Category Archives: Gun Fun

Headspace

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Headspace is simple.  It’s the distance from the gun’s bolt face to the surface inside the chamber that stops the forward motion of the cartridge as it’s inserted.  In a bottleneck cartridge, the case headspaces on the shoulder.


Many shooters, and all reloaders, know that.  But I think there’s a misunderstanding of case length (maybe it’s just my misunderstanding).  We’re told in all the manuals to carefully check the length of our cases before reloading, and to trim them if they’re beyond a certain specified length.


Actually there are two important case lengths to a bottlenecked case.  The distance from the head to the shoulder, and the distance from the shoulder to the case mouth.


My Winchester has what I regard to be excessive headspace, which means that if I fire a factory load, the case will stretch backward, to fill the extra space.  I suspect most of the stretching is between the shoulder and the bolt face.  If I neck size the case, or size it so the shoulder is pushed back only a thousandth or two, the case is now “too long” and I am told, in all the loading manuals, to trim it.  That would be shortening the neck in response to stretching behind the shoulder, and it would accomplish nothing.


Sure; the cases being loaded should all be the same length so they’re crimped equally, but I won’t know how far the case’s neck extends into the chamber by just measuring the overall length of the case.  Once I have a case that’s fire-formed to my rifle’s chamber, the neck may or may not need trimming.


Are there case gauges that make it easy to take a measurement of the mouth-to-shoulder length as well as the headspace?  Should I just shut up and full-length size all my cases, trim them to spec, and wait for the cases to deteriorate from excessive stretching and sizing? (the rifle was checked by a “gunsmith” and declared to be within spec, BTW)

North Central Idaho Appleseed Rifle Marksman Clinic

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Via email:

The Lewiston Pistol Club will host an Appleseed Rifle Marksman Clinic at the Bernie Petersen Memorial Range on May 14-15, 2011.  The entire range will be reserved from 8 – 5 on Saturday and Sunday. 

The Appleseed Clinic focuses on the basics of good marksmanship – sight alignment, sight picture, breath control, trigger control and follow through.  Interspersed with the shooting, the Clinic leaders deliver an oral history of April 19th, 1775 – the day the shot heard around the world was fired on the Lexington green. 

The Appleseed Clinic is an excellent introduction to rifles for youth and beginners.  But even old hands have trouble passing the graduation exam – the Army Qualification Test.  The final target is the size of a postage stamp at 25 meters.  Think that’s an easy shot?  Come show us how it’s done!
•    General information on Appleseed: http://www.appleseedinfo.org/index.html
•    LPC Appleseed Clinic information: http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=18878.0
•    LPC Appleseed Registration: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1080526885
•    Information on what to bring: http://www.appleseedinfo.org/as_prepare.html

If you have any questions regarding the Appleseed Project or specifics for coming that day, please contact Larry Cernik at r.contender AT juno.com.

If you have any questions regarding the LPC portion of the Appleseed Clinic, please contact me at action AT lewistonpistol.org.

John Grimes
LPC Action Director

‘My Gunsmith Says…’

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I’ve put off saying this for about ten years, but it’s gotten to be too much.  “Sorry” to you good gunsmiths.  I know you’re out there.  I’d say that you know who you are, and I’m sure you do, but the problem is; the bad ones also think they’re the good ones.  They’re super good, even.  That’s always the way it works.  I began to realize this some time in the 1970s when I was in the early stages of my career as a musical instrument mechanic with an alternate career as a live sound mixer (“technician” or “engineer”, respectively, for those who feel it needs to sound exciting and hard to reach).


The really smart sound engineers could quote you all the specs of every piece of gear they had.  They could recite from memory the center frequencies of all 31 bands of a graphic equalizer, for example.  After they had everything all set up and the system response tweaked using the pink noise generator with the front-of-house EQs, monitor EQs and active crossovers, when the performance actually started (which is when the real job of actually making it all sound good actually begins) they’d turn around satisfied, sit down, and have a sandwich and a little chat about sweet nothings.  Man, those guys were really smart, and they often made sure everyone around them understood that they were smart.  Why, they went to college, and stuff, don’t you know?


It seems we get an inordinate proportion of failed or stalled UltiMAK mount installations, an inordinate number of misunderstandings of how the system works, from, you guessed it– gunsmiths.


Apparently, they know and understand far too much to be bothered with reading and following the instructions.  Even when they contact me about this or that perceived problem, they are too smart to accept my explanations.  They, you see, understand mechanics better than the person who designed the system, built the first prototypes using hand tools and common power tools in a musical instrument shop, did the majority of testing, wrote most of the patent claims, and used the system for over ten years.  They tell me all the reasons why it can’t possibly, ever work, why my hands-on experience is wrong, why the experience of over ten thousand users of a single model is all wrong, and how I’m being a dumb jerk for suggesting they might just go ahead and follow the simple instructions to the letter anyway and then see how it goes.


Since an inordinate number of damaged mounts have come from such gunsmiths also (again, because they are smarter and more experienced) I have to wonder how many of them go on to become politicians, city administrators, professors, or left wing community organizers.  There is an uncanny set of parallels.

Wild-eyed Extremist Enters Public School with Four Shotguns!

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No arrests were made.


And he was thanked for doing so.


Once again it’s trap shooting season at our kids’ high school (now I suppose I have to qualify; by “our kids” I do NOT mean kids in general as though they’re all “ours” and “We” are all responsible for raising them and feeding them, etc., but instead I refer to the actual offspring of my wife and me) and I was invited to teach the required gun safety class again this year.  The FFA shooting team consists of 9th through 12th graders, and we had around 13 show up for the class.


I had to get special permission just to bring the guns into the school (with no live ammo of course) and even then I could not have the students physically touch them.  I had to use the guns only as props, to explain some of the different action types.  A friend even loaned me a 16 gauge, bolt-action shotgun– a Mossberg 190– detachable box magazine, ported barrel and adjustable choke, and kids thought it was cool, which of course it is.  Smart kids.


The NRA safety courses have each student, in turn, demonstrate their ability to safely load and unload each action type, using inert ammunition, while also demonstrating proper muzzle and trigger discipline.  That of course gives the student the far better understanding that only comes from hands-on experience, but it was meant not to be.  The one condition placed on my being allowed to bring guns in was that only I could touch them.  A good and proper safety class would be too dangerous, I suppose, yet they allow bicycles (and even automobiles!) on campus.  Go figure.


Still and all; there was more appreciation showed this year, both from the students and their parents, and I saw more gleams in more eyes than before as parents made a point of coming over and thanking me before leaving.  In the past they’ve been more interested in simply getting home.  It may be my imagination, or wishful thinking, but I’m sensing a change in attitudes, as more people are talking amongst the community.

A simple physics problem

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Given: Ry uses his AR-15 to shoot 1200 grams of Boomerite contained in a coffee creamer container. On top of the coffee creamer container is a 60 pound steel contraption for crushing charcoal briquettes and launching the dust into the air. Joe takes a video using his Windows Phone 7 phone and puts it up on YouTube*. In the video you can see the explosion occurred at 11.18 seconds into the video. The charcoal dispenser hits the ground at 14.48 seconds into the video. Afterward Ry measures the horizontal distance the charcoal dispenser traveled. It is 13 yards. Assume the acceleration of gravity on this planet at this location is 32.174 ft/sec2.


Problem: Ignoring air resistance and assuming the initial acceleration was for all practical purposes instantaneous answer the following questions:



  1. How high into the air did the charcoal dispenser go?
  2. At the instant after the detonation what were the horizontal and vertical velocity vectors of the charcoal dispenser?
  3. At the instant after the detonation what was the total velocity vector of the charcoal dispenser?
  4. What was the USPSA power factor of the charcoal dispenser at launch?
  5. If used at an USPSA match does the charcoal dispenser “make Major” for both pistol and rifle competition?

Be sure to use consistent units during the calculations and give the results in English units.


Solution:



  1. The total time in the air is 3.3 seconds. One half of the time is spent going up and the other half is spent going down. The equation of motion for an object dropped in a gravitational field is:

    d = 1/2 a t2

    Where d is the distance traveled in feet, a is the acceleration of the gravitational field, and t is the time in seconds.

    The maximum height can be expressed as:

    d = (32.174/2 ft/sec2) (3.3 sec/2)2
    d = (16.087 ft/sec2)(1.65 sec)2
    d = (16.087 ft/sec2)(2.7225 sec2)
    d = 43.8 ft
  2. The equation of motion for an object traveling at a constant speed is:

    d = v t

    Where d is the distance traveled, v is the velocity, and t is the time.

    This can be used to give us the initial horizontal velocity component.

    Since the total time in the air was 3.3 seconds and the horizontal distance traveled was 13 yards the velocity can be solved for in the following equation:

    13 yards = (v)(3.3 sec)
    v = (13 yards)/(3.3 sec)
    v = 3.94 yards/sec

    or expressed in the more common feet per second:

    v = (3 ft/yard)(3.94 yards/sec)
    v = 11.8 ft/sec

    The vertical component at launch is the same as the final vertical velocity at the moment of impact. The equation of velocity with respect to time is:

    v = a t

    Where v is the final velocity, a is acceleration, and t is the time.

    Hence the initial vertical velocity is:

    v = (32.174 ft/sec2)(3.3/2 sec)
    v = (32.174 ft/sec2)(1.65 sec)
    v = 53.1 ft/sec
  3. The total velocity is the square root of the sum of the squares of the horizontal and vertical velocities. Hence the total velocity at the instant after detonation was:

    v = SQRT((11.8 ft/sec)2 + (53.1 ft/sec)2)
    v = 54.4 ft/sec
  4. IPSC Power Factor is expressed by the following equations

    PF = (m v)/1000

    Where m is the mass of the bullet in grains and v is the velocity of the bullet in ft/sec.

    There are 7000 grains in one pound. Hence the mass of the “bullet” is (7000)(60) or 420,000 grains.

    Hence the IPSC Power Factor is:

    PF = (420,000)(54.4)/1000
    PF = 22,848
  5. The minimum USPSA power factor required to make major with a pistol is 165. For rifle it is 320. Since 22,848 is greater than both 165 and 320 the answer is “Yes”.


* The YouTube video:



Confetti and charcoal dispensing with Boomerite

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Ry, Barron, and I went to the Boomershoot site today to do some more tests.

Apparently I left the glitter at my bunker in the Seattle area but we had the confetti and as we passed through Kendrick we picked up some charcoal briquettes on a whim.

The confetti was totally uninteresting:

Dispensing charcoal briquettes was more interesting:

The briquettes are far cheaper than chalk and no special packaging is required. The use of charcoal briquettes for Boomershoot 2011 is now the official plan of record.

We did manage to destroy the dispenser. In hindsight it was a stupid thing we did. There is a construction flaw in the current dispensers. The hole in the center should have the armor plate welded to the one inch plate all around the hole as instead of simply at the edges. We managed to get enough pressure build up between the two plates that we broke some of the welds. It can be repaired and I will do so the next time I go back to the farm.

Got Glock?

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The anti-gun people make the best gun salesmen and gun dealers are scrambling to take advantage of the unexpected demand created by the Brady Campaign, Violence Policy Center, and Representative Carolyn McCarthy. Via email:

Victory Glock 21 27rd Magazines
Victory Glock 21 27rd Magazines

$19.95
Glock Magazines
Glock Factory Magazines

$19.95

Victory Glock .40 S&W 31rd Magazines
Victory Glock .40 S&W 31rd Magazines

Price: $12.00
Victory Glock 9mm 33rd Magazines
Victory Glock 9mm 33rd Magazines

$12.00

You’re the Boomershoot guy

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[The following story is true. The names and many of the details have been obscured to protect the guilty. The dialog has been altered to make it more readable, concise, and enhance dramatic effect.]

A few months ago I was at a social gathering and a certain couple asked me about Barb who was not in attendance. They had met her before and said they would like to see her again. I told them it was her week to work in Idaho. They expressed interest in seeing her the next time she came over to the Seattle area and I told them I would tell her. Over the following months similar encounters occurred.

When I informed Barb she said, “They aren’t interested in me. It just that you are the Boomershoot guy.” I expressed my skepticism but allowed that hypothesis contained a grain of truth. The husband of the couple had previously attended Boomershoot and expressed his enthusiasm for the event. But I couldn’t really see how that would extend to Barb and me in the manner indicated. But you don’t stay married as long as I have by arguing with your wife over issues that just don’t matter.

As the months went on the husband attended the social events less frequently and the wife continued to attend. She and I sort of hung out together some and it was pretty obvious she was expressing more “interest” in me than others at the events. Not that I minded. I enjoyed her company too. She is smart, funny, about my age, and a pleasure to be around. But I eventually asked, “Why are you so interested in me?” Her answer, “Because you are the Boomershoot guy!”

Oh!

Barbara was right. I sometimes don’t like to admit that and this was one of those times. Oh well. It doesn’t matter. Or does it?

It wasn’t too much later that I was attempting to get registration opened up for Boomershoot 2011 and I attended another social event at which the wife was there. The conversation went something like this:

Wife [in a low voice as she is stroking my shoulder]: My husband thinks I should be able to get one of those Boomershoot positions from you.

Joe: Where is your husband?

Wife [moving very close and looking me square in the eyes]: He’s at home tonight. But he helped me shave for you. Won’t that help get one of those positions?

Joe: You’ll be among the first to know when registration is opened up.

I did let them know all the details as to when registration opened up for Boomershoot and the husband got his position. For the payment I was offered “Cash, on your dresser.” I took payment online via a credit card.

The next time I attended Barbara went with me. The wife was there but didn’t hang around with Barb and I. I wonder why?

Then after the post I made mentioning the above events I received an email from the wife:

You should have told everyone sex did get my husband the position he wanted. Think of all of the propositions you would get from women and men too. Your evenings and weekends would be one, hot, lusty encounter after the other. You’d be so busy you couldn’t get ready for Boomershoot.

A groupie

She has a point. I’ll have to consider that for some other time when I no longer have an interest in being married.

I think there are some lessons to be learned here.

  1. Despite what the anti-gun people would like to think, and make you think, men with access to guns and explosives attract women. I have another post I have been meaning to do for quite some time that will confirm it–nearly beyond all doubt.
  2. If men are offering their wives as payment for Boomershoot then it either must be overpriced or I need to expand the number of (shooting) positions.
  3. I will not have a problem getting Barb to attend each and every Boomershoot.

Choke

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Last Sunday I participated in the USPSA match put on by the Lewiston Pistol Club.

On stage 1 my practice with one handed shooting paid off and I had both the best time and the best hits. This gave me a 12 point lead over Master Class shooter Adam.

On stage 2 I saw a way I could use my height to good advantage and shoot the stage in a way the enabled me to avoid stopping at one of the expected shooting positions. This saved me a couple of seconds from what my time would have been and gave me nearly a full second advantage over Adam. He had better hits than I did but he was only up by a little over two points. This left me a little over 10 points in the lead for the match.

On stage 4 (which was shot before stage 3) I shot fairly well, Adam had a few difficulties and didn’t shoot as well as he usually does but better than I did. We had identical hits but he had a better time and he cut my lead to just under 4.2 points.

On stage 3, the classifier, Adam had a malfunction then a miss. His time was poor and with the penalties and the poor hits all I had to do was “not mess up” to win the match. It has been years since I have won a USPSA match. I tried not to think about it but that phrase, “don’t mess up” keep running through my mind.

The stage required shooting five rounds on a target, performing a mandatory reload, then engaging a second target with five rounds. It was very close range. Only six feet away from one target and 10 feet away from the other target. No sights required at this range. Just point the gun and pull the trigger as fast as you can. I’m pretty good at pulling the trigger fast. Going through some of my eyeglasses cam footage I found the slide is sometimes only in the forward/in-battery position for a single frame. In terms of rate of fire I’m pushed the limit of what the gun is capable of achieving (I may actually exceed it at times I need to be wearing my special glasses when I have problems going really fast to diagnose the problem).

My draw was okay, not nearly as good as Adam who was drawing and firing his first shot in the 0.9 range that day, but it didn’t need to be. My splits were fast. All were under 0.15 and some were as fast as 0.12. I had all ‘A’ hits on the first five shots. My reload was slower than I liked but it didn’t matter that much. All I had to do was “not mess up”. I started shooting again on the same target. Again my shots were all ‘A’ hits and very fast. I had fired four shots before I realized I was shooting at the wrong target. I yelled “Dammit!” and put the last round on the correct target. I had messed up—big time. With all the penalties I zeroed the stage. It turns out I only needed 60.2 stage points out of the 100 possible to win the match and I got 0 which gave me a third place finish for the match.

Heavy sigh.

I’m attending another USPSA match tomorrow at the Paul Bunyan Rifle and Sportsman’s Club. I’m going to practice at Wade’s today and I’m going to try shooting with a clear mind rather than “don’t mess up” flooding the neurons.

It Took About 70 Years…

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…or so (I wasn’t counting but for the last few) but the correct optic mount for the U.S. Rifle, Caliber 30, M1, also known as the Garand Rifle, is now available for sale.  We’re waiting to ship until next week, when I’m supposed to have the illustrated  instructions ready, but the product is all ready to go.  In addition to making bullets, I’ll be burning the oil all weekend editing images – we try to make the illustrations serve as a more or less stand-alone picture storybook, for them that gets their information better if it’s visual.



Pretty, methinks, though I may be slightly prejudiced.


Use any IER (Scout) scope, reflex or holographic sight.  Pistol scopes may be used also, but need more eye relief and you’ll be mounting them as far forward as they’ll go.  The scout scopes are a perfect match, as is the Aimpoint Micro, Comp, et al, which also allow co witnessing.


If the rifle is good with its iron sights, it’s just as good, only faster and in a far wider range of lighting conditions, with a good optic, even a good 1x optic.


There has been a general assumption that a dot sight is a close quarters sight.  That is true, in the same sense that iron sights are for close quarters, except of course that the dot sight is a vastly superior system.  The dot sight still has its advantages on the longer shots, out to your iron sight maximum range.  More in-depth info on electronic sights here.



That’s the T1 on the new UltiMAK M12.  Now you can punch more holes, in more things, faster, under more lighting conditions, with more confidence.


The weight of the mount body, clamps and screws is 6.16 ounces.  The walnut handguard with retainer clip, that the mount replaces, weighs about 2.24 ounces, so the net installed weight is 3.92 ounces.  Your figure may vary depending on your handguard.  The mount clamps to a tapered barrel, so just like our M8 mount for the M-14, it needs a recoil lug to prevent the mount “falling off the taper”.  The M1 has that rear barrel band right there, pinned to the barrel, hence the M12’s front clamp has been extended a few thousandths beyond the front of the mount body, to engage the barrel band.  It uses two discreet clamping positions, like all our mounts, so there is never an issue with minor variations in barrel profiles.  In this case, as with our M6 for the 30 Carbine, it is cantilevered for some distance behind the rear clamp.


Mention this post in checkout at UltiMAK and you’ll get a 10% early adopters, The-View-From-North-Central-Idaho discount.  Good through Jan, 2011 – see update below.  Then send the difference to the Second Amendment Foundation.


You saw it here first (unless you were on the UltiMAK site within the last 24 hours).  This is the numero uno press release, right nghyaw!


{shameless self promotion = “off”}


Update, Jan 11, 2011; I posted this before we’d had a chance at a meeting to determine price.  We’re changing the price to $185.00.  No on-line orders have been charged as yet, so all orders will be automatically charged at the lower price, and those who mentioned, or mention, this post will receive the discount from the lower price.  Discount offer good through January, 2011.  Any walk-ins that occured before this notice, let us know and we’ll refund the balance.  Thanks, everyone, for the big response!

What they said

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I’ve been as busy as a cat on a hot tin roof yesterday and today.


Yesterday Ry, Barron, and I went out to the Boomershoot site to do some tests. We got back into town and had lunch about 2:30. Barron came back to my place to wait for his wife, Janelle, to pick him up. They stayed until almost 11:30 as we discussed Boomershoot, all the worlds problems and how to solved them (the answers are “glitter”, “guns”, and “explosives”).


Today I went to an USPSA match and then scrambled with the Boomershoot 2010 participants having minor problems signing up for Boomershoot 2011. Some people take sign up very seriously.


Anyway, I have not had time to report on the test results from yesterday beyond a short Tweet.


Barron did a great job reporting with pictures and video.


Ry also has pictures.


Tomorrow is also very, very busy for me. So rather than report on things I’ll just say, “What they said.”

Shooting Gallery with Boomershoot

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(Outdoor Channel) with Michael Bane will have their Boomershoot show January 4th and 6th at 3:00 AM ET and January 5th, 3:30 PM, 7:00 PM, and 9:00 PM ET. This was with the video they took last April at Boomershoot 2010.

I don’t have cable and if someone would be able to record that and get it to me I would very much appreciate it.

I’ve asked about 100 people to do this already so before you send me a 1 GByte email or put the effort into burning a DVD check with me to make sure it’s not already taken care of.

Last night I told daughter Kim, “You are going to be on national television this week.”

She glared at me.

I continued, “He spend a lot of time talking to you.”

“Did we get a copy to review first?”

“Nope.”

The glare hardened.

I think it will turn out okay. But I’m glad I’m going to be 300 miles away when it shows.

Update: Trailer for the show is here. Or below:

Quote of the day—Albert Einstein

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The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift towards unparalled catastrophe.

Albert Einstein
[I sometimes give a little more than a passing thought to Boomershoot with nukes. But then I think of this quote.—Joe]

Chalk Dispenser V3.0 has arrived

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I have version 3.0 of the chalk dispenser system sitting in my living room now.

IMG_5022Web2010IMG_5024Web2010

The small boxes marked “RED CHALK” conveniently fit into the 3” opening on the top. They sent us some empty boxes to put the Boomerite in. The Boomerite will go in first and be exposed to gun fire through the 1.5” hole in the front.

This version also has 1/4” armor plate on the face. This should withstand the bullet impacts much better.

Ry plans to be back in Idaho on Saturday and we will visit the Boomershoot site to do our tests. The weather forecast on Saturday is for a low of -1 F and a high of 15 F. We had a blizzard last night and today and it put down several inches of snow. This may complicate things some. I’m not sure we will be able to drive all the way out to the Taj Mahal to mix the Boomerite. I may have to walk or snowshoe in, mix it up, and carry it back while Ry preps the target at the shooting berm.

The making of Chalk Dispenser V 3.0

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Our favorite chalk dispenser designers and builders have shipped version 3.0 to our bunker in North Central Idaho. It hasn’t arrived yet but they created a video of its construction:

Assuming the weather cooperates I should be able to test it sometime late this week.

Boomerite and chalk targets

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Ry has his own video of this but I took video with my Windows Phone 7 and wanted to say a few things about the results of these tests separate from other tests on his video. First the video:

We have been doing tests of steel chalk dispensers with mixed results. The chalk goes up into the air nicely but the dispensers have not had a very long life. Ry decided to test adding the chalk directly to our seven inch square cardboard box targets. The chalk was positioned in one of three different ways:

  1. Behind the Boomerite
  2. On top of the Boomerite
  3. In front of the Boomerite

The second configuration was the most visually pleasing but for a normal target this means the top half of the target is inert as far as the shooter is concerned. They only have the bottom half of the target available for detonation. But what we could do is use this in a hybrid target. We use a steel plate with a hold in it like the existing “chalk dispenser” targets with one of these cardboard box targets a foot or so behind the steel plate. We would not have to confine ourselves to very small Boomerite charges to prevent damage to the steel and we could put a lot more chalk on top of the target. It would be a little more work to set up the targets, get the alignment just right, etc. But the steel construction part would be a lot easier and would guarantee the steel targets would be reusable.

(Mostly) First Shots

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I met Rose through Oleg (who met her through Mike and Laurel last Spring) who got her into modeling.  She’d told Oleg she wanted to learn more about shooting, so he got her and me talking.  It took a while, but we got to the range this Monday.  It was cold, with several inches of snow on the ground, but we managed to get in a couple hours of trigger time.


We went through the safety rules, loading and unloading, manipulating the controls on a Ruger Mark II and a Daewoo DP-51 9 mm, stance, grip, sight picture, trigger control, some thoughts on anticipation (flinching), and follow-through.


Rose explained that since she is a boxer, she knows all about flinching and that it would not be a problem.  When you’re looking at getting punched in the face, you learn self control or it’s over quickly.  Good.  Shooting is very much a mental exercise.  I said that flinching is a problem for everyone, even experienced competitive shooters, and that I’ve seen a new shooter hit the ground halfway to a 10 yard target because of anticipation.


Well, her first ten rounds from the 22 auto all hit the 12″ square target, with one right in the center, from about 10 yards.  Pretty good for someone who’d only fired a pistol once, more than ten years ago.  It doesn’t always happen that way.  Usually we don’t even look at the first target, concentrating more on stance, grip and muzzle control.


She was pretty happy afterward, having hit all the 14 ounce vegetable cans with the 9 mm pistol.  We finished up with an UltiMAK equipped M1 30 Carbine, so she got introduced to the laser transmission hologram (this one had an Old Bushnell Holosight that we’d used for many years of testing at UltiMAK). 


Those vegetable cans didn’t stand a chance.


It was a pretty brief run-through, and Rose was visibly shivering from the cold, but she done good.  Though it is good practice in general, one would be well advised to treat her, especially, with respect.


I failed to tell her that she could be doing about as well at two and a half times the distance, with some more coaching and practice.  25 yards is the minimum distance in the pistol bays at the Kenmore Shooting Range, where I took my instructor training.  They teach beginners there too, and do well with it by all accounts.

More chalk dispenser video

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Our favorite chalk dispenser designers and builders have done some more tests. Here is the video:

In behind the scenes email it appears we will get a Version 3 unit for test with Boomerite by New Years Day. I plan to cut the charge in half, down to 100 grams, and see if that gives us sufficient lift for the chalk.

I also plan to modify the first unit by removing the containment box in the back and just put a specially constructed (chalk inside the target) 7” target a few inches behind the metal plate with the hole in it. I think this will work just as well and will only be a slightly more work in the field and much simpler to construct.

Chalk dispenser V 2.0

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Ry and I went out to the Boomershoot site with a new version of the chalk dispenser (also known as Blastmaster 6000). An identical unit was tested in California a few days ago using Tannerite and it worked well without showing any signs of weakness. We were pretty confident that it would hold up better than version 1.0.

We used 200 grams of Boomerite in each test. By volume this one cup, which was the same amount used the designers in their first tests. They later increased the amount to a soda can full with still no structural failures. We put 500 grams of chalk dust on top of the Boomerite.

In this first pictures you can see the chalk dust on top of the Boomerite. The zip lock bag of Boomerite is just visible in the front hole.

Ry will probably have video to share in a day or three but in the picture below you can see the dispenser was moved a couple feet by the blast. The dispenser appeared to be undamaged.

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The second test was essentially the same as the first. The only intentional difference was that the Boomerite wasn’t poked partially through the front and rear holes. This time the dispenser was moved several feet and there was some obvious damage:

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I set it up for a third test and expected it would probably “cut loose” this time. The movement was about the same and the fractures widened. Notice the bottom of the containment area is starting to bulge and the middle “rib” is bulging out the back too.

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In terms of a long lasting target this has some problems. But it survived three uses which is as much as it really needs for the Boomershoot main event. We should consider cutting the Boomershoot charge in half because I think the ejection of the chalk will be sufficient with a much smaller charge.

On the drive back to my home in Moscow we pondered why the difference between their tests and ours. We had pretty much decided that it was because of the chalk dust on top of the explosives because we just couldn’t imagine Boomerite being that much different than Tannerite. But I replayed the video from the California tests and they used chalk too. So the only other variable that I can think of are the temperature and the Boomerite. Our temperature was about 24 F with the first test done while the metal was probably significantly above that because it had been in the warm vehicle. By the time of the second and third tests the metal was probably close to ambient temperature. Could that temperature change made the metal brittle and weaker?

Update: Ry has the video and details on other tests we did.

Blastmaster 6000

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Our favorite chalk dispenser designer reported that video of tests using Tannerite instead of Boomerite has been posted:

The results look promising. Assuming the weather allows it and the test target arrives on time Ry and I will do our own testing this Saturday.