ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou!
Awesome event, as always. Please accept my thanks and pass them on to all your volunteers and family.
This was my tenth year and I’m already planning for the 11th…
Dave B.
April 30, 2012
Via email regarding Boomershoot 2012.
[In my opinion Boomershoot 2012 was very nearly perfect. I’ll say more later when I have more time but from my view point things went very well this year.—Joe]
…but the manufacturer defaced it horribly by putting lettering and numbering all over it. I wouldn’t mind owning one, but then I’d be forced to advertize for Colt’s without compensation, flashing that company name and address around everywhere I went. They should pay me to own it. And those serial numbers? Those weren’t required by law in the 1840s and ’50s, and the gun would look SO much tidier without them.
(This in response to people who complain that my products have to be defaced with my company’s name and the model number, or the patent number in some cases. It turns out that there’s also a significant culture in the muzzleloader world that hates the idea of signed or numbered guns. That fact that maker’s marks, serial numbers, inspectors marks and proof marks have been a necessary and worthwhile part of manufacturing since Grok made his first stone club seems to get lost on some people. Maybe the famous works of art would be worth more if they’d never been signed, too [they were such shameless self promoters they turned every work of art into an advertizing billboard for themselves]. We do refrain from using flashing lights in our logo if that’s any consolation. Our engraved logos are matte black on matte black, but they’re still too obnoxious for some people)
I had no idea.
Next year we are coming back with all our friends.
Charles
Spouse of 30 Cal Gal
April 29, 2012
[This was in regards to the awesomeness of Boomershoot where his wife and Shelley were shooting.—Joe]
This is boring. I just keep hitting the same spot.
Matthew Jensen
April 27, 2012
[He was shooting my “Spud Gun” at a 700 yard steel target. He was hitting the same spot on the target…
I love my Spud Gun. He did have an excellent coach in one of Gene Econ’s staff, but still the gun, ammo and shooter had to be doing their job too.—Joe]
In an e-mail from Oleg Volk;
“Fetishizing the gun…
“American antis will flip at this animation series…”
Yup.
Last February I was contacted by Eye Safety Systems (ESS) out of Sun Valley Idaho. They make high end eye protection glasses. They wanted to participate in Boomershoot and to make a long story short that is how Boomershoot ended up with 30 Cal Gal and Shelley Rae signed up for Boomershoot this year.
ESS also sent me three pair of their glasses. They are very nice glasses. One thing that I despise about nearly all safety glasses is something that isn’t that hard to do right and ESS did it right. When most glasses are folded up the tip of the ear piece touches the inside of the lens. This scuffs the plastic and you end up with a partially blind spot in one or both eyes. The ESS glasses I have been using don’t do that. The ear piece will not touch the inside of the lens. I have been carrying a pair around in my coat pocket (inside the cloth pouch provided) for almost two months now and the glasses are still scuff free. They are comfortable to wear and give me a great field of view and wrap around protection.
Here is more of what ESS has to say about their glasses and their attendance at Boomershoot:
Idaho-based company ESS (Eye Safety Systems) will be present at this weekend’s Boomershoot events. ESS manufactures the sole issued eyewear of the United States Marine Corps and is a leading supplier to the U.S. Army & all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense. Their military-grade eye protection is gaining in popularity and is highly-regarded amongst those in the know in the commercial shooting market.
ESS will be offering free demos of select shooting-specific models of its MIL-SPEC, ANSI Z87.1+ protective eyewear, including the Crossbow Suppressor which is the only eyewear completely engineered for optimal function under ear cup style hearing protection. Inquire at the ESS tent on site and/or with ESS employees regarding their demos and event specials. Visit www.esseyepro.com to learn more.
Here’s a quote I got today from a customer. We were going back and fourth regarding the configuration of his rifle and which of the vastly superior UltiMAK optic mounts would fit it. I paraphrase for clarity;
“…mine is a sporterized one… No scary features– to keep our state politicians’ diapers dry.” (he’s in the PRC)
I’ve eschewed potty jokes of late, as they’re usually not productive. This one brings up a key point though. My first thought after reading it was; Who cares, or should ever care, about politicians who would soil themselves at the thought of a well and properly armed citizenry, i.e. who cares what a coward thinks?
This is an open message to all politicians and law enforcement. If you’re afraid of a citizenry that has its rights fully respected, exercised and protected, you’re either a coward, a criminal or a fool, and in any of those cases you don’t belong in your position. Your position is for those who respect and love liberty, and have both the courage and the personal wherewithal to protect it.
(Disclaimer; my wife is a public school teacher, so although I preach liberty, and the responsibility of self reliance that comes with it, some of my household income derives from a coercive redistribution racket)
A couple weeks ago I took the USPSA range officer class with Ry and Barron. I got my grade back today. I passed with a 92 on my first try. Ry got a 88 and Barron got a 94. 85 is passing.
This means we will have officially certified (assuming the certification comes through in time) range officers at Boomershoot 2012.
Via an e-mail from the NRA (Yes; I am part of the “triangle of death” and as a card-carrying member, I get the sooper secret decoder ring and classified e-mails)
What’s up with gun sales? Americans are rediscovering the fun and utility of gun ownership, that’s what. People are starting to shrug off the effects of political and social bullying, saying “to heck with all that nonsense – guns are good, I want one and I’m buying one (or three)”.
This is how we win:
The Brady Campaign has no response to this sort of thing.
Ry relates the short version of a conversation we overheard at class on Saturday. It did shutdown the direction of that conversation really fast.
If it weren’t a derogatory phrase I would start calling “Guy two”, whose name is Bob, “Baghdad Bob“.
Remember:
Birth control is not cleaning your guns…on the couch… in your underwear… every time she brings a boy over. It’s doing it on his couch.
Christopher Pearson
March 26, 2012
Via the gun email list at work.
[While this parenting technique has its merits it’s also probably a pretty good way to get your daughter pissed at you.
Not that I have any experience in that regard. But I will say that being about a foot taller than your daughter’s date, wearing all black, armed, wearing a Boomershoot coat and silently following about eight feet behind them for 50 yards as they leave the movie theater in the mall and out into the parking lot before they notice leaves an impression too.—Joe]
Today I brought a couple rifles back to the Seattle area for cleaning and preparation for Boomershoot. I call my place “The Clock Tower”.
As I was climbing the stairs with my cased rifles and openly carried pistol on my hip I wondered what the response would be if someone in this liberal enclave saw me as I was lugging the precision rifles up the stairs. Should I hurry inside to reduce the time they have to figure out the contents of the cases? Should I stop and chat with them and invite them to the range or maybe even Boomershoot?
In either case will the friendly neighborhood SWAT team pay me a visit early tomorrow morning?
Somehow I doubt people lugging books or political signs up the stairs worry about the quite the same things I do. As long as people carrying books or guns into their home worry about the police breaking down their doors in the early morning hours we have more work to do.
Today Ry, Barron, and I finished our first day of NROI training at the Lewiston Pistol Club. Ry and I figured we had driven the furthest since we came from the Seattle area. But it turns out someone else had driven from Winnemucca, NV. Even without him we would have had to share the title with another guy from the Seattle area (Bellevue).
I have been operating on about five hours of sleep each night for the last several days so I came home and took a nap while others were doing their homework.
I’m awake again and now it’s time for me to do my homework.
It is repeated over and over in regard to hunting. “Get closer”.
It’s an often misunderstood term. I once was criticized for telling a guy to get closer. He hunts on beanfields, or cornfields, that are as flat as flat gets, for as far as the eye can see. He was quite sarcastic about it. “Get closer. Are you kidding? Ever try to sneak up on a deer?”
Well yes, and it can be done if you’re willing to move slow enough and you’re downwind, but that’s not the point.
No, Young Grasshopper. Find out where they’re going to be, and get yourself in there beforehand. See? You’re not “getting closer” in the real time, active stalking sense necessarily. You’re allowing your prey to get closer to you. You know them, you know their habits, their needs, their wants, and their hangouts and that allows you to predict their movements.
The longest shot I’ve taken at a living creature was about 85 yards, and it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been in the middle of 100 square miles of open flat land or in the wooded hills bordering the Palouse. If you can observe their habits over time, you’re good to go. Most of my kill shots were in the 15 to 45 yard range, and the closest deer were oblivious right up the moment of impact. (In Joe’s world, “closer” is anything inside 1,000 yards)
If you want to take all this as metaphor, that’s your business. It applies in many fields anyway.
As kids, we liked to shoot, and one of the things we liked to shoot was cans. Bottles were cool too, but we mostly did that at the dump since it sprays broken glass all over the place. One of the first cans I shot was with .22 Shorts (very low power ammunition) from a handgun. One bullet entered a can at a tangent and spun several times around the inside (“PZzzzzit!”) making the can levitate off the ground a little and leaving raised ridges protruding around the outside of the steel. Fascinating. That was in the 1960s.
So of course when I recently got some good performing loads worked up for a 30-30 Winchester carbine model of 1894, I was going to shoot some cans. It’s the natural order of things.
The two milk cans below (both were filled with water) were shot using the same 170 grain bullet cast from #2 lead alloy, from the same carbine at the same distance. The only difference was the powder charge. The can in the first photo was hit at around 1600 feet per second, with the bullet coming in from the left and exiting to the right. Note that the entry side is blown out much more than the exit (a not uncommon phenomenon when you have a harder outer shell containing a softer, more fluid material). You can see that the neat little bullet entry hole is split in half.
The can below was hit at around 2000 fps, again with the bullet coming in from the left and exiting to the right. It’s more like a cherry bomb went off inside it. The top separated and flew waaaay up into the air. I never did find it.
Yes it’s a little bit childish, and yes it is a lot of fun. Though I’ve done this sort of thing hundreds of times and I’ve had this carbine since the mid ’90s, just the other day I found myself chuckling like a ten year old boy with a new toy. It’s hard to explain. Several previous outings were for the purpose of recording velocities, accuracy and sight adjustments for various loads. That may be some fun, but it resembles work too. This time out, just for shooting, was very different– more like a meditative state of near total concentration and peace. Would that we could spend most of our lives in that state.
In case you’re wondering; I doubt there was any significant bullet expansion. The hard cast round nose bullets were not recovered, but at those low velocities (for a rifle) I’d bet they held their shape fairly well. I plan to try recovering some later, using several water jugs as a trap. So we’ll see.
Via email from Stan E. is this video news report about a woman’s shooting league.
We offer the enabling of self reliance and determination.
What do the anti-gun people have to offer in response? Just dependency and victimhood.
Is it any wonder they are losing?
Via email from author Paul Barrett
This Sunday, the newsmagazine “CBS Sunday Morning” will air an extended segment on Glock — the pistol, the company, and the man behind them — based in part on my new book, GLOCK: The Rise of America’s Gun (www.glockthebook.com). Anthony Mason, CBS’s Senior Correspondent for Business and Economics, reported the piece. He attended SHOT Show, did some shooting with a Glock, and interviewed me. How do you think the network will handle the issue?
We shall see Sunday morning!
All best,
Paul Barrett
My guess is the anti-gun people (all 10 of them) will be more unhappy than the pro-gun people.
I put some brass in the tumbler in the garage in Idaho to clean and forgot to turn it off. I then went back to the Seattle area. When I got back to Idaho nearly two weeks later the brass was very shiny:
This isn’t the first time I have forgot to turn off the tumbler. But I have never let it run for 13 days before.
Share with your media contacts:
Boomershoot.org Media Invite: Intro to Explosives Magazine
by: robosapien1010
For more information see Boomershoot.
