Just realized I failed to post a gun song last Friday. Arg. Oh, well, I guess I’ll make a two-fer today. Cash and Kilmer Continue reading
Category Archives: Gun Fun
New shooter report
Last weekend Barb L. and I went to Orofino Idaho for my high school reunion. Friday night I spent a lot of time talking to one of my best buddies in high school, Bruce C. He said he reads my blog and has long been interested in Boomershoot. I told him we could have a private party the next morning if he wanted.
As I reported last Sunday Bruce had a good time. Now it is time to tell you the rest of the story.
Bruce’s wife Cyndi was there with us and even helped fold boxes and weigh chemicals for the Boomerite. When it was time to shoot the reactive targets she and Barb just watched for a while:
Bruce posed for the camera with his rifle that he had brought with him. He hadn’t fired it in 20 years but he brought it and 200 rounds of ammo to our reunion. I can’t help but wonder if he hoped to get a chance to shoot some reactive targets.
Bruce shot a few targets and thought it was a real blast:
It turns out Cyndi had never fired a gun of any type. So, of course, now was the time to take her first shots. I gave her a quick lesson, discovered she was cross-eye dominate and had her shoot left handed. She got her boomer on her first EVER shot. I thought there was a chance the new shooter smile was going to be permanent (photos by Barb L.):
Bruce shot a bunch more boomers and two of them created “smoke” (mostly water vapor with some dust) rings:
The second “smoke” ring:
I shot a few targets, Barb shot the last one, and then we went back to Orofino to continue with the class reunion.
Ammonium nitrate targeted
Ry told me about this then I got an email from the Firearm Blog Editor about it as well:
(b) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Agriculture shall develop a list of potential regulatory and legislative proposals to improve the safe and secure storage, handling, and sale of ammonium nitrate and identify ways in which ammonium nitrate safety and security can be enhanced under existing authorities.
AN is the main ingredient in both Boomerite and Tannerite. It seems unlikely that any regulation that does not make mining and construction use of AN, where most explosive grade AN is used, impractical will cause problems for Boomershoot. But it might for Tannerite. For example, if in order to purchase, possess, or store AN you were required to have a permit then it would make the use of Tannerite a big hassle for the individual.
But, as I can almost hear the regulators say, “And your point is?”
I fear that someday the point will have to be made with a 168 grain Sierra Match King.
Ammo arrival
The UPS guy showed up the other day. I didn’t remember ordering anything recently, so I briefly wondered what the spousal unit bought. Then I saw the box, and I had to chuckle. It was a MidwayUSA box. With some ammo. That I had ordered last year. Now that’s a backorder.
Quote of the day—Bruce C.
That’s cool!
Bruce C.
August 10, 2013
After detonating his first Boomer (and he stopped laughing).
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Gun Song – Trigger Happy by Weird Al Yankovic
Time for something lighter. “Weird” All Yankovic has been doing spoofs and take-offs almost as long as I’ve been listening to popular music, and I’ve usually likes his versions as good as the original. And, he plays a mean accordion. If the embed below doesn’t work, try this link to Trigger Happy.
If you like spoofs, and making fun of artists who take themselves way to seriously, Weird Al is you guy.
Forest service may ban exploding targets
Via email from Chet (and I think someone else Tweeted about it but I can’t remember who) we have this story:
Federal authorities on Monday cracked down on the use of exploding targets popular in the shooting community but blamed for seven recent wildfires in the Rocky Mountain region.
U.S. Attorney John Walsh and Forest Service regional forester Dan Jiron issued a prohibition on unpermitted explosives in 22 million acres of forest and grassland in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Violators face fines of $5,000 and up to six months in prison.
The Forest Service likely will impose a nationwide ban within a year. Meanwhile, other regional foresters are expected to issue similar prohibitions.
My experience is that it’s tough to ignite things with an exploding target. But these guys were able to do it and have the video to prove it. Ry and I worked on and off for over a year trying to ignite gasoline. It it was only by putting Titanium or Magnesium shavings in Boomerite were we able to get fairly frequent ignition. The type of targets these guys were using is different than Boomerite. These targets are made with flash powder and rapidly burn more than detonate.
About one out of every two or three thousand Boomerite targets will ignite rather than detonate. We don’t know why this is. We think it might happen when there is an edge hit. In any case we schedule Boomershoot to be sometime other than fire season because of the risk of fire. Even then we have had numerous fires.
The bottom line is that I understand the concern about exploding targets in the forests during fire season. It’s not very wise to take that sort of risk.
Chet asked if this change in regulation would impact Boomershoot. The answer is, “It might.” But probably not in the way most people might think it would.
Boomershoot is held on private property, not public lands, so prohibitions against exploding targets on public lands isn’t going to be a problem for us. The way it might change things is if it more people attend Boomershoot to get their “fix” of shooting exploding targets that they previously satisfied by buying their own targets and shooting them on public lands.
Gun Song – 32/20 by Gov’t Mule
GAK! Been fighting a sinus infection, and forgot my Friday Gun Song! Better late than never, I guess.
A song from a long time ago, found a recording of it with a classic blues guy from the 1930’s playing it (Robert Johnson). Like many gun songs, it’s not all fluffy and light. Gov’t Mule is a pretty rock’n blues band by the sound of this recording.
For those not familiar with it, a 32-20 Winchester is like a scaled down .30-30, with the same sort of nomenclature, i.e., 32 caliber, 20 grains of black powder.
Gun Song- Machine Gun by Jimi Hendrix
Machine Gun by Jimi Hendrix was more an idea than a tightly written song. It is one of many Vietnam protest songs of the era. He was a famous and talented guitar player / singer in the 1960s, and he died in 1970, likely from complications from booze and drugs (“aspirating his own vomit”). While well known, he didn’t have anywhere near the production of other well known groups and singers of the time, and most of his albums were actually released posthumously, with only three studio albums and a pair of live albums released before his death. Continue reading
Gun Song- The Man With The Golden Gun by Lulu
Bond movies. We’ve all seen them. Most of us have laughed at more than a few of them, too. Like them or not, just about everyone knows OF them. This one is a classic.
Lulu has been around for a while, since the 60s.
Quote of the day—Larry Correia
The most (maliciously) creative guys I’ve ever worked with were Army Special Forces soldiers. Their imagination can come up with a million fantastic ways to ruin someone’s day. They make authors look like pikers.
Larry Correia
July 18, 2013
Ask Correia 14: How to be a Professional Author
[Good to know.
There are a few reasons for this.
One, it’s their job and they do this stuff a lot so they get more practice than you, I , or Larry.
Two, they have a different mindset. When I used to do computer security stuff I would spend a lot of time “thinking like a bad guy” and try to break things. You don’t normally think like that. It sort of rubbed off onto other things I did and thought about. I could walk through the grocery store, or drive through farm country and get distracted by all the things someone could do to contaminate the food supply from a terrorist point of view. Or I would walk through a hardware store and “see” things for improvised explosive devices in nearly every aisle.
Three, they have had a lot of training and knowledge that has been handed down through the generations. It may seem incredibly creative to you or I but it’s only a minor variation on something that has been repeatedly done for the last 100 years.
Try changing your mindset. You might be surprised what you come up with if you decide to go all Firefly and “be a bad guy”.—Joe]
Gun Song – Gunpowder and Lead by Miranda Lambert
Not exactly an an uplifting song, but gives a good story why someone might want to own a gun, and why they are called “equalizers.”
Miranda Lambert has been on the country music scene for about a decade. Decent body… of music.
Forget who recommended the song, but thanks.
Gun Song – Schoolhouse Rock – Shot heard ’round the world
Not Friday, but close enough, so I couldn’t pass it up. Happy 4th, folks!
A classic that would never be made today.
What’s the best caliber?
It happened again. Someone asked me what I thought the best caliber is. Granted they didn’t ask it quite that ambiguous. But it did raise the “insufficient information hackles” when I got the email.
The actual question was:
Tell me which caliber you think is best and why: 9mm, 40 S&W, or 45 ACP.
Had the question been, “Which caliber has the best stopping power?” I would have replied, “It’s tough to beat something chambered in 200 mm XM422 with the 40 kiloton yield option”.
The question isn’t quite that unbounded but still it’s insufficiently bounded to give an answer that is credible for even a fraction of the possible values of the unconstrained variables. One must really have more information about the use cases of the firearm before you can give an answer that someone couldn’t drive a Euclid truck through.
When someone asks a question like this what you really need to do is get the person asking the question to answer it for themselves. For all intents and purposes they already know the answer they just don’t know the proper questions to ask themselves. You can help them with this.
The top level question is, “What are you going to use this gun for? Recreation, self-defense, competition, all of the above?” One could drill down to a depth of three or more in the specifics for any of the answers given but here are few of the possibilities:
- What is your ammo budget?
- Self-defense against two legged varmints or four?
- What is the body mass of the varmint you need to defend against?
- One attacker or a mob?
- Which sport?
Everything is a tradeoff. The smaller calibers tend toward higher capacities, higher velocities, lower costs, and, obviously, smaller holes. With the larger calibers the opposite is true. Once you figure out your application then the caliber question should pretty much answer itself.
If you are interested in self-defense “stopping power” then I answered that question nearly 15 years ago and I don’t see any reason to update the conclusion where I agree with Greg Hamilton who says:
The entire discussion of “stopping power” is both stupid and irrelevant. Statistics cannot be applied to individuals. People that need to be shot need to be shot soon and often. They need to be shot until they run out of fluid, brains, or balls.
If during the time you were reading the latest “stopping power” article you were instead practicing to save your life you would be far, far ahead.
Greg Hamilton
May 08, 1998
Of potential interest is what caliber gun(s) do I own and use and why.
I have guns in all three of the calibers in question. I almost never use the 9mm or the .45. The reason has nothing to do with the caliber themselves. It is because a .40 with 17 or 18 round magazines is the best choice for Limited class USPSA matches which I compete in. I can compete in USPSA and Steel Challenge with it and I can carry it for self-defense. I figure the odds of me using it in self-defense are pretty low but the probability of me using it in competition are near 1.0. And even supposing that some other caliber/gun would be better for self-defense the fact that I am going to be practicing with the competition gun is probably going to make up for the (questionable) fact that I wasn’t shooting the optimal caliber.
Quote of the day—Gregory Morris
I played with it some… took me a minute to figure out how to position the shooter/target spots on the map… but then I found the elevation tool, and… whoa, totally cool.
Top notch stuff here.
Gregory Morris
June 28, 2013
Comment to the blog post Field Ballistic about my app for Windows Phone.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Gun Song- Julie Brown – Homecoming Queen’s got a gun
Interesting how the media and some of the other things are portrayed.
Are you a proud gun owner?
Gun Song- Kaylee Rutland – Daddy’s got a .45
Current country rock chick Kaylee Rutland has a song about a classic sort of situation – dad making sure his little girl is properly treated, and the guys that come a’court’n are worthy of their pride and joy. Cute, fairly predictable, fun.
Field Ballistics is available on Windows Phone
I just received notification that Field Ballistics for Windows Phone has passed the Microsoft certification tests and is now available in the store. It may take a day or two before you can search for it in the store but you can install it now using this link.
Some of the cool features are illustrated with the following screen shots:
The shooter and targets are placed on a map. The program automatically computes the range to the targets. It also automatically computes the direction of the wind relative to the bullet flight path. This means that if the wind is from the west and you are shooting at a target to the south you will get the correction the full value of wind drift. But if you then choose a target directly east (or west) of you the wind correction will be zero. Of course all the trigonometry is done to correct for shooting in all directions.
At the bottom of the screen are two columns. The left column is the ballistics solution to make the shot at the selected target. In the right column is data about the target and the bullet when it arrives at that target. Of particular note is that in the case above the bullet velocity is in red (the theme color of the phone). This means the bullet velocity is below the minimum you have specified in the settings. This is particularly important for Boomershooters because the targets won’t detonate if the bullets are going too slow.
Tapping the ‘S’ or ‘T’ icons at the bottom of the screen moves the center of the map to the shooter or the selected target. The down arrow icon moves the selected target (or the shooter if it was selected) to the location of the phone using the phone GPS. This means that you can set up multiple targets on the map, then the shooter can “run and gun” and get ballistic solutions quickly. By using the GPS to get the current location of the shooter the distances and wind corrections are automatically update for each position the shooter wishes to shoot from.
You can add as many targets as you wish* and give them user friendly names. If you tap the “Measure” button you can use the phone camera and accelerometer to determine the incline to the target from your current location.
This is the incline measurement screen using the camera. You put the crosshairs on the target and tap “Done” to capture the incline of the phone for this target. You can also zoom in or out and refocus the camera.
[Please note this is only to illustrate the incline measurement feature, not to advocate shooting in cities.]
The automatic weather conditions are obtained from the current location of the shooter. This doesn’t mean the physical location of the phone. You can position the shooter in another state and the nearest weather station to the designated shooter location will be used. When you define your own conditions you can even use the phone GPS to capture your altitude.
Black Hills and Federal match ammo are predefined. Add as many of your own cartridges* as you desire.
Some predefined rifles are included but you can add as many of your own rifles* as desired.
There are pages and pages of easily accessible help on the phone.
*The trial version only allows one target and one each of user defined conditions, cartridges, and rifles.
Field Ballistics failed certification testing
This afternoon I received an email from Microsoft telling me my new phone app failed the certification testing.
There were two errors. In the first case I didn’t have a clue I was violating the policy. In the second case I was careless. Both are easily fixed.
Test failure 1:
Test: Content that is offensive in any country/region to which your app is targeted is not allowed. Content may be considered offensive in certain countries/regions because of local laws or cultural norms. Examples of potentially offensive content in certain countries/regions include, but are not limited to, the following:
Group 1: China
Prohibited Sexual Content
Disputed territory or region references
Providing or enabling access to content or services that are illegal under applicable local lawComments: Result: Fail
Your application uses the Bing Maps Silverlight Control for Windows Phone. Bing Maps is not supported for Group 1 countries at this time. You may resubmit your application and deselect the Group 1 countries.
Test failure 2:
Test: Screenshots must only contain app graphics, and must not include any emulator chrome, frame rate counters or debug information.
Comments: The application screenshots contain frame rate counters and debug information.
Three out of the eight screenshots had the frame rate counters and debug information in them. I knew better and just wasn’t paying close enough attention in my rush to get the app submitted.
It will take 30 minutes or so to fix it and resubmit. I’ll get to that sometime tonight after visiting my son and his family.