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.

Two more Boomershoot 2009 positions available

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Last May Boomershoot donated two positions to the Friends of the NRA in King County (Seattle area). They thought they were going to have their dinner/auction before the end of April 2009 but that didn’t happen. The dinner/auction is now scheduled to be in May which is after the event. So they have put the two positions up for bid on eBay. Those positions are #41 in the main area and #51 on the berm.


You can see the view from the Main and Berm areas here:


http://entry.boomershoot.org/#Main
http://entry.boomershoot.org/#Berm


The entire proceeds go to Friends of the NRA to fund Youth Shooting programs and any amount above the fair market value ($150 for one person, $250 for two, $300 for three) is tax deductible.


Hurry, the auction ends in six and a half days.

Quote of the day–Jim Scoutten

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I’ve always thought there are some events that shouldn’t get National TV coverage.


Jim Scoutten
March 7, 2009
Producer and host of Shooting USA
Boomershoot coverage?
H/T to Ry (via email as well as his blog), followed by Kevin (email and blog), Say Uncle, Robb (email and blog), Phil, and Sebastian.
[I am a little insulted. Boomershoot got positive coverage from Newsweek, KING 5 Evening Magazine (Seattle television show), Outside Magazine, and numerous other media outlets (that list is just a partial listing). If he doesn’t think we are appropriate for national TV coverage he is mistaken. We can and have handled national media before and done quite well.


It just so happens another national TV show is planning to attend this year anyway. I also got a request for permission from a participant doing a video with smaller audience. Boomershoot should be well represented in the media this year. The gun blogger list of participants alone is impressive.


Like I said, I’m a little insulted but Scoutten is missing out more than Boomershoot by his decision.


Thanks for all the support guys but I don’t really think it’s necessary to do a Zumbo on him. He’s not saying Boomershoot should be banned or anything. He just doesn’t think it is something he wants to present to the public.


In his followup comment he says he doesn’t want put anything “on TV that could alarm the anti-gunners”. I disagree. I am of the opinion that alarming them over Boomershoot then making fools of them is the more appropriate tactic (ask me sometime in private how we have baited them but they failed to take the bait). But if he doesn’t want to do that I don’t see a reason to attack him over that judgment call.–Joe]

Boomershoot site in the snow.

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Ry and I visited the Boomershoot site on Saturday. I checked the power supply and verified the batteries were fully charged and the inverters were working. The Wi-Fi was working just fine too but the last time I was there it wasn’t working so I plan to replace some of the components the next time I go out there.


Ry and I both took pictures of the snow. I had not tried a Photosythn before and I thought this would be kinda neat to try. So I took hundreds of pictures. The first attempt failed and the second attempt is here. I learned quite a bit from the effort and will try some more later on but the result is still pretty interesting.


Ry has his take on the snow.


I think it’s still a little early to tell. We are seven weeks from the event. I needed snow shoes to make it out the Taj Mahal but the deepest snow I could find at the shooting line near the berm was only about 17 inches deep.


We have more snow now at seven week out that last year at six weeks and five weeks out. We also had snow on the ground for the actual event too. After I visit next time we will have a better comparison to previous years.

Attention Boomershoot 2009 Gun Bloggers!

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It’s a long story but I deleted the list of Gun Bloggers planning to attend Boomershoot 2009.


I have reconstructed the list as best I could and sent an email to those people. If you are a gun blogger planning to atttend Boomershoot 2009 and did not get an email please let me know and I’ll add you to my list.

Quote of the day–Tamara K.

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I’m still a long way from going up a clock tower with a scoped rifle and a sack lunch.


Tamara K.
February 22, 2009
Blah
[I thought this would be appropriate after my frustrations with the ATF yesterday.–Joe]

We didn’t do it! No one can prove a thing!

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Although Boomershoot has an ATF approved explosive handler in Memphis she didn’t blow up this car with someone in it today.

Technology and the ATF

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The ATF explosives examiner for Idaho said I could just email the scans of the copies I kept. But after two days of getting neither confirmation or bounced email messages about the “Employee Possessor Questionnaires” (background check paperwork for handling explosives) I was about to call him when he emailed me. He said he hadn’t received any emails from me after the first one. I had actually sent him two emails in that time frame. The first had bounced and I presumed it was because the attachment was too large. So I put the 9 Mbyte .ZIP file on the boomershoot.org website (the .ZIP file has now been deleted and my logs indicate only I had attempted to download it) and sent him a link to that. That email did not bounce.


But I noticed something, the email address he used was different than the one I had originally used to contact him. I originally used @atf.gov and the one he responded with was @usdoj.gov. So I sent the same two emails again. One with the attachment and one with the link. Then a couple hours ago I called him. He hadn’t received anything.


We verified the email addresses. The first one (which, on Tuesday, made it through to him) was wrong. The other, which I had done a “reply to” from his email was the correct one. He would not download a file from a website (“We don’t do that”). Okay, so I’ll try sending a plain text test message from a different email account to his preferred email address. That worked. Okay, now the 9 Mbyte .ZIP file. He’s not sure what a .ZIP file is. He knows about .PDF files. .JPG files? Yeah, kinda.


The 9 Mbyte .ZIP bounced. The message:



The original message was received at Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:15:40 -0800


—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —– “somethingelse@usdoj.gov”


—– Transcript of session follows —– .. while talking to mailsc20.usdoj.gov


>>> DATA <<< 550 5.7.0 Maximum Attachment Size (12M) Violation


Yeah, my 9 Mbyte .ZIP file exceeded their maximum attachment size restriction of 12 M.


Maybe this is a test to see if I’m calm enough to be trusted with explosives.


I broke the 9 Mbyte file into five .ZIP files the largest being 1.95 Mbytes and sent them as attachments to five plain text emails from my alternate email address to his second email address.


About 15 minutes later he called back. He had received them but it was going to “take a while” to get them from “picture viewer” to the printer. He would start work on that the first thing in the morning.


Apparently I passed the test.


I’m going out to the Boomershoot site this weekend. I think I need to blow something up.

Boomershoot chemicals and ATF paperwork

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At 0526 this morning I got a call from my potassium chlorate supplier. Normally I would be sound asleep or in somewhat more rare cases had not gone to bed yet (I’m a night person). This morning I had been up for several hours and had gone to bed only a minute or two earlier. I have been sick and I have been sleeping for a few hours then read stuff on the web for a while then sleep some more. My sleep schedule is really whacked now.


The supplier wanted to know if I wanted the 142 pounds (see my previous post on the topic) sent ASAP. I had explained it to the other person I had talked to but this woman wanted to make sure. No, that isn’t necessary. Sending it all in one shipment would be fine. I’ve have been dealing with this woman for several years and I get the impression that, well… it sometimes takes several attempts to explain things to her. I think this same “characteristic” caused her to fail to realize there was a significant time difference between her place of employment and that of her customer.


After getting the logistics straightened out she did mention something interesting. The reason the packaging changed is because the previous potassium chlorate I have been purchasing from them came from Spain. That company has gone completely out of the business and the new manufacture is in Sweden. The new manufacture packages it in a different manner. The packaging isn’t a big deal but the new manufacture means as soon as I get the material in my hands I need to do tests to make sure Boomerite still works and is safe. In the past when we have changed what we thought were very minor variables the mix would not detonate as easily.


Oh well, it’s easy to get volunteers to do help do the tests.


After going back to bed and sleeping for a few hours I got up, checked my email, and found a response to a query I made to the ATF yesterday. It was about why none of the explosive handlers who I sent in the paperwork for last November had heard anything back from the ATF. The response I got (after being forwarded around a bit) told me who I really needed to contact and I sent them an email. I received a call about 90 minutes later and we had a nice chat. The address on the back of the form is incorrect and paperwork sent to that address tends to disappear. He said I could just scan the copies I had kept (hooray for being paranoid about the government messing things up!) and email them to him. He would expedite the processing and there shouldn’t be a problem with getting the approvals completed in time for Boomershoot 2009.

Boomerite supplies ordered

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I have a pounding headache and a stuffed up nose but I managed to order 392 pounds of potassium chlorate this morning. Potassium chlorate is one of the main ingredients in Boomerite. It’s also the most expensive (in the past it has accounted for almost 65% of the cost) and it’s hard to find suppliers who can deliver it in the quantities we need.


Last Thursday I started the process of ordering and ran into some obstacles.


First, they wanted a copy of my ATF type 20 license to manufacture high explosives. The one they had on file had expired. I had expected that and wasn’t concerned.


Second, I estimate we have about 100 pounds left over from last year and we need about 350 pounds for Boomershoot 2009. I wanted to order the usual 275 pound drum which would have given me a little bit left over for testing and other things during the year. But my supplier told me they only had 142 pounds on hand. Larger quantities will be available in two to three weeks. Also they changed their packaging and they now only sell in 250 pound increments. And the worst part was the price has doubled since last year. Ouch!


But, if I ordered just the 250 pounds then, at best, I wouldn’t have any extra for testing purposes during the year. 500 pounds would be more than enough for Boomershoot 2009 but the expense!


I told them I would think about what I wanted to do, FAX them a copy of the license on Friday, and call them back on Monday (today). Over the weekend it occurred to me–they have 142 pound on hand why not buy that plus a 250 pound package? I called today and they said it works for them so it should be just fine. I’m not looking forward to paying the steep price but getting 392 pounds is better than not having enough with 250 pounds and better than paying for 500 pounds of which half will sit around for year.


The cardboard boxes used for the target containers have arrived and are safely stored away. There are just a very few minor supplies that need to be picked up locally now.

Mike is making progress

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Mike Brown is the Idaho Sport Shooting Alliance lobbyist in Boise and he announced, as did the Apex of The Triangle of Death (info on the Triangle of Death), the good guys advanced another few yards in the battle for gun owner rights.


If that passes and is signed by the Governor it will ease some of my Boomershoot worries.

Road Warrior Boomershoot

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Kris tells me he is going to attend Boomershoot as a spectator and wondered if this would be an appropriate lead pusher for the event:



The original design intent is described as:



Designed as an equalizer for inconceivable and unpredictable lane changes, and other traffic related anomalies perpetrated by the cell phone using, motor home/SUV driving morons in Florida imposed on the rest of us. The below pictured machine was designed for that purpose.


Each mini gun fires at a rate of 3000 rounds per minute (6000 total). During initial test and evaluation it was demonstrated that a single 2 second burst would, and did blow a 40 foot RV with tow car clean off the road, leaving an open and unobstructed route ahead. It will vaporize an SUV in seconds! Tests further indicated that after two or three RV’s/SUV’s in a row were eliminated, or “friggin smoked”, others voluntarily pulled off the road and thus became a “non threat.”


I told him it would be welcome but the accuracy of the lead on target was far more important than the quantity.


But perhaps we can create a special Boomershoot event for this class of toy if there is enough interest out there. See also these variants.

Boomershoot 2009 supplies

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A couple weeks ago I confirmed the reservation for the Saturday dinner location and the caterer. It is NOT at the usual place. It is a block or so down the street at 330 Michigan Avenue (VFW Building).


Earlier this week I confirmed the dates for caterer for the on-site food. Breakfast and lunch will be available Friday, Saturday and Sunday.


Yesterday I put in a request for quote on delivery of 275 pounds of potassium chlorate. One of the three main ingredients in Boomerite.


A few minutes ago I ordered $500 worth of cardboard boxes, labels, and zip-lock bags.


I should have picked up some small plastic gloves (some of the women making explosives have small hands) when I was out shopping with Xenia for her wedding supplies earlier today. I’ll get those another time.


I still need some more ethylene glycol (again for Boomerite).


Son-in-law Caleb says he is going to make the stakes used for holding the targets from some old pallets he got for free.


I really should start printing out badges since the event is full and I have all the names. The few new people from the probable cancellations can be put on one page of badges a few days before the event.


I think everything is under control for another great event.

Boomershoot prep–a 150 pound tripod

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This time of year (66 days until Boomershoot) not just me but participants start putting the finishing touches on their plans for the big event. Here we see the results of Bruce Da Squirrel Hunter Boomershoot project:



Here is part of the story from Bruce himself:



Well I finally finished my year long project of building a completely new Polished Stainless Steel Tripod. This couldn’t have happened without the wonderful help of .223 Bill Lester and Fred Forgone working with me hand and foot to get this project completed on time for April 30th and Boomershoot once again this year. I think Fred has more gray hairs this year with me bugging him non-stop for his assistance with so many miscellaneous parts and devices even on his days off.


My hat is off to .223 Bill and Fred for sticking with me and letting me drive both of them nuts for a year while we invented and built what I believe is the best shooting platform ever invented. This Stainless Tripod was .223 Bill’s first production unit since his personal prototype which was made from mild steel. A true craftsman and dedicated friend.


This years project was invented after last years highly modified hunting tripod which had a 55 pound railroad track hanging from the center of the pod which made the total tripod with rifle weigh in at approx. 130 pounds.


After great success with that unit, I was still unhappy about having to hold and adjust the rear of the rifle for every shot. My heartbeat was moving the crosshairs too much in the excitement of Boomershoot.


So back to the drawing board and the current project for this past year has been: “How do we build a better mouse trap”?


Well, you start with the best pair of talented craftsmen who can invent right along with you and build dream toys with a common goal of hitting 7 inch targets all the way out to 650 yards and 700 yards.


The attached photos show my first dress rehearsal of the unit in my living room as my garage isn’t big enough with two cars in it to allow me to set this monster up in. The rifle is a Remington 700 Long Action and a Hart Custom .25-06 fluted barrel. The rifle is the only item carried over from last year.


The new tripod has an aluminum front Anti-Cant device and the rear has a polished mild steel Micro Elevation / Traversing Device. Along with these two items is a Mono-rail Anti-lift device up front that I also invented, a modified design instead of the two rail system I employed last year.


Hopefully the recoil will be less then last year with the overall increased weight (150lbs) and the much larger footprint of this unit. I had the .25-06 recoil down to that of a .22 long rifle last year. If this unit does what I think it will, there won’t be any recoil this year.


This new tripod still needs to be field tested, but I have a feeling that this will be one sweet tripod to shoot from.


I can’t wait for Boomershoot and the chance to really put all this work to the test.


Thank you once again Fred and Bill for all you did and sacrificed for me.


We might just once again hear the call of the wild “ReAdjust”

I want to do that!

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Does anyone have a house or three they don’t need? Ry and I want to try something.

Only one third pound?

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Someone had 150 pounds of explosives stolen. The cops put on a demo for the media to show how dangerous just a small amount of explosivs are. They detonated one third of a pound for the cameras. Here is a still shot (more where I found the one below).



Okay, whatever. For the last several years the smallest targets we have used (the three inch square ones) at Boomershoot have been one half pounders. The four inch square targets we use the most of are approximately one pound. The largest (the seven inch square) ones are two pounders. They lost 150 pounds? We went through over 10 times that much last year.

More AP ammo testing

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As planned Caleb and I did some more tests with Ry’s test target. Video and commentary by Caleb.


We went to the Boomershoot site expecting to find little or no snow. We should have called ahead. There was about two feet of snow and we were unable to make it to the Taj Mahal with all our gear. We made do at the first berm. We used a paper target to zero the gun for this range (25 yards) then took a single shot with each caliber at the stack of steel plates at the base of the stump. The bullets at the steel plate went over the chronograph.


This was our setup.



In the following video you see the result of SS-109 and 30.06 blacktip ammo shot at the stack of steel plates each 0.25 inches thick. There is a gap of about 0.75 inches between each plate. Estimated velocity of the .223 bullet at the target is 2600 fps. Estimated velocity of the 30.06 bullet at the target is 2360 fps.


The .223 went through one and almost penetrated the second plate. The 30.06 went through three plates and partially into the fourth.



The .300 Win Mag pushing hand-loaded 162 grain military surplus black tip bullets was able to hit the target with a velocity of about 3315 fps. It went through all six plates:



Update: See also this paper on AP ammo. It’s just the first page (you have to pay for the rest of it) but it’s interesting reading.

Boomershoot positions 3 and 4 to open

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At 8:00 AM PST tomorrow, February 8, two more positions will become available. These positions are both in the .50 Caliber Ghetto, positions 3 and 4.


You can sign up for the position by going to the following web page and signing up when they became available tomorrow morning.


http://entry.boomershoot.org/


There is a restrictions on these positions. You can only shoot at targets on the hillside. The range of these targets is from about 550 yards to 700 yards.

Media Jungle at Boomershoot 2009

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Last week I got a call from Nathan at Media Jungle. They make shows such as Adventures Abroad, Western Extreme, and Wild Encounters for Outdoor Channel.


Nathan wanted to confirm they will be welcome (well, DUH!) at Boomershoot 2009. I was rather distracted by some other stuff going on at my office at the moment and didn’t catch the name of the show or the talking head. But they will be doing some autograph signing as well as filming and shooting.

Boomershoot 2009 position available

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The availability of position 43 will be enabled at 12:00 Noon Pacific time today. Sign up here if you think you are fast enough to grab it before someone else does.


Update: Gone in two minutes.

Another Boomershoot position available soon

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I just had a cancellation for Position 43 for Boomershoot 2009.


Due to a minor bug in my software for on-line entries after moving to a new hosting provider I won’t be making the position available for at least a day or so. I’ll post something here when the site is ready for accepting new entries.