Category Archives: Gun Fun

Quote of the day—Jesse Winton

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Consider, for instance, the fact that gun crime rates typically have not risen in regions when the number of concealed-carry permit holders increases. That point goes a long way to convincing millennials that the problem isn’t simply the number of guns, it’s who is holding them.

Moreover, it’s worth considering that during the two-decade period from 1992 to 2011, violent crime rates fell nearly in half in the United States while the murder rate fell dramatically as well. Why is that significant? Because it was a period when gun laws nationwide generally became less restrictive (notwithstanding the experience in several major urban centers).

For all the hysterical talk about gun violence in the United States, the truth is that our nation ranks relatively low in terms of gun murders per 100,000 people. It is impossible to reconcile that with the fact the United States leads the world in civilian firearms ownership.

Jesse Winton
September 20, 2016
‘Inured to violence’ involving guns
Why millennials are skeptical of the gun-control agenda
[We need to keep changing the culture. It’s our best hope.

Someone at work came up to me yesterday and said, “It’s time to blow off some steam around here. Can you arrange some range time for a group of us to go to the range together?”

Uh, YES!

I reserved the training bay at West Coast Amory for us. I’m pretty sure there will be people who have never shot before attending as well as people with their own guns and former military and law enforcement people as well.—Joe]

Those who need to know already know what the following means. If it’s not crystal clear to you then don’t worry about it. It’s not for you.

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82/DOt9SrZHcnvwDYq8xHHmT4rZ5j79uKTeop2+Cx+WRhRuKW3ugkkBTQxZUWr/HKMRdabr
/z3mpPZSq46EDRXUMLkX4oVl/FI9QBUeGyk8b3Kq17Je2VJP5rL8q1OOBTT4upQRoILPg9Y
qBNqV8kD1eVuZGbQQBz5KH1UBQm/NdqagBumxGJ890

USPSA Grandmaster son-in-law!

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Daughter Xenia sent me a text message today to announce that her husband, John, is now a USPSA grandmaster in Open division!

Congratulations John!

  USPSA PERSONAL PROFILE

Shooter Information:  
Shooter Name: JOHN E V
Member Number: A79695
Joined USPSA: 1/08/13
Membership Expiry Date: 3/31/17
Membership Info Updated: 3/02/16
Data On Web Updated: 9/21/16
 
 
RO Certification Info:  
RO Certification Level: None
RO Certification Date:  
RO Certification Expiry:  
Lookup Performed: 9/21/16
 
Classifications (updated 9/21/2016):
Open Class: GM Pct: 95.38 High Pct: 95.38
Limited Class: M Pct: 86.56 High Pct: 86.56
Limited 10 Class: M Pct: 77.37 High Pct: 77.37
Production Class: M Pct: 77.07 High Pct: 77.07
Revolver Class: U Pct: 0.00 High Pct: 0.00
Single Stack Class: M Pct: 68.56 High Pct: 68.56
Carry Optics Class: M Pct: 72.83 High Pct: 72.83
PCC Class: U Pct: 0.00 High Pct: 0.00
 

This could be a problem

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The IEDs in New York and New Jersey may have been made with Tannerite. Forbes has an article about it:

First, to be clear, the name Tannerite is appearing in news stories attributed to unnamed law enforcement sources. Tannerite residue was reportedly found on the two bombs discovered in New York over the weekend. Other bombs linked to the suspect, Ahmad Rahami, who is now in custody, may have used different explosives. These reports may be wrong in part or whole.

The company that makes Tannerite is skeptical. Steve Yerger, an investigator for the company, says he has not been able to confirm with the FBI or other law enforcement agencies that Tannerite was in fact found in the New York bombs. What’s more, he says he doesn’t know how it could have been used.

In the company’s tests, says Yerger, Tannerite can only be detonated by the impact of a high-velocity bullet. A burning fuse, an electrical current, a hammer blow; none of those will work, according to him. There have been no reports that a gunshot was used to trigger the bomb that exploded in New York on Saturday.

I don’t believe that Tannerite can only be detonated by bullets. I would bet that a blasting cap of the correct type would detonate it just fine. Of course blasting caps are not easy to come by. But, still, I think an improvised blasting cap could be constructed that would do it.

There are a lot of people using Tannerite for recreational shooting. Certain people, mostly those afraid that someone, somewhere is having fun, have been trying to ban or put severe restrictions on Tannerite. But, prior to this, to the best of my knowledge Tannerite hasn’t been intentionally used to harm people or the property of others. People have done a lot of stupid stuff with it, but mostly they have hurt themselves and made messes they couldn’t clean up. If it was used in a terrorist attack, it could be a big deal.

But, of course, Amazon and the black market can easily supply what the free market can’t.

Those who need to know already know what this means:

gHd0FsAlM6N91M9xkLQgvSrDNpyUEPJeQ5LMDZtjHj+7wMUsCabj3EFLbWq25qUO0KSSf4qE
Aecb4qIcWfmk1HWY/BBDHWfBa4RdAlzjeYUZfMAxmWLTrwqF1ctXfFbAJfCZt69iNJJTtzy
VyiYeSuBKoYMYYGzBZf4qh1jXd9upK0Kkj67KLDE629pkjT2i6GbskfgHtJDT87yi8epif+
mG30Tk46lbywIvyAQ+A3kSex2ps0EprNYleM/irHvd6UDWcsZ6aUDdH6vw0AFzQKfNJXm4B
D5+yyVJDXoruJx4Z641MmEnZVbym9E2uEI/yVf4cyt7+96u/cta+NzPHn7oCEwpLw8gtTMF
/EtAtSM=

KISS

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This is a breath of fresh air:

Instead of practicing running, jumping and stabbing in all directions, it might be a really good idea to work on perfecting the basics. It is only when you have truly perfected the basics that a person is ready to learn advanced skills. Nothing will end a criminal attack like a smooth draw and an accurate hit to the vital zone.

Nearly 40 years ago my first engineering mentor, Everett Nelson at Boeing, strongly advocated for the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid.

This has served me well professionally in hardware, as well as software, design and development. I have found that one of the best indicators of a poor or novice engineer is the complexity of their designs. And if you knew enough of the history of Boomershoot targets you would recognize the evolution to better targets was in large part about making things more simple.

The self-defense, unarmed as well as armed, techniques taught at Insights also reflect this philosophy and is something I have always appreciated. Some other schools, as alluded to in the quoted article, show strong indications they are poor or novice designers of self-defense techniques.

Rounds in the last month

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Lifetime totals:

223.log: 2027 rounds.
3006.log: 467 rounds.
300WIN.log: 1351 rounds.
40SW.log: 52947 rounds.
45.log: 0 rounds.
9MM.log: 21695 rounds.
Total: 78487 rounds.

I reloaded 1500 rounds of .40 S&W in August. All were Montana Gold JHPs for practice at indoor ranges. With my .40 S&W gun at the factory for repairs (I got it back yesterday!) and out of action for a month I should soon be fairly well stocked on .40 S&W. I’m probably going to reload some .223 this month. I have a lot of powder, cases, and bullets for them that I would like to get off my shelves. I may have to buy a few more small rifle primers.

If I reload just a few more rounds this month than last I will break 80,000 rounds for my lifetime total.

Steel match results

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I participated in the Whidbey Island match at Holmes Harbor Rod and Gun Club on Saturday. The ferry ride, as usual, was pleasant. I wandered around a bit during the crossing and came upon these characters:

WP_20160827_08_39_36_Pro

The two men in the foreground (Mike and Jeff) and the boy in the background ended up being in my squad at the match.

At first the weather was a bit chilly for the t-shirt I was wearing. It had been very hot the previous few days and I didn’t check the weather forecast. Within a half hour it warmed up to the point where it was quite nice and I didn’t suffer for lack of my preparation.

With my STI DVC back at the factory for repair I used my old Ruger P89 for Centerfire Iron sighted guns (CF-I) and my Ruger 22/45 for Rimfire Iron sighted guns (RF-I). The only holsters I had for the P89 were inside the waistband types and that made for a little slower draw than the competition holster with my STI. The double action first shot slowed things down some too. But, nearly 20 years ago, I had shot tens of thousands of rounds through my P89 and I had been practicing with in the last couple of weeks. The memory of how to shoot it fast seemed to come back and I did okay with it.

The stages were interesting. I forgot to take a picture of one of them with my cell phone and did a screen capture of the video from my video glasses

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Stage2_20160827

I have never seen a stage like the following one. The tiny plates in the center had to fall. You hit one of these for each string as the stop plate.

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In this stage you shoot each of the two white plates twice, then shoot the stop plate.

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Here are the results:

Shooter Division Time
Steve Mooney RF-RI-O 40.22
Jeff Kanter RF-RI-O 44.66
Jon Sletmoen RF-O 47.63
Steve Mooney RF-O 49.81
MAC RF-RI-O 50.85
Dan Lavaty RF-RI-O 52.18
Scott Bertino RF-RI-O 53.78
Joe Huffman RF-I 60.24
Jim Dunlap RF-O 76.59
Craig Justus RF-I 76.88
Oscar Meboe RF-RI-O 77.25
Steve Mooney CF-O 79.24
Thomas Alldredge CF-O 81.41
Jon Sletmoen CF-I 81.51
Joe Huffman CF-I 89.34
Jeff Kanter CF-O 92.06
Brian Lawson CF-I 93.12
Steve Murphy RF-I 100.25
Scott Bertino CF-I 101.45
Jeff Sparks CF-I 105.70
Mike Meisner RF-I 105.97
Marcus Meisner RF-RI-O 108.88
Jim Dyment CF-I 114.61
MAC CF-I 114.90
Steve Murphy RF-I 142.76
Steve Murphy CF-I 146.34
Dan Lavaty CF-I 151.30

My average time per hit with RF-I it was 0.6024 seconds and with CF-I was 0.8934 seconds. At the last match I shot here my average time per hit with RF-I was 0.7203 seconds. With CF-I it was 0.8514 seconds.

I think it is telling that compared to last time my RF shooting was much faster but with CF my shooting was slower. The gun and holster made the difference.

4000 meter rifle shot

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While this is not particularly practical it may be that research into how to make such shots have application in extending the range in more ordinary situations:

They started at 100 m to establish zero

…

Then to 1000 m to confirm zero. Then to 3000 m. They ran into problems with ranging binoculars (Steiner & Vextronix) “stalling out.”

…

Consistent muzzle velocity is key. Their loads were within a small range, but a 1 m/sec change in muzzle velocity causes an 80 cm vertical shift in impact point — meaning 1 fps change alters that impact point almost 10″ in the same direction. So you see that firing at 4000 meters is really at the ragged edge of what’s possible with field-employable sniper-type equipment, in 2016. At 4000 m

…

Third, or possibly, fourth, shot was heard to connect by a forward observer.

Also, dropping a projectile in on a group of bad guys from such distances may cause them to slow or stop their current activities and attempt to deal with the perceived threat with low cost and little risk to the shooter. Sometimes slowing down enemy activities or distracting them, even by a small amount, can result in significant changes in outcomes.

Via email from kb.

Unusual malfunction

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I have never seen a malfunction of this type in a handgun before. Two 9mm cartridges became wedged in the middle of a Ruger P89 magazine:

WP_20160825_12_35_25_Pro
From the bottom looking up.

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From the top looking down.

Carry a spare magazine with you because this is a time consuming malfunction to clear.

16th Century Revolver

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An eight-shooter from over 400 years ago. But those who wrote the constitution could never have imagined a multi-shot firearm.

Am I seeing a barrel-mounted, spring operated indexing pawl which engages tiny notches in the front of cylinder between the priming pan covers? On the other hand, maybe that lever on the right side behind the cylinder is part of the index locking mechanism.

Now what we need is a gas-operated, automatic firing, flintlock chain gun artillery piece.

What media bias?

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Via Paul Koning we have The Unknown Olympic Champion Kim Rhode has won medals in six games. Cue the non-coverage:

How do you manage to win a medal at six straight Olympics and remain more or less unknown? The answer: win by shooting a gun. American skeet-shooter Kim Rhode last week became the first athlete, male or female, to win a medal at six summer games and the first on five continents, but don’t look for her on a box of Wheaties.

Mrs. Rhode, who won a bronze medal in Rio, has received little media attention despite her historic feat. The 37-year-old also lacks a single major corporate sponsor, though her ammunition and training costs are offset with sponsorship and donations from such firearms companies as Beretta and Otis Technology.

Her agent told Bloomberg he had pitched the sharp-shooter to more than 20 companies, with no luck. Our guess is they don’t want to risk a backlash from the progressive antigun culture. It probably doesn’t help that Mrs. Rhode is an outspoken critic of gun-control laws and a Donald Trump supporter.

What media bias?

Sign up for Boomershoot 2017!

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Boomershoot 2017 will be April 21st-April 23rd.

Registration will be opening soon. The exact date for you depends upon whether you are staff and whether you participated in Boomershoot 2016.

  • Registration opens for staff 8/17/2016 5:00:00 PM Pacific Time.
  • Registration opens for previous year participants 8/20/2016 9:00:00 AM Pacific Time.
  • Registration opens for everyone 8/27/2016 9:00:00 AM Pacific Time.

Entry is all done online at http://entry.boomershoot.org/

If you have questions or problems with the website send me an email at entries@boomershoot.org.

Rounds in the last month

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I was out of town a lot this month so the reloading and match participation suffered. Over the July 4th weekend Barb and I were in Colorado visiting the Rocky Mountain National Park. The 22nd –> 24th we were in La Push for a family reunion. And the 30th and 31st I was in Idaho working on Boomershoot stuff.

Still, by the end of the year I expect to have a lifetime total of over 80,000 rounds.

Lifetime totals:

223.log: 2027 rounds.
3006.log: 467 rounds.
300WIN.log: 1351 rounds.
40SW.log: 51447 rounds.
45.log: 0 rounds.
9MM.log: 21695 rounds.
Total: 76987 rounds.

I reloaded 1000 rounds of .40 S&W this month. 666 of those were Blue Bullets for steel matches. The other 334 rounds were Montana Gold JHPs for practice at indoor ranges.

Grip safety issue

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GripSafetyNew2GripSafetyOld

The picture on the left is a new STI 2011 grip safety. The one on the right is the one out of my STI DVC Limited.

See a difference?

Yeah. The one on the right is missing some material. I don’t know if it came from the factory that way or it broke and I just now noticed. Part of the edge is very clean and part is ragged. It’s ambiguous from looking at it with the naked eye whether this is as intended or a failure of some sort.

I contacted STI via email and within minutes they said to return the gun and they would fix it.

Quote of the day—Anonymous UW Student

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Attending the UW $11,859.00 in base tuition a year, going shooting with friends and tossing the empty wiped down ammo boxes in a string of random open waste baskets inside the Comparative History of Ideas Padelford Hall, priceless. There are somethings money can’t buy, but for everything else there’s trolling Marxists in academia.

Anonymous UW Student
July 18, 2016
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Barb L.

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My gun and I had a great day at the range!

Barb L.
July 16, 2016
[Barb and I took some new shooters to the range and Barb did some shooting as well as provide support for me with the new shooters. She shot much better than the last couple of times we went to the range. I wish I would have taken a picture of her happy dance.—Joe]

New shooter report

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Some friends wanted to learn to shoot so Barb and I reserved the training bay at the indoor range near us for late Saturday afternoon.

I was surprised to find both of them were right handed but left eye dominant. Many people who are cross eye dominant end up shooting with the hand which matches their dominant eye (daughter Kim is an example).

I put them at about 5 yards from the targets and gave them stance, grip, and trigger operation instructions.

I started them out shooting left handed for a couple of magazines of .22 with a suppressor then had them try shooting right handed. They both opted to continue shooting right handed. As they continued shooting I showed them how to load the magazines and operate the bolt (Ruger 22/45s) and safety.

They shot a few hundred rounds of .22 with both suppressed and unsuppressed semi-auto pistols on single targets as well as multiple bulls-eye targets. We then put up USPSA targets with “hard cover” and had them shoot two shots on the same target starting from the high ready position. We also put up barricades for them to shoot around at multiple bulls-eye targets.

I offered them some low powered .40 S&W loads. They did fine with those. I offered them full power loads. They did fine at first but then started to falter with some of the shots going a bit wild. The shots were still on the paper but off the target so to finish up for the evening I put them back on .22s.

We ended with them saying they had a really good time, asked about the class Barb recently took, and said they wanted to do it again with us.

WP_20160716_16_39_07_Pro__highresWP_20160716_17_05_32_Pro__highresWP_20160716_17_20_07_ProWP_20160716_17_38_05_ProWP_20160716_16_41_24_Pro__highresTracie with her new shooter smile.WP_20160716_16_41_51_Pro__highresKurt with his new shooter smile.

Quote of the day—David Hardy

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Some sorta academic clown suggests he and some buddies might storm NRA headquarters.

It’d be like “The Keystone Cops Storm Okinawa.” Amusing, but rather messy for the cleanup crews. Of course an anti gunner sees nothing wrong with homicide, that’s not really the issue….

David Hardy
July 6, 2016
It is possible he and his friends might make it to the elevators
[Delusions are often functional.

In this case my hypothesis is the academic clown is able to imagine some sort of control over his hated enemy in his delusional universe and this gives him comfort that he is lacking in the real world.—Joe]

Steel match results

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Ry and I participated in the steel match at the Renton Fish and Game Club yesterday. We got rained on a little bit at the beginning of the first stage but it cleared up quickly.

Except for the first stage the courses of fire had small targets some distance away with fairly large transitions:

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This, of course, slowed the shooting down. This was especially true for the younger kids in the match. Compare my times on the various stages to those of Joey Meboe, Isabelle Meboe, and Matthew Meisner. Look at how close we are on stage 1 and how different we are on the other stages.

But I still did well enough that I was happy with the results.

The entire match results are here. My average time per hit with Rimfire Pistol Iron sights (RFPI) was 0.7406 seconds:

RFPI
Final Name USPSA Class Division Time Stage 1 Go Fast Stage 2 In And Out Stage 3 Focus Stage 4 Pitfall
1 Sailer, Christian A86982 U RFPI 33.86 5.91 9.00 9.61 9.34
2 Paczosa, Connor A628860 U RFPI 41.39 8.41 10.53 12.12 10.33
3 White, Alex U RFPI 44.64 8.47 10.24 13.81 12.12
4 Miner, Bradley Jr U RFPI 44.89 8.85 11.47 11.30 13.27
5 Larson, Addison U RFPI 54.60 11.05 13.26 14.80 15.49
6 Huffman, Joseph U RFPI 59.25 9.89 15.39 17.41 16.56
7 Morris, David U RFPI 60.19 9.71 15.41 18.67 16.40
8 Mortell, Jeffery U RFPI 64.83 11.80 16.68 18.13 18.22
9 Meboe, Joey U RFPI 69.25 8.90 16.84 26.15 17.36
10 Bakken, Lance U RFPI 70.42 13.10 18.23 21.25 17.84
11 Meboe, Isabelle U RFPI 72.71 11.16 20.63 20.26 20.66
12 Meisner, Matthew U RFPI 131.20 11.88 36.36 37.68 45.28

With Iron Sighted Pistol (ISP) combined with Production (because they are very close in equipment) I won with an average time per hit of 0.911 seconds. I would have come in second place had I been competing against the people with open class guns:

ISP
Final Name USPSA Class Division Time Stage 1 Go Fast Stage 2 In And Out Stage 3 Focus Stage 4 Pitfall
1 Huffman, Joseph U ISP 72.89 12.35 20.33 21.35 18.86
2 Miner, Brad U ISP 101.74 19.84 26.27 31.17 24.46
3 Reeve, Tod U ISP 140.16 13.80 40.63 45.23 40.50
PROD
Final Name USPSA Class Division Time Stage 1 Go Fast Stage 2 In And Out Stage 3 Focus Stage 4 Pitfall
1 Komatsu, Jeff U PROD 79.52 13.36 22.94 19.95 23.27
2 Roe, Shawn U PROD 79.97 14.09 20.42 23.55 21.91
3 Sulcer, Charles U PROD 81.49 18.52 23.07 17.06 22.84
4 Mortell, Jeffery U PROD 82.69 15.20 26.10 20.65 20.74
5 Pacczosa, Dan A492542 U PROD 87.77 10.95 30.11 24.05 22.66
6 Meisner, Michael A10203 U PROD 91.39 14.16 26.31 28.11 22.81
7 Meboe, Greg U PROD 91.74 16.12 26.19 28.87 20.56
8 Larson, Bob U PROD 100.27 17.09 26.76 27.08 29.34
9 McKenzie, Don U PROD 104.46 15.41 27.83 34.10 27.12
10 Blackston, Rick U PROD 108.86 18.48 29.62 28.17 32.59
11 White, Eric U PROD 117.96 16.88 25.82 46.85 28.41
12 Wolfer, Cole U PROD 130.14 25.09 32.57 42.13 30.35
13 Femino, Jason U PROD 153.09 18.88 52.55 35.85 45.81

Ry had an open class gun but no holster for it. When starting from the low ready with something other rim fire guns they add three seconds per string to your time. This was a huge penalty for him.

OPN
Final Name USPSA Class Division Time Stage 1 Go Fast Stage 2 In And Out Stage 3 Focus Stage 4 Pitfall
1 Rathjen, Michael U OPN 59.44 10.74 15.79 18.35 14.56
2 Lai, Daniel TY44166 U OPN 80.72 14.13 21.28 24.72 20.59
3 Kanter, Jeffrey U OPN 100.39 15.58 34.94 27.87 22.00
4 Jones, Ry U OPN 121.29 23.14 31.79 41.32 25.04

For me, the difference between starting from the low ready and from a holster is 0.6 seconds or less. So… Let’s assume a holster would have slowed him down 1.0 seconds per string. With 16 strings for the match, we should subtract 32 seconds from his time to get a better idea of what his capability is. This would put him at about 89 seconds for the match with a much more competitive time.

Dillon Precision

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I’ve had Dillon Precision presses for ~20 years. No idea how many rounds I’ve loaded, but I remember buying primers by the case several times. Not quite this level, but enough to give the anti-gunnies conniptions. The Square Deal B is my go-to press for pistol cartridges. I’ve not used it in a while, though, between work, kids, writing, and everything else.

Anyway, when I went to assemble some 38 Special ammo today it wasn’t feeding primers reliably. Long story short, I call Dillon Precision’s tech support (they have a toll free number), get charged nothing, get my answer, and they are sending some replacement little plastic gizzies (technical term, that) which go on the end of the primer feed tube, mailed out tomorrow at no charge. He also told me how to clean the primer feed tube by pushing an alcohol-dipped Q-tip through it with the primer follower. That got quite a spectacular bit of corrosion / crud out of it, and it definitely feeds better, now. Not quite perfectly, but a great improvement.

Dillon presses are not the cheapest on the market, but I have never been disappointed by the presses or the technical support. As a former tech-support guy myself, I have high standards, and they meet them every time. If you plan on doing reloading, you can do much worse than Dillon.