Wild Turkeys were introduced to my area of Idaho in 1985.I had seen them on the grade down to Orofino for several years. But I had never seen them at the higher elevations. Today they triggered an alert on one of the webcams around my gun range:
According to Google Earth, this would be about 3,125 feet above sea level.
Welcome to my place guys! I now need to look at getting a license to hunt turkeys. Brother Doug says they are tasty, but do not have near as much meat as domestic turkeys.
Interesting… Patented steel alloy cased ammo allows higher pressures:
Peak Alloy case technology allows Federal to safely increase chamber pressures far beyond the limits of brass case ammunition, significantly increasing velocity and energy of cartridges like Federal’s all-new #7mmBackcountry
The technology of a stronger case allowing high pressures without case stretching and primer pocket expansion is very cool. They are pushing the maximum chamber pressure up to 80,000 PSI. This gives them ability to push high BC (0.645) bullets to 3,150 fps. This is a slightly higher BC and 250 fps more than what I can do with .300 Win Mag. And the cases can be reloaded.
I also find it very interesting that suppressors are going mainstream with this ad.
Registration opens for Boomershoot 2024 participants on Thursday 12/26/2024 at 6:00 PM Pacific time. Registration opens for everyone on Monday 12/30/2024 at 6:00:00 PM Pacific time.
The video from KING5 Evening Magazine was nominated for an Emmy
The Outdoor Channel
KLEW TV
Newsweek
Outside Magazine
Idaho Magazine
the Spokesman Review
Lewiston Morning Tribune
Chicago Reader
The Missoulian
You could watch videos about Boomershoot on YouTube for hours. But all the words, all the pictures, and all the videos cannot do it justice. It has to be experienced in person. People come from all over north America to participate or sometimes just watch. We have had people come all the way from England and, last year, Scotland to participate.
If you survive the blast, and you survive the fallout, you’re going to have to survive the constant threat of mass home invasion from those whose disaster planning is just 3 days.
This is an excellent point. But once made, you realize there are going to be some exceptions. Maintain a large buffer zone between yourself and the hordes with poor planning. Doing this can minimize your risk of contact. The risk can be driven to almost zero.
Let time, distance, and others “thin the herd” before the Seattle hordes reach your underground bunker in Montana. Give yourself some good alarms and a thousand yards of open space in every direction. Then, with the right guns, ammo, optics, and shooting partners, you should not have a problem against the low life.
The Marine Corps has officially hit full operational capability on its new sniper rifle a year ahead of schedule.
The Corps chose the Mk22 Mod 0 Advanced Sniper Rifle, manufactured by Barrett Firearms, a company widely known for their groundbreaking work in developing the .50 caliber sniper rifle, as a changeable, multi-barrel rifle to replace two existing long rifles and give shooters three caliber options within their main shooting platform.
Those caliber options include the standard 7.62mm, the .300 Norma Magnum and .338 Norma Magnum. The caliber diversity allows shooters to select a munition for specific missions that might require more distance or more penetrating power. The rifle uses a 10-round magazine.
I am reminded that my brother purchased his first gun, a brand new .357 Magnum revolver, at a grocery store in Moscow, Idaho.
I also remember when guns were sold in the Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog and would be delivered via the U.S. Postal Service. I do not remember anyone buying a gun from the catalog, but I remember seeing the guns in the catalogs. At that time machine guns were also available.
The violent crime rate must have been out of control, right?
Here is the US violent crime rate by year from 1960 to 2008 (via Copilot, I don’t know why it would not produce data for any years past 2008):
The Gun Control Act of 1968 ended mail order sales of guns. That really put a dent in the violent crime rate, huh? And how about that “assault weapon ban” from 1994 to 2004? Yeah baby! That was some good lawmaking there.
I look forward to the return of the state of gun laws prior to not just 1968, but 1934. As I have stated before, my goal is to have machine gun shooting sports in high schools in less than ten nine years.
Gun clubs are becoming the new bingo halls for seniors. They’re places to meet friends, learn new skills, and swap stories. Who knew that gun oil could be the new smell of friendship? These clubs often organize social events beyond shooting, creating tight-knit communities for older adults.
It is a little over the top, but that appeals to my inclination to rub the noses of anti-gun people in a different view of things.
Giant, venomous flying spiders pose challenges for residents and local authorities. Fear and apprehension are natural responses to the sudden appearance of such unusual and intimidating creatures. Additionally, there are concerns about the potential for Joro spiders to harm humans, especially if they feel threatened.
…
The pest company described the spiders as “hard to miss,” as they have a leg span of up to 4 inches and “a vibrant yellow and black coloration.”
Assuming you don’t have a good pesticide and an airplane to deliver the chemicals, what caliber do you use when the sky is full of these things? I could see using a 12 gauge Saiga with LOTS of 12 or 18 round magazines loaded with #8 shot. Be sure to have the explosives laid in case you need to clear your escape route.
But, I’m thinking I want an underground bunker with supplies to last until the first freeze. Then a tractor to work under those on the ground and use the handheld wand on the farm sprayer to thin out those in the brush and trees.
“Navy, earned Expert firearms rating.” And everybody who actually knows anything about shooting knows that an Expert rating means literally fuck all and nothing. As a rule of thumb if you see somebody bragging about qualifying Expert in the military on twitter, what’s about to come next is almost guaranteed to be fucking bullshit.
“I’m comfortable with handling weapons.” Totally fucking irrelevant, and also, by my standards, probably blatantly false, and assholes who talk like this, odds are his idea of a shot timer is a sun dial.
Other than firearms instructors who teach special forces, and one Army ranger who just barely edged me out, all the military only taught people I have knowingly competed against were… less than competitive.Most were not quite at the sundial for shot timer level but their accuracy was as bad as their time and they might as well have zeroed the stage and the match.
Their constitutional law qualifications were less impressive than their shooting ability.
If you’re untrained or rusty in the use of personal arms, now is the time to take a class or get in some range time. Remember, If innocent life doesn’t immediately depend on it—don’t shoot. And if it does, don’t miss.
Back in the late 1990’s a gun range near where I worked had an accidental shooting death. A church youth group had gone to the range and one of the new shooters, a young woman, after shooting a few rounds with a smaller caliber handgun was given a .44 Magnum by one of the more experienced people in the group. He stood behind her and on the left. The right handed, young woman fired one round without apparent incident. When she fired the second round the gun recoiled up over her left shoulder and fired a second round through the neck of the young man. He was killed.
I never quite understood how the double action trigger was pulled the second time during recoil unless the woman gripped her hand from the stress or something.
Now I understand. The recoil was so great it twisted the gun past her hand and wrist normal range of motion to the point the gun was cycled through the complete double action.
There are some lessons to be learned here:
Always put just one round at a time in the guns of new shooters until you are certain they follow the safety rules when the gun fires (they sometimes turn around with a loaded gun and their finger on the trigger).
Always put just one round at a time in the guns of new shooters until they can handle the recoil when the gun fires.
As a range safety officer, always stand behind and to the strongside of shooters. It is easy for them to point the gun over the shoulder of their weakside at you. You can stop their rotation in either direction by blocking their shoulder. But you can’t block the shot over the weakside shoulder.
It has been a long time since I was last able to attend the event you put on. I stayed on your mailing list with the hopes that the kids get old enough (mature enough) for me to take them to one of your events.
While I have not been able to attend in over a decade, I do enjoy reading about the event and watching videos when they become available. I have very fond memories of the 2 day clinic and the official shoot on day 3. I learned more in the 2 day clinic than I had in 15 years of shooting (including DCM/CMP competitions).
With warmest regards and a heartfelt thank you for keeping this event alive,
From the enemy occupied territory of California,
Thank you.
Joe M.
February 27, 2024
Via email.
We barely cover expenses with the entry fees so things like are our real rewards.
If you have never attended this should give you a clue as to what you have been missing out on.
True story. A long time ago I used to be one of the match directors for our local 3gun club. We’d get dudes all the time who thought they were amazing shooters because of passing military/police quals. They’d all get humbled. The prideful would never come back. The smart ones would stick around and get good. (Some of our champs were local cops)
So one time we have five dudes from the same SWAT team show up. Cocky. Lots of swagger. All kitted up, talking shit. That’s fine. We all start somewhere.
Being newbs I know they’ll have more fun if they shoot together, but they are gonna need somebody experienced to keep an eye on them. So I ask this dude name John L to run that squad.
Now John is an innocuous little guy. Super friendly. Looks exactly like young Barry Manilow. He’s also an A class shooter in USPSA and another of the match directors.
So the SWAT cops go off with John and some other regulars to shoot all day. And they get absolutely fucking smoked. They get crushed. They are at the bottom of the barrel here. And as the day goes on they realize it.
John hasn’t just outshot these dudes, he’s done it easily, and that’s when he’s not switched on and trying to win, he’s more focused on being nice and helpful. He still shoots circles around them.
So the SWAT bad asses are asking John “dude, what agency are you with?” None. I’ve never been a cop. “Well what military unit were you? Green beret? SEAL?” And John’s like no dudes, I’ve never been in the military. “So what do you do that you shoot like this?”
John says, I’m a hair dresser.
And we never saw those guys again.
Their ego and self image just couldn’t handle losing by that much to a hair dresser. The thing about shooting, everybody sucks at first, you don’t know what you don’t know, and quals don’t mean much. There’s always somebody better, so if you want to get good you’ve got to check the ego at the door.
