Quote of the day—Paul Koning

Those in power aim to disarm those who are not. That’s true in England, Germany, the USSR, California, DC, etc. And they always start with the subgroups that are easily demonized: catholics, blacks, jews, etc.

Paul Koning
Comment to Quote of the day—Rob Morse
[This is part of the reason why there is Boomershoot this weekend.—Joe]

Success!

Last night, after getting someone’s (who shall remain nameless) car unstuck Barb and I hooked up another webcam at Boomershoot. See the results here.

I asked her to stand with me for a couple minutes to see if we could be the first picture it took.

I just (11:51 PM the next night) got caught with things enough to look at the results.

I was successful!

P17042019521310

Quote of the day—Barb L.

We just love NOT pounding stakes in the rain.

WP_20170420_09_46_45_ProWP_20170420_10_17_36_Pro

Barb L.
April 20, 2017
[It’s Boomershoot time!

To fully appreciate this quote you need to read this QOTD and see the picture from a year ago and compare to this year.

It was raining hard Thursday morning but the forecast was for the rain to taper off in the afternoon. So, I told the staff to delay the schedule by four hours. Barb and I were still running around preparing but we didn’t spend too much time outside. At least nothing like we would have if we had been setting up the shooting line or pounding target stakes into the hillside. So, Barb was very appreciative of not pounding stake when it was raining hard and there were gusts of wind up to 28 MPH.

Friday and Saturday are supposed to be much drier and warmer.—Joe]

Mere practice does NOT make perfect

I learned that concept early on in the music business, from similar observation.

Although there is a small percentage of people who pick things up intuitively, most anyone will benefit from quality instruction. It applies to pretty much everything.

Then again; how did the instructor learn what he knows? Who taught his teacher and where did that person get the knowledge and insight? At some point someone had to figure things out on his own, we benefit from generations of those people’s combined knowledge, and ideally we can add to it. Competition or other direct comparison is the way to prove you know what you know, or to disprove that which you think you know but don’t.

Here is where I restate the side benefits of hunting (the primary benefit being the harvest of wonderful protein from wonderful nature by your own hand). You can do all the range shooting in the world, and even excel at it, and be under-prepared for “shooting for real”. Even though game animals generally don’t shoot back, if you hunt for several seasons you will realize this in ways you cannot otherwise imagine. Here’s another man who sees it that way;

Quote of the day—Andrew Heaton

The president is the top bureaucrat, and there’s nothing more American than despising bureaucrats. The government is basically a giant Human Resources Department with tanks, and the president is in charge of it.

Andrew Heaton
March 18, 2017
Why America Needs A Monarchy
[The title of the article is clickbait, the author is a comedian, but he has an interesting point.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lori Yeghiayan Friedman

Federal concealed carry reciprocity is simply an end-run around state laws. It’s a gift to gun manufacturers — for whom any gun restriction, “reasonable” or no — means fewer sales.

Lori Yeghiayan Friedman
April 17, 2017
Op-ed: Federal concealed carry reciprocity is wrong for Pennsylvania and the country
[Ah yes. You can always recognize the Marxist. To them everything is always about money. The concepts of principles, inalienable rights, freedom of choice, and even individualism are either dismissed or derided.

After a hundred years, hundreds of attempts, and over 100 million murdered by their own government Friedman and her ilk still believe Marxism is “progress”.

We are on a different path. To us, freedom is progress.—Joe]

Horizontal dispersion due to muzzle velocity variations

Yesterday Say Uncle posted Ballistic Accuracy Classification. It looks good and thankfully they included a spreadsheet for doing all the calculations.

I commented that one thing that wasn’t mentioned, but it’s really just nitpicking on this observation:

There are two atmospheric effects that can finally create excess variance in one axis: Variable wind will increase horizontal variance.

This is true but it doesn’t tell the entire story. Variable muzzle velocity will also increase horizontal variance.

Ben then asked:

…the influence of velocity variance on horizontal dispersion… How far are these long ranges? Are the influences big enough to be measured or do they end up in the noise?

I didn’t have any numbers readily available off the top of my head so I ran the simulations with Modern Ballistics.

The simulations are with a 168 grain Match King bullet with a mean muzzle velocity of 2500 fps, sea level, 59F, a wind speed of 10 MPH coming from the left, with a perfect hold for the constant wind, and 1000 shots. The drift due to wind alone is 25.7” at 500 yards and 131.4” at 1000 yards.

The first two images show the horizontal and vertical dispersion with a muzzle velocity standard deviation of 20 fps at 500 and 1000 yards. For scale, the dimensions of the yellow target areas are 3” x 11” and 10” x 56” and the .30 caliber bullet holes are to scale as well.

 HorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv500YardsHorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv1000Yards

This is with a standard deviation of 30 fps at 500 and 1000 yards with targets of 5” x 15” and 15” x 90”.

HorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv500YardsHorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv1000Yards

The takeaways are:

  • Velocity variations contribute to horizontal as well as vertical dispersion of your shots.
  • The horizontal dispersion at 1000 yards is about three times that at 500 yards.
  • The muzzle velocity contribution is something on the order of 5% to 15% of the contribution of the wind by itself. This is not just noise, but it’s not exactly major either.
  • Modern Ballistics is your friend.

Update: In the comments Monte points out I should have chosen a more realistic example. A 168 grain SMK with a MV of 2500 at 1000 yards is not good for much other than hitting the dirt in the area of the target.

Here is the same simulation with a 190 grain SMK with a MV of 3050 (approximately what I get with BlackHills Match ammo in my .300 Win Mag).

With a standard deviation of 20 fps the 500 yard target is 1.5” x 6” and the 1000 yard target is 8” x 45”.

HorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv500yardsHorizontalDispersionVia20StdInMv1000yards

With a standard deviation of 30 fps the 500 yard target is 2” x 8” and the 1000 yard target is 8” x 45”.

HorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv500yardsHorizontalDispersionVia30StdInMv1000yards

I don’t think this appreciably changes my conclusions.

Also of importance is there is a better way to do this. Just look at the numbers for the wind drift for different muzzle velocities. I don’t have the time to do that right now, but for future reference you can easily get nice numbers instead of just eyeballing a simulation.

Quote of the day—The Trace

The San Bernardino elementary school gunman fired 10 shots before stopping to reload his six-shot revolver midway through, a report noted. This gave a teacher’s aide time to lead pupils out of harm’s way.

Some experts think restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines, rather than assault weapons bans, may be the best way to limit mass shooting. casualties.

The Trace
April 14, 2017
Facebook post
[Via Jonathan Sullivan who wrote:

Math.

Anti-rights advocates can’t do it.

He also posted a screen shot:

TheTraceCantDoNumbers

I take issue with Sullivan’s assessment. That error is not mathematical in nature. It’s not even arithmetic. They are demonstrating they can’t even do numbers.

And if they can’t do numbers what does that say about their ability to assess the qualifications of someone who claims to be an expert?

They have crap for brains.

The Trace has since edited the post to remove this embarrassment from public view. It’s a shame they can’t edit their brains to fix the problem at its source.—Joe]

Long range rifle for sale

Via email from Dave Bakken who says he will bring the rifle to Boomershoot this year if there is someone interested in purchasing it.

Details on the equipment here. Synopsis:

Q: What happens when a professor in a technical area decides to get into long-range shooting?

A: He ends up with the gear described in this document, after a huge amount of research and trial and error.

==========================

Q: What happens when he is getting divorced later (after not having time to shoot the rifle for 2+ years)?

A: He sells it. This saves those who hope to get into long-range shooting a HUGE amount of time. Especially if you do not presently have time to learn and master handloading…

Summary

OK, so nowadays Dave is selling his rifle and setup. In doing so, anyone who wants to get into long-distance shooting can buy this and save a HUGE amount of time in researching options.

Here is what he is selling:

Item

List ($)

Rifle Setup

3290

Ammo

106

Supporting Gear

398

Gear in the Toolbox

320

TOTAL$$

4114

 

Asking Price: $3500.

Sweet!

David Hardy reports that President Trump is going to speak at the NRA convention:

A delicious twist: it’s the same day as the White House Correspondent’s dinner, which he announced he would cut.

The press is so incredibly hostile to gun owners to have the president snub them and court gun owners is sweet, regardless of what you think of the man.

I agree with David, yes, quite delicious.

Elaborating a bit:

President Donald Trump will speak at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention on April 28, becoming the first U.S. president to address the gun-rights group since Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Quote of the day—Stacy Louise Smith‏ @stacyl61

Their small “manhood” may be the reason they feel the need to buy all those guns.

Stacy Louise Smith‏ @stacyl61
Tweeted on September 20, 2016
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from BFD ‏@BigFatDave.

There is also this from her the next day:

StacyLouiseSmith

It’s amazing how much effort they put into compensating for their lack of facts and reason.—Joe]

Daffodils and tulips

Barb and I drove north for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival today. I had been there once before which was probably 30 or 35 years ago. Barb had never been there.

We saw huge lines for the early exits and took the advice of the website:

Consider taking Exit 230 off I-5, near Burlington and north of Mount Vernon (there’s little traffic north of Exit 226).  Head west, toward Anacortes and at Pulver Road, turn left and stop in Skagit’s Own Fish Market for maps and directions.  Or, stay on Hwy 20 to BEST Rd, turn left, and continue to the roundabout…go east and you’re in the heart of tulip country, with Tulip Town a left hand turn in about a mile and RoozenGaarde a right hand turn a little farther down McLean.

I’ll bet we saved at least an hour of sitting in stop and go traffic. Those lines extended for miles.

We parked on the side a road next to a field of daffodils and walked a couple hundred yards to a field of tulips. There we walked the dirt roads next to the acres and acres of flowers.

The rest of our visit can be best described with pictures.

IMG_7940AdjustedThe daffodils were tall! They came up midway on my thigh.

Common sense gun law change

The ATF is hopelessly behind in processing for 4473s. I would like to propose a simple change to the law which would dramatically decrease their workload. The law currently says these records must be kept by the FFL for 20 years or until the licensee goes out of business. In addition to this being a burden for the ATF it is a burden on FFLs. It just common sense to make a change in the rules to ease the burden for everyone involved.

If the rule were changed to something reasonable like five years the ATF could recycle much of that paper stored in shipping containers. The FFLs could recycle their paper and free up storage space as well. It’s good for the environment to have put that storage area to some other use and and slow the sprawl of buildings.

We can call it something like the Second Amendment Paperwork Reduction rule change. In an ideal world there would be no paperwork other than an occasional receipt involved in exercising your specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. But I don’t think that is politically feasible at this time. But reducing to five years might be doable.

And for those of you doubting the ability to get such an act through congress remember that the Obama administration added firearm regulations without an act of congress. So, based upon that precedent, it seems just common sense that the current president has the power to remove firearm regulations without an act of congress.

Incrementalism. It’s just common sense.

Quote of the day—Eva Franchell

Cars have turned into deadly weapons. They have been easy to steal and then nothing has been able to stop their advance.

In Nice, Berlin, Jerusalem, London and Stockholm , they have been used as effective murder machines terrorists who wanted to kill many people.

Justice Minister Morgan Johansson believes that it is difficult to protect people in an open society. But motorists may run anywhere is surely not transparent. The cars have dominated our cities for decades, now it is the people who need space. Now it is cars that must be regulated.

Eva Franchell
April 10, 2017
Clear Stockholm – stopping cars
[Translation by Google Chrome.

H/T Say Uncle.

With both guns and cars so many people seem obsessed with the tool rather than the people using the tools. I’m starting to wonder if a significant number of them developed this peculiar mindset because of an inadequacy with the use of tools. They see, perhaps unconsciously, a path to reducing their feelings of inferiority by banning the use of those tools by others.—Joe]

More validation of Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything

From Medical News Today, Ten health benefits of sex:

  1. Improves immunity
  2. Good for the heart
  3. Lowers blood pressure
  4. Relieves pain
  5. Reduces the risk of prostate cancer
  6. Improves sleep
  7. Relieves stress
  8. Boosts brain power
  9. Increases lifespan
  10. Boosts self-esteem

In some of the cases, particularly the increasing of lifespan, and the boosts to brain power, and self-esteem I question whether there was just correlation or if the sex actually caused the benefit.

Still, there in most cases, there isn’t a downside to Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything and there may be a significant upside. So, why take unnecessary risks?

Posted in Sex

Quote of the day—P Lance

Men control, not “gun control”. Men are the problem. If all men were women, our violence problem would be reduced by 90%.

P Lance
April 14, 2017
Comment to Hoping for fewer school shootings doesn’t work. More gun control might.
[This is just common sense! What do we need so many men for anyway? One man for every 100 women would be more than enough for human reproduction needs. We have the technology to determine the sex at conception. After the initial messy stage, as a 99% of the men are removed from the planet, society would at long last enter the long sought utopia.

I can be sarcastic too.—Joe]

I’m in a practical shooting match as I type this

Tam has a good funny.

I’ve said before that it would be cool to design an IPSC stage in which there are no “shoot” targets (only “no shoots”). Maybe even, everyone goes home without firing a shot that day, because that’s more “real life” than anything else you could set up.

The most unrealistic thing about a Practical Shooting match, then, is that you go to one knowing for a fact that shots will be fired, and you are thus prepared for it. In real life on the other hand, you never have that advance notice, there are no rules, no scratch lines on the ground, no range Nazis to correct your “mistakes”, no timers, no “walk throughs” prior to shooting your stage, and probably not even any safe places to shoot at all.

In that most realistic sense then, I’m in an IPSC match right now, as I type– I’m carrying a gun and assessing the environment, seeing no immediate threats. I’ve been in this particular “IPSC Match” for over 20 years already and have yet to draw my pistol, much less take a shot. This isn’t merely similar to real life; it IS real life. I only draw and fire my gun when I’ve decided to pause the “IPSC Match” for a while, and find a safe place to shoot.

The range mentality has gotten so insane that I’ve seen multiple gun demonstration videos in which the shooter loads five of six, in a percussion revolver (which is stupid right there if you understand how a percussion revolver differs from a cartridge gun), fiddle farts around trying to lower the hammer on the empty but inadvertently lowers it on a live chamber instead and has to fiddle fart with the gun some more to be sure it’s “safe”, walks five feet to the firing line, confident that he’s “being safe”, and then looks down and shuffles around a bit to make sure his feet are right on the scratch line. Stuff like that.

Don’t even try to talk to me about it. I’m just…not…listening…anymore. I’ve hear it all before anyway. Hell I wrote some of those the rules, literally– I was once the president of a Practical Shooting club.

Go ahead and call me crazy though. I’m accustomed to it, as you may well imagine.

Preparing for Boomershoot

If you are attending Boomershoot this year please prepare for variable weather. It’s only a week away and it was snowing today:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170414140531_095

Earlier it was foggy:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170414060115_102

There was also some sun at times:

IMG_chn0_TIMER_MNG_20170414061633_117

The forecast for next week and during Boomershoot is mixed as well. It’s supposed to be a little warmer and drier than today but don’t count on it. Forecasts more than a couple days ahead tend to be unreliable.

On the bright side, for those people who want practice with “real world” shooting conditions, for several hours today we had sustained winds in the 10 to 20 MPH range with gusts up to 30 MPH.

Quote of the day—Boston Antifa

Gun violence is a disease. The cure is the elimination of firearms from not just the citizens but the fascist police and the military as well.

We are seeking an elimination of all guns and all means of creating new ones. With the collapse of the Trump regime, this may be our one best chance to enact true peace and change on the world. Join us, comrades, and let’s eliminate guns from our lives and world.

ELIMINATE GUNS
ELIMINATE VIOLENCE

Boston Antifa
April 10, 2017
[Parody? Insanity? I’m just not sure.

Whatever.

The bottom line is that you should never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Stoehr

What’s common about common sense depends on context. In this case, the context is a black man entering a Subway shop in 2016 clearly, openly and legally armed, and sending the place into a panic. The cops were called. They demanded to see his permit. He lawfully refused. And Connecticut’s white liberals lost their minds. It’s just crazy that the law bars cops from asking for a person’s permit. This is common sense! The alternative is insane!

John Stoehr
April 12, 2017
John Stoehr: Gun control, in black and white
[Although Stoehr’s point in his opinion piece is inscrutable to me he does have some good observation.

“Common sense!” That is the cry from the anti-gun people. The only facts that matter are that they can’t tolerate the thought of people keeping and bearing arms. The only logic that matters is that they will be afraid if ordinary people could exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. Can’t you see that it just doesn’t make any sense for people to have these things that are designed to kill? You must be stupid, crazy, or have a small penis if that isn’t obvious to you. Analogies are dismissed because, “That’s completely different.”

I think we are at the point that we can mock them most of the rest of the time and ignore them for the most part as we take more and more of their friends and neighbors to the range. Make the nut case anti-gun people into a smaller and smaller minority and eventually they will go silent or wander around the streets mumbling to themselves and the street lights.—Joe]