Via email from Stephanie:
Boomershoot 2019 is coming up fast!
Sign up here.
Category Archives: Boomershoot
Recondo Class is Coming — Adventure Training!
Via email from Insights. I wish it was some other time than Boomershoot weekend. Some people might be interested in doing both:
Over 60 hours of training in 4 days!
Its finally here, the class you’ve been waiting for — Recondo School! Four completely packed fully immersive days of training with Special Operators on all aspects of patrolling. Learn all there is to know about small team reconnaissance, ambush, and raid.
Starting with the basics, 3-5 man element teams will conduct day and night reconnaissance missions. Next the teams will combine to conduct ambush patrols. The teams grow again to conduct raids on enemy encampments. The final day is live fire battle drills, learning to do everything safely with live ammunition.
Outside of the military nothing like this has ever been offered before. Others have done fantasy camps, no one has run the real deal. Most active duty infantrymen never get a chance for this level of training!
The Details
One of the ultimate expressions of this class was done during the Vietnam War and was known as MACV-RECONDO school. This school was set up by Project Delta (yes, the guys who later founded Delta Force) and then turned over to 5th SFG. This was the basis for LRRP/Ranger type operations in Vietnam. This course will be modeled after that school but with a modern backdrop and modern planning procedures.
Taught by Army Green Berets, Army Rangers, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol members and other select Special Operations personnel. The best of the best. Each combat patrol will have at least one cadre member and larger patrols will have two or more per patrol. Cadre will be teaching, mentoring, and leading the patrols.
The course will be taught inside of a scenario wargame, just like all military exercises and like the Special Forces Qualification Course which uses “Pineland”. In this course we will be using the scenario of “Red Dawn”. A foreign military force has invaded America and now you are in the resistance fighting against them. Luckily US Army Green Berets have infiltrated your area to provide you training and leadership!
Immersive scenario based training is far more effective than a conventional course. Everything is “real” and has context and pieces learned on one day connect back in later in the scenario. This course will have over a dozen live role players playing the part of the enemy, have real people as part of the “underground” etc. FULLY IMMERSIVE TRAINING. InSights will be offering numerous “linked” courses around this scenario in the future.
Besides the patrolling track we will be offering a Tactical Operations Center track. These are the guys who make the missions run, produce and give intelligence briefings, run radio networks, debrief teams after missions, coordinate with underground forces and assets, meet and interview intelligence sources, “Battle track” teams and the enemy. Learn intelligence preparation of the battlefield, operational security, and tradecraft for the resistance environment. The TOC track is perfect for those who might not be up for four days and nights of moving through the woods but who still want to learn to contribute to the team.
Class dates: May 2-5, 2019
Location: 3 hours from Seattle (location provided upon registration)
Tuition: $1600
Prerequisite: Concealed Pistol License or documentation of good character
Minimum required equipment:
Optional equipment:
A full field kitchen with cooks will be present so students will not have to worry about meals or snacks, etc. You will be able to dedicate yourself 100% to training.
Large squad tents are also provided.
To register, call us at 1.888.958.0884 or email us at: info@insightstraining.com.
Stay safe and we’ll see you in class!
Another beautiful day at Boomershoot
Boomershoot territory received some fresh snow recently. Then the sun came out (webcam and current weather conditions are available here):
Only 69 days left before Boomershoot 2019. That plenty of time for the snow to melt but not that much time to make all your preparation for long range precision rifle shooting at highly reactive targets.
It’s going to be a great event this year with lots of explody goodness. Just today I bought almost all of the remaining chemicals needed.
Boomershoot 2019 is currently 57% full. Sign up now while there are still positions left.
Overheard at work
Caity: Do you remember the time we had to write the report on the electromagnetic pulse? A solar storm or something?
Joe: I remember the report on the possibility of North Korea setting off a nuke and creating an EMP.
Kelsey: I remember that! That was really depressing. It was like, “Time to go to Idaho and hide in a bunker.”
[Laughter from everyone and they all look at me.]
Joe: I don’t have a bunker in Idaho! I may have an explosives production facility in Idaho but I don’t have a bunker.
[laughter from everyone]
Joe: It’s all about offense, not defense.
Winter view from the shooting line
Long timers around here and people that explore the sidebar already know that I have a weather station and webcam at the Boomershoot shooting line. I visit it frequently and sometimes see interesting things. And sometimes the view is just very cool. Just a few minutes ago was one of those times:
Click on the image for the full effect.
Batteries
Boomershoot Mecca has solar power to keep the Wi-Fi going year around. Some of the batteries were over five years old and weren’t holding a charge. Some were three years old and I wasn’t too sure about them. I purchased four new sealed batteries and replaced all the old ones over Thanksgiving.
The batteries don’t handle really cold temperatures well and there is no heat at Mecca. At times it gets well below zero so I put some scrap insulating foam board underneath and on top to retain a little bit more heat until I can make something a little more permanent for the winter.
I brought the two year old batteries home, charged them, and did some tests. They have about 70% of their claimed storage capacity. I took them back to Idaho earlier this month for use at a different site.
Brother Gary, his dog Roscoe, and I took them the last 0.3 miles across the field on plastic toboggans over a few inches of snow:
The other site is underneath the power tower you see at the top center of the picture. It is a Wi-Fi relay station to get Internet service from Mecca to brother Gary’s house. The batteries there have been working for a couple years but were a little marginal in terms of recommended capacity. As they aged I was concerned that one dark and extremely cold January the batteries would fail. Putting in additional batteries now will ensure it makes it through this year and I won’t have to make the trip across the field on snowshoes over four feet of snow pulling 100+ pound batteries. I will test their capacity each August or September when access is easy by driving across the field and replace them as needed.
Early Boomershoot shirts
My niece, Amy, helped with several early Boomershoots and I gave her t-shirts as part of her compensation. Recently she decided she didn’t want them and gave them to her parents, brother Doug and SIL Julie. The didn’t want them so I picked them up and brought them home this weekend. The shirts are still in good shape and I took pictures of the image on them before putting them away:
Sign up for Boomershoot 2019 (May 3rd-5th) here.
Quote of the day—Kaitlin Bennett
Repeal all gun laws. We can prevent gun violence if we stop prohibiting non-violent people from getting guns. Gun control only hurts law abiding citizens.
Kaitlin Bennett
August 15, 2018
‘Repeal all gun laws,’ says Kent State’s rifle-carrying graduate behind viral photo
[This was in response to the question:
How can tragedy resulting from gun violence be prevented in the future?
Also, in response to the question:
Parkland survivors and other March for Our Lives organizers have been registering young people to vote and advocating gun-control in a nationwide tour, what would you want to say to them?
She replies:
…
If I had to say something to them, it would be come and take it.
It appears she has her act together. I wish I could afford to pay her way to Idaho for Boomershoot 2019 to be our dinner speaker.—Joe]
Idaho visit
Last weekend Barb and I went to Idaho. We delivered more chemicals for Boomershoot 2019, trimmed some trees along the road to Boomershoot Taj Mahal, and attended my high school reunion. The weather was a little on the warm side but not bad. We took a few pictures during the trip:
I believe this was west of Colfax on Highway 26. We found the clouds quite pretty.
This is the lentil field just south of Boomershoot Mecca.
I”m planning to repair these steel targets at the tree line before Boomershoot 2019.
I was trying to do the equivalent of this one from almost exactly 10 years ago:
Another view of the hay bales with the shooting line in the background.
For many years Barb had digestive issues with wheat. Those issues mysteriously went away a few months ago (Barb is skeptical of my suggestion it was Dr. Joe’s cure for everything, and I’m skeptical of her hypothesis of a spiritual/energy something or other healing). Here we have her next to a field of Huffman Wheat.
Quote of the day—Devin
My son told me that last weekend was more fun than Disneyland.
If I were to ask my daughter I’d bet she would say the same thing.
Devin
July 10, 2018
In regards to attending Boomershoot 101.
[Extrapolate however you think is appropriate.—Joe]
Boomershoot 101
This last weekend I put on a trial class I called Boomershoot 101: Target Production, High Intensity, and Intro to Long Range.
The students made the reactive targets from basic chemicals (photos by Brian, Chris, and Kim):
They learned safe gun handling and how to shoot an AR-15:
They distributed targets:
They had their own High Intensity event:
They learned the basics of long range shooting (and several claimed they could never hit anything that far away):
They all connected with 7” targets (and some with 4” targets) at 373 yards. And we have the smiles to prove it:
We all learned a lot. I will modify the class with what I learned for the next set of students. And before long I will subject this set of students to Boomershoot 102: Long Range Math.
Scariest things I have seen
I was getting some chemicals for Boomershoot today. I was standing at the loading dock waiting from my stuff to arrive and I saw several plastic drums.
This is some of the scariest stuff I have actually seen in real life:
These drums have hundreds of pounds of extremely strong acid in them. They were on the loading dock which was about chest high. Then, while I was standing there a guy driving a fork lift bumped into them. I didn’t run, but I certainly was moving out of there in a purposeful manner preparing my option to engage warp drive.
Boomershoot 2019 entry opens soon!
After some discussion and a few behind the scenes changes Gene Econ and his crew will again be adding to your Boomershoot experience. As far as participants are concerned there will be no visible changes from what you have enjoyed in previous years.
Learn about Boomershoot. Then sign up for our next event!
Registration opens for staff 5/19/2018 9:00:00 AM Pacific Time.
Registration opens for previous year participants 5/23/2018 6:00:00 PM Pacific Time.
Registration opens for everyone 5/27/2018 9:00:00 AM Pacific Time.
Boomershoot 2018 smile
Here is one of the Boomershoot 2018 Personal Fireballs and the resultant smile:
Also of interest is this is an immigrant from Venezuela and told me in email:
I hope some day to I can contribute to this great country, my city and community and defending the second amendment, as much as you do.
Radio silence
I usually have QOTDs up for the time before and slightly after Boomershoot so I have time to concentrate on Boomershoot then just veg out and recover afterward. This time I did not get ahead on the QOTD stuff for this blog. I’m going “radio silent” for a few days.
Nothing to worry about. I’ll be back online when I feel like it.
Boomershoot 2018 report
Boomershoot 2018 was a big success!
There were a few minor glitches like the guy that got his trailer and pickup stuck and I had to get a tractor to pull him out. Somehow the number of stakes at the tree line was miscounted and we had a few too many stakes for the number of Sunday targets (879). I changed the way we put the explosives in the boxes which resulted in more explosives per box. No big deal but I forgot to update my spreadsheet with the new weight of the explosives per box. This meant we used up all of the secret ingredient and Barb had to run into town to buy some more. We used up all but about two pounds of the Potassium Chlorate and all but 150 pounds of the Ammonium Nitrate when I thought I would have enough left over for my summer recreational use. I expect there were a few sunburns. I got a small burn on my thumb from lighting a road flare with my lighter. The U-Haul trailer door broke on Saturday and we had to strap things in to make sure they didn’t slide out. The box of flares for the Sunday fireball was misplaced and we scrounged up flares from other other sources. The Wi-Fi was extremely flakey and essentially unusable.
All glitches cause some stress but we found workarounds for most things and there was no significant ill consequences.
But the targets had a very high detonation rate and several people told me they had more boom than normal. This wasn’t just because of the slight increase in the amount of explosives. I think it was the new chemical supplier and/or the new packing method. One longtime boomershooter told me, “Those were the best boomers I have ever shot.” That was my impression too.
The two personal fireballs and the Sunday event fireball all worked on the first try. This was the view from the shooting line 10 minutes into the Sunday event:
Watch Boomershoot live today
It’s only still pictures updated once a minute but you can see what’s happening at Boomershoot today on this web page: http://www.boomershoot.org/Live.htm.
Boomershoot 2018 prep is going well
Today was the official first day of onsite prep for Boomershoot 2018. But we left home yesterday with a full load in my vehicle:
We arrived on site late yesterday afternoon and quickly established that the fields are muddy:
That was just the first field. It got much worse after that.
All the shooting positions were dry after we removed a few positions which were unoccupied. So that isn’t going to be a concern. The weather forecast is looking really good and everything is going according to schedule.
All the Boomershoot direction signs are up now:
We put a new canopy outside our target production facility which is awesome:
Tomorrow we begin target production.
It’s going to be a blast!
Trail of Tears
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes TONIGHT at midnight). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
We like to pretend that genocide is something other people do- the Nazis, or the Tutsis, or the Soviets, or the Chinese Communists.
We Americans practice genocide too.
And just like those other people, we make sure our victims are disarmed before we butcher them.
The Cherokee, Muscogee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole did not have the means to fight back against the genocidal United States.
So they died by the thousands.
Genocide isn’t something only “they” do. It’s something we do too.
Be ready.
This far
Boomershoot. There is still time (entry closes at midnight Wednesday April 18th). Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.org/
Brian Keith provides motivation:
Governments love to commit genocide.
Here’s over 25 genocides with enough dead to be recorded. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll)
Genocide is NORMAL.
What’s not normal is fighting back with adequate weapons.
Anyone will fight back with a chair or a garden hoe when they come for your family.
But as Americans we have the rare birthright of fighting back with a level of firepower never before possessed in civilian hands.
Don’t wait for things to get bad before you get serious about demonstrating your skill.
Instead let your would-be rulers know that you can hit a pizza box at half a mile with a first round shot.
Attend Boomershoot.
