Tommorrow I will announce the dates and pricing for Boomershoot 2006.  I will send a notice to the Yahoo group when I do.  Please either sign up to be on the announcement list or keep a watch on the web site.  There will be discounts for early entries and with all the publicity we got from the King 5 Evening Magazine show (online video is here) it probably will be a good idea to sign up early.

Scott Davis (Davis Productions) has finished the Boomershoot 2005 video.  Someone in my house must have picked it up and didn’t bother to tell me it was here.  I had seen the case sitting around for a week or two but didn’t look close enough to see the title.  Barb and I watched it last night.  Very nice.  😀

It not as heavy on the interviews as last year but does have interviews with Chuck Hurst, Jack du Toit (Son&Heir of Kim du Toit), and Sara Young.  There may be some others but I forget right now.  There is also video of the fireball opening, the bowling ball motar, and the anvil shoot.  Kirk’s rifle was featured prominately (as he noted in this blog posting).  There is video of Ry and I being rather animated at one of the shooters meetings.  Thankfully our blatherings were muted and music was overlayed.

I’m nearly certain you can still get a copy by contacting Scott.

I got an email from Crystal yesterday.  It said, in part:

Did you send your renewal paperwork in? Maybe it hasn’t been input yet, but licensing data this morning shows July 1, 2005 as expiration and doesn’t indicate a pending renewal. Licensing goes by received date, not postmarked date.

Ouch!  I was thinking it was July 29th, not the 1st.  I sent a reply back thanking her and started hustling: Fingerprints, special photo, lots of forms to fill out, create a map of the water flow near the manufacturing site.  This morning I still had a question and called her.  She had a great answer and said she would call the recipent of my paperwork to let her know it was coming and that Crystal had signed off on things in May.  Crystal called a few minutes later saying things were fine and send it to a different address, directly to the person reviewing the material.  I got it into the FedEx box a few minutes ago.

Note to all the people who filled out the Employee Possessor Questionnaire for the next Boomershoot: Those questionnaires went in with my renewal.  Thanks everyone.

Yesterday I spent essentially the entire day with Crystal.  That last time I had a visit from the ATF it was Sue that came down from Spokane.  I had spoken with Crystal on the phone at least a time or two but this was the first time I had met her. It had come up in my conversation with Sue that Crystal was very likable and fun to be around.  Crystal is a character.  She was constantly making jokes and laughing.  You have to either like her style of humor or get away because it never stops.  I liked it.

Her card says ATF, not ATFE, and her shirt and coat both have ATF in big letters on them–she calls them her “shoot me clothes“.  While at A&W, where we met, she wore a different coat over the top of her “shoot me shirt.“

We talked about regulations and changes since the Safe Explosives Act, and examined my paperwork.  There was one issue that bothered us both as we sort of danced around the issue for a while.  She said I had to have production records for everything I manufactured.  I knew I had to have storage records for everything, unless (I thought) I used the material within 24 hours of it’s manufacture.  She said I needed production records for everything no exception if used within 24 hours.  I couldn’t recall anything like that and I didn’t have them.  I asked to see it in the “Orange Book”. She looked it up and showed it to me.  Ouch.  There it is.  Subpart G 55.123 (b):

(b) Each licensed manufacturer shall not later than the close of the next business day following the date of manufacture or other acquisition of explosive materials, enter the following information in a separate record:
(1) Date of manufacture or other acquisition.
(2) Manufacturer’s marks of identification.
(3) Quantity (applicable quantity units, such as pounds of explosives, number of detonators, number of display fireworks, etc.).
(4) Name, brand name or description (dynamite (dyn), blasting agents (ba), detonators (det), display fireworks (df), etc.) and size (length and diameter or diameter only of display fireworks).

I was sure there was an exemption if it was used withing 24 hours.  She couldn’t recall anything like that and didn’t see it either.  I was looking at the book upside down across the table from her and asked if I could look closer.  She gave me the book and a few seconds later I found what I was looking for.  Just before (e):

Exception: A licensed manufacturer is exempt from the recordkeeping requirements of this subsection if the explosive materials are manufactured for his own use and used within a 24 hour period at the same site.

We both smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

It turns out I still have a minor problem.  I had the production record information combined with the storage record.  Technically I need to print the production information on a separate piece of paper.  It won’t happen again.

It was typical Boomershoot weather–raining.  She rode in my car out to the Boomershoot site where she inspected both explosives magazines, did inventory and found my count matched hers.  The magazines were clean, properly ventilated, and built according to specification.

Every year I send the local fire chief (not sure of his exact title) an email a few weeks before the Boomershoot.  I describe the methods I plan on using to prevent fires and loss of materials both during and after the event, and I invite him to show up at any time during preparation, the event, or during clean up.  Recently I have been telling him when the ATF will be out to inspect things and invite him to show up at the same time.  This time he accepted the invitation and wanted to bring the assistant chief along.  It turned out the chief couldn’t get away and just the assistant chief, Don, showed up.  After Don showed up Crystal informed me there was a new requirement for me.  I need to notify the local fire chief verbally, and in writing, of the status of the explosive magazine.  “Joe needs to tell you whatever it is you need to know.  They just want to make sure you guys are talking to each other”, she said.  I need to communicate a little more frequently and with more detail, but basically I had been complying with the spirit of the regulation already.  I think I got some “brownie points” for demonstrating I was a little bit ahead of them on that point.

After we finished up the magazine inspections I told Don we were going to dispose of the 32 targets left over from the last Boomershoot either by shooting them or burning them and he was welcome to hang around if he wanted.  He said no thanks.  He has been a spectator for the last three years and next year he plans to be a participant so there was much novelty in standing around in the rain watching Crystal and I dispose of the targets.  So he left as I loaded up the magazine for my evil black “assault weapon”.  Crystal offered to help set up the targets and I asked her to get them out of the magazine while I positioned them.  I told her I didn’t want her slipping in the mud and getting hurt.  If anyone was to get hurt I wanted it to be me.  About 15 seconds after saying that I slipped, with my hands full of targets, and fell on my ass in the mud.  I laughed.  She was polite enough not to.

We got a back about 25 yards and I started shooting the targets.  Nothing happened.  I tried other targets.  Nothing but holes in them.  The stuff was completely dead.  Okay.  We have to burn them.  I piled up a bunch of them and got out my lighter.  It lit after a few attempts and burned for a short time but not long enough to catch the now damp target box on fire.  The lighter wouldn’t ignite a second time.  Crystal didn’t have any matches and I didn’t either.  I drove over to the neighbors place just a few hundred yards away.  No one home.  I called my brother Doug.  He sent my brother Gary over with newspapers and a box of matches.  I got the first pile on fire with the first match but it took two matches for the second pile.  It turns out the burning targets work pretty well as “smoke bombs”:

After the fires were out we drove back to Moscow laughing and telling stories.  I dropped her off at her car, went home, took off my muddy and wet shoes, socks and pants at the door and called it a day.  A very good day.  A welcome change from the rest of my week.

At the request of Kirk.

After Boomershoot 2002 I reported:

The only big down side was a ‘spectator’ that wanted to watch from the road next to the bullet impact area.  I called the sheriff’s office and a nice deputy came out to help “keep the peace”.

There is much, much more to the story.  And if I wanted to be my usual engineer/scientist/anal-retentive self the story would start over 40 years ago.  I’ll spare you that version.  The short version (but probably still more anal retentive than most people care for) follows–starting with, I think, Boomershoot 2001.

Just on the other side of the hill we shoot into the land is owned by someone else who rents it to still another person known, less than affectionately, by some of the neighbors in the area as “The Dwarf“.  The owner of the land is in a nursing home but her daughter, “The Wicked Witch of the Boomershoot“, manages it.  This year the Dwarf harassed the sheriff and prosecuting attorney nearly constantly all day just before the Precision Rifle Clinic until the sheriff finally called me up and asked to come out and take a look at the site with his firearms training officer.  They came out, I got in their Jeep and we drove from one end of the range to the other and talked about things.  The prosecuting attorney and sheriff had looked all through Idaho law and couldn’t find where I was doing anything wrong.  They had even printed out parts of the Boomereshoot.org website where I quoted Idaho law.  They were of the opinion that I was doing everything “by the book” and was being careful the participants knew and followed the law too.  But just to “cover their asses“ they decided they needed to talk to me too.  After looking at the range in detail, talking to me, talking to Gene Econ, and Gene’s assistant Mike Haugen they only had one complaint.  That was that they wished they had known about the event earlier so they could have gotten the county snipers into Genes class before it filled up.  Gene offered to make room for them and give them free slots.  The sheriff politely turned the offer down saying he couldn’t do that.  He didn’t say it, but I think he was concerned it might be considered a bribe.  I mentioned that concern to Gene afterwards and he said he was just trying to be a good neighbor and that he didn’t think of the angle of the offer being taken wrong.  I hadn’t thought of it that way either until the sheriff declined and I heard the note of concern in his voice.  The Dwarf’s one tangible concern, as expressed to the sheriff, was that he wanted to do some farming on the land he rents.  This seemed very odd to myself and the other farmers in the area.  That land was already planted and it was the best looking crop the Dwarf had that year.  What sort of farming work did he want to do on it?  It didn’t really matter, if he wanted to farm the land then it was his decision to do it.  We told the sheriff what hours we would be shooting and he offered to talk to the Dwarf and find out if he could farm during the non-shooting hours.  The Dwarf was very agreeable with the sheriff and he waited until after the Precision Rifle Clinic shooting was done before working up (destroying) his fall crop in preparation for planting a lower profit spring crop.  He then left his tractor in the field just over the hill for the duration of the main event on Sunday.  We took before and after pictures of his tractor and the glass in it just in case he tried to claim a stray bullet had damaged it.  There was no further problems that year.

In 2002 the Precision Rifle Clinic was in progress when I got a call on the walkie-talkie from Brandon up the road watching for traffic near the Witch’s property.  He said there was a woman walking (strolling really) down the road.  She and some guy (it turned out to be the Dwarf) had parked their car and had been walking around up there.  Brandon said I should probably come up to talk to her because things were “kind of weird“.  For Brandon (also known as “Random Brandon”) to say things were weird probably meant someone was doing some really wild drugs.  We shut down the shooting and I drove up the road.  I pulled along side of her, opened my window and asked, “May I help you?”.  The expression on her face went from a contented smile to as if I had just slapped her.  She snapped, “No!”.  Things deteriorated from there.  I told her we were doing some shooting and that we didn’t consider it safe to be on the road.  I would be glad to give her a ride someplace if she would like.  Everything I said was met with an answer that was almost completely unrelated to what I had just said.  She talked about me “owning the sheriff and prosecutor“ and other random outlandish things.  It was a very strange disjointed conversation and I said good-bye, which seem to irritate her also, and drove back to the shooting position on the “grassy knoll”.  I told my story to the people waiting and then called 911 to chat with them a while.  They said no crime was being committed and there wasn’t much they could really do as long as she stayed on the road.  But the dispatcher offered to send a deputy out to “keep the peace” but that would take at least 30 minutes–maybe more.  I accepted and thanked her.  Bob Coval and Michael Thyng came up to me and commented on how dusty the road was and that if it just so happened there was a lot of traffic on the road the Wicked Witch of the Boomershoot (which is how she got her nickname) probably wouldn’t stand around in the dust for long.  It just so happened that Ry had some things he needed to talk to Brandon about that couldn’t be said over the walkie-talkie and he zoomed down the road in his Jeep to chat with Brandon.  The witch had strolled back up the hill and was near Brandon’s vehicle, on a bit of a corner, when Ry arrived.  It was a tight fit but Ry managed to thread his Jeep, drifting sideways just a bit on the gravel road, between the witch and Brandon.  The witch had several inches of dust and gravel filled air between herself and the Jeep but, we later found out, for some reason she decide it was her turn to call 911. This was fine with us because now she was out of sight behind the hill in her car using her cell phone and we started shooting again.  Ry talked to Brandon for a while then came back to the shoot for 30 minutes or so before he had to leave and go back to Moscow for the night.

Brandon radioed in an hour or so later saying a Country Sheriff’s vehicle was on the road behind him and someone was talking to the two people in the car.  It was a deputy who soon interviewed Brandon, then came down to the shooting area to interview me and asked to talk to Ry.  Ry was gone but I gave the deputy Ry’s cell phone number and said he lived in Moscow.  We chatted for a while and he said the Witch (he used some other name which I am less familiar with) reported someone had tried to kill her by running over her.  I was tempted to express my skepticism as to her being in actual danger because I was under the impression it took a bucket of water or house falling on a witch to kill her but although the deputy did seem to have a good sense of humor I didn’t think it was wise to exercise it at that time.  He said he needed to fill out a report and wanted to know the events of the day from my perspective.  I told him everything I knew, he thanked me, asked a few things about the Boomershoot and as he left we both had smiles on faces and there were no further problems that year.  I don’t think Ry even got a call from the deputy. [Update: Yes, Ry did have a chat with the deputy.  See the comments sections.]

The next year was quiet.  Nothing from the Witch or the Dwarf.  In 2004 the Dwarf created his own shooting event, sporting clays, just across the road from my parent’s place.  It is open year around and during his big spring tournament this year, the week before Boomershoot, we saw something like four or five vehicles parked over there and heard an occasional shotgun blast.

High Drag Low Speed Operator
Random Nuclear Strikes (and here)
Fun Turns to Tragedy
Kim du Toit

I slept 11 hours last night.  I still haven’t looked at my pictures from the event.  Maybe I’ll be up to doing something other than sleeping tonight.

Here is a picture from Rolf of the end of the day “up close and personal“ stuff:

Update: The Fun Turns to Tragedy link has been modified to be the AAR.

Here are some Boomershoot 2005 videos thanks to Jason Mount.  It includes “Entertainingly Close“ Rolf with his .357.

Kim didn’t show up on time and was some place other than her house because of some dispute with her roommate or her roommate’s boyfriend or the seven cats or some such thing.  We couldn’t even find her.  She left her cell phone in our living room so we couldn’t call her.  This was very much unlike Kim and I was worried about her.  James had spent the night and of course Xenia was there so the three of us picked up Sara and left nearly 40 minutes later than we planned.  I asked Barb to keep calling people and asking about Kim.  Kim called about 12 minutes later.  She was very apologetic. Someone had borrowed the cell phone she had borrowed to use an alarm.  It was in another room and no one heard it go off or had turned it off.  I told her to just meet us there.  We arrived on site and found the ground wet and very soft.  I nearly got stuck going through the wrong part of the creek on the way to the Taj Mahal. The creek was completely dry five weeks ago.  We starting setting up.  Xenia and Sara pounded the stakes in the ground.  James and I setting up to make explosives.  Kim showed up still in her pajamas.  She hadn’t even gone to the bathroom yet this morning and she had her toothbrush and toothpaste with her.  She and I went to my parents place to get ten gallons of gasoline for the fireballs and we both used the bathroom.  Dad wanted to show me the new tractor and so I lost another five minutes there.  We got back to the Taj Mahal and still had more setup to do.  It probably took another 30 minutes before we actually started making targets.  We are at least an hour behind what I had planned.  Kim forgot to take her medicine and had to walk back to her car and walk back out again, we were probably 20 minutes without her.  Once she came back however she really cranked out the targets.  If it hadn’t been for her we would have been very, very late getting the targets done.  As it was we were about 20 minutes later than what I had told Dave.

I did the shooters meeting while Kim took Xenia and Sara to my parents place then came back to blow the air horn for the ceasefires.  Xenia and Sara had homework to do and had their jobs completed.  Dave and ten others set up and started shooting.  After ten or fifteen shots a boomer detonated.  It wasn’t as powerful as I expected.  People started saying they were hitting them without getting a detonation.  I was worried.  Something wasn’t right.  We called a ceasefire and James, Kim, and I examined the targets.  There was a problem.  They were getting solid hits without detonations.  A closer examination showed why.  We took apart each target, while crouched in the mud, fixed the problem and remounted the box on the stakes.  The wasn’t something Kim or James had done wrong while packaging the material.  They did it exactly as I had told them.  It was one of those things you never would have thought of until you did the tests.  Moving the targets 300 yards and a few hours in the space time continuum had screwed us.  I’m so incredibly glad we did this real world test three weeks before the big event. We only had 50 targets we needed to rework while 11 people were waiting on us rather than 600+.targets while there was 100 people waiting.  The boomers started going boom.  Frequently there would be ‘smoke’ (water vapor actually and powdered lime) from multiple boomers in the air at once.  They eventually stopped shooting about 15:30.  They said all the targets were gone.  James, Kim, and I started setting up the fireball targets.  There were still several targets left.  Some completely untouched. This is tyipcal.  It’s tough to see everything from 375 yards away.  Dave and his gang drove across the bridge and walked out to the target line. They lined up about 25 yards from the berm and I ignited 11 flares behind the 11 gallons of gas behind the 11 reactive targets.  If you look closely in this picture (click on the picture to get a hires version) you can see the flares.  In this next picture the hot spots have grown some:

The second guy from the right is dodging some material that came back his way.  Kim said she got hit with some dirt.  Everytime we have shot stuff up close she gets hit with something.  Always before it was a prill of ammonium nitrate.  No AN prill this time but at least she has her 100% hit record intact.  There were lots of big grins on the people’s faces when they left.  A couple of them signed up for the event on May 1.

The complete photo album of the adventure is here.  Click on the pictures to get a larger version.

Ry showed up as we were almost comletely done with clean up.  He was delivering some Tannerite.  We did some very quick tests and found it was no more senstive to impact than our mix and couldn’t really tell it apart in terms of power.  It’s far, far more expensive however.  It’s a binary explosive and can be shipped via UPS so it’s a great product for a lot of people but it’s not a market I want to get into with our mix which has four ingredients.  Ry’s alternator light came on just as we were about to leave at 18:00 and he still had 8 hours of driving ahead of him as he has to go back to Redmond and Microsoft tonight.  He figured he could make it to Moscow on his battery and figure out things there.  I brought the kids back to a nice meal Barb had prepared for us.

I’m tired and it’s been a long day.  Enjoy the pictures and start planning a Boomershoot for your future.

The most labor intensive portions of Boomershoot is the building of the reactive targets.  Each year we learn more and improve things for the next year.  One of the things that has been a pain has been the pouring of “Fuel 0“ into a small measuring cup.  A couple weeks ago I spotted this the store (click for a bigger picture):

I picked one up at the store today along with the little stand which it is setting on.  This will allow us to dispense the fuel easier, cleaner, and faster than before.

A few days ago I purchased 50 pounds of “Fuel 2”.  I only expect to use about 35 pounds but it was cheaper to buy 50 pounds than to buy 40 pounds (so I make sure I don’t run out) in the next size smaller package.  It came in a paper sack which I was certain would draw moisture and fall apart during storage.  I bought the plastic containers pictured below, transferred it into the containers, and managed to clean up the kitchen (it’s rather messy stuff) before Barb got home (click on the picture for a larger view).

I’ve got my eye on some more kitchen appliances to speed some other aspects of the process up from last year.  Boomershoot 2005, over 600 targets, over 1000 pounds of high explosives.  It should be a snap this year.

Executive summary:

Ry, his kids, and I spent the day testing reactive target mixtures in two different types of target containers. We discovered the target bodies we used for the first time last year were part of our problem with failures to detonate. Those problematic target bodies will not be used for Boomershoot 2005. We also found modifications to our procedures and to our mix to make the mixture more sensitive. With the new mix and the new target bodies but with small sample sizes we got 100% detonations with .22 caliber bullets (CCI Stingers) going about 1420 fps at the target. We got 100% failure to detonate with a target velocity of 1170 fps which means the targets are safe to handle. We did not do sufficient tests to determine the actual threshold for reliable detonation but do not expect it to be much if any below 1400 fps. The new mix has a lot more “punch” to it that the old mix and there is a very noticeable flash.

High level view of Boomershoot reactive targets:

The chemistry of our shoot.

History of Boomershoot reactive targets:

Explosive Experiments.

In 2003 we changed to a new type of fuel that cut the costs considerably and make things more sensitive at the same time. Since that time we have kept the fuels proprietary. The mixes listed on the web page work and are “good enough” for most purposes but our later mixes give us an edge in some areas. Yesterday was spent testing new fuels, a couple of catalysts, and the target containers.

Boomershoot reactive target innovation:

Almost all of our innovation to make the mix sensitive enough to detonate (not ignite, that is something completely different) and yet safe enough to handle has been with changing the amount of potassium chlorate and using different types of fuels. This has been an ongoing learning experience.  I have purchased probably twenty books and spent countless hours learning about explosives and the detonation mechanisms.  Then a friend (usually Ry) and I would test my latest hypothesis on how to make the mix better.  Most attempts were disappointments.  Only occasionally would we have something that worked better than what we had used before.  For the last three years we used the same components in the same proporitions with only an involuntary change in the grade of the AN we received from our supplier.  Yesterday was the first time we had a significant advance in a long time.

Yesterdays experiments:

Yesterday we took four new fuels with us but only had time to test three of them and only two in enough detail to be confident we found the “sweet spot” in the proportions. The two fuels insufficiently tested looked to be poor performers on paper and we probably won’t investigate those anytime soon unless the storage tests being done turn out very poorly.

We use two different oxidizers in our reactive targets. Ammonium Nitrate (AN) is the main ingredient and Potassium Chlorate (PC) is used to increase the sensitivity. These chemicals are mixed with a fuel to create an bullet sensitive mix.

The fuels we used will be called:

• Fuel 0–the liquid fuel we have been using since 2003.
• Fuel 1–new solid fuel which looked the best on paper but is a little difficult to find and slightly more expensive than some others.
• Fuel 2–new solid fuel which looked second best on paper, is very easy to obtain and is cheap.
• Fuel 3–new solid fuel which looked poor on paper but is commonly used in the fireworks industry, is easy to obtain and is moderately priced.

As many people know the discovery of Penicillin was an accident. And so it was yesterday for us. One of the changes we adapted was because I made a mistake on the very first batch. From a chemistry and common sense point of view we should grind the AN. We buy it in prilled form (spheres about 0.1″ to 0.13“ in diameter) with a very thin coating which protects it from moisture. But what we have found in the past is that either it didn’t make any difference (Boomershoot 2001, 2002) or better performance was achieved with only some of it ground. In 2003 our supplier of AN had fertilizer grade material instead of the usual explosive grade material. It sort of went “POP” instead of “BOOM!!”. We tried grinding the AN and it made a better boom but wasn’t sensitive enough. We ground half of the AN to get a compromise. Since then we have had the best results when half the AN was prilled and half was ground. Yesterday the first batch was made entirely with ground AN. Whoops! Well, rather than just burn it (our disposal method) we decided to box it up and test it. We found that with the present fuels having all the AN ground made a huge positive difference in sensitivity. Another accident was that we used just a small amount of Fuel 0 “to keep the dust down”. It turned out the presence of Fuel 0 was crucial to detonation. Without it there was no detonation even with a .223 at close range.

We ended up making 13 batches of reactive target mix. Each of the batches made from two to four targets depending on the size of the target and volume of fuel we used. Except when we intentionally left out Fuel 0 and only used Fuel 1 we could detonate everything with the .223 at 12 yards. The high velocity .22LR got at least partial detonation on most mixes. By observing the points at which we would start having failures to detonate we could bracket the acceptable limits of the proportions of the fuels.

We explored the limits of Fuel 0 and found that we had been using too much in previous years for optimum detonation sensitivity. We explored those limits and found the optimum proportion for maximum sensitivity. The power was a little lacking but the detonation was very reliable. We then adjusted the proportions of Fuel 1 for optimal sensitivity with the previously determined amount of Fuel 0. Fuel 2 was explored in a similar manner to Fuel 1. At the optimal levels of either Fuel 1 or Fuel 2 we could not distinguish a difference in performance between the two. Both would detonate in the new target bodies with the .22LR at velocities of about 1420 fps. And both would generate a significant flash upon detonation with a much better “punch” to the chest than mixes of previous years. Since Fuel 2 is cheaper and easier to obtain we decided it was preferable.

We tried optimal mixes of both Fuel 1 and Fuel 2 in the 6″ target bodies from last year. We could only get rare detonations with the .22LR at velocities of about 1540 fps. The target bodies were creating an effective loss in velocity of something well over 120 fps with the 32 grain .22LR bullets! The .223 would detonate them every time at these short ranges.

With the Fuel 2 mix we added Catalyst 1 and tried it again in the 6″ target body. We got one detonation out of four with velocities of 1540 fps. Not good enough.

We were in the process of trying Catalyst 2 when we had a big scare. I mixed the fuels with the AN and then added Catalyst 2. Within about five seconds there was a very strong smell of ammonia and I turned off the mixer and took the mixing bowl outside. There was no apparent heating or visible problems with the mixture but the smell was still very obvious. I dumped the mix on the burn pile for later disposal without ever adding the PC.

Next we tried Fuel 3 combined with Fuel 0 in the 6″ target bodies. Zero out of three detonations with 1540 fps .22LR. The time was 1700 and Ry and the kids had to leave. I stayed to make one more batch of the optimal Fuel 2 mix in the new target bodies for storage tests, cleaned up, and then came home later.

Next week Barb and I will go back and test the stored product for sensitivity and then a couple weeks after that we will test again.

I just got a call from Stephanie, who does the publicity for Boomershoot.  She received a postcard from Dave Barry declining the invite to Boomershoot 2005.  He has a fundraiser he is attending that weekend but would like to be invited to Boomershoot 2006.

She did have news that someone else of very high status will probably attend.  Details will have to wait until things are confirmed.

For the first time this year I had trouble going to sleep and staying asleep due to the Boomershoot. Even now my stomach is tied in knots. There aren’t really any big obstacles to overcome. Things are a little behind but we have a plan to take care of that. Everything is looking pretty good. Even the weather isn’t too awfully bad. Probably one of the best weather forecasts ever for a Boomershoot. I think part of the problem is that I’m not working on it. Tomorrow I start and don’t stop until it’s done.