No, it’s not my spud gun (but it has a nearly identical scope). It’s Benjamin’s rifle that he used to connect with 700 yard boomers. It’s a great price for a good gun.
Update: I just got a call from Ben. The rifle is sold. The scope alone was worth the asking price for everything.
Uncle asks, “But, you know, who can’t watch chicks in bikinis firing belt fed machine guns?”
Well, if you must ask… most women probably find that very offensive.
I find it (yeah, I know, I’m weird) a little annoying. Guns and nearly naked women just don’t go together for me. These women don’t really know what they are doing with the guns. They get so few rounds on target and so many in the dirt that I find it irritating.
I could go for some of the groupies (there are some hints of this phenomena at times) at Boomershoot to show their appreciation after the show but not as a part of it. For some reason the simultaneous combination of sex and guns just leaves me a little bit cold.
That doesn’t mean I don’t realize there is a fairly large segment of the male (and some female) population that finds the combination very stimulating. I just don’t get it on the emotional level and I fear it hurts our cause with the majority of women.
Dave has a picture of Boomershoot 2007 cleanup. Boomershoot is a difficult thing to capture. The cleanup in particularly tough. The video is good but even ignoring the inability to capture the true dynamic range of the audio there is so much going on that it doesn’t capture the visuals all the well either. Dave’s picture helps get nonparticipants a little bit closer to understanding what it is like to be there.
It appears there will be a special Boomershoot event November 11th, 2007. This is for the benefit of a U.K. film company doing a documentary. For some background see this blog posting.
If you would like to participate send me an email. I will be charging $50.00 per shooter for this event and everyone can have their own shooting position. Depending on the weather we may not be able to get targets up on the hill and they may all be at the 375 yard tree line. We won’t know until the day of the shoot. But there will be lots of targets including fireballs to help keep us warm.
It’s not for certain yet but I estimate the chances of this happening on this day at about 75%.
Over the years I’ve had numerous queries about bringing a rifle to Boomershoot that shoots the .50 BMG cartridge. I’ve always told them it wasn’t a problem but they had to set up some distance from “normal people” so they wouldn’t hurt their neighbors with the muzzle blast. I put these shooters off to one end and it quickly got named “The Ghetto”. After I started running out of shooting spaces I explicitly set aside positions with extra wide spacing for the .50 caliber shooters and I called the area by the name given to it by shooters years before, the “.50 Cal Ghetto”:
Now via Tam I find there are “affordable” guns that shoot the manly 20mm cartridge. See the bottom of this page for a picture of the 20mm compared to the wimpy .50 BMG cartridge.
I haven’t had any requests to bring 20mm rifles to Boomershoot but they are welcome to come. They will be thrown into the same ghetto as the .50 cal guys who will have to just suck it up when they get embarrassed by the size of their tools compared to the newcomers.
Kim, Caleb, and I went to the Boomershoot site yesterday. We put in a simple stairway from the water pump to the shed where we make and store the explosives for the reactive targets.
When we got back home Xenia asked what we did and I told her we made a stairway. “To where?”, she asked. And I told her, “A stairway to heaven.”
This captures a couple of different concepts in addition to the song with that title. I always worry some about blowing up myself and others when we are working on the explosives. Hence a literal use of the word heaven if you believe in such things. And also it’s a very happy, pleasant place for me–gun, explosives, and the serenity of being out in the middle of the farm with no people or their sounds nearby.
This weekend I’ll be doing Boomershoot 2008 prep and other chores but some people will be here (San Francisco–of course):
The latest adult industry “‘pr0nnovations” will be on display in San Francisco this weekend at Arse Elektronika, a three-day expo featuring sex machines, brainy talks and weird performances (including the Electric Orifice Orchestra, in which “extravagantly dressed performers use live biofeedback from muscular interior walls of their bodies to create a multimedia interactive show”).
I’ve been corresponding with a 13 year-old kid that started out saying he wanted to make bombs but there was enough information that indicated he had no intention of hurting anyone or their property. He was just using the wrong word for his desired activities. Rather than ignore him or turn him in to the police in his area I politely declined to help and suggested he attend Boomershoot 2008 since he lives in Idaho. Tonight, after six emails from him in 36 hours, he asked:
Can you give me the URL for the website of pain full pics of pipe bomb retards?
I recently told a friend of mine i made small explosives for recreational uses, and he said “oh yeah i should come to your house and we can make a pipe bomb”
I told him he was being stupid and, before he made explosives needed to do his homework. I told him id try to find the page i saw and show him how dumb his idea really was.
Cool. Maybe he will make it to adulthood.
This (WARNING! Extremely graphic!) is the link.
And speaking of bombs–if you are a suicide bomber intent on taking out some of our boys in the sandbox with itchy fingers on their “.50 caliber sniper rifles” keep (more extremely graphic material!) this in mind.
TSA head Kip Hawley (http://www.kiphawleyisanidiot.com/) attempts to explain the reason for the three ounce limit on liquids and why the rule is reasonable. He is deliberately obscure in places:
“This is something we thought a lot about. There’s a whole classified section to the answer, but in the unclassified part we are limited to discussing, with 3-1-1, the major focus was first, to stop assembled bombs,” he said.
“The nature of liquid explosives is that they are very volatile, unlike military-grade explosives that react predictably. With homemade explosives, while the benefit is that they are made of easy-to-get ingredients, the downside is that you get widely different results for the same quote-unquote recipe.
“If you’re going to use these explosives in the aviation context, you have to be very precise in the mixing because, as we found in the testing, minor variations in formula have a very dramatic effect on whether or not the explosives are successful.
“So 3-1-1- eliminates the ability to assemble the ingredients in a laboratory, using expert people to provide a finished bomb for somebody to use on a suicide mission on an airplane,” he said.
On a plane, mixing up a bomb in a suitable container “isn’t like mixing a beverage,” he said, adding: “This stuff is very volatile; it is very obvious; you can smell it a long way away. It’s very corrosive.”
The volatile stuff he’s talking about would be the acetone used to make acetone peroxide. And yes acetone is very smelly. I have never made acetone peroxide and have no plans to. It’s called “Mother of Satan” for a reason.
The “very corrosive” stuff would be nitric and sulfuric acids used to make nitroglycerin; probably the most well known of all liquid explosives.
Yup. Mixing up either of those explosives without being noticed would be difficult on a plane. The acetone in particular is very noticeable. Finger polish remover is frequently acetone. So if someone starts working on removing their fingernail polish don’t be surprised if you see the flight crew getting a little excited about finding the source of the smell.
The problem with the whole explosives testing thing is that there are lots of things made out of stuff they don’t, and essentially can’t, test for that make the whole exercise just A Security Theater. That money would be far better spent on finding the bad guys before they ever got to the airport. But don’t expect Hawley to tell you that. It’s not his job to tell you his job is a sham. His job is to make you feel safer. Do you feel safe yet?
I sort of ran out of snark for these sort of things and they have just sat around in my Inbox “forever”. Some I would have turned over to law enforcement but it has been so rare that I have received even an acknowledgment of receipt from them that I got discouraged. If they don’t care then I guess I don’t much care either.
But maybe you will get some amusement out of them:
From: Pgleon@
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:29 PM
To: JoeH
Subject: DA BOMBhey joe i was wounderin how 2 make a bomb could u plz tell i at least wana blow a little hole in a wall or somin blow a hole in da floor i meen grass like a golf hole but a bit wider and deeper could u plz send me instruction but i avent got much 2 spend on it and i live in the uk. send this 2 gesty@ thx dude
From: Jordan
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 6:59 PM
To: JoeH
Subject: bombi was wondering if me and a friend put black powder in a concled place with a wick would it explode and how big. Well anyways can you give us directions on a big bomb blow a few feet into the ground?
Jordan
From: yunus
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 12:14 AM
To: JoeH
Subject:hiii
c
i trying to some kind a loud bomb for a trick but i cant be there and so i
need also a timer but i have no idea so i hope you will help mewhatting your answer
please_________________________________________________________________
En etkili ve güvenilir PC Korumayi tercih edin, rahat edin!
http://www.msn.com.tr/security/
From: René
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 10:30 AM
To: JoeH
Subject: Can u help mee?I want to Build a Big Bomb with a big boom… It can be expensive but easy to get the stuff to it…..
Nothing else matters
From: SCOTT
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 1:48 AM
To: JoeH
Subject: HOW TO EXPLOSIVESHello Mr. Huffman,
I would like some info on how to build a bomb, something with the power of about 2 sticks of dynamite. I might like to try and put a hole in a cement wall or something to that affect.
Thanks!
Scott
From: mark
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 10:54 AM
To: JoeH
Subject: help meDear Joeh;
I have an enemy in my neighborhood who’s always trying to get me arrested. She hates me and tries to hurt me in anyway she can. Well, I want to teach her a lesson once and for all. Help me build something that can be thrown through her window and severely hurt that bitch. Remember it can’t be to heavy because I have to be able to throw it.
sincerely,
troubled housewife
From: ASHTRAYASHTRAY13
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 12:59 PM
To: JoeH
Subject: basic bombhi,
i was wondering how to make a small basic bomb with simple and easy available ingridients. i would be very grateful if you could possibly tell me ??
regards,
Ash
From: Mirjana
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 5:29 AM
To: JoeH
Subject: Homemade bombCan you tell me how to make a bomb that can make a hole in the ground (about 20 cm). Not too strong so i have to run like half a mile, and not that it explodes in 5 sec… I don’t have many materials avalible, just stuff that you can find in every home. I know how to make one bomb… but i need some weird acid so i can easily get hurt.
If you don’t reply me, thanks anyway…
From: louis
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 6:04 PM
To: JoeH
Subject: u are a faggot and u cant catch me bitch hahahahahaha!!!!!!HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!y dont u leave the 15 year old texan alone, dont u have something better 2
do! try and track me ass hole wow u have my e-mail big deal, i am 15 as well
and im guna make a bomb, throw it into a hotel swimmig pool
From: extinct02ws6
Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 11:12 AM
To: JoeH
Subject: Just CuriousHey. I was wondering how to build 2 types of bombs. the first, small, how to build a hand grenade. and second, larger, how to blow up a car. fused or timed. doesn’t really matter. thanks!
tommy
From: Kayci
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 8:47 AM
To: JoeH
Subject: PlanOkay,so a friend and I need to build a series of explosive devices for a plan we have that will
probably take a few years to finalize. Anyway,we need to build 2 or 3 types of bomb:2 gas bombs,most likely propane,and some handy throwable explosives like grenades or pipe bombs. For the propane ones,we need complete instructions on engineering and remote
detonation. We want to take out a large building,roughly the size of a high school gymnasium. We want to injure many people in the proccess. We need the pipe bombs and grenades so we can fend off any resistance. We also might need a car bomb or two,for a good distraction. So,let me know what you got,I need the info soon.
Thanks,
KC
I’ve been reading every article I can on the materials these two guys were playing with. They are claimed to have had the following in their car:
Except for the pipes and the stuff all mixed up you might find that in one of my vehicles sometime.
It is claimed the cat litter was used to “bind the ingredients” but I’m not buying it. Karo syrup doesn’t need any help “binding”. If you put enough cat litter in the mixture it would make it easier to handle–including putting it in the pipe. But if you add enough litter to make it easy to handle I keep thinking it would interfere with the desired reaction–unless you were just trying to make a 4th of July type “fountain” or “smoke bomb”. With a good detonator (blasting cap) and with no, or a limited amount, of cat litter it might go boom but it’s not going to be all that impressive.
If it were just the above items and it were up to me personally I would give them a stern warning for traveling with the pipes filled with the mixture. If they had a car accident it might catch fire and make the situation much worse. It’s not going to go boom and rip the car apart or anything but it’s not something you should do either.
If the mixture will actually explode then it would be a violation of Federal Law in regards to transportation of explosives since I doubt they had the proper placards, packaging, licenses and/or permits, storage magazine, and an hazardous materials endorsement on their drivers license.
But it wasn’t just those items. There was one more thing that changes the entire flavor of the case:
In July, Mohamed posted a video on YouTube that explained how to transform a toy remote controlled car into a detonator, Hoffer said. The 12-minute video is narrated by a man speaking Arabic with an Egyptian accent. It shows no face, only hands.
“Mohamed admitted he made and uploaded it,” Hoffer said.
The video’s narrator says it’s meant “to save one who wants to be a martyr for another day in battle,” Hoffer said. The narrator also mentions a previous example that used a remote controlled toy boat. Federal agents searched the New Tampa home of Megahed’s family and found a remote controlled toy boat, Hoffer said.
But what does that mean?
The judge asked if there was a definite link between the two, and Hoffer said no.
Exactly! Does the video mean he was intending to be “a martyr for another day in battle”? Was he going to try to detonate the material remotely for an evil purpose? I detonate explosives remotely using supersonic lead pellets and I could see doing it by a radio controlled device too (it’s been a common fantasy of mine and others to fake shooting a reactive target with an ordinary iron sighted handgun from 500 yards then tease those that can’t hit a target with their scoped rifles).
Summing up I am in near complete agreement (an extremely rare event) with CAIR:
Ahmed Bedier, director of the Central Florida office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was quick to distinguish between Megahed and Mohamed.
“It’s obvious there are two separate individuals with different charges and different allegations,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the two individuals end up having separate cases altogether.”
He defended Megahed, saying it appeared he “just happened to be in the car.” But he had harsher words for Mohamed.
If he could talk to Mohamed, Bedier said, “I’d say, ‘Wake up!’ “
He added, “Muslims don’t get a second chance when they dabble with things like this. Not only will this have consequences on him, but it will have consequences on most of the Muslims in this country.”
Update: Ry reminds us we can’t believe everything we read in the media.
Update2: Ahh… now things are making more sense:
In the trunk, deputies found four small sections of PVC pipe, at least three of which were stuffed with a “potassium nitrate explosive mixture” of potassium nitrate, Karo syrup and kitty litter, Hoffer said. He said the kitty litter served as a binder to keep the substance from coming out of the pipes, which were not capped.
[…]
Both men are charged with transporting explosives without a permit, relating to the stuffed PVC pipes deputies have described as pipe bombs. Hoffer conceded in court, however, that the devices, while explosive, were not pipe bombs and were not “destructive devices” under the law.
Allen maintained that the filled PVC pipes couldn’t do much damage because there were no caps and no metallic material that could serve as shrapnel.
Sounds more like smoke bombs than pipe bombs to me. Worst case they could be incendiary devices. My bet is that if the defense plays their cards right they can beat the explosives charge.
This last weekend Caleb and I went out to the Boomershoot site again. I needed to move some dirt and the bulldozer was going to be less than a quarter of a mile away so I borrowed it for a couple hours.
The photos with me in them are by Caleb. The others were taken by me.
The prime objective was to smooth some dirt we had roughed up putting in the “well”:
This is where we frequently park when working at the Taj.
It’s now much smoother. We also planted grass and raked the seeds into the dust to wait for the fall rains.
The secondary objective was to make the outdoor assembly line area more hospitable. The ground is uneven and if it has rained recently it can be muddy.
We put up a table in the foreground area and assemble targets here.
A close up of the signs above the door.
I moved more dirt in so there would be less of a step between outside and inside:
That old bulldozer is old enough it could retire. I think it is 63 years old now. I wonder if we could sign it up for Social Security benefits or something.
Here Caleb is putting the “decorative stones” in place where we walk and stand while assembling the reactive targets.
This is, essentially, the final result of our work.
After taking the last picture above we put in three more “Roman Cobblestones” for the legs of the canopy, spread grass seed around and raked the seeds into the dust.
I thought of one more thing that needs to be done before next spring. There needs to be some steps made to get from this top area down to the “well” pump. It’s a steep area that will be slick when it’s wet.
After playing in the dirt we tested out the new explosive grade ammonium nitrate.
All previous Boomerite was made with AN from a farm supply dealer. The explosive grade material has much smaller prills than the older stuff and the one batch we mixed up was not as sensitive as previous tests indicated with the old material. We’ll have to do some more tests sometime. It is probably good enough however.
It would not detonate with Federal American Eagle .22 LR ammo at a distance of 10 yards. This corresponds to an approximate target velocity of 1175 fps. It would detonate every time with CCI Stinger .22LR from 30 yards away which corresponds to an approximate target velocity of 1450 fps.
For years Ry and I tested new reactive target recipes for Boomershoot. When our hypothesis for making an explosive which could be easily detonated with long distance rifle fire were proven false Ry would lament that we didn’t have enough columns on our spreadsheet. There was some variable, which we didn’t know existed, that was critical to our understanding of explosive detonation. Literally it was true that I had (have) a spreadsheet with lots of different variables that we thought might be critical to make our explosives better. Some of those included:
Our experiments yielded no obvious corelation between any of our hypothesises and the real world–until the last couple of days.
The title for the column on the spreadsheet we apparently were looking for is Ω. In explosive engineering terms (rather than electrical engineering terms which is what first comes to mind with that symbol) this is the weight ratio, expressed as a precentage, of the oxygen remaining or required (expressed as a negative number) for complete combustion of all the fuel in the explosives. For example, TNT, C7H5N3O6 has end products of CO, H2O, and N2. That carbon monoxide (CO) could have been converted into carbon dioxide (CO2) and more heat if there had been enough oxygen around. It turns out that Ω for TNT is -74%. For RDX (the active ingredient in C-4), C3H6N6O6, Ω is -21.6%. From my earliest attempts at reactive target explosives I started out with stoichiometric ratios. This would give me the most bang for a given mass of components. That is, no excess fuel and no excess oxygen left over after the reaction was complete. It was ultimately discovered via both experimental results and hints found on the Internet that maximum sensitivity was not achieved with stoichiometric ratios. It was more sensitivity when the explosive was oxygen rich. From some of my “new” books on explosives I found that “Ω” is a measure of that “richness” or “poverty”. I modified my spreadsheet to calculate Ω for various recipes.
Here is a partial (I have three times this number of recorded experiments) table of various Boomerite recipes and my best approximation of Ω:
| Recipe | Ω |
| Boomerite 1998 | 1.2% |
| Boomerite 1999 | 2.4% |
| Boomerite 2001 | 9.2% |
| Boomerite 2002 | 8.3% |
| Boomerite 2003 | 19.4% |
| Boomerite 2006 | 16.2% |
There were other variables that changed as well such as packaging materials, fuel used, ratios of oxidizers, catalysts, size of the particles, and packing density which also affected the sensitivity. But the correlation with Ω is very strong. Each year the sensitivity increased and Ω, a measure of the excess oxygen, was a significant component of that increase in sensitivity. It also can be too high–obviously if there is no fuel at all and only oxiderizer it’s going to be a minor explosion at best. But this gives me a reason to revisit old fuels and try something a little bit different this time.
Side note: The most recent recipe on the web is not what we actually use. What I publish is always at least one “generation” behind our “latest and greatest”. Ω for the web recipe is 20.1%.
It’s amazing what people will say about you and how messed up they get the facts. And it’s amazing what you can discover if you just look through your log files.
A case in point:
A commenter to one of my posts said something that piqued my interest so I went looking for their IP address in my log files. What I found shocked me. The log files lead me to the comments here. The article itself is very factually based as near I could tell. It was the comments that went off the deep end and got libelous:
Any word on if they are going to close down the training facilities Jason Hamilton received instruction at or the sporting store he bought his firearms at. I hope they don’t close down that long ranger sniper explosive shooting course that takes place near Orofino. Jason Hamilton is said to have attended that regularly with his friends.
I don’t keep a list of previous attendees but I think I would recognize a name of someone that attended more than once or twice. I don’t recall Jason Hamilton ever attending Boomershoot. I also just looked and don’t see any email addresses with an obvious connection to his name on the Boomershoot announcement list.
Ralph I think that shooting event you are referring to is called boomershoot. Its run by a guy I think is fairly well know around sandpoint, Idaho and might also have connections to Aryan nations. I heard he runs in Anti circles to throw the ATF off. He has a CD on how to make explosives, encrypt and hide messages and hit targets at long range. I believe it can be downloaded from a couple of P2P sites, but I can’t remember which. He likes to post about hitting the second amendment reset button a lot and shooting Jack Booted thugs. That whole group is being watched pretty close by several watchdogs groups like the southern poverty law center.
Just because Joe Huffman went to a few of their meetings doesn’t make him a member.
You say Joe Huffman puts on that event and he brags about training people to shoot jack booted thugs! WOW. Sounds like this Jason Hamilton took that advocacy to heart. Given what happened in Moscow I’m surprised there hasn’t been more media attention on that.
See for yourself:
“If it ever becomes necessary to start shooting tyrants and “jack booted thugs“ in our country I want as many people on my side as possible. And I want them to have the equipment and the skills to be able to hit head and chest sized objects many hundreds of yards away.”
Kevin sent me an email today asking if I had seen this:
TAMPA – Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida were indicted Friday on federal explosives charges, but prosecutors would not say whether the men planned to carry out an attack or hurt anyone.
Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, and engineering student Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, have been held in South Carolina since Aug. 4 when they were stopped for speeding and authorities found explosives in the trunk of their car.
They were indicted by a grand jury in Tampa on charges of carrying explosive materials across state lines. Mohammed also faces terrorism-related charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.
Referring to the “teaching and demonstrating” aspects Kevin then asked, “So running the Boomershoot makes you a criminal, or are you safe because you’re licensed?”
The answer to the first question, “Have I seen this?” is no. The other two questions are not so easily answered.
I’m almost certain running Boomershoot doesn’t make me a criminal. But as we know from experience with the Second Amendment and the lack of politicians and law enforcement being prosecuted under 18 USC 242 for enforcing illegal laws infringing the 2nd Amendment our government doesn’t follow the letter or even some vague shadow of the law. They will do basically whatever they want and then find a law, or loophole in the law, that gives them plausible authority and justification for their actions. Numerous example abound:
So with that caveat, no, Boomershoot does not make me a criminal.
As to the final question, “Are you safe because you’re licensed?” I’m probably safer but as long as I’m alive I will never safe from harm. My license gives me visibility with the ATF and they can comfortably call me up and ask what is going on or ask if I know something about some event should the need arise. They can come out and visit the Taj Mahal where I make and store my explosives and can inventory it (my inventory is zero 99+% of the time). It is my belief they will be less likely to send the SWAT team on an early morning visit when they can sit down over a meal at the local restaurant and chat about things (as they have done on more than one occasion).
So what’s the story with “teaching and demonstrating how to use explosive” being a crime. It’s typical MSM getting details wrong. What is misleading about the newspaper report is what the law actually says versus what they reported. Here is the actual law:
(p) Distribution of Information Relating to Explosives, Destructive Devices, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.—
(1) Definitions.— In this subsection—
(A) the term “destructive device” has the same meaning as in section 921 (a)(4);
(B) the term “explosive” has the same meaning as in section 844 (j); and
(C) the term “weapon of mass destruction” has the same meaning as in section 2332a (c)(2).(2) Prohibition.— It shall be unlawful for any person—
(A) to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence; or
(B) to teach or demonstrate to any person the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to distribute to any person, by any means, information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, knowing that such person intends to use the teaching, demonstration, or information for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence.
So, unless I know that someone I am teaching, demonstrating, or providing information to about explosives intends to use it in an illegal manner, technically, I am fine. But, numerous times in the past people have claimed to know what I was thinking even though they were clueless. I don’t think like other people and when people are certain I must know or think something they are frequently wrong. Therefore I can’t be certain that some zealous prosecutor won’t decide I must be thinking something bad and decide to prosecute me.
There is a short side story to this law and Boomershoot. It was Dianne Feinstein that introduced the above law in 1995. It was this law, by Ms. Feinstein, specifically aimed at the Internet and the growing “militia movement”, that helped motivate me to create what is now known as Boomershoot and put information on how to make reactive targets on the net. I was, and am, deliberately thumbing my nose at her with Boomershoot by treading as close as I can but still staying within the law.
Someone in Greece was looking for “boomershoot survialist shop”? Whatever… they ended up finding my blog.
Your guess is as good as mine.
| Domain Name | (Unknown) | |||||||||||||||||||
| IP Address | 213.249.57.# (Mega TV, Tiletipos) | |||||||||||||||||||
| ISP | PANAFON S.A. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Location |
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| Language | Greek el |
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| Operating System | Microsoft Win2000 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Browser | Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) |
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| Javascript | version 1.3 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Monitor |
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| Time of Visit | Aug 27 2007 10:16:29 am | |||||||||||||||||||
| Last Page View | Aug 27 2007 10:16:29 am | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Length | 0 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||
| Page Views | 1 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Referring URL | http://www.google.gr…rvivalist shop&meta= | |||||||||||||||||||
| Search Engine | google.gr | |||||||||||||||||||
| Search Words | boomershoot survivalist shop | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | https://blog.joehuffman.org/category/boomershoot/ | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Exit Page | https://blog.joehuffman.org/category/boomershoot/ | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Time Zone | UTC+2:00 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visitor’s Time | Aug 27 2007 8:16:29 pm | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Number | 185,007 |
One of the suggestions I received from my Boomershoot 2007 crew was to have more water available for cleaning up the equipment, first aid, and fire supression when we are making the targets. What I typically do is bring about two or three gallons of water and we are very stingy with it as we clean the tables, mixers, blenders, bowls and other kitchen tools we use to mix up the Boomerite (I just updated this page with new information so visit again even if you have seen it many times before). It was a great idea. I tried boring a hole in the ground with the plan of having a real well. This was in June and being it was a dry year I had nothing but a dry hole. It would have water in it April and early May but if I ever wanted to do some experiments in the middle of the summer I would be stuck bringing more water in. So after discussing it with Ry, my brother and Dad I settled on putting a “tank” in the ground to collect rain water and ground runoff. The tank had to be at least two or three feet underground so it wouldn’t freeze in the winter. On the farm it frequently gets down to -10 or -15 F for at least a few days. In the winter of ’68/’69 it got down to -30F and didn’t get above -20F for nearly a week.
There was already drain tile around the foundation of the Taj Mahal so I just had to extend the tile a bit to the tank and provide a means of getting the water to the surface. Here are photos, mostly taken by daughter Kim, from August 5th when Kim, her husband Caleb, and I worked on supplying water to the Taj:
Caleb dug the ditch from one end of the tile line to the hole which I dug for the “tank”.
Caleb isn’t much bigger than Kim so even though he is nearly thirty years younger I moved a lot more dirt than Caleb. Of course most of the time I also used a bigger shovel. While Caleb and I moved dirt Kim put the two new tables into the Taj.
Me, making sure the plastic 55 gallon barrel was deep enough underground to avoid freezing.
Kim and Caleb working on the plumbing for the barrel.
Still working on the plumbing.
We managed to get it all plumbed except for the joining of the two tile lines. We decided the angles were such that we really needed a “T” inside of the “Y” I had purchased. We filled in almost all of the dirt and went home. We were tired, very dirty, and pleased with our accomplishment.
Then last Sunday, the 12th, I finished off the project.
On the way back to Moscow as we went through the not even a wide spot in the road known as Joel we saw this:
Last weekend Kim, Caleb and I spent some time working on a water supply at the Taj Mahal. Kim and Caleb are on their belated honeymoon at Lake Tahoe today so I finished it off by myself. And since we have WiFi onsite I’m blogging from the Taj. I’ll post more pictures of the intermediate steps later but here is the final result:
The field of explosives engineering incorporates a broad variety of sciences and engineering technologies that are brought together to bear on each particular design problem. These technologies include chemistry, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, mechanics, electricity, and electronics, and even meteorology, biology, and physiology.
Paul W. Cooper
1996
Preface to Explosives Engineering
[Chemistry? Check. Thermodynamics? That class was lots of fun. I got an A+ in it. Fluid dynamics? Check. Aerodynamics? Check–see Modern Ballistics. Mechanics? Check, Electricity and electronics? I have a BSEE and MSEE. Meteorology? I’ll keep the explosive events to a size that shouldn’t be affecting the weather. Biology and physiology? Not particularly–That’s what the flak jacket, mask, gloves and apron are for–keeping explosives components, by-products, and accelerated objects out of my body.–Joe]
Interesting. My most recent post about the TSA is getting more and more attention. Most recent is this mention in a forum:
If you really need to believe that you’re safe when you get on a plane, don’t read the above. If you want to realize what a bullshit fantasy “safety” through a “security” agency is, then take the red pill and click the link.
I like how he expressed that. Very nice. I remember one time not too long after 9/11 Ry was having Thanksgiving dinner with us and our extended family at my parent’s place. Somehow Ry (software tester extraordinaire–finding flaws is what software testers do) and I started talking about all the vulnerabilities in our country that someone could use to cause us great damage. We were rattling things off so fast that someone had to raise their voice to get in a command to “STOP”. People didn’t want to know. They wanted ignorance. This is baffling to me, but whatever.
Anyway, on to what makes particular posts interesting…
Uncle and Existing Thing (via Uncle) linked to my TSA post. I was thinking Uncle would link to it when I made it. He links to almost anything of mine that is a little out of the ordinary (honest, I have only made him one offer for a free position at Boomershoot–which he hasn’t acted upon. I don’t think that constitutes bribery). Thinking about what makes a post interesting I made the connection to the recent career advice from Scott Adams (via Kim). I have expertise in more than one field and combining that expertise with a somewhat rare political viewpoint (pro-freedom) increases my “value”. In this case it was my expertise in explosives and (computer) security.
I keep wondering if there is a way to combine all my hobbies in an interesting way. But at least for me guns, explosives, and sex just don’t mix.
