Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.
Category Archives: Boomershoot
Boomershoot is a long range precision rifle event with high explosives as the targets. This is about Boomershoot in general and sometimes just explosives.
I’m tired of gun-bigots. PayPal needs to hear from US – the law-abiding gun owners of this country – that we’re no longer willing to just roll over when we’re abused by the companies we “trust” just because we believe in and practice the rights guaranteed to us under the Second Amendment.
Kevin Baker July 29, 2009 No Good Deed Goes Unpunished [Read it and follow his suggestions. If anyone has a good suggestion for an alternative I’d love to hear it. I reluctantly use PayPal for Boomershoot and Modern Ballistics and would love to have a viable alternative.–Joe]
[There is a man at the register who just swiped his ATM card through the reader. He is wearing a ParaUSA hat and a t-shirt that says, “There are very few personal problems that can’t be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.” Not seen is the STI Eagle 5.1 in a Kramer IWB holster behind his right hip loaded with 19 rounds of high performance .40 S&W hollow point ammunition. Also not seen is on the other hip is a spare loaded 18-round magazine and a Surefire 6P flashlight. There is an Asian woman behind the register who just put a 50 pound sack of Boomerite mystery ingredient #4 into a cart.]
Woman:What are you going to do with 50 pounds of ? Are you a baker?
[Man waits a few seconds for the transaction to go through and the receipt to start printing out.]
Man:No. I’m going to make explosives with it.
[Man grabs the receipt and takes control of the cart with the 50 pound sack in it.]
Woman:How do you do that?
Man:You mix it with Ammonium Nitrate, Potassium Chlorate, and Ethylene Glycol.
Woman:Why do you do that?
Man:For recreational purposes. I make about 2000 pounds of explosives each year.
Woman:What do you do with it?
Man:I put them in targets, place them from 375 to 700 yards away and people from all over the whole world come to shoot at them.
Woman:That sounds really interesting! There must be a website for this, right?
Oh, sure, they say they’re doing it for folks with paralysis, but you know and I know that just as soon as they are able, GE is going to build a primate powered MechWarrior.
I wonder if SCOTUS will see the logic in rocket launchers as self-defense weaponry then?
Phil July 15, 2009 Forget Zombies [Don’t forget destructive devices. I’m thinking about 2000 pounds of Boomerite would be about the minimum acceptable charge.–Joe]
Yesterday daughter Kim and I went out to the Boomershoot site to do some prep work for Boomershoot 2010. She folded a bunch of target boxes:
I killed yellow-jackets, threw out dead mice, put out more rat/mice and ant poison, and replaced the bait in the yellow-jacket trap.
I also did an inventory of boxes, chemicals and target stakes. I want all of those on site before the rains start this fall. I don’t want to worry about being able to get a supply vehicle through the snow and/or mud to the Taj Mahal next spring like I did this spring.
We now have 675 boxes all folded and put in crates ready for Boomershoot 2010. I need to buy a few hundred more, get them folded, put in crates, and maybe even load some of them with lime before next spring. Lots of other things need to be done too. I want to improve the shooters berms. It needs to be deeper in places. Our “well” isn’t working and I have suspicions that the solar panels the recharge the batteries are not working either.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics rules all. But that is sort of what Boomershoot is about, right? It’s about moving things from a high energy state to a lower energy state. I just sometimes wish there wasn’t so much effort involved in achieving the high energy state.
When a bullet passes through air, it creates a high pressure area in front of, and around it, and creates a slight increase in temperature as the bullet impacts the molecules in the air. The pressure and temperature difference creates enough of a disturbance to bend light slightly. The result is a what appears to be a wavy donut that enters the bottom of your field of view, arcs upward above the target, and drops down into the target. (I call it a “wavy donut,” JD calls it the “undulating donut of death.” I like his better.)
Seeing this phenomenon with my own eye was really amazing. I knew how rifles worked, I knew the physics involved, I knew the trajectory was parabolic, and I’ve seen many charts of bullet flight path; but it’s still hard for your brain to wrap around the idea of a tiny thing flying through the air at 2800 feet per second. Actually seeing it happen seemed to dispel the magic the non-logical part of my brain was convinced was involved. Squeezing a trigger here, didn’t just make something happen there; it began a very simple set of physical principals that ended in a predictable manner that I could view with my eye.
On the longer shots you can see the bullet arc up above the target and the wind push it off to the side. Then, if you called the range and wind doping right you are rewarded with seeing that wavy donut drop into a little white box on the hillside and transform it into a red flash and a cloud of water vapor 20 feet tall. You and your partners are in the middle of whoops of joy when the boom hits you. The boom is a deep earth shaking sound that video cameras and sound equipment somehow cannot adequately capture with enough fidelity to duplicate the thump to your chest you feel when you are there live.
There are still two positions available at Boomershoot 2010. They are positions #2 and #4. Even though they are in the “.50 Caliber Ghetto” smaller caliber shooters may use them with the restriction that the tree line targets are not available. Sign up here.–Joe]
The Department of Interior did a search at 2300 on a Friday night for “tannerite fire danger”. Tannerite, as most of you know, is a binary explosive used for reactive targets. It is frequently assumed that Boomershoot uses Tannerite. This is not true. We use Boomerite.
Nearly every year we have one or more fires associated with Boomershoot we have to put out. Most of the time it is because we are doing fireball targets. Sometimes it has been because a tracer caused a fire. But sometimes it was because our reactive target either caught fire instead of detonating after being shot or because the explosives spontaneously combusted. One of the ingredients in Boomerite is potassium chlorate. Potassium chlorate is one of the main ingredients in matches. It is believed it is the potassium chlorate that causes Boomerite to spontaneously combust. Tannerite (the last time I checked) does not use potassium chlorate although it does share ammonium nitrate with Boomerite. I suspect Tannerite is less likely to cause a fire than Boomerite but any time you are working with highly exothermic materials the risk of a fire or explosion is present.
If you use highly exothermic materials in association with your gun fun please be careful with it. Be prepared to put out a fire. If you spill some of the materials then dispose of it by soaking the area in water or dispersing and burying the chemicals.
We don’t want the Department of Interior or anyone else banning the use of Tannerite on their land.
I opened up Boomershoot 2010 for 2009 participants yesterday to give them 24 hours prior to the general public to reserve their favorite positions. As of this minute 92% of the positions are taken. There are only six positions left. Sorry about that.
I am sure there will be cancellations and positions will become available throughout the year so don’t get too bummed if you don’t get a position today or tomorrow when I expect the last of the positions will disappear.
Joe Huffman Boomershoot Event Director
I was a bit concerned that with the economy and ammo price/shortages I wouldn’t get as many people signing up this year. I was wrong. 92% full within a few tens of hours after opening it up for registration–over 10 months in advance.
Update (50 minutes later): The event is 96% full with only three positions still open.
Failed fireball. From Xenia’s Live Journal but taken by her sister Kim.
It gives me some clues as to what went wrong with the fireball target this year. It looks like, as Ry reported privately to me a month ago, that half or more of the explosives failed to detonate. I know we had a problem with the targets made on Saturday. There were way too many targets on the hillside with solid hits in them that failed to detonate. Every single one of them was made on Saturday. I think the explosives were packed too tight. I need to maintain better quality control.
I’ve had numerous people and even the owners of one motel* contact me about the date for Boomershoot 2010.
I’ve set the dates to be April 23rd, 24th, and 25th. Go ahead and make your motel reservations if you plan on attending.
I’m still working on the entry form software and waiting for a quote on the price of the dinner. I thought I would have all this done weeks ago but it just hasn’t happened. Maybe this weekend I’ll get it done and open up entries.
* A portion of the motel owner email:
Joe,
We are owners of the XXX Motel in Orofino, Idaho. We appreciate you sponsoring the Boomershoot because it gives us great business during the month of April. We have some great people who have been coming here just to participate in the Boomershoot.
We have had several requests asking if we know when the 2010 Boomershoot will happen. So we thought we would contact you and see if you have set any dates for the 2010 event? Some of our guests reserved rooms already just taking a guess when it would be.
Please let us know when you have chosen the dates.
Boomershoot ended as quickly as it began. It only felt like a few hours, but it was most of the day. I guess time flies when you’re blowing shit up.
ErnestThing May 11, 2009 Boomershoot 2009 [Yeah, time does seem to fly during Boomershoot. I sometimes worry that people aren’t getting their money’s worth out of the event because it’s all over so fast. But people start leaving before I call the final ceasefire so I can’t be that much of a spoil sport.–Joe]
President Obama is expected to announce Friday the creation of the position of cyber czar, a person who will coordinate the nation’s efforts to protect government and private computer systems from hackers, criminal gangs, terrorists and spies, people familiar with the plan said Thursday.
The czar will report to both the national security adviser and the head of the National Economic Council, the sources said.
Obama will not name anyone Friday to the post because the selection process is ongoing, they said.
In addition, the White House will release a 40-page report that sets broad goals for combating cyber intrusions, but does not spell out in detail how to do so, said the sources, who would not agree to be identified because the report has not been released.
Several years ago I was asked to comment on some preliminary Homeland Security plans for the Feds to “protect the Internet”. As one might imagine they were just the opposite of what I thought should be done. I gave them my feedback as politely as I could while still making my points and my boss said he passed it on up the chain with his blessing.
I don’t know if they have come up with something having better alignment with reality by now. We will have to see what the “40-page report” says. But just the fact that the Feds want to extend their reach into still another area where they don’t have any Constitutionally granted powers when they are so deeply in debt they can’t pay for all the stuff they already messing up does not bode well.
Update: The document is now available. A quick scan doesn’t reveal any of the stuff I disapproved of a few years back. But it is a very high level document without many details that can be addressed. And, of course, frequently “the devil is in the details”. What I did find a little odd was the frequent use of the phrase “State, local, and tribal governments” (emphasis added). There were 12 instances of the use of “tribal”. Is it usual to include tribal governments in such documents? And it makes me wonder…could I set up my own tribe and tribal government? I need to look into that sometime. I own land that is on an indian reservation (Boomershoot is held on indian reservation land as well).
Yesterday Caleb and I did some more work at the Boomershoot site. We folded a bunch more boxes, and inspected the repairs Caleb had made on the stairs. We hooked up the generator and charged the batteries for a while and did some other odds and ends.
What really surprised us was the place where we had two fires recently. Unless you looked closely it was difficult to know there had been a fire:
This was a lot of fun. Joe had said that some people like to blow up Boomers at long range, while others prefer to “pick grass and dirt out of their teeth.” I could understand why. By the end, my cheeks hurt from smiling so severely.
ErnestThing May 11, 2009 Boomershoot 2009 [This was referring to the High Intensity close range shoot. I’m thinking of doing it both Friday and Saturday evening in 2010.–Joe]
One of the people participating at Boomershoot this year was a U.K. citizen. Via Facebook I found out the following:
I Got a call from the cops at 2300 last night, suggesting that I haven’t been shooting my guns enough.
It was the UK police on the phone, calling my US cel number. I have a UK firearms certificate – one of the requirements to keep my UK firearms certificate is that I must shoot every 12 months, and my UK rifle club just reported that I hadn’t done so… I told them that I’ve definitely shot in the past 12 months, so now I need to send them proof. This is, actually, the least surreal part of this experience.
So… in the land where handguns are banned and long guns are severely restricted the cops will call you and threaten to take away your firearms certificate if you haven’t been shooting enough.
Since I knew he had been shooting three inch square boxes filled with explosives dangling from paracord nearly 700 yards away just a three weeks ago I offered to confirm his story. He said if he needed my help he would let me know.
Two weeks ago Kim, Caleb, and I went back to the Boomershoot site to do some maintenance, inventory, and clean up.
I did most of the clean up and inventory.
Kim folded most of the target boxes you see (still flat) on the ground in the picture below:
Caleb spent most of his time building better stairs:
The plan is to purchase all the stakes, chemicals, and target boxes we need for Boomershoot 2010 and take them out to the Taj sometime this summer so I don’t worry about it being two muddy to get the materials out there next spring. We will fold all the target boxes and put them in crates this summer saving time next spring.
We still need to do some more work on the stairs, fix the “well”, improve the shooters berm and fold more boxes. If we have lots of time we might build another foundation for the bridge across the creek for the shooters to use when visiting the target area.
I’ve long been disgusted by Hollywood’s portrayal of sounds. Sounds in space, sound traveling at the speed of light, and the ridiculous sounds of gunfire made up in a studio. Even the news services will often do a time-shift, to synchronize the sound of a distant event with the video even though anyone who’s been alive long enough to understand what they’re seeing on TV knows that sound and light travel at different rates. I just, do, not, get why TV and movie people have to screw up reality so much. Far from adding anything, it subtracts from the final product.
For example, I think the long delay in the sound of a distant explosion at Boomershoot makes the experience more awesome. It adds to the perception of enormity. The movie, “Band of Brothers” is an attempt to show it like it really was, and for the most part they seem to have done a good job. Not when it comes to sound editing though. Super-sonic bullets whiz by, “whoosh-whoosh, zip, zip” and so on, and of course the sound always travels at the speed of light. It’s taking a serious subject and turning it into slapstick.
In the interest of universal understanding, I made this recording of .308 rifle fire from about 380 yards while setting up some rifles for Boomershoot. The camera is about 20 yards from the targets (yeah, I was holding the camera, but I was behind a hill from the gun and in radio communication with the shooter– completely safe). Each shot delivers multiple sonic effects or events. First is the “CRACK-hiss” (mini sonic boom) from the bullet. Take the sonic boom from a jet flying over, speed it up a few octaves, and you’ll have about the same thing. That bit is interesting in that it does not come from the gun, but from the bullet. You have no sense of the direction from which the bullet came. Imagine standing in the water on the shore of a lake and feeling the wake from a passing boat on your legs. From that sensation alone, you have no idea of where the boat came from, and little or no information about its direction of travel. The bullet’s wake, as sound, gives you no more information– just a “snap” that seems to come from nowhere. Next is the sound of impact, which is only audible in the first shot in this recording. Then comes the “boom” from the muzzle blast, followed by the reverberation in the surrounding hills and trees.
Note that the reverb almost seems louder than the crack-boom. That’s due to the AGC (Automatic Gain Control) circuitry, A.K.A. “compression” built into the camera. The initial crack drives circuitry into gain reduction, and the gain comes back up for the reverb. To get the relative levels of the events portrayed accurately, I’ll have to take a full-range stereo recorder into the field on another day and use its un-compressed level mode. If you have some nice speakers (and pretty powerful, as the dynamic range is quite wide) you’ll hear it as if you were actually standing there. Regular CD audio has a dynamic range of about 100dB, IIRC– close enough. This recording isn’t all that bad, though. Crank up the volume, use good speakers, and boost the bass to get the full effect (the mini electret mic on the camera isn’t great for bass response);
This is what America is all about. Regular, hard working people, getting together to have fun in whatever way pleased them. There aren’t very many other countries in the world that would let their citizens own, essentially, the same guns their military uses, practice shooting at what could be considered head-sized targets at hundreds of yards, and mix explosives in a shed for fun.
Boomershoot was a celebration of our freedoms. A celebration of trust between a government and its citizens. A celebration of challenge and skill. A celebration of us.
ErnestThing May 11, 2009 Boomershoot 2009 [Awesome post. But then I’m exceedingly biased. He’s giving praise to my “baby”.–Joe]
This year I decided to have a Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day. If you were a gun blogger you could show up on Thursday and get a behind the scenes tour and help (with the proper ATF paperwork) or watch the explosives being made. As it turned out most of it consisted of me standing around and telling stories. I had hoped they would have some fun ideas for doing things with the explosives like putting them in the water and/or mud, making craters, or blowing holes in old logs or some such thing. But everyone seemed to have a good time anyway, even after putting out the fire from the fireball demo.
Here is the list of Boomershoot Gun Bloggers and their posts about the event who were in attendence for at least part of Boomershoot (arranged by their shooting position on the line):
