Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—Barb L.

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We just love NOT pounding stakes in the rain.

WP_20170420_09_46_45_ProWP_20170420_10_17_36_Pro

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]

Quote of the day—Andrew Heaton

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The president is the top bureaucrat, and there’s nothing more American than despising bureaucrats. The government is basically a giant Human Resources Department with tanks, and the president is in charge of it.

Andrew Heaton
March 18, 2017
Why America Needs A Monarchy
[The title of the article is clickbait, the author is a comedian, but he has an interesting point.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lori Yeghiayan Friedman

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Federal concealed carry reciprocity is simply an end-run around state laws. It’s a gift to gun manufacturers — for whom any gun restriction, “reasonable” or no — means fewer sales.

Lori Yeghiayan Friedman
April 17, 2017
Op-ed: Federal concealed carry reciprocity is wrong for Pennsylvania and the country
[Ah yes. You can always recognize the Marxist. To them everything is always about money. The concepts of principles, inalienable rights, freedom of choice, and even individualism are either dismissed or derided.

After a hundred years, hundreds of attempts, and over 100 million murdered by their own government Friedman and her ilk still believe Marxism is “progress”.

We are on a different path. To us, freedom is progress.—Joe]

Horizontal dispersion due to muzzle velocity variations

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Yesterday Say Uncle posted Ballistic Accuracy Classification. It looks good and thankfully they included a spreadsheet for doing all the calculations.

I commented that one thing that wasn’t mentioned, but it’s really just nitpicking on this observation:

There are two atmospheric effects that can finally create excess variance in one axis: Variable wind will increase horizontal variance.

This is true but it doesn’t tell the entire story. Variable muzzle velocity will also increase horizontal variance.

Ben then asked:

…the influence of velocity variance on horizontal dispersion… How far are these long ranges? Are the influences big enough to be measured or do they end up in the noise?

I didn’t have any numbers readily available off the top of my head so I ran the simulations with Modern Ballistics.

The simulations are with a 168 grain Match King bullet with a mean muzzle velocity of 2500 fps, sea level, 59F, a wind speed of 10 MPH coming from the left, with a perfect hold for the constant wind, and 1000 shots. The drift due to wind alone is 25.7” at 500 yards and 131.4” at 1000 yards.

The first two images show the horizontal and vertical dispersion with a muzzle velocity standard deviation of 20 fps at 500 and 1000 yards. For scale, the dimensions of the yellow target areas are 3” x 11” and 10” x 56” and the .30 caliber bullet holes are to scale as well.

 HorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv500YardsHorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv1000Yards

This is with a standard deviation of 30 fps at 500 and 1000 yards with targets of 5” x 15” and 15” x 90”.

HorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv500YardsHorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv1000Yards

The takeaways are:

  • Velocity variations contribute to horizontal as well as vertical dispersion of your shots.
  • The horizontal dispersion at 1000 yards is about three times that at 500 yards.
  • The muzzle velocity contribution is something on the order of 5% to 15% of the contribution of the wind by itself. This is not just noise, but it’s not exactly major either.
  • Modern Ballistics is your friend.

Update: In the comments Monte points out I should have chosen a more realistic example. A 168 grain SMK with a MV of 2500 at 1000 yards is not good for much other than hitting the dirt in the area of the target.

Here is the same simulation with a 190 grain SMK with a MV of 3050 (approximately what I get with BlackHills Match ammo in my .300 Win Mag).

With a standard deviation of 20 fps the 500 yard target is 1.5” x 6” and the 1000 yard target is 8” x 45”.

HorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv500yardsHorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv1000yards

With a standard deviation of 30 fps the 500 yard target is 2” x 8” and the 1000 yard target is 8” x 45”.

HorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv500yardsHorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv1000yards

I don’t think this appreciably changes my conclusions.

Also of importance is there is a better way to do this. Just look at the numbers for the wind drift for different muzzle velocities. I don’t have the time to do that right now, but for future reference you can easily get nice numbers instead of just eyeballing a simulation.

Quote of the day—The Trace

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The San Bernardino elementary school gunman fired 10 shots before stopping to reload his six-shot revolver midway through, a report noted. This gave a teacher’s aide time to lead pupils out of harm’s way.

Some experts think restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines, rather than assault weapons bans, may be the best way to limit mass shooting. casualties.

The Trace
April 14, 2017
Facebook post
[Via Jonathan Sullivan who wrote:

Math.

Anti-rights advocates can’t do it.

He also posted a screen shot:

TheTraceCantDoNumbers

I take issue with Sullivan’s assessment. That error is not mathematical in nature. It’s not even arithmetic. They are demonstrating they can’t even do numbers.

And if they can’t do numbers what does that say about their ability to assess the qualifications of someone who claims to be an expert?

They have crap for brains.

The Trace has since edited the post to remove this embarrassment from public view. It’s a shame they can’t edit their brains to fix the problem at its source.—Joe]

Long range rifle for sale

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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.

Sweet!

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David Hardy reports that President Trump is going to speak at the NRA convention:

A delicious twist: it’s the same day as the White House Correspondent’s dinner, which he announced he would cut.

The press is so incredibly hostile to gun owners to have the president snub them and court gun owners is sweet, regardless of what you think of the man.

I agree with David, yes, quite delicious.

Elaborating a bit:

President Donald Trump will speak at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention on April 28, becoming the first U.S. president to address the gun-rights group since Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Quote of the day—Stacy Louise Smith‏ @stacyl61

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Their small “manhood” may be the reason they feel the need to buy all those guns.

Stacy Louise Smith‏ @stacyl61
Tweeted on September 20, 2016
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from BFD ‏@BigFatDave.

There is also this from her the next day:

StacyLouiseSmith

It’s amazing how much effort they put into compensating for their lack of facts and reason.—Joe]

Daffodils and tulips

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Barb and I drove north for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival today. I had been there once before which was probably 30 or 35 years ago. Barb had never been there.

We saw huge lines for the early exits and took the advice of the website:

Consider taking Exit 230 off I-5, near Burlington and north of Mount Vernon (there’s little traffic north of Exit 226).  Head west, toward Anacortes and at Pulver Road, turn left and stop in Skagit’s Own Fish Market for maps and directions.  Or, stay on Hwy 20 to BEST Rd, turn left, and continue to the roundabout…go east and you’re in the heart of tulip country, with Tulip Town a left hand turn in about a mile and RoozenGaarde a right hand turn a little farther down McLean.

I’ll bet we saved at least an hour of sitting in stop and go traffic. Those lines extended for miles.

We parked on the side a road next to a field of daffodils and walked a couple hundred yards to a field of tulips. There we walked the dirt roads next to the acres and acres of flowers.

The rest of our visit can be best described with pictures.

IMG_7940AdjustedThe daffodils were tall! They came up midway on my thigh.

Common sense gun law change

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The ATF is hopelessly behind in processing for 4473s. I would like to propose a simple change to the law which would dramatically decrease their workload. The law currently says these records must be kept by the FFL for 20 years or until the licensee goes out of business. In addition to this being a burden for the ATF it is a burden on FFLs. It just common sense to make a change in the rules to ease the burden for everyone involved.

If the rule were changed to something reasonable like five years the ATF could recycle much of that paper stored in shipping containers. The FFLs could recycle their paper and free up storage space as well. It’s good for the environment to have put that storage area to some other use and and slow the sprawl of buildings.

We can call it something like the Second Amendment Paperwork Reduction rule change. In an ideal world there would be no paperwork other than an occasional receipt involved in exercising your specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. But I don’t think that is politically feasible at this time. But reducing to five years might be doable.

And for those of you doubting the ability to get such an act through congress remember that the Obama administration added firearm regulations without an act of congress. So, based upon that precedent, it seems just common sense that the current president has the power to remove firearm regulations without an act of congress.

Incrementalism. It’s just common sense.

Quote of the day—Eva Franchell

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Cars have turned into deadly weapons. They have been easy to steal and then nothing has been able to stop their advance.

In Nice, Berlin, Jerusalem, London and Stockholm , they have been used as effective murder machines terrorists who wanted to kill many people.

…

Justice Minister Morgan Johansson believes that it is difficult to protect people in an open society. But motorists may run anywhere is surely not transparent. The cars have dominated our cities for decades, now it is the people who need space. Now it is cars that must be regulated.

Eva Franchell
April 10, 2017
Clear Stockholm – stopping cars
[Translation by Google Chrome.

H/T Say Uncle.

With both guns and cars so many people seem obsessed with the tool rather than the people using the tools. I’m starting to wonder if a significant number of them developed this peculiar mindset because of an inadequacy with the use of tools. They see, perhaps unconsciously, a path to reducing their feelings of inferiority by banning the use of those tools by others.—Joe]

More validation of Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything

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From Medical News Today, Ten health benefits of sex:

  1. Improves immunity
  2. Good for the heart
  3. Lowers blood pressure
  4. Relieves pain
  5. Reduces the risk of prostate cancer
  6. Improves sleep
  7. Relieves stress
  8. Boosts brain power
  9. Increases lifespan
  10. Boosts self-esteem

In some of the cases, particularly the increasing of lifespan, and the boosts to brain power, and self-esteem I question whether there was just correlation or if the sex actually caused the benefit.

Still, there in most cases, there isn’t a downside to Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything and there may be a significant upside. So, why take unnecessary risks?

Posted in Sex

Quote of the day—P Lance

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Men control, not “gun control”. Men are the problem. If all men were women, our violence problem would be reduced by 90%.

P Lance
April 14, 2017
Comment to Hoping for fewer school shootings doesn’t work. More gun control might.
[This is just common sense! What do we need so many men for anyway? One man for every 100 women would be more than enough for human reproduction needs. We have the technology to determine the sex at conception. After the initial messy stage, as a 99% of the men are removed from the planet, society would at long last enter the long sought utopia.

I can be sarcastic too.—Joe]

Preparing for Boomershoot

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If you are attending Boomershoot this year please prepare for variable weather. It’s only a week away and it was snowing today:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170414140531_095

Earlier it was foggy:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170414060115_102

There was also some sun at times:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170414061633_117

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.

Quote of the day—Boston Antifa

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Gun violence is a disease. The cure is the elimination of firearms from not just the citizens but the fascist police and the military as well.

…

We are seeking an elimination of all guns and all means of creating new ones. With the collapse of the Trump regime, this may be our one best chance to enact true peace and change on the world. Join us, comrades, and let’s eliminate guns from our lives and world.

ELIMINATE GUNS
ELIMINATE VIOLENCE

Boston Antifa
April 10, 2017
[Parody? Insanity? I’m just not sure.

Whatever.

The bottom line is that you should never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Stoehr

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What’s common about common sense depends on context. In this case, the context is a black man entering a Subway shop in 2016 clearly, openly and legally armed, and sending the place into a panic. The cops were called. They demanded to see his permit. He lawfully refused. And Connecticut’s white liberals lost their minds. It’s just crazy that the law bars cops from asking for a person’s permit. This is common sense! The alternative is insane!

John Stoehr
April 12, 2017
John Stoehr: Gun control, in black and white
[Although Stoehr’s point in his opinion piece is inscrutable to me he does have some good observation.

“Common sense!” That is the cry from the anti-gun people. The only facts that matter are that they can’t tolerate the thought of people keeping and bearing arms. The only logic that matters is that they will be afraid if ordinary people could exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. Can’t you see that it just doesn’t make any sense for people to have these things that are designed to kill? You must be stupid, crazy, or have a small penis if that isn’t obvious to you. Analogies are dismissed because, “That’s completely different.”

I think we are at the point that we can mock them most of the rest of the time and ignore them for the most part as we take more and more of their friends and neighbors to the range. Make the nut case anti-gun people into a smaller and smaller minority and eventually they will go silent or wander around the streets mumbling to themselves and the street lights.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dana Loesch

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We the people have had it. We’ve had it with your narratives, your propaganda, your fake news. We’ve had it with your constant protection of your democrat overlords, your refusal to acknowledge any truth that upsets the fragile construct that you believe is real life. And we’ve had it with your pretentious, tone-deaf assertion that you are in any way truth or fact-based journalism.

Dana Loesch
April 10, 2017
Taking on the Times
[Now is the time. Let loose the hounds. Hunt them down and destroy them.—Joe]

What is this?

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I was looking at the Boomershoot webcam image for this evening and saw things I have no idea what they are.

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170411204128_012

What are those lines? The images just one minute before and after don’t have them. There are several images with strange lines in them:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170411195933_101IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170411204428_015

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170411210045_031

The camera is in IR mode with an IR illuminator.So that changes things some. I thought maybe it was snow or hail or even raindrops being blown by a strong wind. But the wind never even gusted over 7.6 MPH in that time frame. And I would expect there would similar lines in adjacent frame (admittedly one minute apart). But there aren’t. But the wind was coming from about the correct direction for each of the lines to be following the wind. The temperature ranged from about 48 F to 49 F. Insects are going to be a bit sluggish at that temperature.

There was one similar event on the previous night:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170410223817_158

Any ideas?

Update: Rain. Shortly after seeing many images similar to the one below the weather station reported a small amount (0.01 inches) of precipitation.

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170412041134_063

Quote of the day—Sarah Clements

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We as gun reform activists need to continuously say we support the Second Amendment.

Sarah Clements
July 24, 2016
Millennials Are Less Likely to Support Gun Control Than You’d Think
[She also claims:

Gun control isn’t about taking firearms from people, it’s about making sure the wrong people don’t have access to dangerous weapons through proposals such as increasing background checks, implementing waiting periods after purchasing guns, and a ban on semi-automatic guns…

Ahh… Yes. I understand perfectly. It’s not about taking firearms from people. It’s about a ban on semi-automatic guns. And don’t forget to continuously say, “we support the Second Amendment.”

This is what I understand. Sarah Clements is the face of deception. And, as Doug H. said, “deception is the hallmark of evil”.—Joe]

Boomershoot Live!

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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:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170409101544_045

Here is this morning:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170410082952_036

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.