Last month I speculated the wind was a factor in the missed shot at former President Trump. Later, with more information, I concluded the wind was not a factor.
Dean Weingarten digs deeper into the data and also concludes the wind could only have been a minor factor: GUN WATCH: Wind and the President Trump Assassination Attempt.
Remember what I said last October:
Another “interesting” scenario, made more likely by the current high emotions on both sides of the political fence, are that the candidate for one party or another is assassinated. Then, before the election, the other major candidate is assassinated.
Former President Donald Trump was wounded on a Pennsylvania campaign stage by a sniper’s bullet Saturday night in an apparent assassination attempt that nearly claimed his life, law enforcement sources told The Post.
The pictures from some angles look like a bullet hole through the upper right ear.
If you look at this flag you can see there was a fair amount of wind:
The linked articles says, “Law enforcement sources said that the bullet may have been deflected by glass before Trump was struck in the face.” I would like to throw my hypothesis into the pot and say the sniper misread the wind.
As I told daughter Jaime after she sent me a text message about the attempt:
It will take at least two days for the rumors to fade and something resembling the truth comes out.
The conspiracy theories will last for decades.
An assassination does prevent the target from obtaining office. A failed assassination attempt probably increases the chances the target will obtain office.
Attempted or successful, it increases the odds of more political violence. The odds of civil war just increased.
I want my underground bunker in Idaho.
I was thinking that Russians would now know that is what Ukrainians are capable of.
Let them sit at home and be afraid.
Vyacheslav Kovalskiy
December 4, 2023
Ukrainian Sniper Breaks Cover to Claim World-Record Hit of More Than 2 Miles
Via email from pkoning.
Yes, there was more than a little luck involved. But he and his spotter made a lot of their own luck too. Awesome shooting.
Also from the article:
Kovalskiy’s shot hit around 12,470 feet, around a third longer than the Golden Gate Bridge. That distance would break a record of 11,600 feet set in 2017 by a member of the Canadian Special Forces in Iraq.
The 58-year-old former businessman’s journey to martial mythology started just before day break on Nov. 18, when he and his spotter, a partner who calculates distance, wind speed and other variables, set up positions across the river from a Russian military base in the Kherson region of east Ukraine.
…
Kovalskiy and his spotter wonder why there is so much skepticism about a shot of this distance when targets, albeit stationary, have been achieved at these lengths several times in competitions such as the King of Two Miles in the U.S.
The two men are no ordinary snipers. Kovalskiy has been winning long-distance shooting competitions in Europe and North America for decades and first met his spotter at such competitions in Ukraine.
One has to wonder if things get a little on the sparkly side of normal in this country if the competition shooters will be among the first to be rounded up and sent to the gulags.
Prepare and respond appropriately.
Via Rolf who says, “I detect a problem”:
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.
You hear the phrase “two movies, one screen”, right? People perceive what they expect/want to perceive. This makes it really tough to be in touch with reality. You may think, “Not for me!” I’m not so sure. Watch and listen to this:
These sort of things demonstrate the difficulty of distinguishing between truth and falsity. It takes a great deal of effort to change minds, even when the facts are overwhelming, because people’s brains get hardwired into thinking about something in a particular way.
My mom learned to do subtraction in a different way that what was taught in my elementary school. She could not help me learn how to subtract like Mrs. Cole was teaching it. She asked Dad to help me. After I learned to subtract I asked Mom to show me her way. It was incomprehensible to me. Dad could not understand it either. She got the right answers, but she could not understand our method either.
I came up with a different way of viewing exterior ballistics problems. Someone who was taught the traditional way is completely confused by my method. I understand how they do it but my way is simpler and has broader application. I can teach either way to newbies just fine. But teaching it to someone who has done it conventionally will result in their total confusion.
It’s obvious to some people that banning guns will save lives. The facts don’t matter because elimination of “gun deaths” mean fewer people are dying, right? Their brains have become hardwired down a particular path. Once they start down that path it is a slippery slope to the same conclusion regardless of the factual obstacles presented.
Spooky action at a distance is a very difficult concept. It just “can’t be true”. But it is.
Socialism/communism must be the most tested and failed political system ever. Yet people believe the false reality.
Reality is really, really tough. For everyone. I’m sure there are countless examples all around us that no one has yet properly deciphered and we all believe one or more flavors of falsehood about it. It may even take a generation or two after the truth is discovered before people are comfortable thinking in terms of the “new reality” and people laugh at “the things people used to believe”.
I have a Labradar chronograph. It is more expensive than previous chronographs I have owned but as I have outlined before it has some major benefits.
There are some some issues with it too. It’s not required, but there is an app for use on your Android or iPhone. The app improved the usability considerably even though it wasn’t the best design and it would disconnect when the phone turned off the screen.
Then my phone had to be replaced. I bought a Samsung Galaxy S21 5G. Name brand, should be good, right? The Labradar will not connect with it. The phone recognizes the chronograph Bluetooth is up and running but cannot make the connection. It turns out many other people are having the same problem with other Android phones and tablets as well as iPhones.
The Android app hasn’t been updated since it was released on June 14, 2018. I have two very cheap older Android phone scheduled to arrive in a day or two and I’m hoping one of them will work.
Another issue is that you have to have the unit pointed at your target such that the bullet stays near to the center of the radar beam. You are supposed to use the notch on the top as a sight:
This is far from the best sight and is marginal at best.
While looking for a solution to the Bluetooth phone application issue I ran across a solution to the sighting issue. Actually, three solutions:
I ordered option three on Saturday afternoon (Christmas day!) and it arrive today just four days later.
It took me less than 25 seconds to install it.
It fits perfectly and solidly. It deserves the average of five stars on the reviews it is getting.
Now if I can just get a phone to run the out of date app and connect to the unit. I think I could reverse engineer the API and write my own app but that is an extreme last resort.
Update: I tried two different phones:
The View 2 would not connect. The View 3 would sometimes connect five times in a row. Then it would fail 20 times in a row. I returned both of them and ordered a phone using Android 9 with 1 GB RAM. I have my suspicions that it is a timing problem. It seemed that if I were to reboot the phone then immediately try to connect to the chronograph the odds of connecting were better than 50%. But I didn’t try that enough to have a good sample size. I’m hoping that with not much RAM (and reviews complaining about how slow the phone is) that it may reliably connect to the Chronograph. The phone should arrive late next week. I’ll let you know….
Via email from Jordan P. we have this RIFLE RECOIL TABLE. This is just part of the description:
The following chart provides a rifle’s recoil level
based on its recoil score*.
RECOIL SCORE* RECOIL LEVEL 1-2 Low Recoil 3-4 Moderate Recoil 5-10 High Recoil The following table provides rifle recoil energy,
recoil velocity and recoil score of various rifle cartridges based on respective
projectile weight, projectile velocity, powder charge and rifle
weight.
Very cool!
If I had the time right now I would build and post a web app on Modern Ballistics for you to supply your own parameters and get the results for your exact situations.
When attempting to get the best long range accuracy there are a number of contributing factors. Some of the are
When reloading these last five are the ones you have most under your control. You buy match grade bullets and primers and obtain good brass. You might even weight each piece of brass and turn the necks to be uniform.
The muzzle velocity variation is a major contributor at the longer ranges. Suppose you are shooting a 69 grain Sierra Match King bullet with a BC of 0.301 at a MV of 3000 fps.
Here are the odds of getting a 0.5 MOA result at various ranges assuming everything else is perfect (zero wind, perfect bullets, etc.) with the muzzle velocity variation the only contribution to the inaccuracy (via Modern Ballistics):
| MV Stdev \ Range | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 |
| 10 fps | 100% | 100% | 100% | 99.6% |
| 15 fps | 100% | 100% | 98.7% | 80.8% |
| 20 fps | 100% | 99.8% | 84.4% | 50.4% |
As a reference point on expected standard deviation of MVs, for 55 grain American Eagle FMJ ammo I get from 20 to 25 fps. If I let the default powder measure on the Dillion 550 do the powder charges I sometimes get up to 30 fps. With match ammo from Federal and Blackhills using 10 or more shot samples I typically see 12 to 18 fps with one 10 shot sample giving me 8.3 fps.
As you can see muzzle velocity variation makes a big difference and it’s tough to get it in the range of 10 fps.
The next question is, “How much tight of tolerance on powder mass is required to get the standard deviation into the range of 10 fps?” Or put another way, “What is the MV change per unit mass of powder?”
By measuring the average velocity for powder charges on either side of your chosen load you can get an approximate answer. It’s important to not make the difference be too large from the load in question because the relationship between powder mass and velocity is not linear. And if you make the delta too small you lose your “signal” in the “noise”.
I did this measurement for two different powders for .223 loads. I was a bit surprised to find that for both powders the muzzle velocity sensitivity to powder mass was very close to the same and larger than I expected. For Varget it was 11.10 fps/0.1 grain and for CFE 223 it was 10.14 fps/0.1 grain.
What this means is that having powder masses +/- 0.1 grain can blow your entire muzzle velocity standard deviation budget!
My electronic powder scale only has a resolution of +/- 0.1 grain. Furthermore, I have found that with extruded cylinder powders like Varget three kernels of the powder weigh about 0.1 grain. Hence, if you want to get muzzle velocity standard deviations with a relatively small powder charge into the range of 10 fps you must measure it down to, literally, one or two kernels of powder.
So, how do you do that?
What I did was set my electronic charge dispenser to output 0.1 grains less than my desired charge. I then add the one, two, or three additional kernels of powder and stop when the scale first indicates the correct charge. Using this technique I loaded 15 rounds and measured them with a doppler radar chronograph. I got a standard deviation of 12.5 fps. from a loading that has approximately 11.1 fps delta for each 0.1 grain of powder.
So… what I want to know, is how do factories output 100’s of thousands (millions?) of rounds of match ammo with standard deviations in the range of 10 fps?
There was no such thing as cowboy ammo in the 19th Century, but now in the 21st we have a new metal cartridge called the “Cowboy 45 Special”.
Continue reading
I saw a cool vid over at Bayou Renaissance Man., on this particular page. This: a transparent suppressor and a high-speed camera.
Interesting stuff.
Deer season is upon us (Joe; no Hunting category?) so I thought this a good time to post it.
Following is a very long, detailed account of customizing a reproduction Colt 1847 Walker percussion revolver and using it in a deer hunt in the 2016 muzzleloader season. It assumes the reader has some understanding of the Colt open top revolver design and its inherent problems, and contains lots of technical photos and jargon. I also introduce a paper cartridge “Field Carry” system which I’ve developed for percussion revolvers, making things simpler and easier for the shooter while in the field on the move. There are bloody butchering (necropsy) photos cataloging the terminal performance of the gun and ammunition. You have been warned– If you read on you may be extremely bored, fascinated, or shocked or disgusted, or all of the above.
Continue reading
It is often said, and it is often true, that you get the best accuracy by, among other things, seating the bullet out close to the forcing cone, or rifling.
Well, not always.
Continue reading
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.
This is with a standard deviation of 30 fps at 500 and 1000 yards with targets of 5” x 15” and 15” x 90”.
The takeaways are:
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”.
With a standard deviation of 30 fps the 500 yard target is 2” x 8” and the 1000 yard target is 8” x 45”.
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.
Cool posting on “when does recoil start?”
It has some pretty good gif/animation and explanations.
Short version: once the bullet starts moving, Newton’s laws kick in. I think one of the most fascinating part of the animations is the smoke spurts; the 1911 has some at the breech, too, but they all have smoke exiting the barrel before the bullet. Cool stuff.
(E I E I O). Not to be confused with a WAG (Wild-Ass Guess) which is totally different.
While this is not particularly practical it may be that research into how to make such shots have application in extending the range in more ordinary situations:
They started at 100 m to establish zero
…
Then to 1000 m to confirm zero. Then to 3000 m. They ran into problems with ranging binoculars (Steiner & Vextronix) “stalling out.”
…
Consistent muzzle velocity is key. Their loads were within a small range, but a 1 m/sec change in muzzle velocity causes an 80 cm vertical shift in impact point — meaning 1 fps change alters that impact point almost 10″ in the same direction. So you see that firing at 4000 meters is really at the ragged edge of what’s possible with field-employable sniper-type equipment, in 2016. At 4000 m
…
Third, or possibly, fourth, shot was heard to connect by a forward observer.
Also, dropping a projectile in on a group of bad guys from such distances may cause them to slow or stop their current activities and attempt to deal with the perceived threat with low cost and little risk to the shooter. Sometimes slowing down enemy activities or distracting them, even by a small amount, can result in significant changes in outcomes.
Via email from kb.
An Alternate look at Handgun Stopping Power.
Some things surprising, some things not so much. Shot placement counts for a lot. Some people give up when you start shooting at them. Sometimes it takes more than a single round to stop an attack. There is not nearly as much variation in overall effectiveness by cartridge as I’d expect when you get head/torso hits and don’t pause to admire your handiwork but just shoot until the threat stops.
H/T to Paul K.
I have often wondered about the polymer tipped bullets from various manufactures. I have read of people seeing wisps of lead on paper targets that apparently came from lead tipped bullets that melted in flight. If the heat at the tip of a bullet can melt lead then the type of plastic used for bullet tips needs some serious consideration. But, I figured the bullet manufacturers knew a lot more about this than I did and had it all under control.
It turns out this was not the case:
the Hornady engineers observed a convex hump form when charting the new bullet’s drag. The hump was relatively small and usually occurred within the first 100 to 200 yards of flight, and following the hump the drag curve returned to its expected concave climb and drop. The irregularity may have been small and short-lived, but the shift from concave to convex, and back again, seen on the Cd vs. Mach Number graphs could only have one explanation: The bullet itself was changing shape in flight.
It did not take long for the Hornady team to realize it was not the whole bullet changing shape, only the non-metal component—the polymer tip.
The solution, of course, was to find a new polymer:
New polymers were tried and tested, and one was found that met the company’s criteria. With the new material, the Heat Shield Tip was born. Molded as precisely and consistently as previous polymer tips, the Heat Shield Tip boasts glass transition and melting points hundreds of degrees greater than the previous generation’s—475° F and more than 700° F, respectively.
This resulted in higher ballistic coefficients (BCs) which translates into less windage and drop.
My favorite bullet for .30 caliber long range shooting has been the Berger 210 grain VLD bullet. It has a G1 BC of .621. The Hornady 30 Cal .308 208 gr ELD™ Match bullet has a BC of 0.670. From 700 yards away with a .300 Win Mag with Boomershoot conditions this increases the velocity by 60 fps and decreases the drop by 2.6 inches. This isn’t enough of a difference to throw away my existing bullets but I think this is what I’m probably going to replace them with.
As I reported last week I was trying to make some very light loads in .40 S&W for new shooters. I made up 200 rounds with the 180 grain Rainier FP over 3.9 grains of Bullseye with an OAL of 1.131”. On Christmas day, while at Brother Doug’s place I shot some over the chronograph. This load yielded a mean velocity of 825 fps (standard deviation of 9.6 fps) for a Power Factor of 148.5. The expected result was 800 fps for a PF of 144. Not too far off from the actual. I would have preferred it be on the low side instead of the high side but still, not bad.
My typical handloads run about 940 fps for a PF of 169 or so. 180 grain factory loads run about 1000 to 1025 fps for PFs of 180 to 185. Hence these new loads are have about 80% of the momentum of a factory load and a little under 90% that of my usual handloads. This is better but I would like to do better still.
While in Idaho this weekend I bought a pound of Clays from Alan B. I loaded up 100 rounds of the 180 grain Rainier FP over 3.0 grains of Clays. I ran them over the chronograph today. Remember that the reloading manual said to expect:
180 grain bullet over 3.0 grains Hodgdon Clays => 727 fps with 131 PF
The result was 728.11 fps (standard deviation of 8.8 fps) for a PF of 131.06. Wow! That was freaky close compared to the expected result.
That gives me a load with about 78% of the momentum of my typical handloads and a little over 70% that of a factory load. And get this, it’s right at the same momentum as a typical 147 grain 9mm round but with a muzzle velocity that is about 100 fps less. That is even less velocity than a typical 230 grain .45 ACP. With such a low muzzle velocity it is much more of a push than a “snap” on the recoil. It’s a very comfortable load to shoot.
Thank you Mike B. and Alan B. for the Clays powder. That made a big difference.
I was thinking ahead to how to make a self-defense load with similar recoil properties and found that Speer makes a bullet they call Gold Dot Short Barrel for good self-defense characteristics with lower velocities. This sounds like just the ticket for Cherie. We have another range trip planned for the end of next month to do some more training and test out the new loads.
I decided I should make some low power loads in .40 S&W for new shooters that are recoil sensitive. “Powder puff” loads. After exploring lots of options I came up with these as the best possibilities. From Hodgdon:
135 grain bullet over 4.0 grains Hodgdon Clays => 940 fps with 127 PF
180 grain bullet over 3.0 grains Hodgdon Clays => 727 fps with 131 PF
Typical factor loads are in the 180 to 190 PF range. So this should be about 70% of the recoil of factory loads.
The difference between power factors of 127 and 131 with equal weight bullets is probably undetectable in your hands. But because the 127 PF load is with 135 grain bullets versus the 180 grain for the 131 PF you get a much different recoil impulse. The lighter bullet is going over 200 fps faster and that means the recoil impulse is much shorter and hence will feel sharper. So, the 180 grain load looks like the winner. That nice because I have lots of 180 grain bullets around.
But I don’t have any Hodgdon Clays powder. I started looking online. Nothing.
[Heavy sigh.]
So what other options do I have and do I have any powders that could come close to this? I have an older version of the Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading and they list Bullseye powder for a mild load.
180 grain bullet over 3.9 grains Bullseye => 800 fps with 144 PF.
I have some Bullseye powder left over from my explosives experiments with it about 1996 or ‘97. This would be a good opportunity to get rid of it. This isn’t as good at the loads with Clays but it is still less than 80% of a factory load.
I loaded up 20 rounds Saturday and went to the range to see if it would cycle my gun and if it was accurate. I used some 180 grain Rainier truncated cone FP bullets I had won at a match this summer. I have had problems with the accuracy of Rainier HPs once I went beyond about 7 yards so I was a bit skeptical of these too.
The ammo cycled and fed well in two different guns. The accuracy wasn’t great at 7 yards but it was far better than new shooters can manage. And I don’t have them shoot beyond that distance anyway.
Today I loaded up 180 rounds using some nickel plated brass I had laying around. I used the nickel plated so I could easily keep track of it being “special”. I’ll load up the remaining 300 Rainier bullets in that configuration in the next couple of days.
It turns out the loaded ammo looks particularly pretty. Barb said it looks like Christmas:
I suppose it does. We have Powder Puff Christmas ammo.
