Of all the things I have been able to do while in the United States of America, celebrating Halloween by shooting a pumpkin filled with Joe’s special blend is one of the things I will treasure the most.
Kris R
October 23, 2012
Comment to I agree with Joan Peterson.
[It’s nice to have such an event be remembered so fondly.
I wonder if the anti-gun people get reports like that for their events. No, I don’t think so either.—Joe]
THIS is a gunsmith. Watch all of them. There are a bunch of vids all in a row detailing the handcrafting of an American longrifle. They hand hammer a barrel around a mandrel and hammer weld it. Awesome. No “machine tools” of any kind. The closest to a machine tool is the barrel drilling jig, which is hand powered and hand fed, using hand-made cutting tools, and having a wooden spiral jig for determining the rifle twist.
Hat tip; castboolits.gunloads.com
We are extremely pampered today by comparison, having rolled bar and seamless tubing of precise alloy to work with. I once “restored” (though the word is abused in this case) a hand-made, lavishly hand engraved and gold plated trumpet that was made in the very early 20th century– for its original owner, who was over 80 years old at the time. He had bought it as a kid and played it the whole time. All of the tubing was wrapped over mandrels and soldered, including the piston valves– every tubular part had a lengthwise seam therefore, and some of the silver solder had corroded out, resulting in leaks. I had to re-solder some of them, but others were too far gone and I replaced them with extruded, seamless tubing. The curved tubing was made back then by filling the straight pieces with lead and bending them by hand over a bending jig, then hammering out any wrinkles. Now they are bent using an ice composition and then hydro-formed in molds. Some curved tubular parts are now built up entirely through electrolysis over investment cores. And they didn’t use a buffing machine back then, but instead hand-burnished every square millimeter of the instrument prior to plating it– you could still see all the tiny facets on that trumpet– one for each stroke of the burnishing tool. But that all that was still short of the skills used in rifle making in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and I didn’t do any engraving, carving or inletting in my instrument repair career.
An instrument (or rifle) with that sort of craftsmanship today would cost you well in excess of fifteen thousand dollars (you find fine rifles for well over a hundred thousand) though we can get good ones, made by modern methods, for under one thousand. But no one makes musical instruments like that anymore, so far as I know.
When I first started in musical instrument work, the most expensive saxophone, the Selmer Mark VI, was under a thousand dollars, or right around a thousand, and it was imported from France, but the much simpler concert flute could be found costing several times that much, made in America. You know why?
Because a flute can be made by hand in a person’s basement, whereas it takes a rather large shop, with a tons of specialized tooling, to make a saxophone, that’s why. There were exquisite hand-made flutes, but no hand-made saxophones. You can’t hand build a large-scale integrated microchip in your basement. It may cost millions to set up for making them but you can buy one for a dollar.
It’s a rare thing but this time I (partially) agree with Joan Peterson on this issue (H/T to Sebastian). She says, “Don’t carve pumpkins with guns”.
I took two almost new shooters to Idaho this weekend to do a little pumpkin “carving” at the Boomershoot site.
First we prepared some chemicals:
Then we mixed them. Yes, she was a little apprehensive at first. This whole Kitchen Aid mixer making Boomerite is a little “different”. Six weeks ago had you told her she was going to be traveling to Idaho, making explosives to “carve” pumpkins, and shooting a rifle before Halloween she would have said, “No way!”
Here are some sample pictures of the pumpkins being “carved” (thanks to Barron for bringing them to the party):
The picture below was taken a fraction of a second after the picture above. Notice that the pumpkin pieces have slowed and are further from the origin. I wonder what the BC of a pumpkin seed is. 
The picture above almost duplicates a picture Ry took a few years ago. Here is a cropped version of the same picture: 
There are hazards to pumpkin “carving” with Boomerite. Max wasn’t really “entertainingly close” by some peoples standards but it was close enough that he sometimes turned away to avoid getting hit in the face with pieces of pumpkin. I was extremely pleased that his finger came off the trigger and he kept the gun pointed in a safe direction: 
I’m sure Ms. Peterson will be pleased to know we didn’t use guns as our primary tool for carving the pumpkins. It was just the remote detonator for the explosives. And these new shooters will share their experience and pictures with friends and family which will add to the set of people who recognize modern sporting rifles in common use are not “assault weapons” which should be banned. But instead many of them will desire their own and to share in the fun of the gun and Boomershoot culture. And what does Ms. Peterson and the Brady Campaign have to counter this?
Did you see the smiles after connecting with the 650 yard boomer? I am of the opinion Boomershoot is a valid treatment for depression and should be covered by most health insurance.
Strapped and frapped on the left side of the window and a zombie family on the right.
And the car ahead of it has a Mitt Romney sticker on the trunk lid.
It is almost amazing that this was in Bellevue Washington.
At this
time of year I normally hunt in Klickitat County, WA, for deer. Lots of big black-tail / mule deer, and perhaps the occasional
hybrid. My luck at finding them is usually pretty good, though my luck in
finding ones with respectable racks is utterly pathetic – I can manage to find
a 200 lb + mule deer with ears that stick out further than his barely legal
three point rack, which is only three points by the grace of God and an eye-guard
that is about 1.1 inches long, or one that looks like what you’d expect of a mule
deer that cross-bred with a white-tail, with huge ears and all its tiny little points
coming off of one narrow beam, and the other broken off to about 1/3 size. Oh,
well, meat’s meat.
Drove down Friday, looked thing over. Several does frisking
about, and no more than the normal noise from the property across the way (it’s
mostly 20-acre lots in that area, and some government land, with about a dozen scattered
hunting camps and a handful of year-round residents within a mile or two). Light
rain that day kept the dust down, and made the brush a LOT quieter. Lots of
acorns on the trees, I noticed – very different from last year, when there were
almost no acorns, and more hunters than deer. Parked the RV (AKA a minivan with
a seat out and an army cot in the back), got to sleep early, listening to the rain fall.
Got up, weather looked good, headed down for a spot I picked
the day before, partway down in and overlooking a clear-ish spot across a saddle
in the ridge. It has decent visibility, lots of deer trails through there. I
kick up a couple of does while sneaking down there in the dark. Wait for enough
light. See nothing. I hear shooting up behind me on the ridge. Several single
shots, widely spaced in time – either people are doing pretty well, or they can’t
shoot for squat. No way to know at the moment. I’m not seeing anything, except
a couple of does that are heading away from the shooting west of me. Eventually
I quit waiting and get moving, and slowly hunt around in a big loop to see what
can be scared up. Nadda but a couple of does. Light wind keeps eddying around,
so hunting “upwind” is impossible.
About 90% of the way around the loop I run into an old
friend of mine – he’s in his 80s now, was a gunner on a troop transport in
WWII, but still getting out (new just this year is a handicap hunter sign for
his rig, so he can shoot sitting in the cab, or have one of us younger “companion
hunters” do things for him. He said his
son, a spry lad of only sixty, had gone on a big loop up and around similar to
the path I’d taken, but farther out, across to the far side of a large draw and
down through it. So I figure I can go find a good stand up on this side of the draw and see if he
spooks anything my way. I wander off into the thickets. Lots of low brush, large
patches of ten-foot high Oregon white oak, and lots of old pines blown down
like pick-up-sticks (the remains from after a fire swept through the area about
a decade ago). Easy to hide in, lots of forage, and a cast-iron bitch to get
things out of.
I creep along thorough the brush, keeping eyes and ears
open, picking the occasional acorn and popping it into my pockets, which are by
now bulging with them. I find a decent spot with a clear view across the draw
– the far side is about 450 yards away. Visibility closer isn’t great because
of all the oak stands. I stand up on a fallen log to get a better view. Lots of
acorns in reach from there, too. I watch across the draw, watch closer in, pick
acorns absently. Listen to the chipmunks, magpies, and woodpeckers. Wind swirls
around. Nothing moving but birds and leaves. Pretty, but no sign of hunter
orange coming down the far side of things yet. I take off my pack and drop it quietly
to the ground, still standing on the log. A few more acorn are in reach, and
they end up in my pocket.
Then I hear a noise – just barely loud enough to hear, and I
still can’t remember what sort of noise it was, but it WASN’T any of the things
I’d been listening to all morning. I jerk my head to the right toward that
marginally registering sound, and there, plain as day because I know the exact direction to look, I see the “Y” shape of a
deer staring straight at me, mule-deer ears and nose. Just the head – from the
neck down it was hidden in the heavy brush. Not fifty yards away. With a rack.
A small rack (of course), but it’s got a least one clear fork. I’m standing,
balancing on a log, body one way, and it’s off directly to my right. Well, that’s
kind of awkward.
I figure he must have been there this whole time, so slow motions
shouldn’t spook him. I turn slowly until I can get the rifle up into a good
scoping / shooting position. I look. Damn! Only 3 power on the scope, and I can’t
see if there is an eye-guard! I crank the scope to 9X, and look again. Can’t
quite be sure… then the light falling on him changes ever so slightly, and I
can see it! ONE eye-guard! Given the brush and stuff, I figure I’ve got about a
2” square target to hit, off-hand, standing straight up balancing on a log, at
fifty yards. Can’t move to a more stable position because lower would hide him
totally in the brush. Aim too high, miss. Too low, take his jaw off and he runs
and dies miles away or it gets deflected by heavy brush. Left or right, running
injured or clean miss. Just gotta stand tall and deliver. Sure, no pressure. Aim
carefully, breathe in, breathe out, double check the eye-guard to make sure it’s
long enough, breathe, squeeze. BLAM!
I work the action keeping my eyes on where he was. I see no
movement. I walk up carefully. Motionless on a grassy patch amidst the brush. Right
antler blown away. Brains and blood leaking out through the large hole just
above his right eye. I do a double-take, and I don’t see the eye-guard! ARRRG!
Oh, wait. False alarm – just didn’t see if from that angle. WHEW! I measure the
eye-guard; one and a quarter inches – legally counts as a point (1” minimum). Now
I just have to get him OUT of the deep weeds. He’s down amidst the log-sized
pick-up sticks, and a live weight in the neighborhood of 200 pounds – small enough
to be tender and tasty, big enough to be a pain in the ass hauling him out. Then
I hear a shot from up across the draw. Looks like the other guy I know is now
going to be busy with his own deer for a while, so I’m on my own. I gut him
out, drag him uphill as best I can about a hundred yards to where I think it
might be possible to get a vehicle sort’a close. I flag a nearby tree with
engineer tape, and boogie back to the “RV” to see how well a Honda Odyssey is
at off-roading. Turns out, pretty good, if you are careful. Nothing that Ry
would have flinched at, but it’s mostly my wife’s, not my car, and there are
lots of logs and large volcanic rocks around, so….
Anyway, got the deer whacked up, then double-check the regs just
to make sure I wasn’t missing something – last year there was a Fish-n-Feather
check-point examining all hunters at a choke-point in the road out of the area for
the first few days of the season, so I want to make sure I’m all totally legal.
Hmmm… must transport with proof that it was male, either “naturally attached
penis and testicles” (nope, can’t do that, cut off while gutting) or BOTH
antlers “naturally attached to the head”. AH, shit-meister! I must have spent
two hours looking for that blasted second antler. Finally found it about 45 or
50 feet away in the brush – a small, brown, forking, stick-like-looking antler
hides VERY well in the brush and fallen oak leaves, let me tell you.
Finally, I got everything cleaned up, packed up, and back on
road, and just then the rain started. So it all worked out, in the end, pretty
well.
A few of things of note:
1) There was no
obvious exit wound from the bullet. A 165 gr slug from a 30-06 at 50 yards
still has well north of 2000 ft-lb of energy, and while the skull was
dramatically broken up and brain bits here and there, but the bullet didn’t
seem to have come out the far side, and there no obvious bullet fragments left
in the cranial cavity, which was mostly filled with partially coagulated blood and
bone fragments by the time I examined it more closely. Not clear exactly how all
the energy was expended, or what happened to the bullet; totally exploded and
the fragments fell out with the brain, or ricochet out essentially through the
same hole and all the brain pulping was done by bone fragments, or just what.
File it under “weird terminal ballistics event.” and “bone is STRONG.”
2) It was obvious he was totally dead from the hole and
brains-on-the-ground thing when I got close to him, so I slit his throat to
bleed him out. Squirt, squirt, squirt. His heart was still pumping! Weird.
3) The kids both thought the carcass pieces I brought home
were interesting. The daughter though it was gross, but she couldn’t take her
eyes off it, so it turned into an impromptu biology and physiology lesson, comparing
front and back leg structures, pointing out tendons versus ligaments, ball
joints vs hinge joints, bone vs cartilage, what a whole muscle looks like when
not wrapped in plastic as the market, fat deposits, what a heart and liver REALLY look like, etc.
They also thought the ribs looked awfully fatty, but agreed that they tasted good
broiled with a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
3.a) The only things that got left on the scene was a spine,
feet, hunks of fat, guts, and hide. I need to get better at skinning them out
so it’s worth getting tanned.
4) The kids ALSO thought that learning how to prepare the
bag of acorns I brought back sounded like fun, particularly for the 4th
grader, who did a big unit on Native Americans last year in school, many of
whom ate acorns as a significant part of their diet. We’ll also be planting
some of them as a science experiment (Oregon white oak are native to the area).
4.a) Last year, very few acorns, very few deer. Normally,
lots of acorns, lots of deer. File data for future reference; check the acorn
crop in September – no acorns, find another place to hunt.
5) Does seem to spook and run easily. Bucks, especially
older ones, are masters of immobility and camouflage, and don’t want to jump
until you darn near step on them. Means you have to have REALLY good eyes, good
binoculars, or have a couple of guys that are willing to spend a LOT of time
stomping around trying to kick them up.
6) I am amazed, again, at the fact that even though guns are LOUD, especially high-powered rifles, I never remember hearing the shot go off, or the recoil as it applies to my shoulder. I remember watching the target, working the action, basic body position, getting the sight back on target, listening for and hearing sounds immediately after the shot (even quiet sounds), but never the sound of the gunshot itself.
From the Lewiston Pistol Club (Idaho):
Hi all,
We’ll be holding a USPSA classifier special in the top three bays of the BP Memorial Range on Saturday, October 13 from 9 to around 2. The lower (Cowboy) bay will be available as usual.
The Classifier Special is mostly to the advantage of new USPSA members looking to establish their class (A, B, C, etc.) but is available to anyone who wants to try their skill against well designed, really aggravating pistol stages (lots of no-shoots, small target areas, etc).
We will shoot five USPSA classifiers over the course of the day. The classifiers will be chosen to test all three facets of DVC – “Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas” (accuracy, power and speed for those not current on dead languages). I’ll probably take 200 rounds and bring half home. Total minimum round count is 64.
In case you’re curious, diagrams for all available classifiers can be seen here: http://www.uspsa.org/uspsa-classifier-list.php
The cost of the special will be $15, all of which goes to the USPSA. For this event only, re-shooting a classifier will cost $5 per re-shoot.
Thanks,
John Grimes
LPC Action Director
Barron and I will be there.
ESS attended Boomershoot 2012 and spent a lot of time recording video. They released another video, Volume 1 (Volume 5 was released earlier for some reason):
See also the ESS blog post about the Boomershoot videos where they say:
Commemorating our adoption by the shooting sports community and as a fun forward-step in working together with civilian as well as military shooters, ESS is proud to announce the release of its new video series, Boomershoot!
Filmed at the near-legendary, totally-incendiary shooting event in northern Idaho, ESS shooter, U.S. National Rifle Team (Palma Division) member, and “30 Cal Gal” Anette Wachter together with friend Shelley Rae (Western Shooting Journal /gun blogger) were among the many in attendance. In this exclusive video series, Annette and Shelley demonstrate their passion for shooting while having an explosive time, and in doing illustrate quite nicely that ESS eye pro fits women as well as it fits men.
Video installments in this series will show high-powered guns in action, exploding targets, behind-the-scenes footage, and more.
ESS makes good stuff. They gave me a couple pair of their glasses and I use them whenever I need eye protection or even sunglasses.
H/T to Barron.
Late last month I went to a USPSA match in Renton. I expected I would be in the situation of not knowing anyone there. And even if I did recognize a face or two I figured the odds of shooting in the same squad as them would be rather low. I was extremely pleased to see Anette and Charles unpacking their gear from their vehicle as I parked. As I was signing up a little later I saw Shelley Rae! We all ended up shooting in the same squad. Also a pleasure was that Lisa Munson was in our squad as well. I didn’t offer her any shooting advice this time.
It has been several years since I shot at Renton and looking at the first stage we shot it all came back to me. These guys design some tough stages! I racked up 190 points in penalties. Most of those were for misses. In one stage I couldn’t find two targets. In another stage I shot 51 points but got 50 points in penalties! In another stage I thought I shot it really well then found out that I had completely overlooked a fault line and shot two targets while faulting. I hadn’t even seen the fault line in the walk-through. The targets weren’t that hard to get but I had done it with a foot completely over the line and got 40 points in penalties. I did manage to come in 6th place in one stage but that was not enough to compensate for all my errors on the other stages. And even on that stage I made a mistake but it only cost me about one second to correct it.
In Limited class I came in 19th out of 30 shooters. That was very disappointing. I need to slow down for complicated stages.
It could have been worse. The first shooter in our squad disqualified himself by breaking the 180 on the first stage within about three seconds of the buzzer going off.
Here are some pictures:
Shelley Rae and Anette correctly shooting the targets I shot with one foot over the fault line.
Charles is taking his first step toward a new shooting position.
Examine the following pictures of Lisa Munson carefully. These pictures were taken as fast as my camera would take them in full auto mode.
Notice the piece of brass falling just below her hands.
In this picture another piece of brass has just been ejected and is between her slide and sight. Her arms have started to bend and her right leg has started to move.
In this picture the same piece of brass that was just ejected has fallen to about 1/3 up from the bottom barrel on the left, she has her finger off the trigger, and is well into her movement to the next shooting position.
I wish I could shoot and move like a girl.
Late last month Max and Barb had watched part of a USPSA match I participated in. I introduced them to Anette and Charles but had not been able get to the range with them for their own trigger time.
Today I took Barb and her son Max to the range. Max had done some shooting before but not a lot. Barb said she might have shot a gun once when she was about 12 years old but couldn’t remember for certain.
Max’s previous experience showed. This was with the Ruger Mark II from about 10 feet away.
This is Barb’s first target. Again with the Ruger Mark II. I would include the picture of her smile but she had her eyes closed.
This was good for a first time shooter. She was having some problems with the follow through and pulling the gun low for a bit and after we got that corrected the group moved up and got a lot tighter.
One of the first things she said after shooting the first target was, “This was more fun that I thought it would be.”
This is Max with his revolver target. He shot it single action for a couple cylinders then shot it double action. All from about 8 feet away. I was impressed. My little S&W Air-Lite only has a 3″ barrel.
This is Barb with her revolver target. All single action. Very nice! Excellent for a new shooter.
We left a little early because the people in the next bay were shooting a .44 Magnum. It was a little unpleasant for us.
As we were driving away for lunch Max invoked Markley’s Law over the guy with the .44 Magnum. I gave them the history of Markley’s Law. They had not heard of it before which isn’t at all surprising. They hadn’t heard of Godwin’s Law either so I briefly brought them up to speed on that as well.
The next planned shooting excursion for Max and Barb is a trip to Idaho for a private Boomershoot party on the 20th of this month.
I’ve brought this up before, but I keep hearing that assertion. It says you can never pay more to accessorize a gun that the price you paid for the gun. It should always be less. I’ve had people mention their free guns– gifts. “I didn’t pay a dime for the gun, so how can I justify X?” or “I only paid 100 dollars for this Carbine back in the ’60s…!” (Never mind that it may now be worth 800 or more)
There are high-end optics that cost more than almost any firearm made, except for some of the fine double rifles, and you aren’t going to be using these optics on a fine double rifle. Ditto for some of the hand-made flintlock longrifles and such, and a few boutique rifles. There are also sound systems that cost more than a lot of used cars, so I guess you have suffer with an inferior sound system until you can afford a more expensive car to put it in. A friend of mine once had a $50K sound system in his apartment, so I guess he was really breaking the rules.
The way I see it, if you paid some low price for your rifle, and it does the job you need of it, then you now have more money to spend on a good optic. I don’t see a conflict here. It’s all about the setup you want, not some spreadsheet of arbitrary rules based on relative prices of the components.
If it makes anyone feel better, I once had a 150 dollar stereo in a 100 dollar car, with a 500 dollar set Michelins under it. Can someone make the case that I should have restricted myself to crapy tires because I only paid 100 bucks for the car? I put over 100K miles on that car too, which included some rather long road trips – you want to me run retreads on it? Uh; no. It had well over 200K on it when it finally died a violent death, otherwise, 20 years later I might still be driving my 100 dollar 1963 Dodge 330. What’s your problem?
ETA, From comments; “You are not accessorizing your rifle, you are accessorizing your SCOPE!” That is a better way to look at it. Get a great scope and find a rifle that’s good enough for it. Then you have something.
Barron put in dozens of hours in producing the video and has the details here.
The short version is that I created some stages that simulated the LAPD pistol combat qualification course as close as I could and still comply with USPSA rules. The stage descriptions and diagrams are here. I reported on the results here but I made an error. I reported the pass rate if the course was run in low light conditions. With normal light it should be a score of 70% or greater. The end result is that the pass rate was 79% instead of the originally reported 90.9%. Again, keep in mind the morphing of the course into a USPSA stage made the course more difficult than what the actual course is.
Here is the video:
At the end you will see some brief clips of another stage we shot on the same day. A recreation of the Empire State Building shooting.
It takes a child to raze a village.
scizzoid
2011
Comment to this picture:
[H/T to Brennan from the gun email list at work.
It looks like she has really good control of the gun for someone her size.
A comment by Sherman from the email list at work is also worthy of note, “Peace through superior firepower!”—Joe]
This got lost in my inbox while I was out of town, sorry Mike:
Hi Joe,
Say, I’m thinning the rifle herd a bit, and thought I’d mention one of the rifles I have for sale to you, in case you or someone you know would like a superb Boomer/Tactical rifle.
It’s a Remington Tactical/Target – .308 caliber. Comes from Remington with their adjustable target trigger, tactical stock, and triangular shaped barrel with 5R rifling. I’ve mounted a Nightforce NXS 8-32×56 scope (NP-R2 reticle) on it in the Nightforce one piece mount/ring setup. The scope and rifle are brand-new, never been fired. This would be an absolutely killer long-range setup. I already have a couple of other .308s that I really like, and could use the bucks, so this setup really belongs in the hands of someone who will use it properly! I’d love to see a Boomershooter use it to good effect!
Asking $3200 for the setup – all mounted and boresighted.
If you know anybody interested, feel free to let them know, post it on your blog, etc.
Mike
If you are interested send me an email (blog@joehuffman.org) and I’ll forward it on to Mike.
Last Sunday the Lewiston Pistol Club ran a USPSA stage which mimicked the NYPD shooting at the Empire State Building. Here are the results:
|
Stage No: |
4 |
Police at Empire State Building |
||||||||
|
Place |
Name |
No. |
Class |
Division |
Points |
Penalties |
Time |
Hit Factor |
Stage Pts |
Stage % |
|
1 |
Adam |
13 |
M |
Limited |
80 |
0 |
7.09 |
11.2835 |
80.0000 |
100.00% |
|
R2 |
Mark |
22 |
U |
Production |
78 |
0 |
8.32 |
9.3750 |
66.4687 |
83.09% |
|
3 |
Robert |
20 |
U |
Open |
79 |
0 |
9.46 |
8.3510 |
59.2086 |
74.01% |
|
4 |
Mark |
12 |
U |
Limited |
78 |
0 |
9.53 |
8.1847 |
58.0295 |
72.54% |
|
5 |
5 |
B |
Limited |
80 |
0 |
10.05 |
7.9602 |
56.4378 |
70.55% |
|
|
6 |
Velle |
8 |
U |
Production |
78 |
0 |
10.27 |
7.5949 |
53.8478 |
67.31% |
|
7 |
Jon |
9 |
U |
Limited 10 |
78 |
0 |
10.40 |
7.5000 |
53.1750 |
66.47% |
|
8 |
John |
4 |
C |
Limited |
78 |
0 |
10.89 |
7.1625 |
50.7821 |
63.48% |
|
9 |
Brian |
17 |
U |
Open |
76 |
10 |
9.62 |
6.8607 |
48.6424 |
60.80% |
|
10 |
Don |
19 |
A |
Limited |
80 |
10 |
10.32 |
6.7829 |
48.0908 |
60.11% |
|
11 |
KW |
3 |
C |
Limited |
80 |
0 |
11.88 |
6.7340 |
47.7441 |
59.68% |
|
12 |
Tim |
11 |
U |
Limited |
79 |
0 |
12.09 |
6.5343 |
46.3282 |
57.91% |
|
13 |
Bill |
14 |
C |
Limited |
79 |
0 |
12.39 |
6.3761 |
45.2065 |
56.51% |
|
R14 |
Roger |
21 |
C |
Production |
80 |
0 |
12.61 |
6.3442 |
44.9804 |
56.23% |
|
15 |
Kevin |
7 |
B |
Limited |
74 |
10 |
10.66 |
6.0038 |
42.5669 |
53.21% |
|
16 |
1 |
D |
Limited |
79 |
0 |
13.48 |
5.8605 |
41.5509 |
51.94% |
|
|
17 |
Erik |
15 |
C |
Single Stack |
79 |
0 |
15.24 |
5.1837 |
36.7524 |
45.94% |
|
18 |
Kami |
10 |
U |
Limited |
80 |
0 |
16.48 |
4.8544 |
34.4177 |
43.02% |
|
19 |
Roger |
18 |
C |
Revolver |
80 |
0 |
18.16 |
4.4053 |
31.2336 |
39.04% |
|
20 |
Ben |
2 |
U |
Limited |
68 |
20 |
12.71 |
3.7766 |
26.7761 |
33.47% |
|
21 |
Jodi |
6 |
D |
Limited |
75 |
20 |
15.83 |
3.4744 |
24.6335 |
30.79% |
|
22 |
Donald |
16 |
U |
Limited 10 |
80 |
0 |
50.31 |
1.5901 |
11.2738 |
14.09% |
The bottom line is that a bunch of beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies fired 352 shots hitting no-shoot (innocent bystanders) targets twice and had three misses. This compares to NYPD firing16 shots with nine innocent people injured and six or more misses.
There is at least one important difference. The police were facing a guy pointing a .45 at them. We were not.
I got the USPSA match results back for the modified LAPD qualification stages I designed. In order to conform with USPSA rules we actually made the courses much harder than what the police officers have to do. We always started from the holster. In most of the strings the police started from the low ready position. In one string the police start with the gun pointed at the target and their finger on their trigger. Even starting from the holster the allocated three seconds was more than enough for us draw from the holster and make the same shot the police make.
We put 22 people through the stages. 20 people passed with a 60% or greater. That is 90.9% passage. The best results were by Roger who scored 95.1%. Roger was shooting a revolver.
Today was the first range day for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. I pretty much ignored everyone at the range today. I had a rifle that I needed to zero and test and Barron and I did little else.
At 200 yards I was disappointed:
My Spud Gun will yield a group about one third this size at this range.
I zeroed it and put the results in my ballistics app for my phone (still under development, not yet available).
The wind was a bit of a problem but the elevation was good on the steel at 350, 435, 500, 600, and 700 yards. We could hit without much difficulty so we moved out to the 957 yard targets.
We first started shooting at the barrel. It seemed that we were hitting all around it. I finally moved to the plate. It was smaller but I wanted a hard target. CLANG! First shot hit. The next shot was a miss, then two more hits. Barron then took a few shots at the plate. He did well too.
We concluded that we were poking holes in the barrel and seeing the dust kick up behind the it. We probably had a lot of hits on the barrel but just couldn’t be sure.
Still, getting three out of four hits on the plate with this gun was confirmation it is a good enough for most social occasions.
The long range results are similar to my previous attempts at the same target.
I installed an Aimpoint sight on a 500 S&W pistol for a guy today. He lives in North Idaho and has been hunting here and elsewhere for 30 years. He’d been in and out of our shop, trying to figure out how to make the little Micro sight stay put on his 500 bore, G-force production factory, so we’ve gotten acquainted.
Today he brought in one of his many hunting photo albums. He keeps records of each harvest; date, details of the animal, distance, and so on.
One of his kills was of a circa 2,000 lb Bison bull he got in South Dakota using a traditional muzzleloading rifle. He used a 200 grain XTP 45 caliber handgun bullet in a 50 caliber sabot. Muzzle velocity; ~2000 fps. (he could state his velocity extreme spread off the top of his head). He knows his rifles and his trajectories from years of practical use. That bull was shot from 150 yards. I ran the numbers in Modern Ballistics, and the impact velocity would have been around 1280. The jacketed hollowpoint bullet struck inside the front shoulder (so as to avoid the heavy shoulder joint, he said) in a quartering-toward shot, penetrated the heavy hide, busted a heavy rib, penetrated both lungs, the diaphram, and stopped in the spleen. The bull walked a few yards, laid down and never got up, shot with what amounted to (energy-wise) a 45 magnum handgun.
Some (most)(no; virtually all) would say that his choice of round was drastically too fragile and drastically under-powered, taking a shot at the “practical” range limit of the firearm, but he’d worked with this system for years and knew it’s capabilities and limitations from experience. Do not try this at home.
Anyway; it’s fun to talk with people who actually do things.
By the way; Installing the Micro sight on a 500 Smith requires the “permanent” red (as opposed to the “high strength” red) thread locker. I had to special order it as no one in town knew it existed. According to the tech I spoke with at Aimpoint, you also need to crank the cross-bolt down far beyond the 180-after-contact spec in the instructions, if’n you’re mounting it on the 500 hand cannon. This time we used a ratchet wrench. He’ll try it out tomorrow after the required 24 hour cure time and we’ll see if it worked. I wish they’d go with a square cross bolt for high recoil applications, but in nearly all other applications it matters not a bit, one way or the other.
This morning marks the beginning of a very busy schedule for me.
Today I “work from home” (actually I’m at Barron and Janelle’s home in Colton Washington). Tonight Barron, Janelle, and I go to Lewiston Idaho to have dinner with daughter Kimberly and Jacob. Then Barron and I go to Boomershoot Mecca to spend the night camping out under the stars and the trees. 3000 pounds of Ammonium Nitrate will be delivered at 0700 tomorrow. Barron and I then take off for Reno and Gun Blogger Rendezvous. Gun Blogger Rendezvous means sleep is optional until Saturday night when we will have to get a little shut eye before we drive back to the Seattle area.
Will we be seeing you at the Rendezvous?
I took a new shooter to the range yesterday.
The usual happened. Big smiles and almost uncontrolled glee:
Yes Kim, that is your bullet hole nearly dead center in the bull.
It’s nice to enable someone to accomplish something that gives them great happiness.
Can the Brady Campaign enable individual accomplishments that will provide a lifetime of pleasure? Despite their stated best of intentions the achievement of their goals would actually block such pleasures as well as the defense of innocent life and enable violent crime that will cause sorrow to the end of your days.
Take a non-shooter to the range, make Sarah and Jim Brady cry, and make the world a better place.
