I have been asked what tools I used to design USPSA stages. I use something I downloaded years ago from some place I don’t remember. I was unsure of the copyright issues and went looking again. I found essentially the same tool plus a better prop and target selection and a 3-D design tool here.
Enjoy.
When I got into bullet casting, I noticed right off that there was confusion over parts and percentages. People tell you that 20 parts lead to one part tin equals 95% and 5%, but when you start adding your “parts” you put in 20 parts this and one part that, and you realize that you now have 21 parts, which isn’t 95:5. It’s actually 1/21, which is more like 95.3% and 4.7%. Not a big difference, and not enough to really matter in this case, but when mixing several ingredients, you can end up farther off. If you use this oft repeated “method” of calculating for things that really do matter, you’re in trouble.
Anyway, I wanted Lyman #2, and Lyman states the actual percentages. I use other alloys too, and several sources of metal, so I made up this alloy calculator.
I think my assumptions are right…
Alloy Calculator.xls (26.5 KB)
You can fiddle with the composition of your various metal sources, plug in the number of parts in each, and it gives you the makeup of your final alloy in percentages. So I can make #2 alloy from wheelweights, pure tin and 70:30 antimonial lead, or from pure lead, tin, and 70:30, etc. and in theory get a pretty consistent product without having to do much calculating.
This is the video of the NYC cops shooting the Empire State Building murderer and unintentionally, perhaps via ricochets, shooting nine innocent people.
One of my stage designs for next weekend will include this scene. I’ll post it when I get it finished. This will probably be sometime Sunday night.
Update (Saturday 8/25/2012): I finished it earlier than I expected. It is available for your viewing pleasure here. Please leave a comment if you see changes that should be made.
As reported by others, “It’s now becoming clear that just about all of the injured in today’s mass shooting outside the Empire State Building were injured by the police response rather than by the shooter himself.
It turns out that months ago I signed up to provide the USPSA stages for the Lewiston Pistol Club match next weekend. Guess what I had planned?
Here are the two stages adapted (preliminary, there may be slight changes after the stages are reviewed) from the LAPD Combat Course.
LAPD Phase 1 and 4.
LAPD Phase 2 and 3.
If you compare the actual courses of fire to what I adapted to USPSA rules you will find I actually created a more difficult test. USPSA rules do not allow the shooter to touch a gun between the “Standby” command and the buzzer going off. The LAPD course of fire requires the shooters to, in some cases, have the gun pointed at the target with their finger on the trigger when the timer starts. In other cases the gun is held at the low ready position. Because the times were so long that I expect many shooters to have excess time I did not lengthen the time to accommodate the differences in start positions.
What this means is that in a little over a week we will have data on how the shooting skills of “a bunch of beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies” stack up to the qualification course for a major metropolitan police force.
Barron and I will be there with video cameras running and will provide YouTube video of the results within a day or two.
My expectations is that nearly all the shooters will pass and most will pass with a very high score.
If things turn out as expected Mayor Bloomberg should be called upon to send NYC police officers to Idaho for training by us “uneducated hillbillies.”
If the gun is primarily a symbol, then it is a symbol of what?
To some it is a symbol of Man’s cruelty, or generally of evil. To others it is a symbol of the love and protection of life and liberty – a defense against evil.
Why would one person take one view as opposed to the other? It seems to me that the more good person is often trying to point out the differences between good and evil, whereas the more evil person wants to maintain some confusion over the matter.
“Get those guns out of the community” then, might be a reaction to a desire to maintain some of that confusion, to avoid addressing something they want kept hidden in the fog. The “bitter clinger” charge lashes out against guns and religion, both of which tend to draw attention to the differences between good and evil. The “bitter clinger” charge, as I see it, reinforces this guns-as-a-symbol concept to explain the rift between the antis and the pro 2As.
See; isn’t this fun?
It certainly seems that it is an idea whose time has come; The printable gun.
Here is a news release I received:
Defense Distributed
codywilson@utexas.eduIs Information Firepower? The Wiki Weapon
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Student Outfit Proposes to Release Open Source Printable Gun File to the World.LITTLE ROCK, AR—August 21, 2012: A new technology is ushering a fundamental shift in how material goods are manufactured and distributed. 3D printing continues to become more sophisticated and accessible to the average consumer.
3D plastic printers like the RepRap are approaching the ability to print 100% of their own parts, and as they are, this multiplies both the means and mode of a new method of production. This technology raises many controversial possibilities, as demonstrated by AR-15 forum user HaveBlue’s recent announcement that he had successfully printed and fired rounds with a plastic AR receiver.
Now, a group called Defense Distributed, a grassroots research and development collective whose volunteer engineers and designers span Arkansas and Texas, are utilizing 3D printing for something they say is unprecedented. Defense Distributed is entering phase two of their development of a digital file to print a plastic civilian defense system, the WikiWeapon. “The WikiWeapon will be capable of firing one .22 round. It is both functional and symbolic”.
This breakthrough begs the question, has gun control obsolesced? Defense Distributed will not be producing any physical objects or digital files for sale. The group intends to freely share the files they create for online sharing once fully developed and tested. “When we’re done, seed and hack this file—improve it if you can” they added.
The mission of Defense Distributed is not armament they say, but the liberation of information. “Information wants to be free” a designer tells me, “with the coming prevalence of 3D printers we hope to contribute to collapsing the distinction between digital information and physical objects”. The group hopes to catalyze our society’s conversation about the distribution of all printable commodities.
Two prototypes are entering the second stage of development but the group of students and weekend warriors requires outside funding for a printer upgrade and more materials. Defense Distributed has begun a crowd-funding campaign at http://indiegogo.com/wikiwep.
Learn more about this project at http://Printablegun.com and participate in the conversation on twitter, @DXliberty
It’s game over for gun control. There’s nothing left but the whimpering and the crying.
I almost always carry concealed, but Saturday I forgot my Hawaiian shirt as I left the house. “Oh well; I’ll open carry”.
I had my daughter with me in the supermarket, when she said we should get some bananas.
We were discussing the amount of bananas we’d been going though lately when a guy standing very close to us blurted out; “Speaking of bananas…!” and then walked off quickly before I could make sense of it.
“I wonder what that was supposed to mean” I said to my daughter.
“I have no idea” she said with a chuckle. Then I realized that the guy probably was responding to the gun on my hip, and the spare mag carrier on the other. So I’d gotten a drive-by criticism. It was a “drive-by” or a “hit and run” because a charge was made with no possibility of a response.
At the risk of over-analyzing; I’ve often said that the left were cowards, and this response reinforces that assertion. The hit-and-run commenter could make the case that he was afraid of confronting an armed man (but then why say anything at all?) but I say he was afraid of what he himself might do in a straight-up conversation.
Two points then. One; the haters simply cannot help themselves– they’ll blurt out their hate reflexively, without hesitation. Two; they’re afraid, both of themselves (they know they’ll embarrass themselves by their own behavior) and of a fair contest in which their assertions might be challenged and laid bare. When you point out a hater’s hate, they hate you for it. Their hate is projected upon you, so as to make you the source of the hate…
In fact of course he had nothing at all to fear. I would simply have said something like, “Do you keep a fire extinguisher in your home?…”
Yesterday morning I spent three hours talking with someone who retired after 26 years with the U.S. Navy as a diver and Explosives Ordnance Disposal expert.
We talked about guns and what guns we were carrying (I was carrying my STI Eagle and they had a Ruger LPC in .380) and Boomershoot a little bit. But mostly I listened to story after story of diving, finding, and disposing of unexploded bombs, shells, water heaters, and mines. Detonating 50,000 pounds of explosives in 80 feet of water apparently makes for a nice water column and lots of dead fish for the local natives to harvest. Another story involved a simulated (with conventional explosives) nuclear blast which left a good sized crater as well as making a decent sized wave in the ocean.
After we said good-bye and I was driving away I had this nagging feeling of something that was a little odd. I described the meeting to a friend as “remarkably unremarkable”.
After a half hour or so of thinking about it… Ahhhh ha! I knew what it was.
The stories were told in such a extremely calm, cool voice. There were some smiles, and some facial expressions which indicated they knew the story was interesting but there was barely any change in the pitch or the tempo of the voice. This person was not easily excited and was not particularly emotional.
That is probably a good personality trait to have in your friendly neighborhood EOD specialist.
I’ve spent hours looking. Lots of opinions and assertions from sellers but few citations. Plus, retailing is not the same thing as manufacturing. I also searched the NRA HQ site and turned up nothing that obviously dealt with the issue of manufacturing and shipping an 1860s style pistol. Idaho’s 18-3315A is pretty awesome, but I want to address manufacturing and trade across states.
I did like this bit from the link above;
(2) A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Idaho and that remains within the borders of Idaho is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce.
—
(4) Subsections (2) and (3) of this section do not apply to:
(a) A firearm that cannot be carried and used by one (1) person;
(b) A firearm that has a bore diameter greater than one and one-half (1 1/2) inches and that uses smokeless powder…
A couple weeks ago when some of the Boomershoot staff put on a small private party it turned out, without prior planning or even a word spoken about carrying in any form, that four out of five people present were open carrying:
Me, Maggie (the weirdo not carrying), Barron, Jacob, and Kim.
Jacob was also open carrying a moderately large fixed blade knife.
…or…
Words Mean Things
Hundreds of years ago, when most long guns were stocked to the muzzle, there was usually a metal part known as the muzzle cap at the end of the stock to protect the thin wood and end grain there. The half stock rifle, with which we are all familiar, often has a cap at the forward end of the stock also, but since it’s not at the muzzle, we call it a nose cap or a forend cap. The forward end, or forward portion of the stock, for hundreds of years, has been called the forend or forestock. For some reason hardly anyone, it seems, uses these terms anymore.
When I tell someone they need a nose cap on their AK before they can use a standard forend, they’re at a loss to understand. For one thing, it is no longer a forend but a handguard, and there is apparently no longer any such thing as a nose cap. In these modern times, when we’re still using the exact same features, we need the new term “handguard retainer”. If I try to add clarity by calling it a forend cap, it still doesn’t work. I have to use some version of “That metal thingy what holds the handguard on at the front of the handguard” but that’s a lot more syllables than the centuries old “nose cap”.
“Stock forend” or “forestock” no longer works. I hear “forearm” more often, but most common is “lower handguard” (but some AKs only have the one, so using “lower” only adds confusion. If a rifle doesn’t have an arm or arms, then it cannot have a “forearm” (the forward portion of an arm). Since a rifle is an “arm” (in a different sense of the word) then a “forearm” would be the muzzle, wouldn’t it, or the front sight or something out there?
What really throws me for a loop is the term “foregrip” which I always take to mean “forward pistol grip”. We sell forward pistol grips, so when you ask me for a “foregrip” I can only conclude that you mean forward pistol grip, which is after all a “foregrip” We sell forends too, but you need a nose cap for a standard forend. “You know; that foregrip you sell” applies, potentially, to a wide spectrum of products. When I ask, “Which one?” I almost always get a “what?” or a “the one you have on your web site”. We have a lot of them on our web site, which you would know if you’d looked at it, which I assume you did or you wouldn’t be talking about it. You might as well say, “You know– the one I’m thinking about. I can see it right here in my mind– why can’t you see it in my mind?”
Do you know where your rifle stock’s heel, toe, comb, wrist, forend, nose and nose cap are located? Or is each feature “That thingy, there, next to or at the end of that other doo-hicky, what holds the thing you hold on to…there…by the bracket”? I swear; I have several conversations per day that go along those lines.
Recently I had a guy completely reiterate everything I said, “just to be clear” in his words. He knew all the parts, he knew how to use the language, he knew what part he had called to talk about, and he got everything exactly right. I had to take a break, take a deep breath, and tell everyone about it.
Anyway; I take the common misuse of terms, or unfamiliarity with the jargon, to mean that there are a lot of new gun owners out there, so I try to be as patient as I can. The other day I told a guy he needed to be sure he got Picatinny rings for our M8 rail. Problem was, he didn’t know what “Picatinny”, “rail”, or “rings” meant, nor “Leupold” nor “Burris”. I had to explain the meaning and derivation of each term and how it applied to his situation. “Leupold is a manufacturer of optics including rifle scopes…” At one point in the conversation he said he’d have to call those folks at the Picatinny Arsenal and order some of those rings. He ended up spending a couple hundred dollars with us, so I must not have sounded too exasperated with him.
While I’m at it; a sight is not a site. This is the first time I have cited the use of “site” when “sight” would have been right.
The gun culture is a prime example. Think of hunters, competitors, open carry, concealed carry, collectors, etc.
Other human cultures I have observed (such as software developers, boating, and sex) exhibit the same characteristic.
This is pretty cool:
I wouldn’t shoot it at any metal I wasn’t able to clean up almost immediately because of the risk of corrosion. But maybe granulated sugar would work almost as well.
I almost bought one of those MechTech carbine conversions for my Glock 20 once. “Cool– a 10 mm carbine!” (Hat Tip Uncle)
But then I thought; What would I do with it? If my Glock is in carbine config, I don’t have it as a carry pistol. Do I carry another pistol in a smaller caliber? Do I get another pistol? But in the latter case I’ve spent enough I could get another puspose-built carbine like an AR, an M1 Carbine, used Ruger Deerfield etc. for the same money or even less. And come to think of it a 44 Mag levergun would be pretty nice, or an old Marlin Camp.
At this stage I have so many guns, and each one is this on-going program (load selection or load development, sight configuration, magazine and ammo inventory, on and on) so each one demands a certain amount of time. On the other hand, what is cool and fun is cool and fun, so I never stop thinking of that next cool gun or that next cool caliber.
New shooter Maggie had been to the range only once before. On Saturday daughter Kim, her boyfriend Jacob, Barron and I showed her how we make Boomerite and then let her shoot about 15 or 20 seven inch targets.
Her very first shot with a rifle was at a Boomerite target. It was a hit:
Try getting a smile like that at an “anti-gun range”.
Every choice is a trade-off. “You want armor to be light,
effective, and cheap. Pick any two.” So, sometimes you have to figure out what
are the most critical limiting factors, and go from there.
An ideal gun is light weight, accurate, shoots flat, hits
hard, has little recoil and comfortable ergonomics, has long barrel life, is reliable,
is low maintenance, has inexpensive and light weight ammo, and is easy to
operate… Yaahhh…. Riiiight…..
Back to reality.
The bullet does the work – everything else is just delivery
system. So, to stop a person or other living target (or set off a boomer), the bullet needs enough energy when it hits to do the job. Launching
the bullet imparts the energy into the bullet, and that causes recoil, requires
a gun, etc. Generally speaking, the greater the muzzle energy, the more the
recoil, the more wear on the gun, the greater the cartridge weight required, the
higher the chamber pressure, the more difficulty there is in noise suppression,
etc. So, an ideal cartridge would have some maximum tolerable muzzle energy,
and a minimum retained energy out to some desirable range.
What should those three numbers be? It depends on the
application. For the moment, I’ll consider military rifle cartridges (and perhaps Boomershoot guns). Maybe a
future essay will consider other applications.
If you generate much more than about 2000 ft·lb
of ME, a lot of smaller or less experiences shooters may have a problem flinching
or bruising from significant use, unless well trained and given sufficient
practice. Also, at closer range most bullets with more than 2000 ft·lb
will just waste an increasing percentage of their energy beyond the target,
after full penetration, on the backstop. (For comparison, 2000 ft·lb
is a typical muzzle energy for a .243 Winchester). Much less than about 400 ft·lb
is getting into a very marginal area for stopping power, cover or body armor penetration,
etc. (around 400 ft·lb is a typical 9 mm or 45 ACP round ME). For most
shooters, anything beyond a thousand yards is problematic for all sorts of
reasons, but out to that range an argument can be made, especially in places
like Afghanistan or Iraq, or in farm country with large fields, where distances
are long.
Challenge Summary: Muzzle energy less than 2000 ft·lb, greatest possible retained energy at
1000 yards, preferably at least 400 ft·lb.
It’s easy to find cartridges with less than 2000 ft·lb
muzzle energy. The problem is that most of them in larger calibers (30 cal and
up) are relatively fat, light, low BC bullets, or slow heavy ones that have a
trajectory like a rainbow and a time-of-flight measured in cups of coffee. The
smaller calibers (like .223), bullets are too light to carry much energy for
the distance, and start having severe wind problems at significant ranges. (For
comparison, a 5.56 NATO 77 gr bullet has a bit less than 1400 ft·lb
ME, and a 7.62 NATO 175 gr bullet has about 2600 ft·lb ME.)
It’s also easy to find cartridges that retain at least 400
ft·lb
at 1000 yd: just GO BIG. Heavy bullet, big brass, lots of powder, good to go.
But that generates more recoil, higher pressures, needs heavier guns, has
heavier ammo, more recoil, shorter barrel life, and so-forth.
Retaining energy argues that only high ballistic coefficient
bullets will likely manage to meet this challenge. A 6.5mm mid-weight bullet
with a high BC, like a Lapua 123 gr Scenar (BC of .547) launched at moderate
velocities, can be loaded to have both a ME less than 2000 ft·lb,
and have more than 400 ft·lb
at 1000 yards. One of the few current cartridges that meet this challenge is
the 6.5mm Grendel. It still has 372 ft·lb at 1000 meters in a factory loading, shot from a mid-length barrel. For
comparison, at 1000 yards, a 5.56 NATO 77 gr bullet has less than 200 ft·lb
of energy (similar to a .32 Auto), and a 7.62 NATO 175 gr has retained a bit
under 600 ft·lb
energy (similar to a typical 40 S&W shot from a 5” barrel). Also note that for reliable boomer detonation, a velocity of at least 1500 fps is generally required, and a typical 6.5 Grendel round is still moving faster than that at 700 yards (unless you are using a fairly short barrel).
The 6.5 mm cartridges have an excellent reputation with
hunters, as well as target shooters, and smokeless powder 6.5mm cartridges have
been around for well over a century, so there are a wide range of bullets
available for loading your own for any particular application you might have.
Ponder, think, consider, contemplate….
The manuals for some of the percussion guns suggest loading with a rather small powder charge, saying that anything more is just “showing off” (never mind that these replicas were originally designed for a full cylinder of powder and ball, else the cylinders would be shorter to save steel and weight).
By that reasoning, I suppose anything more powerful than a 22 Short is purely showing off. For that matter, using a gun at all is showing off. You should use a bow. But maybe that’s showing off, so you should use a slingshot. No doubt using a slingshot could be seen as showing off, so you should use a spear, but come to think of it that could be showing off, so use your bare hands. Someone using theior bare hands for something that would betterbe done with a gun is certainly showing off– no question.
The only proper choice then, if we follow this line of reasoning, is to never do anything, but that, for sure and for certain, is showing off your piety your restraint or your modesty. I hate it when people like to flaunt their modesty all over the place. Show offs!
In my home county. The report said “shrapnel” but that term doesn’t quite apply here. “Shrapnel” consists of separate metal fragments, usually balls, placed around an explosive weapon for the purpose of increasing lethality, not to be confused with shell fragments or secondary projectiles. The differences in this case being “purpose” and “weapon”.
No, Young Grasshopper– If you’re going to blow up something with your exploding target, put the explosive target in front of it, so the fragments fly back and away from you and any spectators, then make sure there is ample backstop because fragments, especially from a ductile metal like mild steel or copper, have been known to accelerate to some major percentage of the explosion velocity (or so I was told by those who claim to know). This guy was airlifted to hospital in serious condition. Estimated distance from target; 50 yards. Some mistakes are painful. And expensive. I bet he won’t make that particular one again.
Ry and I once detonated a teeny weeny Boomerite target in front of an extra heavy railroad tie plate (nearly an inch thick, IIRC), and that plate flew 75 yards (back and away from us – we were thinking a little bit at least) after being severely bent. Maybe Ry could fill in some detail on that one.
Today I took son James and daughter-in-law Kelsey shooting. This was the first time for Kelsey. James and I had told her it was an option for her if she was ever interested. But I never pushed her on it. To the best of my knowledge James has not either. A few weeks ago they informed me that Kelsey had decided she would like to learn to shoot because it would help her feel safer when James wasn’t home.
This was a really big deal for Kelsey. Her family is somewhat anti-gun. When she told them she was going to learn to shoot a gun they “sort of freaked out”.
This morning I went over to do the “classroom” portion of the lesson. I had done a tiny bit previously in the weeks previously when I would go over for dinner on Monday nights. I wanted to refresh those lessons and get her ready for actually pulling the trigger on a live round.
I reviewed the sight picture with her and immediately noticed that she was cross-eye dominate. She is right handed but her left eye is dominate. We reviewed her options and she tried various things with my plastic gun. She decided she probably would be shooting left handed.
I asked her if she remembered the three safety rules (I teach the NRA rules, not the Jeff Cooper’s). She hesitated just a bit but told me:
Wow! That was interesting! She got the essence of the rules correct but she turned them all into negatives. The NRA rules are positive statements of what you should do. I explained that it was, to exaggerate the point some, like telling someone not to think of pink elephants. The actual NRA three gun safety rules are:
I showed her the proper grip and stance then went over the mantra “trigger prep, sight alignment, squeeze, follow through”. I had her use one of my plastic guns to practice going from a high ready position to a fire position simultaneous with using the mantra.
I told her that eventually she would be able to look at something close her eyes then point the gun at what she had just seen without needing the sights. Just like pointing at something with her finger.
It was at this point that she said, “I’m not sure I ever want to be able to do that.”
Huh?
She explained that when she held a gun in her hand she was very aware that she was holding “Life in her hands.” Interesting choice of words I thought but didn’t tell her that. Most people, in particular anti-gun people, would say, “Death in their hands.” She did not want to be so comfortable with a gun that she took it causally. She even expressed concern that she might become a sociopath. I tried to explain that wasn’t something that was going to happen at her age but she interrupted and said that she had been concerned that she might give birth to a sociopath since the age of 13 and no one had been able to dissuade of that in the intervening years and I wasn’t going to be able to talk her out of that concern in the next few minutes. I let that drop but asked, “What about using a gun to stop an attack against you?” She wasn’t sure, “It depends on what their situation was. What if they were just at a really bad point in their life?” “What about defending the life of your child?”, I asked and got a similar answer. The same for someone stomping on her puppy or cat.
Interesting.
I went on to the next lesson and showed her how to determine if a gun was unloaded–verify the source of ammunition has been removed and the chamber is empty.
I had her dry fire my STI. I repeatedly manually racked the slide and she “got” the reason for leaning into the shot and having the elbows slightly bent to absorb the recoil.
We went to the range and the public bay was crowed. Very crowded. The members bay was less crowded but we had to go through the public bay to get to the member’s bay. A shot went off as we entered the public bay and even with my best electronic muffs on Kelsey jumped and cowered. James and I hurried her into the members bay. But even there the shots from next door caused her to jump and nearly curl into a fetal position while still standing.
“It’s so loud!”, she said. After a brief consultation, James asked if I had any foam plugs she could use. I didn’t but the gun store was open and we left to get them.
She put them in and we returned. I can’t say that I could see it improved her demeanor any. And each shot made it worse. She was curled up, shaking, sweating, and crying. I told James that we should take her home. If she still wanted to learn we could go again sometime out in the woods with Ry and his suppressed .22. James started talking to Kelsey and I packing up our stuff. I shouldered my backpack and was ready to walk out but James said she still wanted to try it. I asked why. Kelsey said because she had said she would do it. “That doesn’t matter,” I told her. If you really want to do this we can do this another time when and where it’s much quieter. She insisted and I relented.
I had her dry fire the Ruger Mark II. She still jumped every time another gun went off some place. But the crying and shaking had stopped.
I put a single round in a magazine, racked the slide, and let her pick up the gun to shoot at the target about eight feet away. She brought the gun up and pointed it at the target. She hesitated and then quickly put the gun down. “I can’t do it!”, she said. “Okay, you don’t have to,” I told her. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t think you are ready and I think we should go home so we can talk about this.”
I started to pack up again. But she said, “How about I just hold the gun and you pull the trigger?” “I’m fine with that”, I said.
She picked up the gun and pointed it at the target. I repeated the mantra as I put my finger over hers in the trigger guard. I just barely touched her finger and was starting to say “squeeze” when the gun went off.
She put the gun down and started jumping up and down. “I did it!” she exclaimed. The guns booming on either side no longer mattered. From then on she didn’t stop smiling until we left the range except to pout when she had emptied a magazine. I started taking pictures and then a video:
I showed her where first shot ever hit. It was about 5:30, just inside the black.
She asked to do it again. I started to put in a half-full magazine. “Not that many. Just one. Maybe two,” she said.
I loaded the gun with two rounds.
Those went quickly and she asked for three rounds.
Then a full magazine.
And then another, and another, and another.
James shot for a while then Kelsey returned to the bench. I had her hold my partial brick of .22 ammo. She didn’t understand the joke but held it for me anyway:
I merely said the boxes had gotten a little bit wet, then dried, and were sticking together. I’ll have to explain it to her tomorrow when we go sailing.
She burned through magazine after magazine with fire blazing from the barrel. She emptied the magazines faster than I could reload.
She moved the target out to nearly 30 feet and could still keep them in the black at will. It was only when she pushed the speed that the rounds strayed a bit. But only one was outside the rings and all were on the paper:
When we brought the last target in she pointed to the big hole in the paper and with almost a growl said, “I killed it!”
Anti-gun for 25+ years then turned into a budding sociopath in just over an hour. Sarah Brady’s worst nightmare just came true. Damn! I’m good.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates that 10-12 billion rounds of ammunition are produced domestically each year, while billions more are imported.
Previously I had been inferring the total sales were in the 10-12 billion range.
Regardless, if, as many anti-gun people claim, guns are only good for killing there sure are a lot of defective guns and/or ammunition out there.