Category Archives: Gun Fun

Not Just No

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HELL NO!!!

This is how you get Darwin Awards.

Boomershoot 2026 Opening Fireball Frame-by-Frame

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I have another frame-by-frame view of the opening fireball for Boomershoot 2026. This shows something I could not find in the previous set.

As a reminder, this is the assembled fireball target:

The vertical target at the bottom is for the shooter to initiate the chain reaction. The rubber bands hold the targets close together to ensure the explosion propagates from target to target. Rubber bands also hold the jugs of gasoline in a single unit and make it less susceptible to wind.

Here is the frame-by-frame evolution of the fireball:

Twenty road flares on ten pieces of rebar help ignite the gasoline vapor. The explosion alone will not ignite the gasoline. The gasoline must be turned into a vapor and mixed with air before it will ignite. The heat of the explosion is all gone by the time this happens. There must be another ignition source.

The frame above is very cool. The front facing target has detonated, but nothing else has moved. Below is a close up:

The shockwave moving through the earth from ground zero and creating the dust is always fascinating to me.

The frame above is what I wanted to see. The close up is below. You can see one of the origins of the flame which is far away from all the flares. You can also see what I believe are sparks flying through the cloud. We used particles of titanium sponge in the mix to create the sparks and help ignite the gasoline vapor. The flares alone are not always enough. There were about 2-3/4 cups of the titanium in the targets. You can get the titanium here and here. The exact product we used this year was this, but that is currently sold out. Titanium sponge is used in fireworks:

Titanium is a highly energetic fuel used to make bright white, long hang fireballs with good branching and very good crackle in fountains, rockets, stars, comets, saxons and drivers.

Nearly $450 turned into fire, noise, smoke, and a lifetime of memories in about four seconds.

Boomershoot Personal Fireball

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Not mentioned are the rebar with road flares attached to ignite the gasoline, but you seen them in the video.

This is the Fireball Target for the beginning of the Long-Range event:

More explosives, more gasoline, more thump, and more fiery delightfulness:

Added 5/16/2026 to help answer the question in the comments about the cost:

Each of those targets are 2.8 pounds of Boomerite. There is also another target out of sight under the visible layer (we had an extra target). The materials cost for each target is just under $13.00. That gives us $143 in explosives cost. There are 20 road flares at $2.81 each. That is $56.25. There are probably about 15 surveyors’ stakes. Each stake is about $0.60. So that adds about $9.00. Throw in the rubber bands and old cardboard for free and we end up with $208.25 for the base. There were 26 gallons of gasoline. It is ethanol free (from my brother’s 500-gallon tank on the farm) which cost $5.00/gallon. That is $130.00.

Total materials cost $338.25.

The sand has to be replaced every couple of years and costs about $200 (including delivery) each time. That adds another $100. Hence, each of those fireballs is about $440 just in materials.

The Vibe Shift is Real

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Quote of the Day

Peaked in 2020 and has been in steady decline since then. It’s much better internally now. The vibe shift is real.

Josh Daws @JoshDaws
Posted on X, April 15, 2026

See also Disney down on DEI, says ex-staffer: ‘The vibe shift is real’ | Blaze Media.

This was in response to the question (about Disney):

How bad is the DEI there and can anything be done to change it’s course?

Other than the peak seeming to appear a couple of years later, as I have said before, the impression at my company tracks with his. It seems to have been a fad. And as the fab showed how toxic it was the population as a whole turned against it.

And my impression again, the Democrats found themselves painted into a corner and have nearly suffocated on the paint fumes. They lost the presidency to multiple “felony convicted” Donald Trump, of all people. The got slammed in the popular as well as the electoral college by more than the margin of fraud. And despite all the fraud they lost the House and the Senate, too. The majority of voters came to the conclusion all the cancel culture, all the DEI stuff, all the child transition stuff, all the illegal alien stuff, all the looting, rioting, all the fake racism (think Jussie Smollett), and the insistence of a January 6th “insurrection” was too much and it finally popped the bubble the Democrats had been riding on. The Democrats lost so much credibility that a single podcaster (Joe Rogan) gets about double the views of any of Democrat aligned TV host.

As has been said in various forms, for a very long time:

Show me the lyric of a nation and it matters not who writes its laws.

Damon of Athens
5th-century BCE Greek music theorist, philosopher, and political advisor, known for his influence on Pericles and his theories on the ethical and political effects of music.

See also:

It views politics as ‘downstream’ from culture” was written by Don Eberly in May 2000; “Public policy is downstream from culture” was said by Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute, also in May 2000. Eberly possibly coined the saying because it also occurs frequently in his book Building a Healthy Culture: Strategies for an American Renaissance (2001). Conservative American publisher Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012) often used the saying.

This is why coming out of the closet as a gun owner is important. This is why taking a new shooter to the range and making them comfortable with gun culture is important. This is why, even if we were to get all we want in the courts, we must continue working toward the extermination of the Marxist culture.

Boomershoot 2026 Registration Opens Soon!

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This year’s big shooting event is May 1, 2, and 3. It is a smorgasbord of shooting goodness. You do not need to participate every day. Choose the events you want. See Boomershoot.com and the entry site for details.

I finally have the registration up and running on a new host.

Registration for last year participants opens tomorrow Sunday 4/5/2026 at 12:00 PM (noon).

Everyone else can sign up Monday 4/6/2026 at 12:00 PM (noon).

The link for registration has changed. The new link is https://boomershootentry-ete9hdakg8hnd7g0.westus2-01.azurewebsites.net.

To learn more about Boomershoot go to https://www.boomershoot.com/

Lead Ammunition Concerns

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Quote of the Day

Pacelle posits that lead was banned from products, including paint and gasoline, because of its toxicity.

He adds, “It’s time to restrict hunters from dispersing this toxic metal across millions of acres of New York’s landscapes, poisoning wildlife and putting themselves and their families at risk from ingesting of lead-infused wild-game meat.”

But this is all a lie. What he’s not saying is that he’s talking about entirely different kinds and uses of lead. Traditional ammunition uses non-soluble lead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not consider expended ammunition, even at shooting ranges, to be a problem of “dispersing toxic metal.”

Nephi Cole
March 24, 2026
Latest Anti-Lead Ammo Attack Isn’t About Ammo at All • NSSF

That is good to know. I sometimes worry about all the lead we put into the ground at Boomershoot. It is right next to cropland. We sometimes put lime in boxes behind the targets to reduce the soil acidity. This will prevent the lead from leaching into the ground and the water. But still, without expensive testing how do we know if we have done enough or we are overdoing it?

Happy 223 Day!

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Via SAF @2AFDN:

Huh! I never thought of that before. February 23 is 223 day. And 308 day is coming up soon.

People Problem, not a Gun Problem

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There’s an illegal flow of guns into states across the country from a couple states with weaker gun laws. We should at least have a penalty to make sure that we can fund enforcement of this common sense idea.

Jack Schlossberg
U.S. Congressional hopeful for New York’s 12th District
December 20, 2025
Exclusive | JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg wants to hit some states for guns flowing to NYC | New York Post

One response in the correct direction:

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb countered, “How about penalizing New York for all the criminals they release on cashless bail, who then commit crimes in other states?”

The veteran gun rights advocate said New York doesn’t have a “gun  problem, it’s got a criminal justice problem.”

I don’t think this goes far enough. He is right about the criminal justice problem. We have a people problem, not a gun problem. People like Schlossberg should be referred to the criminal justice system for prosecution.

Smart Laser Training Pistol

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I don’t keep up, at all, with the latest firearm hardware and when I got an email from Mantis asking if I wanted a free TitanX to review I almost deleted the email without looking into what it was. I had never heard of Mantis. I am so glad I took a few seconds to look into them and conclude it was a real product and not a malicious link I was clicking on.

There were no conditions on my review. Just here it is and tell people what you think of it.

The TitanX is a Glock like training pistol with a built-in laser and rechargeable (USB-C) battery. It comes with a really nice case, and two properly weighted magazines. Surprising to me there is an app for your phone. I was skeptical of this. What are going to do with an app and your training pistol? Oh… Wow! It is amazing. The phone app provides all types of drills, watches your (slightly specialized) target, keeps score, and will playback the gun movement before and after your trigger pull. It is AWESOME!

You can purchase the targets or just download and print them yourself from here.

You don’t have to use the app. And I usually don’t. It takes a little time to set up the target, mount the phone on something steady, and point the camera at the target. Most of my use has been just straight out of the case with targets from JV-Training (my son-in-law).

Here is a 15-second video of how I use it:

The gun and trigger is nothing like my STI 2011. But because with this tool, dry fire is now fun I don’t mind that it doesn’t feel like my match gun. I almost never did any dry fire before getting the TitanX. I would rather go to the range and shoot a few hundred rounds of .22 in a conversion kit for my 2011. The trigger resets and feels, pretty much, like a striker fired gun trigger.

To see the app in action, (very cool) watch this video. He is set up for far better videos than what I could do in a month:

Visit their website and learn more about this awesome training aid.

Scouts Could Take Canada and Mexico

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Quote of the Day

US could take Canada with eight Scout Troops, a supply of Mountain Dew, beef jerky and .22LR.

Mexico is a bit more sporty. Need eight Venturing Crews with .223 AR-15s.

Tirno
November 3, 2025
Comment to Instapundit » Blog Archive » AS IT SHOULD BE:  Gun Control in the U.S. is Futile.

I suspect he is exaggerating. But he is the scout leader and would know better than I.

Overkill Caliber for White Tail Deer

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Quote of the Day

I use a .308 to hunt deer. My wife uses a 2025 Subaru. She has got more deer than I have.

My Next-Door Neighbor (in Idaho)
October 30, 2025

I was busy shoveling dirt on and around my underground bunker to improve the landscape and fallout protection when the closest neighbor to the north (over a half mile away) drove in on his ATV to say hi and ask how the construction was going. We chatted for probably 20 minutes, and he told me of the recent collision of his wife’s car with a deer in Orofino (yes, inside the city limits). He also explained that he had his rifle on the ATV in case he saw a deer while he was driving around. He has been in the area for a few years, and I asked if he usually gets a deer. “Only one so far”, he said, but this is his wife’s second deer.

Doesn’t Mean You’re Out of Range

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Truth.

If I can see you, I can hit you.

Via TonytheTiger57 @TonytheTiger57.

2025 IPSC Handgun World Shoot

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This morning daughter Xenia reported that her husband, John Vlieger, finished sixth overall in Open Division at the 2025 IPSC Handgun World Shoot in South Africa. And Team USA, which he was a part of, came in first place:

Notice that the difference between first and second place is almost 8%. This is huge. It used to be the difference between the top few competitors is on the order of 1% or 2%. For all intents and purposes Sailor is not an ordinary human and changed that. The individual results (backup copy here) show this more clearly:

1 100.00 2,684.938110 Sailer, Christian USA
2 94.92 2,548.483074 Hwang, Michael USA
3 93.30 2,505.15328 Jones, Bryan USA
4 92.13 2,473.5424607 McIntosh, Brodie S AUS
5 91.82 2,465.3963857 Saldanha Jr, Jaime BRA
6 91.71 2,462.35239 Vlieger, John USA
7 91.37 2,453.29674 Eddins, Aaron USA
8 90.58 2,431.893175 Kim, Joon USA
9 90.54 2,430.8799728 Šebo, Robin CZE
10 89.59 2,405.5566949 Minaglia, Daniel S ARG

Sailor is from the Seattle area. I used to see him at the Steel Challenge matches when he was still a junior.

Congratulations to Team USA!

Free Speech Cartridge

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Via a comment from Richard.

Ammo Company Unveils New Giant Shell Casing With More Room For Left-Wing Terrorists To Write Out All Their Motives In Detail | Babylon Bee

I was putting messages on my bullets years ago. And thinking about it long before that. But I prefer to be succinct. I also find it much more satisfying to deliver the message all the way to the recipient rather than leaving it to chance that someone finds the message later.

A Gift for my Underground Bunker

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Last weekend I received a gift for my underground bunker. I only had to pick it up. It was a 2 hour and 40-minute drive each way. But it was well worth it. The giver no longer had a use for it and wanted it to have a good home.

This is just the base, motor, shell plate, die holder, and a few other things. All the other parts were included plus lots of spare parts. I have the rest of it in water and dust proof storage bins.

I look forward to getting it fully assembled and having it do what it does so well.

I’m not going to say exactly what it is, but the model is an Evolution Pro. It is just what I need to keep me busy for the dark and cold nights of the coming nuclear winter.

You Only Need One Recipe

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Via Fair Dinkum @Fair_Dinkum

That looks like reasonable solution.

Personally, I would go for something that would serve a few more guests than that. But that should satiate them enough to enable you to find something else to feed them.

Impressive

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You have to wonder if the shooter had any clue as to what was happening. It appears to me they may have just kept shooting until the gun failed to chamber another round. Did they just think they were missing every shot? They didn’t pick up the clues of the change in recoil and report? And with 35 124 grain bullets in the barrel that is 10 ounces of extra weight.

Via Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras.

Damage Caused by an AR-15 Chambered in 22 LR

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Quote of the Day

If there were a gun show loophole and an AR-15 chambered in 22 LR capable of doing this that could be pulled though the loophole into reality, then it would have a high-powered rail gun projectile velocity booster with a nuclear power plant for the power source. And even then, the projectile would be vaporized at anything more than a range of a few yards. Still, a lead oxide cloud at some small fraction of c might make for an interesting variation of a shotgun.

Now THAT is Action Shooting

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Very impressive.

Via Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras.

M16 History

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Quote of the Day

While the M16A2 wasn’t a perfect firearm, its controversial features paved the way for positive changes in modern weaponry. Many understand the sacrifice made by those who used the original M16 variations and contributed to improving the rifle.

Jacob
Widener’s Reloading & Shooting Supply
July 9, 2025
Colt M16A2: Battle Rifle Evolution – Wideners Shooting, Hunting & Gun Blog

The M16/AR-15 variants have been around for 60 years now and seem to be more popular than ever. That is rather remarkable. The 1911 style handgun is 114 years old now and still has variants available, but I have to think M16/AR-15 has it beat for peak usage. As of 2017 there were about 8.2 million AR-15s made. Add in another 8 million M16 and that is a hard number to beat.

I find the history and technology of the M16/AR-15 fascinating. It was the first rifle of recognizable name I heard about. My cousin Dennis learned to use an M16 in basic training and told me how cool they were. I didn’t even know the name of the manufacturer of Dad’s bolt-action rifle at the time.

Glocks have been around since 1982 and have sold about 20 million. They are still going strong too. But that is a different story.