Quote of the Day
I really like it here. I waited all year for this.
Reina Taheri
May 3, 2026
This was at Boomershoot yesterday. And it was after she went to the hospital for a Boomershoot injury on Saturday. A hot shell casing from an AR-15 went down her boot and she was unable to get it out before getting a second-degree burn. That was the worst injury we have had in many years.
This was Reina’s second Boomershoot. Here is a video of her from last year:
I took pictures of Reina with this year’s personal fireball and while she was shooting in the long-range event. but I think my camera is in daughter Kim’s car. The best pictures I have of the event on my phone are the ones below.
Each cloud of “smoke” is a different explosion. We had about 500 targets for the Sunday shooters.
This following is Team Fireball. I did the basic design and a lot of the work. But the people below all contributed to the success.
This is a close up of our most reactive target (23 gallons of gasoline over 30.8 pounds of Fireball Boomerite with road flares for added “visibility” on the rebar in the background:
We have sometimes said, “Boomershoot runs on rubberbands.” We came close to using 1,000 rubber bands this year. In the picture above you can see them holding the flares to the rebar, holding the jugs of gasoline together, and holding the Boomerite boxes in place.
Here is a frame-by-frame sequence of the opening fireball (video by Tim S.):
I think the dust forming in the field furrows from the shockwave is really cool!
There was a little more, but you get the idea.
Just kidding. You don’t have any idea of what the real thing is like. No video or pictures can do it justice. The heat is intense. The ground shakes. You feel a large thump in your chest. The crowd cheers and claps. The Boomershoot opening fireball is incredible.
The weather was fantastic. The target production went ahead of schedule. The personal fireballs (Reina and her dad each had one) successfully detonated and ignited. The Boomers went boom with almost no duds. There were still a few targets left at the end of the day. I consider it a good thing when the shooters run out of ammo before they run out of boomers.
Other than the one minor injury, everything went really well. I can not recall a better Boomershoot.
Getting close to a mushroom cloud.
Our winter and spring here in NW Wyoming have been the warmest and driest in decades, with a lot of the old-timers saying that they’ve never seen it so bad. When it’s windy (as it is a lot of the time here) we get “red-flag warnings” posted for fires.
One of our local irrigation ditch groups tried to do a controlled burn of one of the overgrown ditches and had the wind come up suddenly; the fire quickly got out of control. Three fire engines later, all with their own on-board water tanks, and they finally got it put out before it jumped the highway. Very lucky.
I see from the pictures that it’s not quite as dead-brown and barren in Idaho, but I was wondering what kind of precautions you have to take for wildfires and grass fires spreading from those ginormous fireballs?
First precaution is the date. Boomershoot happens when it does so the ground is not too muddy, the field is not too dry, and doesn’t conflict with the NRA annual meeting (out of pragmatism).
The field the fireball went off on was tilled, so the plants were few and far between. The fireball did set them on fire… and that fire lasted all of four minutes because there wasn’t any dry fuel to spread to. Besides, if it was coming up in that field, the farmer wanted it gone.
Headline: 2006? Perhaps 2026 would be better?
Glad it went off without a hitch! I still feel bad about last year’s failed detonation. I started marking time last Monday going “I’d be on my second day heading for Idaho today”. Boomershoot has become something of a tradition for me and a season unto itself. I mark the start of Spring by the Boomershoot calendar.
Going to assume there will be a ’27. I look forward to it as usual. I will be doing ’27 and ’28 back-to-back because ’28 will be the year I retire and I’ll have the time!!! Will be bringing some new hardware as well. Decided to up the game and add a 6.5PRC to the mix. 6.5 Creedmoor on steroids. Can’t wait to come back.
Sounds like fun was had by all!
You just can’t beat explosives and suppressors for a truly good time!
Now, if we can only get them over their irrational propaganda about machine guns. Boomershoot could go to a whole new level.
Thanks for all you do Joe!