Whenever someone thinks I’m getting a little to cocky about my speed with a gun just remind me to watch this video.
[Via email from Boomershooter Rich.]
Category Archives: Gun Fun
Planned for Boomershoot 2011
I have heard from those involved there are plans to bring a little more firepower than usual to Boomershoot 2011.
Here is some video from the test firings:
Video from the Paul Bunyan USPSA match
Son-in-law John and I went to the Paul Bunyan (Pullayup Washington) USPSA match yesterday. It rained all Saturday night and continued to rain throughout the match. This made for some deep water in places, difficult to tape targets (clear plastic bags are put over the targets to help keep them dry), and soggy score sheets and shooters. We call it “Liquid Sunshine” and have a good time anyway.
On Friday my officemate (Priyanka), my boss (Sajib) , and I were talking about weekend plans and I told them I was going to attend this match with John, my son-in-law, who is in the army. Priyanka, exclaimed, “Oh! I’ll bet he is really good!” I tried to explain that actually I was quite a bit better at this sport than John. I’m not sure either one of them really believed me. So this is for them: I came in second in Limited Class with 90.43% match percentage while John came in fourth with 47.70%.
What this basically means (it’s not quite this simple but it’s close enough) is that for a given level of accuracy, on the average, I can shoot the same course of fire in about one half the time as John. Or expressed another way, for a given speed, on the average, I can shoot about twice as accurate as John. Why is that? The answer is I have practiced a lot more than John and for pistol shooting I have had better training. I also have better equipment than John but that is not even close to the dominate factor.
This was the first time I had shot a match at this range and they had more high round count stages than what we usually do at the Lewiston Pistol Club in Idaho where I usually shoot. High round count stages are fun. You not only get more trigger time but you get to “run and gun” too. It’s not particularly realistic for defensive shooting (the last statistic I read was that the average gun fight was over in 2.4 seconds) but generally people think they are more fun. Having fun means you are likely to shoot more. And even if on the first two and a half seconds of your average USPSA match relates to reality you end up practicing a lot more than if you only shot matches that were composed of stages that lasted less than two and a half seconds.
Here in stage 1 (12 Tiny Raindrops) I did the draw, a reload, lots of moving, and put 24 rounds into 12 targets in 12.24 seconds earning a 90.99% stage percentage. The stuff I learned about shooting on the move from Todd Jarrett while at Gun Blogger Summer Camp was very helpful—notice that I had the slowest Limited Class time but had better hits that everyone else.
The stage was 12 targets spread over a fairly large distance with barricades to go around to get to the last targets. It’s a little hard to see in the still picture and you have to watch for it in the video but there is a rope between the barrels as a fault line so you can’t get too close to the targets.
Stage 2 (In The Rain) had targets on opposite sides of the bay with barricades which made it difficult to avoid a lot of moving. Plus there were targets in moderately difficult to reach positions.
Shooting while on the move helped for some of the targets but others required full stops.
I put two rounds on each of the eight targets in a total of 13.49 seconds. This earned me a stage percentage of 90.88% and third place on this stage.
Stage 3 (Get Off Santa’s Back) was a little different. It is composed of three strings of fire. One is “freestyle”, one is “strong hand only”, and one is “weak hand only”. Although it is difficult to see in the video there are four paper targets. Two on each side of the hardcover (steel painted red) target. The paper targets are overlapping and it is difficult to see where the lower target ends and the upper target begins. The requirement was that for each string you put one bullet into each target. There were penalties for misses, extra shots, and extra hits on any given target. I got all my hits with no penalties in a total of 13.38 seconds. Nearly everyone else had a better time but my accuracy was much better. This earned me a stage percentage of 86.40%.
Some other people were not as fortunate and one person had so many penalties that they zeroed the stage.
Stage 4 (1 Tuesday #2) required moving backward! The shooter began with their hands on either side of the opening in the barricade. There are four (only two are standing in the still photo) steel targets to be shot through the opening then you had to back up to shoot two targets on either side around and through the barrels for a minimum of 12 shots. I thought I had hit the last steel and started to move on, noticed it didn’t fall, and had to return to finish it off. It took me 8.06 seconds and I got all ‘A’ hits on the paper. This earned me a 69.27% stage percentage and last place for limited.
Son-in-law John, for the first time ever, beat me on this stage. He did it with all ‘A’ hits in 8.05 seconds. Just 1/100th of a second better than me.
Stage 5 (I Wanna YoYo) was four banks of six steel plates. Two banks of plates could be shot from each of two shooting boxes. You were required to change boxes between shooting banks. Hence you had run back and forth between the boxes. Ability to shoot on the move is of nearly no advantage for this stage.
On my first run there was a range equipment failure about two thirds of the way through the stage when one of the plates fell without me shooting it. This required a reshoot and I did much worse the second time through but I still took second place in Limited with stage percentage of 71.91% after knocking down all 24 plates, and running back and forth, in 39.09 seconds.
Stage 6 (Six A’Clock) was the last stage. It was composed of three strings of fire with three sets of targets. The first set was a single target which you were required to put six rounds into. The second set was two targets and you were were required to put three rounds into each target. The third set was three targets and two no-shoot targets and you were required to put two rounds each into the “shoot” targets and you were penalized if you hit the no-shoot targets, had misses, or fired more than the specified number of rounds. I won this stage with a total time of 10.38 seconds for the 18 rounds. Nearly everyone else in my division had better times but I had much better hits. I scored 81 out of the possible 90 points with no penalties and the next best shooter only scored 75 points and had 20 points in penalties.
I have a problem with more than three rounds on a single target. I can shoot faster than I can count and have to slow my shooting to match my ability to count. When confronted with this situation, and it works out for the stage design, I will load only six (or ‘N’) rounds in the gun. Then I just shoot until the gun runs dry. That is what I did in this case. I didn’t get the individual times or the splits between shots while at the match but I went through the video frame by frame on the first target and found that from the muzzle flash of the first shot to the muzzle flash of the last shot it took 1.17 seconds. This is an average of 0.234 seconds between the five shots. This was at a distance of about 30 feet. IIRC I had five “A” hits and one “C” hit.
It turns out that I accidently used a bad magazine (it needs a new follower) and it didn’t hold the slide open on the last shot. This caused me to drop the hammer on an empty chamber and I was somewhat surprised that the gun was empty. No matter—Sometimes a little surprise is a good thing.
I keep thinking Brady Campaign supporters must require frequent trips to Sears for their special needs with these sort of videos being put on the web.
On the 12th Day of Bulk Ammo
Bulk Ammo is a sponsor here and sent me the following:
On the 12th Day of Christmas BulkAmmo.com gave to me… a 12ga- $15 Off Coupon. Use the coupon code 12gaXMAS for $15 off 250 rounds of 12ga Rio Royal Buckshot Ammo from BulkAmmo.com. Expires on 12/26/10- Pass the Christmas cheer along and repost!
33 megajoule rail gun—Mach 7
I got light headed watching the camera scan the banks of capacitors.
I wouldn’t want to be within a mile in any direction of this gun when it was fired. That many volts ready to dump that many amps in so few microseconds is scary stuff even without a Mach 7 projectile with a range of 100 miles.
USPSA match through the eyes of the shooter
Here is video via my video camera glasses of stages at a USPSA match I shot last Sunday. The individual stage results are here. The overall (combined) results are here. I came in second.
I would like to suggest this is part of the reason the Brady Campaign and others don’t want us to have guns—we have too much fun.
Update:
Here is stage winner, Adam, shooting “Door What?”:
Update2: Here is the second place shooter on this stage, Don, shooting “Door What?” Notice that he is limping a little bit? He is due for a total knee replacement the first of next month. He scheduled it immediately after the monthly USPSA match and maximally distance from the monthly Steel Challenge match. We’ll see if he makes it to the next match with his new knee…
Son of John Lennon likes shooting
John Lennon’s son, Sean, says he really enjoys shooting guns. He also says he doesn’t people should be armed. But that might change—his girlfriend is from Georgia and “Lennon was invited down to the shooting range so that the family could see if their daughter’s new squeeze was ‘a straight shooter’.”
The more familiar he becomes with guns the more likely he is to realize his feelings toward them really are because of the misuse of the gun by a mentally disturbed individual rather than the possession of firearms by ordinary people.
Taking a new shooter to the range is an important part of winning. This example is just another small step to driving the anti-gun activists into political extinction.
Boomershoot adventure details
As reported on Saturday we (Caleb, Kim, Sarah, Matt, Buddy, and I) had a small Boomershoot adventure. We made and blew up a snow castle. Here is the crew (minus me):
Kim also has some pictures on Facebook.
Kim took most of the pictures while Sarah, Matt, and Caleb built the snow castle wall and I prepped the chalk dispensing target:
The final snow castle wall just prior to destruction:
The road flares are to ignite the four gallons of gasoline located high on the left side of the wall, on top of (and behind) the 6 pounds of Boomerite.
The snow, gasoline, and dirt went flying when the Boomerite detonated:
I expected the ground to be bare beneath the explosion but that was not quite the case. Apparently the explosives were too high above the ground to clear it of snow:
Next time we should put the explosives much lower to give the snow more lift.
Crimson Trace for the SIG 238
Today the new PR guy, Iain Harrison, at Crimson Trace sent me an email and a draft news release about their new product–the LG-492 Laserguard for SIG’s compact 238:
Iain also said, “I shot it for beta testing on Saturday & it should be released for sale on the 27th,”
Crimson Trace makes a quality product. I have one on my Gun Blog 45 and my Ruger Mark II (Crimson Trace gave that to me for my performance in a shoot house competition at the Gun Blogger Summer Camp at Blackwater.a couple years ago). I don’t have a laser on my carry gun but whenever I have a new shooter to take to the range I find the laser to be a great teaching aid.
Machine gun event video
Via email from Boomershooter Rich. Here is the original link.
This is pretty cool. If someone had been willing to pick up the pieces we could have used Ry’s old Aerostar van at Boomershoot for something like this:
I especially like the enthusiasm the woman has in this video. The absence of eye protection at times—not so much.
The awesome power of Boomerite
A Boomershooter sent me an email with pictures of a target he wanted to bring to Boomershoot 2011. The intent is to give the shooters something more challenging to shoot at. To be specific he wanted a 1.5” reactive target at 700 yards. The concept was a steel plate on the front with a 1.5 hole drilled in it with a open topped steel box on the back to hold a normal Boomerite target right behind the hole. On top of that box he wanted to put a baggie filled with chalk dust. The explosion should then result in a yellow, red, or blue cloud of chalk dust.
I told him I he could bring it but that it would be destroyed by the first or second use. The explosion would rip the box right off of the back. He almost could not be convinced. Here is some of the conversation:
Joe: “I’m fine with your chalk dust dispenser if you don’t mind picking up the pieces if it spontaneously disassembles.”
Boomershooter: “we got it covered . . 1″ plate with 3/8 open topped box . . i will weld it myself so i don’t have to worry about bill’s welds scattered over the hillside…”
Joe: “My guess is that you will be lucky if the welds hold for two successful hits. Just one is my guess.”
Boomershooter: “i challenge you to be the one to break my welds…”
Joe: “My guess is the .250 chamber will be ripped in half after the first or second detonation. You are welcome to try it as long as everyone is at least 300+ yards away from it.”
Boomershooter: “i’m thinking your 4″ 375 yard targets are going to be a walk in the park for this high tech explosive containment device. i’m sure if you packed it solid you might get it to bulge. but enough explosive to send a colored cloud is what we are looking for…”
Ry: “I admire your faith in your product.”
Boomershooter: “been a certified welder for 35 years . . when i see people shooting bowling balls out of a 1/4″ thick argon bottle over a mile, i figure it can’t be bad with no pressure build up at all . . “
Ry: “My experience was this: I put a little boomerite in a mountain dew bottle (call it a half liter), put the bottle on the round. A couple inches behind it, I put a railroad tie plate on edge. The tie plate landed about 75-80 yards away and was bent into an L shape.”
Boomershooter: “oh well . . you will be getting the explosion test dummy in a couple days . . we will find out after that…”
Joe: “There will be a LOT of pressure build up. I’m expecting pressures beyond the tensile strength of steel. The maximum (of course it is confined instead of partially open) of ANFO is about 1,500,000 PSI. Partially confined it can still reach 1/10 that. We are pretty sure our mixture is more powerful than straight ANFO. If we were to fill the box with Boomerite we could see the total force attempting to separate the tube from the plate reach a peak of (4” x 6” x 100,000 PSI) or 2.4 million pounds.You know your steels and welds better than I do, but my bet it is going at least bulge on the first shot if not get ‘opened up’.”
Boomershooter: “well . . one low tech target is on it’s way . . you scared 223 bill with the 2.4 million pounds of pressure fact, so he elected to add a plate to the back of the tube to keep the bullet from penetrating the back of the tube. give it a try and let us know what you think.
The target arrived earlier this week. It is an impressive target. It weights almost 50 pounds:
While out blowing up the snow castle we tested the target as well.
We mounted it on some 3/8” rebar. It was intended to have something much larger and we couldn’t tighten up the bolts properly. Hence it hung really crooked:
We then put a very small charge of Boomerite in it. Just about 1 cup—200 grams. This was in a zip lock bag that was poked through the hole:
On top of this we put another zip lock bag with 600 grams of chalk dust:
We then got back 100 yards (I figured that with such a small charge and part of it even sticking out the front we would be safe) and shot it with a 50 gr VMAX bullet:
We should have used yellow, red, or orange chalk dust to give better contrast with the snow. But you can tell there is definitely a blue cloud in the air.
But what happened to the chalk dispenser? It wasn’t visible to the naked eye from 100 yards away. We walked up to where it was and found this:
The target had been blow backward until the rebar had bent almost in a U and the target was touching the ground underneath the snow. Notice the rectangular outline on the bottom of the target? That was the bulge from the Boomerite containment box. Do you remember he said, “i’m sure if you packed it solid you might get it to bulge”? This was FAR from packed solid.
Now let’s look at the sides of the containment box:
One dead target.
Exploding snow castle
We intended to make a snowman or three and blow them up with Boomerite today. It turns out the snow was too cold (air temperature was 24 F at Noon) for making a good snowman. But there was enough of a crust and frozen snow that our crew was able to make a pretty nice wall that looked like part of a snow castle. We filled the “window” with four gallons of gasoline, 6.5 pounds of Boomerite, put some road flares out, and set off a Roman Candle.
You can hear the crackling and popping of the Roman Candle in this video (taken with a Windows Phone 7):
We also have about 450 still photos from today’s adventure. I’ll have more up soon.
A Girl and a Gun
Making Your Own Ammo – Cheap?
I started casting bullets last winter for my percussion guns, and since it’s been going well I recently started looking at bullet molds for the .30-30. I don’t use the Winchester much, but if I could make ammo for a few pennies per round, I might use it more often. I already have loading dies for that cartridge.
I figured a bullet mold would be a good investment, but then I figure for the .30-30 I need a bullet sizer (maybe a lubrisizer while we’re at it, ‘cause lead bullets need lubed), a .309” sizing die, top punch, gas checks, gas check seater plug, some good lube, handles for the mold. Then I’ll need some different powder…
That’s several hundred dollars to start loading “cheap” ammo for a rifle I probably haven’t fired 100s of dollars of commercial ammo through in all the years I’ve owned it. But then I figure I could also cast 9 mm and .357” bullets, but that’s more molds, sizing dies, and punches.
I don’t know; do any of you have all this extra hardware and cast a lot of bullets, and do you find it’s paid for itself? Sure it depends on how much you shoot, but there’s also the independence factor – you’re making your own bullets. Or is it just a big drag on your time, such that you find yourself buying more bullets or loaded ammo than you make?
Hmm. The percussion revolvers’ chambers act as their own sizing die, the loading ram acts as it’s own “top punch”, I can lube the bullets by dipping them in the tallow I get as a byproduct from hunting, they don’t need gas checks or special lead alloys, or loading dies, punches, et al. I already have the ~20 dollar conical bullet mold and the ~20 dollar ball mold and the ~60 dollar furnace. That’s an investment of about 100 dollars. After that it’s mostly just lead, powder and caps, and there’s no recovering of spent brass, no cleaning of brass, and no decapping, sizing or crimping the brass. The drawbacks though are obvious in that we’re back to the mid 19th century.
I see that Lee is soon to come out with an eighteen cavity 00 buckshot mold. It’s near the bottom of the page here.
Olympic Arms sale
I just received an email from Olympic Arms. They are having a sale on upper receiver units:
Greetings!
Just a gentle reminder about the Sale that Olympic is having on their upper receiver units.
All retail customers can take 15% OFF retail pricing on any or all of our complete upper receiver units. Any size, shape or caliber! Choose from an existing model or design your own.
The sale has been very successful so for, so all we wanted to do is remind everyone that the Sale is good through December 31, 2010.
Take advantage like thousands already have before time runs out!
Sincerely,
Customer Service Team
Olympic Arms, Inc.
I have been very pleased with my object embedding tool from Olympic Arms.
Brady’s are begging
I got another begging letter from the BC, and in this one Paul Helmke says they have a $250,000 deficit:
Dear (friendly_iconoclast),
I am writing to you today as one of the Brady Campaign’s most loyal friends because we really need your help…
…But the truth is, because we’ve been fighting so hard on so many fronts, we’re facing a serious financial shortfall.
I need to make up a $250,000 budget shortfall before the end of the year….
Maybe they should ask the NRA for a loan. After all, the Brady Campaign has done wonders for their fundraising…
If they were a publically traded company I would consider attempting a hostile takeover (I could get a NRA range grant to build a Brady Campaign Memorial Boomershoot East, couldn’t I?). I would hire Tamara to write all their media releases for month or two as we liquidated every asset and did Boomerite experiments in the ashes.
Steel match results
As I previously mentioned I attended a Steel Challenge match on Sunday. Here are the results:
| Name | Stage 1 | Jethro’s Pyramid | Paradox | Pendulum | Smoke & Hope | Total |
| Adam | 10.19 | 14.56 | 15.48 | 18.22 | 11.24 | 69.69 |
| Don | 10.16 | 16.1 | 16.59 | 19.46 | 13.52 | 75.83 |
| Joe | 12.55 | 17.27 | 16.33 | 21.35 | 17.1 | 84.6 |
| Roger Auto | 11.06 | 19.66 | 18.38 | 22.65 | 16.62 | 88.37 |
| Roger Revolve | 12.98 | 19.2 | 19.76 | 26.41 | 15.56 | 93.91 |
| Bob | 14.91 | 22 | 25.73 | 27.32 | 21.31 | 111.27 |
| Janet | 20.71 | 21.23 | 23.14 | 34.61 | 20.56 | 120.25 |
| Roxanna | 18.91 | 28.98 | 27.29 | 36.05 | 22.67 | 133.9 |
| Yellow Cell denotes stage winner. |
I’m not sure why Smoke & Hope gave me so much trouble. I was missing those big plates at close range. I was nearly six seconds behind the winner.
The shooting conditions were a little adverse. The footing was poor. With the snow on the ground it was very slick and the white targets had a tendency to disappear into the white background. But we do shoot all year around. In the Seattle area some of the ranges wimp out during the winter and don’t even have outdoor matches.
Click to get a higher resolution version and see that Don had three pieces of brass in the air at once.
Adam is air gunning in preparation for his run on Stage 1.
Adam shows excellent presentation on his way to the first target.
Instant Incapacitation
Apparently it’s not possible to tell a hunting story in under 1,000 words. Something about the laws of rhetorical physics. You’ve been warned.
I choose Late Muzzleloader season in Eastern Washington because it allows the harvest of almost any deer – three point minimum or antlerless. We see few bucks around here, and since I hunt for the table I don’t care about old, tough bucks with big racks. They’re chewy and don’t taste as good. All that and there are very few other hunters out this late. It’s win win.
Late Muzzleloader lasts one week, so I’ve been out twice a day since last Wednesday. The below zero temp Wednesday morning was hard to take, but it was beautiful and I remember sitting up in the tree thinking, “This is definitely worth it even if I don’t get a deer. Wow!”
The tree I sit in is on a steep slope, with deer tracks crisscrossing all below and behind me, with a few tracks in front along the top of the ridge overlooking the Palouse River. I’ve seen at least six deer by Sunday (or two deer three times) but no clear shots. Mostly I’ve seen them on the run or behind tens of yards of thick brush as I walk to the stand, or after legal hours. One of them got stuck in a snow drift. We usually think of deer as graceful and poised at all times, but this fellow was flailing all over the place, feet in the air even, trying to get away from me. I was a little bit embarrassed for him. By the time I’d stumbled out of the brush to get a clear shot though, he was gone. That’s how it went for several days. Several shots I could’ve taken, but no.
Sunday evening I was going to stay in and rest up, by my son convinced me go out again. Good thing. I see no deer on the way up to the tree. That’s good. Infiltration without detection means I have a better chance of sniping one unawares.
I’d been up there for no more than half an hour, mostly looking around behind me where most of the tracks were, trying to spot a deer before it got to me. Therefore I failed to spot the nice three pointer walking casually along the ridge above, silent as a ghost in the powder snow, until he was right in front of me and already walking away.
It’s a sharp quartering away shot, 20 yards or less at eye level. Good backstop with several miles of empty farm fields behind. The time for the ideal shot was spent with my back turned. Hurry with getting the mitten open so the trigger finger is exposed. Silently cock the sidelock. He’s oblivious. He’s going to be out of view in a few seconds. I have to duck so I can sight under some hanging pine boughs. Aim for the heart. That means hitting behind the rib cage at this angle. Since I’m bending way down to see under the boughs, my glasses frame is in the way of the rifle sights. Crap. Have to dismount and push the glasses farther on. Take aim again. Time’s up.
Crack! I hadn’t thought to worry about the powder charge that had been in the barrel for several days. After that morning in below zero temperature, the barrel had frosted over when I came inside, and it had been snowing every time after, such that I’d take the barrel out of the stock to dry things out each day. No problem. 120 grains of FFG under a patched soft lead 50 caliber ball with a #11 percussion cap. Perfect ignition. This newfangled percussion system you kids have been using just might catch on.
There’s always a moment of uncertainty for me, especially with black powder because you’re peering through a smoke cloud trying to see what happened to the target.
I’ve heard of “anchoring” the animal in its tracks, but was beginning to think the phenomenon a myth. My son and I have killed around 9 deer and this has never happened, even with both lungs, and the heart, obliterated they always run some distance. This time the ball must have upset the central nervous system because the fellow went straight down. Zap! And he only twitched for a short while.
Some sense of reverence comes upon me when I approach the animal. It’s happened every time. They are very beautiful, strong, sleek, and delicious with new potatoes, turkey gravy, fresh fruit and red wine.
The ball had gone in at the back of the ribcage on the right side and exited through the base of the neck under the spine on the left. ~21.5 inches of penetration, and though you could fit your thumb in the entry wound, I couldn’t get but the tip of my little finger through the skin at the exit wound. The ball had just barely pooped out of the skin. Though it’s what we would call a short range prospect, I’m beginning to trust the 50 caliber patched ball load.
It was a good day. I’m happy, and the freezer will soon be full.
I’m still puzzled. That pure lead ball leaves the muzzle at around 1920 fps according to my CED chronograph, or a little more ’cause that’s averaged at 15 feet. Last year I shot a deer at 85 yards and the ball penetrated 25 inches with almost no deformation. We here concluded that the velocity at impact had been subsonic due to the very poor BC, hence a lower pressure at impact, hence the pristine ball (I recovered it from just under the skin and thought it was probably good enough to load again). This shot Sunday was at no more than 20 yards, maybe more like 15, yet I see no sign of ball deformation so far (I’ll check it out more closely upon butchering in a few days). You’d think with all the talk about bullet integrity, hard alloys and such, that a pure lead ball at that velocity would obliterate, giving shallow penetration. So what gives?
Glock 34 Kaboom!
While at the Lewiston Pistol Club Steel Challenge match today I witnessed my first gun Kaboom!
As I reported via Twitter earlier, Bill was shooting his Glock 34 when it experienced a “high energy event”. Although there has been speculation as to the cause nothing definitive has been established.
There was no blood loss and although Bill’s hands stung for many minutes we do not believe any medical attention will be required.
Click on the pictures for high resolution versions.
Ammo test
About a month ago I received an email from Steven Otterbacher at BulkAmmo.com:
Hi Joe,
I really appreciate your posting about our opening a few weeks ago (https://blog.joehuffman.org/2010/08/30/bulk-ammo/) ; things are going well and I appreciate your help!I have an idea I wanted to run past you:
We just started carrying Fiocchi ammo and are trying to get the word out about it. If we shipped you a box, would you be willing to give it a fair try and post a review about it?
As long as you link back to the category page on our website (i.e. http://www.bulkammo.com/handgun/bulk-.40-s-w-ammo – maybe with anchor-text like “Bulk 40 cal ammo” or “bulk 40 S&W ammo”), not the product page, we are 100% fine with a positive or negative review – whatever is truthful based on your experience – we just want you to give it a chance!
If you are interested, which product/caliber do you prefer:• http://www.bulkammo.com/bulk-9mm-ammo-9mm158fmjsubfiocchi-50
• http://www.bulkammo.com/bulk-223-ammo-223rem40hvmaxfiocchi-50
• http://www.bulkammo.com/bulk-40-s-w-ammo-40sw180jhpxtpfiocchi-50If you are interested, just confirm you are on board, let me know which caliber you prefer, and then give me your shipping information (and confirm that you meet are terms of sale – i.e. you are over 21, are legally able to own this ammo, etc, etc) and I will get this ammo shipped out to you ASAP!
If this goes well, we might even be able to do a few more as time goes on!
I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you soon!
Thanks,
Steven
I accepted his offer and asked for the .40 S&W 180 grain ammo. I was on vacation at the time and there were various things like blowing up pumpkins that kept me from getting to the ammo testing until today. I don’t have a good place to do this type of testing in the Seattle area and had to wait until I could get out to the Boomershoot site.
Since I was going to have everything set up for group and velocity testing I decided to test some other ammo at the same time.
The ammo I actually received was not the JHPs but FMJ. I didn’t realize that until I got out on the range with all the JHPs I was ready to compare to. I did the comparisons anyway.
Rounds fired: 10
Gun: STI Eagle 5.1 with a KKM Precision barrel.
Temperature: 30 F
Elevation: 3000 feet
Chronograph: CED Millennium
Distance to Chronograph: 11’ to first screen
Distance between screens: 2’
Distance to target: 25’
Bullet mass: 180 grains (except the Remington Golden Sabers which were 165 grains)
Here is my setup and the ammo used:
The bag of lentils was torn by the muzzle blast on the first shot and I switched to a roll of paper towels to replace the leather sandbag I had left at home.
The handloads were assembled in 1998 for bowling pin shoots. I used Winchester cases with Rainer Restrike JHP bullets over 6.4 grains of VV N350 powder.
The following table describes the velocity performance at 12’ from the muzzle. If you want velocity at the muzzle add about 4.5 fps to the numbers below.
|
Manufacture |
Product |
Mean |
High |
Low |
SDev |
ES |
|
962 |
981 |
948 |
9 |
32 |
||
|
1009 |
1038 |
975 |
15 |
53 |
||
|
1120 |
1138 |
1093 |
15 |
45 |
||
|
988 |
1016 |
961 |
18 |
54 |
||
|
1044 |
1057 |
1030 |
8 |
27 |
||
|
1050 |
1075 |
1033 |
11 |
42 |
||
|
Handloads |
1001 |
1033 |
941 |
24 |
91 |
Feeding was perfect with all ammo types.
Accuracy information can be derived from the picture below (click to enbiggen enough to see the bullet holes and the ammo names on the targets). The target on the top right is the BVAC. I didn’t label that target in the field because I couldn’t remember the name of the ammo. It was a bulk buy and I had transferred it from the original boxes (of 500 each) into ammo cans.
The accuracy was acceptable for everything except my handloads and perhaps the BVAC remanufactured FMJs. The Black Hills and the Fiocchi ammo did the best.
I was aiming at the bottom edge of the black to get the maximum contrast with the sights as that sliver of “white” disappeared into the black. The order in which the targets were shot is as in the table above.
For self-defense ammo I don’t really care much if the group size is one inch or three inches at 25 feet. Nearly all self-defense shootings are at ranges less than that and the nearly all ammo is going to have enough accuracy to hit the target. The shooter is going to be the dominate factor.
What is important is the velocity of the bullet, the expansion diameter, and depth of penetration. The penetration depth is also affected by the covering of the target. Shirts, jackets, windshield glass, etc. all make a difference. I didn’t have the time or enough ammo to do a full scale test of everything but I planned to do an expansion test with water.
I put a concrete paving stone in the bottom of a old diaper container that was laying around in the garage and put five gallons of water on top of it. This gave me about 15 inches of water to shoot into. I put the paving stone in the bottom to make sure the bullet wouldn’t punch a hole in the bottom if the water wasn’t deep enough.
As I prepared to fire into the container I tried to remember what had happened when Myth Busters did similar tests. I remembered that the 9mm FMJ had surprising depth of penetration and that the water splash was impressive. I keep thinking there was something more I should remember… what was it?
I anticipated getting severely splashed with water but that wasn’t the thing I should have worried about. I fired from about four feet above the container and only my hand and the gun got a little wet. After firing I was pretty sure I just relearned with Myth Busters had learned. The outward pressure of the water is quite strong. The pictures below tell the story:
Yes. The container was blown completely in two and split down the side. The bullet fully penetrated the water and impacted the paving stone.
The bullet jacket completely separated from the core. Here are the bullet pictures (click to see higher resolution versions):
If you know your bullets the jacket in the first picture will tell you which bullet it was. If you can’t guess I’ll put the answer in the comments by EOD on Monday.