Category Archives: Gun Fun

I hate my guns

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Two weeks ago I shot in a Steel Challenge match with the Lewiston Pistol Club. Nice match, nice people.

I shot both my Gun Blog 45 and my STI Eagle. Twice the fun for the same investment of time. But there were problems.

I had recently got my STI back from being worked on. While it was gone I had been using my Gun Blog 45 and had practiced with it enough that I seldom hit the bugs with the stupid LDA trigger.

With the STI back I shot it for practice and then tried to shoot both guns in the steel match.

About 10 or 20% of the time I used the Gun Blog 45 I would try and take the thumb safety off at the same time I was prepping the trigger after the draw. This resulted in the trigger going all the way to the rear without anything happening. It would take another 0.5 seconds (yes, I got the first shot times back from the R.O., I had a bimodal distribution of first shot times: ~1.5 and ~2.0 seconds). Other times when I was prepping the trigger for the next shot I would over prep and fire a shot prior to when I really wanted it to shoot. The long LDA trigger pull is tough for me to shoot rapidly.

Fine. I’m done with this gun. I’ll clean and oil it and put it away. It’s a nice memento of the Gun Blogger Summer Camp but I don’t like shooting it.

The STI shot well but one of the brand new magazines I purchased after shooting a hole in a magazine last May, which worked fine before I had the gun worked on, would drop out of the gun on the first shot. The first time I thought it was because I hadn’t seated it correctly or something. The second time I put the magazine away for later study. After the match I discovered that both of the new magazines would do that. One after just racking the slide. Okay. I’ll need to look at this closely and figure out what is going wrong.

That night I cleaned the Gun Blog 45 and carefully packed it away. Figuring I would only get it out for teaching and new shooters that wanted to try a .45. I was done with it.

I then cleaned the STI and discovered the link from the barrel to the frame had a crack in it. I have fired about 300 rounds after getting it back from the factory and it has to go back to the shop for another repair. And that means I’m carrying the Gun Blog 45 for self-defense until I get the STI back.

I put 30K rounds through my $300 (in 1994) Ruger P-89 with only one trip to the factory for repair and it only misbehaved when I used non-factory magazines, crappy Egyptian military surplus ammo, or it was extremely dirty. The $2000 STI has had numerous repairs with about the same number of rounds through it and the Gun Blog 45 has the paint wearing off and the LDA trigger is a piece of crap.

Sometimes I hate my guns.

Yards, Meters and BDC

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So maybe I’m an idiot.  I was out firing a Colt AR-15 HBAR with a Trijicon ACOG scope.  I’d gone the extra step and drilled through the A2 carry handle on this otherwise pristine Colt so as to add the second mounting screw for the scope.  The BDC (Bullet Drop Compensating) reticle has different crosshairs for elevation at different ranges (wind is of course still up to your doping skills).  You zero at, say, 100 using the main crosshair, and your elevation is supposed to be correct at all the other indicated distances.  One comment on that; it would be much better to refine your zero at greater distances, using that other crosshair, say, at 500 using the number 5 crosshair or etc.

Out in the real world though, your targets aren’t placed at nice, even, measured distances, so it gets just a little bit more complicated.  I’d brought a laser with me to do range measurements.  The laser registered a particular target at 385 yards.  Said right there, so it couldn’t be wrong, “385 yd”.  That’s close enough to 400 that I opt for the number 4 crosshair.  Shot went high.  “Not possible– I called that shot dead on.”  Same thing again.  Walking the shots onto the target, I find I have to hold halfway between the number 3 and 4 crosshairs*.  “Crap.  This shouldn’t be happening.  I have nigh on three grand worth of equipment in top condition, the right ammo, and a standard length barrel.  What the hell?”

Some of you will already have figured out the problem (I seem to recall something about an interplanetary probe oblitorating itself on Mars due to a similar error).  The ACOG scope is calibrated in meters and the laser was set to display in yards.  A yard is 0.9144 meters.  In realistic rifle shooting distances, we can simplify that to either adding or subtracting 10% to do the conversion in our heads, and be close enough.  At 385 yards I was rounding up to 400, which made sense, but I was still thinking all in yards.  I didn’t convert.  385 – 10% (simplify further and subtract 38) =  about 347 meters, or close enough to the 350 meter crosshair for this target.  *Ah Hah!

Better yet would have been to take all of half a minute (only because I don’t mess with the settings much and I’d have had to take that long to figure it out) to set the laser to read in meters.

On a nice, relaxing day with a full belly and a Thermos-full of hot coffee (as backup this time) the sun shining and the birds chirping among the beautiful North Idaho scenery, this was more of an amusing lesson than anything serious.  If there is ever a situation in which it really matters, you’ll want to be aware of these things in advance, and have taken the necessary steps already.

Part of my problem is that I fool around with so many different weapon systems, in addition to being an idiot.  How does that saying go?  “Beware the man with only one gun.”  Something like that.  He knows his weapon backwards and forwards, right and left, upside down and every which way, in the dark, summer and winter, and with one hand tied behind his back just to make if fair he’ll still kick your ass.  Hmm.  Maybe there’s a new IPSC stage in there somewhere.

Update: With the low recoil of the 5.56 round and a low power optic, you can usually spot your own hits even at longer distances.  Take that for what it’s worth.

The Unit and exploding bullets

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Barb and I just finished watching the TV series The Unit. We really enjoyed it.

The gun handling and shooting was way above average. They shot around corners correctly, they cleared rooms correctly, they got hits at ranges in times that could be expected from expert shooters.

Barb loves to predict the outcome of any movie or show she watches. Who is going to be the bad guy? How are they going to get out of this predicament?

She is very good at it. So good that our kids tell her to shut up just as soon as her mouth starts to open. I don’t mind and frequently play the game as well. Barb was frequently stumped. The writers were very good and we enjoyed the show being unpredictable without “angels flying out of their ass” to save the day. The solutions to the problems the characters faced were nearly always innovative and believable.

It was also very cool that the operatives/shooters wives were a big part of the stories they told. I was afraid that Barb wouldn’t care for the show and I would end up watching it alone but the inclusion of the wives side of the drama made a big difference and did not detract from my enjoyment of the show.

There were occasionally things that bugged me about it however. Ironically the biggest was the item that got me to start watching it to begin with.

I had lunch with a friend a few months ago and he asked if it was true that putting mercury in a bullet would cause it to completely disintegrate upon impact because he had seen in on the show. I told him I would have to watch the show to be certain but it probably was just reusing an old plot device.

As near as I can tell the mercury bullet thing first came from the novel The Day of the Jackal (1971) by Frederick Forsyth. I read the book shortly after it came out and was fascinated, as many people are, by the mercury filled bullets. It’s a great plot device but as near as I can determine pointless.

First off it’s going to be really tough to make the bullet accurate with a liquid moving around inside the bullet. Second, we already have rifle bullets that can, essentially, explode upon impact. Why do you think Speer calls their varmint bullets TNT?

The TNT bullets are only rated at 3100 fps because, according to the manual, they are likely to “explode” before reaching the target if you push them faster than that. I bought some .30 caliber 125 grain TNT “seconds” (the factory is in nearby Lewiston Idaho and they sometimes sell cosmetically defective bullets in bulk to the local gun shops) for breaking in the barrel of my .300 Win Mag. Yeah, isn’t that a real kick? Using a 125 grain varmint bullets in .300 Win Mag.

The 3100 fps limit specified didn’t really make sense to me. I would have expected a rotational rate limit rather than a velocity rate and I sent a customer service guy I knew at Speer an email. He confirmed what I suspected. It really was a rotational issue. 3100 fps assumed the normal 1:10 twist barrels. But I have a 1:11 twist. Which means I could push them faster. Furthermore he told me that it also assumed a normal hunting type barrel where the rifling was fairly sharp and engraved, and weakened, the bullet jacket considerably. Many match grade barrels resulted in a less compromised jacket and hence you could push the bullets even faster without having them go “poof” on the way to the target. My calculations indicated I should be able to get at least 3400 fps out of them. Cool! Imagine what those bullets are going to do with they hit something.

I decided to use the bullets for something more than breaking in the barrel. I coated my bullets with moly to further reduce the engraving of the jacket by the rifling and began working up a load.

According to my references the min and max loads of Varget for 125 grain bullets in .300 Win Mag are 65 and 70 grains. I worked my way up to the max loads without any signs of excessive pressure. On the range the chronograph told me I was getting a mean muzzle velocity of 3497 fps using the max load. Occasionally one of the bullets won’t make it to the target but that’s a bit rare. Tests on milk jugs filled with water with a tarp underneath and around them to aid in collecting the pieces confirmed that the bullet essentially disappeared into a collection of lead sand upon impact and the jug behind it would only get a small “puncture wound” from the base of the jacket. The main part of the jacket was torn to shreds and no piece, other than the jacket base, was larger than about 0.1 inches in any dimension.

I use factory loaded 50 grain VMAX bullets in my AR-15 from Black Hills with similar results.

Mercury filled bullets? Why? Because it’s a cool plot device.

U.K. reports on women and guns in the U.S.

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As strongly as the U.K. is politically opposed to guns in the hands of private citizens it sometimes seems they have a fascination with people in the U.S. having guns. Here is an example:

Debbie Ferns travels the USA organising “Ladies Only Gun Camps” complete with pink weapons to encourage women to take up shooting.

Mrs Ferns, 55, from Tucson, Arizona, has also written a book called Babes with Bullets, Women Having Fun With Guns.

“Every woman in America should shoot a gun,” said Mrs Ferns, who has more than 20 in her home collection.

She added “As long as the woman is a legal and law-abiding citizen I feel they should at least have a basic education in firearms safety.”

The three-day camps, which cost £400, are exploding across the country and in January next year a US TV show will begin documenting the female gun trend.

“It started with one camp in 2004 and now we’re planning 15 to 20 camps for 2010,” said Debbie, who has helped recruit over 1,000 women to the shooting world.

“Women love it. We get schoolteachers, lawyers, nurses, women from all walks of life.

“They come in as novices and go away with a brand new skill using a powerful tool.

“Quite often they make new lifelong friends at camp as well.”

The women-only gun camps are particularly popular with women over the age of 35, up to those in their 60s.

“We have so much fun and it’s very exciting.

“It’s a fast paced program and by the third day of camp we have women safely drawing from holsters and shooting on the move,” said Mrs Ferns. “We often get emails from women telling us that the camp has changed their lives.”

There’s more and it is a very positive article. I have to wonder what that means for the future of gun ownership in the U.K. Is it an indicator of change for their firearm bans?

Quote of the day–Laurel

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I love Annie Oakley. So much.
 …
I hope I grow up to be that cool.

Laurel
October 26, 2009
This may be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
[And I think it’s pretty cool there are women like Laurel as my neighbor in Moscow, Idaho.–Joe]

How cute!

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Say Uncle has a link to a video on how to make a fireball shooter. How cute!

But that’s not a fireball. This is a fireball:

That is daughter Kim visible in the video. Her cousin Lacy, off screen, provides most of the extra sound effects.

How many rounds per year?

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I’ve often wondered how many rounds per year of ammo we go through in the U.S. Some say about nine billion others say about five billion as of 1992. Some say the world wide production is only 14 billion. Yet CCI (Lewiston Idaho) says they alone are going to produce more than six billion this year.

Six billion bullets in one year from just one company. Do you want to compute the odds on how safe bullets are compared to cars, swimming pools, and ladders? It’s beyond astronomical, it’s governmental*.

*I think it was one of the recent Vicious Circle podcasts that made mention of this joke.

New shooter report

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I took two people to the range with me tonight.

Gang is one of my co-workers. He is from the People’s Republic of China. He had some military training when he was still living there but he only fired eight rounds total from an SKS. He went shooting with some friends in the U.S. once quite a while back. He doesn’t qualify as a “new shooter” but he is still a beginner. He told me he would like to try it again sometime and I, of course, was pleased to take him to the local range. He said his father-in-law was visiting from China and would like to go along too if that was okay with me. FIL had never fired a gun before. He had field-stripped one in training but had never fired it.

Gang bought me dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. I went through the safety rules with Gang translating for his FIL. I told him which guns I had brought and Gang asked if they all fit in the car. I said there was plenty of room but I was carrying one with me there in the restaurant. They didn’t seem surprised or concerned.

When we got to the range I then had them do some dry firing with the .22 revolver. I worked with them on the grip, stance, sight alignment, and trigger control. First using the gun in single action, then double action.

Here is FIL cocking the gun in preparation to fire his first actual shot:

Here is the result of his first eight rounds from about 10 feet away:

I was impressed! I know people who have put many hundreds of rounds down range and can’t shoot that well. Gang’s efforts were similar but offset to the right and up of the bullseye about the same amount as FILs were down and to the left.

I then rented a Ruger Mark III/45 since my Ruger Mark II is still with daughter Kim in Idaho. Here FIL is punching holes in the target with the semi-auto:

I fired a few rounds with my STI to make sure it didn’t go full-auto on me after getting it’s new NP3 finish before letting them try it.

They both fired it a few times then I loaded up the Gun Blog 45 for them. The loads were 230 grain bullets but downloaded to a Power Factor of only 175 (typical is about 200). Here the FIL is just getting the gun out of recoil with the slide still not closed:

They said the .45 hurt their hands a little bit but they had big smiles on their faces after shooting a few rounds each:

Next came the Evil Black Rifle:

Success! The target below has holes from both FIL and Gang from about 20 feet away. Each of them had one go low and the rest in a tight group in the middle of the A-Zone. FIL put his three on the lower left of the A-Zone with Gang having the upper three.

As I watched them shoot I keep thinking of Tiananmen Square and wondered how things might have been different had the civilians been armed and able to defend themselves. Gang, his wife, (and perhaps FIL), and daughter will be attending a private Boomershoot party next spring. After learning how to use guns of course they need to learn how to make explosives.

I’ve now taken new shooters to the range from Taiwan, India, Canada, and the People’s Republic of China. I’m exposing the world to freedom, first hand, one person at at time…

As we were leaving the range Gang asked if I was going to the gun show this weekend. I told him that I was returning to Idaho but he and his entire family (even the baby) would be welcome and he said he might go to look around. He doesn’t have a house right now but when he does he might buy a gun for self-defense then.

Carbine Credits and C.O.A.L. Pollution

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For someone who reloads metalic cartridges, I’ve done it very little.  Still, I’ve had problems, with several calibers, in seating bullets.  The seating plug that comes with the die set (you only get one plug) doesn’t fit every bullet shape ever made, which means it doesn’t fit the bullet you’re actually using, even if the dies and the bullet were made by the same company.  As a partner to this phenomenon, the loading manual (also written by the bullet company whose sister company made the loading dies) says very little about seating plugs, or the fact that a plug made for one bullet shape might be a real problem when seating a bullet of some other shape.

With some bullet/seating plug combinations, I find it impossible to maintain a cartridge OAL to within 15 or even 20 thousandths, yet the construction of the press should be capable of easily maintaining a seating depth to within a thou or two.

Another part of this cascade of problems is that depending on the bullet type, the bullet itself may be part of the problem.  Softpoints can be distorted in packaging and shipping, can mash during seating if the plug touches soft lead, or a jacketed hollowpoint match bullet’s meplat can be inconsistent to several thousandths.  The latter inconsistency isn’t all that much of a problem if the seater plug fits OK.  The bullet’s ogive is still being seated to the same position and the base is still seating to a consistent depth inside the case because the seater plug doesn’t touch the meplat (assuming it fits OK) and you can always trim the meplats.

Today I got the primers I ordered last April or May, so I decided to load some of the 110 gr “Varminter” HPs I’d gotten to try out in .30 Carbine.  Brand new cases, all prepped and flared the same, and I can barely hold C.O.A.L. to within 15 thousandths.  The seater plug was made for the round nose 30 Carb FMJ, and the HP’s round nose, made by the same company, has a distinctly different shape from the FMJ, which makes the seater plug impinge on the soft lead corners at the very tip of the bullets.  These HPs, by design, are very soft at the tip.  Some of the bullets get swaged inward at the tip, narrowing the hollow tip opening, raising a burr at the tip and lengthening the bullet.  Others don’t distort much at all.  The phenomenon is binary– either I get a distorted nose and the OAL is 10 to 13 thou over, or the nose stays intact and the OAL is within a couple thou of nominal.  Nothing in between.

Long story short; Die makers should be discussing seater plug issues a lot more, and they should offer a plug for just about every bullet shape, especially plugs that don’t impinge on the soft lead of hollowpoints and softpoints unless the plug is going to match the bullet shape perfectly.  Another plug/bullet mismatch I’ve had results in the mouth of the plug cutting a circle around the bullet like a sharpened punch– the extremely small contact surface area isn’t conducive to repeat accuracy.  As it is, I can always make my own seater plugs, but what a pain just so I can try out some different bullets as a lark.  On a positive note; standard reloading dies are priced unbelieveably low.  You may connect the dots.

We had a rep from Speer in at UltiMAK several weeks ago, setting up some M1 Carbines with our forward optic mounts and high-end combat optics for a LE demonstration of their new .308 110 gr Gold Dot loads (offered to LE only last time I checked).  I’ve thought for a long time that the M1 Carbine would make a good patrol carbine or “truck gun” if one were to use good HP loads in it.  Haven’t heard back from the rep about how the demo went, and I’d sure like to try some of those new Gold Dots.  I guess when they release them to the public they’ll be backordered eight months within a week.  I’ll take a thousand, please.

The article has been published

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A picture I took of Robb Allen’s hands, complete with markings by Todd Jarrett are now part of a published magazine article.

For the back story read my previous post.

Update: Here is an automated translation of the article to English.

Update2: Due to concerns about Robb’s pants (or lack thereof) here is a picture of Robb taken less than a minute before the picture referenced above:

And here is a picture (I think Tamara is explaining why Robb should keep his pants on) taken about an hour and a half earlier:

Even though Robb didn’t seem very happy about it the important parts of his lower body were covered.

Cute but there are trade offs

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Via Say Uncle we have some cute signs.

These remind me of the “I don’t dial 911, I dial .357” and “Beware of dog. He eats everything I shoot” type signs. They bring a smile to my face but I would never put one up outside my home.

If someone in my family did use a firearm in self defense I fear the sign would be used in either criminal charges or a civil lawsuit to indicate we were looking for an opportunity to shoot someone and perhaps were just a little “too enthusiastic” about defending ourselves.

It also is an indicator there are guns inside the house which are “available for the taking” when no one is home.

NP3 for your gun

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Robar calls their NP3 process “the ultimate firearms finish”. I don’t have enough data points to confirm or deny that claim but I have to admit I have been very happy with it on my STI Eagle 5.1 (link is to a 5.0, the 5.1 is obsolete). The bluing on my Ruger P-89 wore off after a few years of use and the baked on black finish on my customized Remington 700 is easily scratched. The black anodized aluminum on my AR-15 appears to hold up well although it hasn’t been exposed to nearly as much abuse as my pistols have.

After I got my STI back from being repaired it looked like one of those cars you see sometimes with a the hood a different color from the rest of the body and a door or two with still different colors. I took it to the range a put a few rounds through it to verify the functionality and the very next day sent it and several of my magazines to Robar for an NP3 make over.

When I called and asked how long it would take before I would get my gun back they said “we are currently running five to six weeks”. It took four weeks to the day.

They disassembled the gun, stripped all the old finish off, and treated most of the internal parts as well as the external. Here is what they say about it:

What is NP3?
NP3 is a surface treatment for steel and metal alloys that combines sub-micron particles of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), otherwise known as Teflon, with electroless nickel.

NP3 – THE PROCESS
The application of NP3 is auto-catalytic, that is, not requiring any form of electricity. This process is preferable to standard electrolytic plating as all active surfaces are evenly plated, which is not the case with any electrolytically deposited coating. With Robar’s well-equipped laboratory, coating thickness can be maintained to within .0002″ or two ten thousandths of one inch, guaranteeing consistent quality coatings. With the PTFE evenly distributed and locked into the nickel-phosphorus matrix, NP3 is a true composite. If wear occurs, fresh particles of PTFE are exposed to keep the opposing surfaces lubricated throughout the life of the coating.

NP3 – THE ADVANTAGES

  • Very accurate and even coatings on all activated surfaces.
  • No lubrication is needed on opposing surfaces.
  • Cleaning is minimal, usually requiring only a soft cloth.
  • Permits firing for longer periods of time between cleaning, as dirt and powder residue has no wet or oily surface to cling to.
  • NP3 has a micro hardness of 48-51 Rockwell as plated (nickel matrix).
  • NP3 is very corrosion resistant, a 1 mil (.001) coating exceeding a 240 hour salt spray test.
  • NP3 has a high lubricity and low friction co-efficient; therefore, the life expectancy of a firearm will be greatly increased due to reduced friction wear.
  • The coating is strippable with no effect on the base metal, allowing other coatings to be applied or a new coating of NP3 to be applied, if necessary.�
  • NP3 plated onto stainless steel guns will prevent galling, a problem common with stainless steel.
  • NP3 is a satin gray, non-reflective color ideal for all firearms.
  • NP3 can be plated to all internal parts giving a smoothness to the action not found with any other coating.
  • In cases where the NP3 has been perforated, the corrosion shows no tendency to spread or migrate under the coating.
  • NP3 is guaranteed against corrosion, peeling or flaking for the lifetime of the firearm.

I think it looks great:

Before I use it for carry or competition I will take it to the range and do some more functional testing. When I got the gun back after getting the original NP3 finish I discovered the gun had a tendency to go full auto on me. I had to take it back to the gunsmith for some minor tweaking of the fire control system. I don’t know if it was a disassembly/assembly error or the slick Teflon on some critical surfaces that caused it to misbehave.

If you have a gun in need of a new finish I strongly suggest you consider the NP3.

Painted Ordnance*

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I carry a gun with me everywhere I can without getting in trouble. Since I sometimes work and play in some extremely dirty environments my carry gun gets very dirty as well (story for the picture below is here):

My Gun Blog 45 has been my carry gun while my STI was being repaired (see also here) and it has been exposed to my daily life. Perhaps I’m expecting too much or the dirt was too much but I’m disappointed in the finish. The paint is wearing off in a number of places:

It took 10 years to get a similar amount of wear in the NP3 finish (custom enhancement, not the default configuration) of my STI. To be fair there was another variable that may have contributed. Most of the holster time for my STI was spent in a leather holster. It may be that the hard plastic Blackhawk holster for the last two months contributed to the excessive wear on the Para gun.

* I didn’t invent the phrase “Painted Ordnance” to mock Para Ordinance (now Para USA). I first heard that phrase from another blogger (who will remain nameless unless I have permission to reveal their name) who may or may not have stopped using it out of politeness. Since I, obviously, don’t worry all that much about being polite I thought it appropriate to use the phrase for a blog post title.

Quote of the day–Kevin Kerkam

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Take a tactics class, do some scenario-based training, but don’t buy yet another gizmo expecting that it will somehow solve a problem better dealt with by behavior-based training.

Kevin Kerkam
October 8, 2009
Comment to Concealed Carry Identifiers
[This reminds me of when I first started working for Microsoft and participated in pistol shooting leagues. Almost everyone at MS that were in one of the leagues would get involved in on-line discussions about what gun and/or ammo would be best for the league. They had more money than time and tried to throw money at a training problem. I was shooting my Ruger P89 (see the web page of my activities at the time here). I shot in two and sometimes three league matches a week, practiced before every match, and took numerous classes. After a couple years the other guys were debating if they should buy another $2K gun and I had 30K rounds through my pistol and was winning most of the matches. I finally did buy the $2K STI when I was certain the pistol was holding me back.–Joe]

Shotgun boomers for sale

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I received an email today from Dave Mason that I thought people might be interested in:

OPI is proud to announce the expansion of our Exploding Target line! In addition to the Rifle targets, we are now offering Rimfire, Pistol, and Exploding Clay Targets.

Our Rifle Targets are the 1 pound, and 2 pound targets everyone has come to appreciate as the ground shaking confirmation of a good shot.

Added to these traditional targets are the Rimfire and Pistol Targets. By popular demand, these targets will detonate when hit with something as small as a .22 CB round or even the fat, slow .45 round. These are available in a 10 pack, but MUST be mixed individually, on the range. These targets are $25.00 for 10 targets, shipping included to the lower 48 states.

We also have Exploding Clay Targets for the shotgun shooters out there. These targets attach to your clays and CANNOT BE USED with automatic launching equipment. You must use hand or spring launchers as you cannot stack the targets. These targets are also $25.00 for 10 targets, shipping included to the lower 48 states.

A word about our New Web-Site: The good news is that is has been completely revamped and looks amazing, including the long requested on-line shopping cart for convenience. The bad news is that it still has a few kinks and is a work in progress. Namely, a few of the pages are coming up, even on our home and business computers, with a security certificate error. There is not a security risk posed by the website, however, please feel free to contact us via e-mail at sales@ozarkpyro.com as alternative ordering method.

In the Research and Development department: Designed primarily for Patrick Flanigan (http://www.patrickflanigan.com) we are back working on explosive fireball and various colored explosions for Patrick’s shows. As soon as we can get these targets in a consumer friendly format, I’ll let you know so that you can buy them too!

Our next Thunder In The Hills was scheduled for 17 October 2009 but there is no way that we can pull it off as we are so busy at this point. We hope to have a spring shoot next year.

For business owners and entrepreneurs out there, join our growing list of distributors and purchase at wholesale prices for sales in your store and/or at gun shows. Please e-mail us for an information packet about what OPI can offer your business!

 

Sincerely,

Dave Mason
President
Ozark Pyrotechnics, Inc.
P.O. Box 118
Hartville, MO 65667-0118
417-741-1142
http://www.OzarkPyro.com
http://www.ThunderInTheHills.info

I’ve had lots and lots of request for “Shotgun Boomers” and I put a couple of days worth of effort into it without success. Dave apparently has it figured out and is offering them for sale. I can occasionally get a pistol to detonate the boomers but that usually requires that you be entertainingly close and I don’t recommend that unless you fill out your nomination form for a Darwin award beforehand. And for rimfire detonation of our targets it requires a rifle, high velocity ammo, and close ranges.

I have this “thing” about encouraging people to learn precision long range shooting and just don’t have that much interest in the shotgun and pistol side of things. The “clean up”/high-intensity events came about because it wasn’t that much additional effort for me and so many people wanted to do it. I don’t really “get it” like I do the long range stuff but if that gets you fired up then Dave’s your man.

Please check the laws in your state/county before you decide to buy exploding targets. I would hate to have contributed to you having unexpected “quality time” with your local law enforcement officer. And please be very, very careful with them.

New shooter report

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Daughter Kim and her husband Caleb took friend Amber to the range last Monday. It was the first time Amber had ever shot a gun.

They borrowed my Ruger Mark II and all the reports indicate Amber enjoyed herself and did well:

Welcome to the community Amber.

And thank you Kim and Caleb for making her introduction to shooting enjoyable.

Machine Screws and Other Weird Numbers (rambling alert)

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Maybe I’m the last to know, but I just found out that the nominal outer diameter of a gauge-numbered machine screw is defined as the gauge number multiplied by .013″, plus .060″.  The actual diameter is usually two or three thousandths or so under nominal.  I know ’cause we tried it.  And as you are all know doubt aware; once you reach a quarter inch, you’re going by fractional inch dimensions instead of gauge.  Wood screws go by their own, as yet mysterious to me, system, probably developed by some guy and his partner making screws by hand 250 years ago.

Who cares?  Well, we have run into problems with what we refer to as “stacking tolerances” in our production– a threading tap varies slightly (both initially and over time with wear) the anodizing depth varies slightly, and screw dimensions vary slightly even if you stick with one supplier.  If these variations all go in the wrong direction at once, you end up with customers calling you saying the screws are so tight in the mount that some of them are breaking, even though you’ve been doing everything exactly the same for years and it’s always worked nicely.  We started using +.001″ and +.002″ oversized form taps a few years ago, to make up for the thickness the anodizing adds to the threads, and then some, and the problem went away.  Now at least we can measure screws and know exactly how they vary from “nominal” as opposed to making simply comparative measurements.

This new (to me) tidbit of information is just icing on the cake for you engineers out there, in the unlikely event that you were as ignorant of such things as I was a few minutes ago.  What I still don’t understand is why we call a number eight screw a number eight screw instead of a .164″ screw.  Too many digits?  But then you’d not have to remember gauge x .013″ + .060″.

Some of these oddities come down from the past in “organic” ways.  Firearm bullet and bore diameters are a good example.  Who the hell came up with .223, .308 or .452, as opposed to, say .200, .250, .300 .350, etc?  Some of these unlikely numbers, at least in part, come from the days of black powder, wrought iron barrels, soft lead bullets, and the manufacturing tolerances of yore.  The realistic tolerances back then were nowhere near what’s possible now, and it resulted in some pretty weird numbers that became standards out of expediency and in response to backward compatibility issues.  I use a .454 ball (that number’s still with us) in an 1850s .44 percussion revolver for example, because the oversized ball gets better purchase on the sides of the chamber and on the rifling.  We would now refer to a .454 bullet as caliber 45, though you were shooting it from what was called a .44 caliber pistol back in the 1860s, and the modern 45 cal bullets are .451″ and .452″.  Modern 44 caliber bullets are .429″.  Huh?  I definitely need to learn more about this stuff.  In another .44 percussion revolver I have I use a .457″ ball– you want a ball that’s bigger than the cylinder, and a cylinder that’s bigger than the barrel groove diameter, so everything gets a sure, tight fit with the soft lead ball.

We still use grains as a unit of measurement, which came from some king somewhere telling us that the official definition of a pound was “seven thousand plump grains of wheat” (what poor saps had to count them, then recount them, and who verified their work?).  Shotgunners use the dram, which converts to the tidy number of 27.34375 grains, or the “dram equivalent”, which is a charge of modern smokeless powder that generates about the same energy as that number of drams of black powder.

If we were to start all over and reinvent guns from the beginning today, we’d no doubt end up with simpler units and numbers, but the world doesn’t work that way.  Each incremental development is built upon the previous one, and you don’t immediately re-tool everyone in the business, make all the old versions unusable, and change all the established experience and data, just for that little increment of improvement.

Still, I keep saying someone needs to reinvent the computer OS (or the very concept of the computer OS– maybe the very use of the term “OS” is thinking too much inside the box) from the beginning.  There is of course no basis– no established school of thought or system of evaluation that would warrant such a claim.

Nine billion rounds isn’t that much

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I’m trying to do my part to stimulate the economy by upping the number of rounds I’m putting down range each month and getting new shooters to the range. I figure we just about have to do it. The ammo factories hired new people and if we don’t keep buying the ammo they will get laid off, right?

Here’s the background story:

Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can’t keep up with the nation’s demand for ammunition.

…

“We are working overtime and still can’t keep up with the demand,” said Al Russo, spokesman for North Carolina-based Remington Arms Company, which makes bullets for rifles, handguns and shotguns. “We’ve had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7. It’s a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business.”

Americans usually buy about 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, according to the National Rifle Association. In the past year, that figure has jumped to about 9 billion rounds, said NRA spokeswoman Vickie Cieplak.

Nine billion rounds in one year with about 80 million gun owners in the U.S. works out to about only about 112 rounds per gun owner. I went through that many rounds both last night and the night before. I’ll go through probably another 200 rounds tonight and then another 150 on Sunday. What the heck is going on here? I’m figure I’m just doing my civic duty here and it turns out I’m doing the job of about 100 other people as well.

If every gun owner were going through just 100 rounds a month that would be nearly 100 billion rounds a year. That is a way to stimulate the economy and have something to show for it afterward–an armed and well practiced citizenry and respectful politicians.

Dr. Joe’s cure works for sports too

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Via email from Anthony who said, “I am amazed, no SHOCKED you have not blogged on this yet.”

Yeah, yeah. I’m getting slow in my old age. That and preparing for a pistol match on Sunday.

Here’s how you prepare for a sporting event:

India’s cricketers at the Champions Trophy in South Africa are being encouraged by their coach to have sex to boost their on-field performance, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The benefits of sex feature prominently in a secret document circulated among players by coach Gary Kirsten and mental conditioning expert Paddy Upton, the Hindustan Times said in a front-page report.

It came as India take on arch-rivals Pakistan in their first Champions Trophy match in Centurion on Saturday.

The large-selling broadsheet, which claimed to have a copy of the document, said the relevant chapter was headlined “Does sex increase performance?”.

“Yes it does, so go ahead and indulge,” the document said, before detailing the benefits of a good sex life and even suggesting “going solo” if no partners were available.

“From a physiological perspective, having sex increases testosterone levels, which cause an increase in strength, energy, aggression and competitiveness,” the document said.

“Conversely, not having sex for a period of a few months causes a significant drop in testosterone levels in both males and females, with the corresponding passiveness and decrease in aggression.”

The document quotes Tim Noakes, a professor and sports scientist at the University of Cape Town, Kirsten’s home town, as saying that “sex was not a problem, but being up till 2:00 am, probably having a few drinks at a bar while trying to pick someone up, on the eve of a game, almost always was.”

The document helpfully suggests a solution.

“If you want sex but do not have someone to share it with, one option is to go solo whilst imagining you have a partner, or a few partners, who are as beautiful as you wish to imagine,” the document said.

“No pillow talk and no hugging required. Just roll over and go to sleep.”

Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything is validated yet again.

New shooter report

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Tuesday I reported on taking Priyanka to the range for her first experience shooting guns. It turns out that her officemate overheard us talking and asked to go with us. He had never shot a gun before either and really wanted to try it.

I didn’t really want to take two new shooters to the range at the same time when I only had one small booth to work in. So I offered to take him to the range on Wednesday (last night).

It’s always interesting to see what different students have trouble with and how to come up with an exercise to get them past it. Priyanka had trouble shooting fast and accurately. Shooting slow and accurate wasn’t a problem. By moving the target very close she could exercise the “fast” aspect without having to worry about the accurate part so much. Then when the target went back out to a more normal distance she was able to combine the two skills she had learned.

Andrei had problems with pulling his shots low and left. Because of the Crimson Trace laser on the Ruger Mark II I could see that he was aiming well but just as the gun would go off it would dip low and left. Dry fire exercises enable him to see the problem as well. I told him to do most of the squeezing of the grip with his weak hand and concentrate on just moving his trigger finger so his dominate hand didn’t grasp at the same time as the trigger finger moved. Plus, pay less attention to having a good sight picture and more attention to getting a surprise trigger break. It was hard for him but more and more shots started going where they belonged.

After putting a 100 or so rounds of .22 LR down range he wanted to try the Gun Blog 45. Here he is looking for the little knob on the side of the magazine (like on the Ruger Mark II) to push the follower down:

I didn’t let him struggle for long and soon he was getting pretty good results with the .45:

Andrei is originally from Canada but is currently working for a company in California (this company is partnering with Microsoft on a project so he is in Redmond for a while). He asked about how he could buy a gun. What does he have to do? What kind of guns could he buy? I told him what I knew about the gun laws in Canada, California, and Washington and told him that California was more oppressive than Washington and Canada was much more oppressive but he could still have handguns in Canada if he put in enough effort. He said he wanted to stay in the U.S.

I had put on my holster and gun (Gun Blog 45 and the Blackhawk holster I got last year when I went to summer camp) as soon as we got in the car which I had parked off campus. As we left the range he commented on concealed carry and so I explained licenses, open carry, and the laws in Washington versus California. He seemed quite interested and eager to learn more. Next week is not available because Barb will be visiting but if he is still in town the week after I’ll offer to take him to the range again.