  • Stage Descriptions – You are able to include: a stage name, start position, stage number, round count, number of strings, number of paper targets, type of scoring, procedure notes, and setup notes. This description is added to the bottom of the page when you print or save your stage.

If you scroll down while on the web page there are a lot more target types to chose from.

You can save your stages online, include a stage description, print them out.

25 years ago when I was working for Microsoft on Direct X I fantasized about writing an application like this but with the added feature of using 3D and allowing you to walk through the stage and visualize it from any angle.

There are many other stage design tools. Some even use augmented reality which would be cool because you could superimpose your stage over your shotting bay using your phone camera.

Another type is, basically, Legos for stage designers.

With my own range now I think just the simple web app works for me. I can do the 3D visualization in reality rather than virtual space.

.22 LR ammo via Widener’s

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Last month I received an email from Widener’s. This is the important part of our conversation:

I’m reaching out to see if you’d be interested in reviewing some ammo on blog.joehuffman.org. Product reviews are an opportunity to increase website traffic and build a stronger relationship with your audience.

Think of your readers for a minute. They likely see ads for ammunition placed by manufacturers every time they go online. Wouldn’t it be better if they were receiving real information from a trusted resource like your website? Given your experience in the industry, I thought you would be interested in receiving some free ammunition to review.

If you are interested in receiving some free ammo for an unbiased product review. I’m sure we can find a caliber or two to send your way. 

If there’s anything I can help you with, just let me know. Thanks!

—

What type of ammo do you have in mind?

My primary calibers are .22LR (Steel Challenge type matches and practice), .40 S&W (Steel Challenge and USPSA matches) , .223 Remington (precision rifle out to 500 yards), and .300 Win Mag (precision rifle out to 700 yards).

—

Thank you for the fast reply. That sounds great, below is a $250 gift card code for you to use to get started. After you add items to your cart, enter the gift card code and the website will walk you through the rest of the checkout process. Orders are processed through a secure server and fulfilled remotely by our warehouse, so your blogger identity remains anonymous to us.

I ordered 1,000 rounds of CCI Mini-Mags 22 LR 40 Grain CPRN and 500 rounds of Federal American Eagle Suppressor 22 LR 45 Grain CPRN. That was on a Tuesday. The following Tuesday the ammo arrived at my underground bunker in remote Idaho:

image 

I was a little concerned because the package had been damaged in transit. I’ve opened ammo shipments that looked similar to this and found hundreds of rounds rattling around loose in the box.

This time the interior packaging was more than adequate and the ammo was contained:

image

image

I’ve fired many thousands of rounds of the Mini-Mags with excellent results. Because of the high reliability it’s the only .22 ammo I use in competition. Hence, I didn’t bother to test it.

I was really interested in the Federal American Eagle Suppressor 22 LR 45 Grain CPRN. Would it work in my somewhat finicky competition gun? I had thought I had my suppressor in my range bag but I couldn’t find it. Without the suppressor to give some additional backpressure I thought there was zero chance of it working. I was wrong. I fired two magazines without even a hint of malfunction and with excellent accuracy.

That was almost a month ago.

Last week I put in an exhaustive search for my suppressor to finish off the review. I finally found the suppressor laying on a shelf in the gun safe rather than in a range bag or gun case like I expected. I went to the range for a late lunch one day (it’s about five minutes from work) and, as I had hoped, I had a few minutes when I was the only person in the bay. I put on the suppressor and took off the ear protection. There was the usual mildly intense pop with the first round then the rest of the rounds were not much more than the sound of the action of the gun cycling. Again, with perfect reliability and excellent accuracy.

Nice!

Thanks Widner’s!

Hearing loss reversal

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Restoring Hearing: New Tool To Create Ear Hair Cells Lost Due to Aging or Noise

Hearing loss caused by aging, noise, and some cancer therapy medications and antibiotics has been irreversible because scientists have not been able to reprogram existing cells to develop into the outer and inner ear sensory cells — essential for hearing — once they die.

But Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered a single master gene that programs ear hair cells into either outer or inner ones, overcoming a major hurdle that had previously prevented the development of these cells to restore hearing, according to new research published today (May 4, 2022) in the journal Nature.

This is great news! I grew up driving extremely noisy tractors without hearing protection. And even with hearing protection after shooting some guns under certain conditions I can tell I had too much exposure.

I like living in the future.

Boomershoot 2022

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Boomershoot went reasonably well this year.

Dinner was good. I really like this food vendor. This is the second year for them and will probably will continue to be the vendor of choice.

MTHead (frequent commenter here and sometimes quite quotable) showed up and helped with Saturday target production.

Our Saturday night dinner speaker Kim du Toit spoke on how he believes individuals can help Make America Great Again. He says there is a Boomershoot report to follow once he returns to Texas. Also, he has a plan to sponsor a free Boomershoot dinner for all participants. We will discuss the details and give his idea serious consideration.

The weather was mixed with showers on Saturday but Friday and Sunday was dry and a bit cool. The targets had a high detonation rate. We did not find any targets which failed to detonate when they received a solid hit. There were the usual targets which were torn and lost content when hit by projectiles of wood, rock and ammonium nitrate prills from other targets which detonated.

We had a last minute problem with the land owner on the hillside informing us the USDA Conservation Reserved Program had recently informed him the rules were being interpreted much more strictly than in the past. Hence we couldn’t put any targets on the grass. This limited the most distant targets to about 690 yards to 700 yards and about 30 feet in width. We put targets in this area out in two batches.

The muddy 375 yards berm was handled in a special manner as well. In previous years with extreme mud we found the blast from targets would completely coat remaining targets with mud which was near perfect camouflage. To prevent this we put targets in this area out in three batches. The targets were given greater spacing in depth as well as elevation. This was a huge help. There was virtually no mud coating of nearby targets.

The first two batches at the 375 yard line were the usual mix of small (4″x4″ and some 3”x3”) and a few 7”x7” targets. The last batch was a last minute idea of mine. Instead of putting the remaining 140 7”x7” targets out near 700 yards we put them at 375 yards. This made the end of the event easy, fast, and exciting. A Boomershoot Grand Finale! It seemed to be a great hit.

I had one shooter tell me, “I had my bench and everything packed up and then I saw there were a whole bunch of big targets at 375. That’s like a bank setting a bunch of cash out in the open for everyone. I had to unpack my gun and shoot from the ground. I got another 10 targets and one probable.

20220501_105719
Some of the more elaborate setups.

20220501_124828
One of my co-workers and his wife with heads down.

The remainder of this post is high in image intensity and so I have split it to save people bandwidth.

Continue reading →

Firearms Guide 13th Edition

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This is rather cool. I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter at Boomershoot this year about building guns. This would be very useful for those building high end custom guns, people doing 3D printing, and everything in between.



Online Gunsmithing Library with 21,583 printable Gun
Schematics, Blueprints, Manuals, and
Catalogs

 

Impressum Media Inc., Los Angeles, CA (www.FirearmsGuide.com)
– April 28.2022 – For gunsmiths and shooting industry professionals worldwide,
Impressum Media Inc just published new Firearms Guide 13th Edition
that is not only the largest searchable guns & ammo reference guide, gun
values guide, but also largest online Gunsmithing Library.

 

Published since 2009 at www.FirearmsGuide.com
for shooting industry professionals, Firearms Guide is used worldwide by
private, police and military gunsmiths, gunsmithing schools and students,
ballistic labs, sheriffs and police departments, gun shops, public defenders,
and law offices in the USA and Internationally.

 

“The New Firearms Guide 13th Edition
is the world’s largest searchable guns & ammo reference guide that presents
over 80,000 antique and modern firearms, air guns, and ammunition from 1,633
manufacturers from 62 countries. With its 14 search criteria, Firearms Guide
enables fast, complex searches of 80,000 antique and modern guns and
side-by-side comparisons of search results. Guns are cross-referenced with the
huge ammunition database. Firearms Guide searchable Ammo Database has over 7,000
different rounds with ballistics and ammo pictures and is often used by
ballistic labs and police departments. Guns and ammo are presented with prices,
tech specifications, features, gun values, ballistic, and up to 12
high-resolution zoomable color pictures. With over 58,000 gun pictures (in
resolution up to 4000 x 1240) and with the biggest online visual (graphic) Gun
Codes, Proof Marks, Stamps, and Crests Guide, Firearms Guide is a great tool for
fast and precise firearms identification of antique and modern civilian and
military guns from 1,633 manufacturers and 62 countries” says Chris Mijic,
publisher of Firearms Guide.

 

“Gunsmiths will love the fact that the Gunsmithing
Library of the new 13th Edition
has over 21,583 zoomable and printable high-resolution gun schematics,
blueprints, manuals, and antique catalogs that they can zoom in on their large
computer screens and print out when they work on a client’s gun. It saves work
hours/money for gunsmiths that can now get schematics, parts lists, and armorers
manuals instantly and concentrate on their work. After they fix their client’s
gun, they can print the manual for that gun and give it to their clients. It is
a nice touch that your clients will appreciate.”

 

“Many Firearms Guide users love the fact that they can
use the Firearms Guide completely anonymously, without Google or any search
engine or internet provider tracking and archiving the gun-related searches that
they can later sell to any client or deliver to the government,” says Chris
Mijic, publisher of Firearms Guide. “Firearms Guide offers 100% user
privacy.”

 

 

Published since 2009 for shooting industry
professionals and gun enthusiasts, with its new 13th Edition published at www.FirearmsGuide.com, Firearms Guide
is:

 

1. A Reference
Guide that presents over 80,000 antique and modern firearms, air guns, and
ammunition from 1,633 manufacturers from 62 countries.

• Presents models with Tech Specs, Hi-Res Color
Pictures, Features, Ballistics, and Prices!

• Searchable reference guide with 14 search criteria –
better results than Google

• Over 58,000 high-resolution color pictures of guns in
resolutions up to 4000 x 1492!

• Presents Antique and Modern Pistols, Revolvers,
Rifles, Shotguns, Fully Automatic Military Guns (Heavy machine guns, Submachine
guns, Light machine guns, Automatic Pistols), Tactical Rifles, Air Guns, and
Ammunition in all calibers.

 

2. A
Gunsmithing Library with 21,583
zoomable and printable hi-res gun schematics, blueprints, gun manuals, and
antique gun catalogs – for all types of antique and modern
guns.

• With original blueprints for 1911, AK-47, AR-15,
Luger pistol, M1 Garand, M14, MP44, STG44, P38, etc you will be able to make
100% exact copies of each part or entire gun.

• With original Armourer’s Manuals for Glock guns, SIG
guns, H&K, FN, IWI, Webley, RSAF, and other guns you will have step-by-step
instructions on how to fix all possible problems that happen with those guns,
just like professional police or army armorers.

• With antique gun catalogs from Winchester, Colt,
Remington, S&W, Marlin, Beretta, Savage, Ruger, Walther, Browning, Ithaca,
Mauser, SIG, BSA, H&K, and many others.

 

3. A Gun Value
Guide that presents antique and modern guns with gun values online based on
the 100% – 30% condition ratings

• Now you can quickly and precisely estimate the value
of each gun in your collection

 

Firearms Guide 13th Edition is available with free
updates at www.firearmsguide.com

 

 

About
Impressum Media Inc.

Impressum Media Inc., founded in 2009 in Los Angeles,
California is the publisher of the Firearms Guide series of digital firearms,
air guns & ammunition references & value guides for gun enthusiasts and
industry professionals.

 

Contact
Info:

Chris Mijic,
Editor of Firearms Guide

Email:
Support@firearmsguide.com

Web:
www.FirearmsGuide.com

Impressum
Media Inc.

Boomershoot week is in progress

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I’ve been on site doing Boomershoot stuff on and off since last Friday. We had a private event on Saturday and tonight the first participants and volunteer staff showed up. Aaron (a regular in position 65) drove by my encampment about 7:00 PM. I did a few things before going over to visit with him.

Then as Aaron and were talking Barron, Janelle, their kids, and Bradley up.

Tomorrow daughter Kim and I will prepare Boomershoot Mecca for target production, do some inventory verification, pick up some last minute supplies, get the U-Haul trailer, and prepare for site preparation by the volunteers on Thursday.

The rented portable toilets were supposed to arrive last Thursday but the day before I got a call from the rental place. She sounded almost scared when she told me, “We no longer serve your area and we won’t be delivering the toilets tomorrow like we agreed.”

I told her I would have liked to have had more than one day notice. Did she have a suggestion for who might service our area? She did suggestion a competitor. I called them and they declined. I called a place in nearby Orofino I tried to contact months ago and they failed to return my call. I got voice mail again.

I was feeling the panic creeping up on me. Over 100 people here for a long weekend, 30 minutes from their hotel rooms and no toilets…

Then the phone rang. It was the Orofino rental place. “Sure! We can get three portable toilets to you next Wednesday.” That will be tomorrow. I’m still a little apprehensive because I have never done business with them before and I got burned with the other company last week after having the agreement in place for months. I’ll believe it when I see three clean and serviceable toilets sitting in Boomershoot Field sometime before midnight tomorrow.

Why You Aren’t A Better Shooter

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I was going through my list of unprocessed suggestions for blog posts and found this one from almost six years ago. The outline is:

  1. You don’t believe you are capable of being skilled
  2. You don’t know what skill looks like
  3. You don’t have a goal
  4. You don’t have adequate training
  5. You aren’t surrounded with people who are better than you
  6. You have poor physical conditioning
  7. You aren’t willing to fail
  8. You aren’t using the proper equipment
  9. Your shooting range is inadequate

Read the whole thing for some good insights.

She didn’t say this in the article but my guess is the order is by priority of things to work on for the average person.

My excuse isn’t listed. I haven’t been going to the range or matches enough. I have my own range well suited to the type of shooting I want to get better at but it’s 300+ miles from where I currently live.

Quote of the day—Shirley Johnson @ShirleyJwriter

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It’s too early to argue about penises and guns.
Just enjoy both and remember, if you don’t know what size you need, go rent a few at the gun range to see what fits you the best.
Or ask a friend to try theirs.

Shirley Johnson @ShirleyJwriter
Tweeted April 3, 2022
[While closely related this isn’t an example of Markley’s Law. I’m not certain it was intentional but I found it funny. The follow-up tweet contributed to the humor:

My husband does not like this post. He never goes to the range with me and now I am in trouble.

This in her profile doesn’t hurt, “I don’t need a 38. I need 38DD.”—Joe]

Reloading dies?

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If I could afford it, it would be cool to reload for this caliber. It would give Boomershoot a whole new meaning:

IMG_6881

Of course I would need a new press and reloading dies. Does anyone know where I could get a press and dies which could handle 16” projectiles?* Oh, I also need a new gun and new range.

* Yes, I know, these projectiles didn’t use a shell casing. I was just making a joke.

Labradar update

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As I mentioned a month ago I and many others have have problems with the Labradar smart phone app connecting to their chronograph.

My old phone worked with the app. That phone died and my new phone, a Galaxy S21 5G, would not make the Bluetooth connection. I purchased a few relatively cheap ($30->$90.00) phones for testing. The Nokia 2.1 – Android 9.0 Pie (Go Edition) actually worked most of the time. I have no plans to put a SIM card in it and use it as a real phone. It’s just an remote control accessory for the chronograph.

Last Thursday I received an email from Labradar:announcing (highlighting added):

The new Labradar App for iPhones/iPads and Androids is now available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store*. New features include.

  • Improved Bluetooth connectivity
  • Create notes for each shot and series
  • Add weather conditions
  • Create custom names for each series
  • Ke can be displayed in Joules and Ft.lb
  • Export files via email in CSV format
  • Create a custom name for your LabRadar
  • Quick entry of bullet weight for Power Factor calculations

Great. I’ll bet I wasted my money on the phone as a remote control, right?

Wrong. My Galaxy S21 still won’t connect. To be fair, they did say, “improved”, not “fully functional”. The Nokia 2.1 now works all the time instead of just most of the time. It is an improvement.