Steel match results

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As I mentioned yesterday I shot in another steel match on Saturday.

It was a beautiful day for a ferry ride:

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Here are the match results:

Name Class Time
Steve RF-RI-O 43.96
Brian RF-RI-O 50.12
Brian RF-O 51.19
Steve RF-O 51.67
Jeff RF-RI-O 53.47
Joe Huffman RF-I 71.38
Joe Huffman CF-I 77.18
Steve CF-O 78.66
Bruce CF-I 88.87
Tanner RF-O 92.39
Brian CF-I 105.85
Jeff CF-I 106.59
MAC CF-I 107.50
MAC CF-RV-I 111.46
Tanner CF-I 112.99
John CF-I 119.07
Mitch CF-I 128.48
Susan RF-O 128.76
Rebekah RF-I 236.19

The codes are:

  • RF-RI-O: Rimfire, rifle, open
  • RF-O: Rimfire, open
  • RF-I: Rimfire, iron sights
  • CF-I: Centerfire, iron sights
  • CF-O: Centerfire, open
  • CF-RV-I: Centerfire revolver, iron sights

Even with the malfunctions I had I won in my classes. I felt like I was shooting very well. I wasn’t thinking, I just moved the gun past the targets and it went off when the sights were on the targets. Misses were rare. It feels really good to have things working like that again.

There were five stages. The times are the sum of all the best four of five strings fired on each stage. So with five stages and four strings per stage you can figure out that I averaged 3.86 seconds per string with my centerfire pistol. That is 3.86 seconds for a draw and five shots on five different targets.

With the rimfire pistol it was an average 3.57 seconds per string. With the rimfire pistol I did not have to draw. The start position for the pistol was pointing at the tennis ball you see in each of the pictures below:

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This was a very fast stage. I think I had a couple runs that were under two seconds.
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Quote of the day—The Lords Taint @UtopiasTaint

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@wallsofthecity @tesstoro like the irrational fear that only subsides by carrying a penis extension, I mean binky, wooos I meant gun

The Lords Taint‏ @UtopiasTaint
Tweeted on January 18, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Two thousandths of an inch

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As I reported last weekend I put all my polymer coated lead bullets through a max case gauge and still had problems with my new STI. I had saved one of those cartridges to diagnose the problem.

The cartridge still failed to chamber when stripped off the magazine by the slide when I tried it again at home. The bullet in that cartridge was seated too deep by about 0.040”. None of the others were too deep so I suspect it happened during the chambering of the cartridge. I pulled the bullet and reseated it at the proper depth and it chambered just fine. Hmmm… maybe the crimp just isn’t tight enough, the bullet gets driven deeper into the case, then the cartridge fails to nose down into the chamber as it comes off the magazine.

I shot in another steel match yesterday to get more samples.* On the first stage the first few strings went fine then a round failed to chamber the entire depth. I couldn’t pull the slide back. The gun was essentially locked up. I dropped the magazine, held tight to the slide then pounded the grip forward with the web and palm of my hand. The extractor pulled the round out and it was ejected. I put in a fresh magazine and completed the string in 17.xx seconds. I switched to my Montana Gold JHP handloads for the rest of the match and had no more problems.

I brought home the problem round and put in the case gauge. It fit just fine. I put it in a magazine and tried to to chamber it. It failed to chamber all the way. I tried dropping it directly into the chamber and dropping the slide. It chambered but again I couldn’t extract it without slamming my hand into the grip.

But the round fits just fine in the case gauge!

I measured the round. At the largest point it is 0.425”. The specification for .40 S&W is 0.423. So, it is oversized by 0.002”. But CASE GAUGE!

Hmmm… Maybe I have another case gauge around here… I did. I had lost one for a while and purchased another. I pulled out the other case gauge and the cartridge failed, big time.

These pictures are of the same cartridge in two different case gauges:

IMG_3314IMG_3313

In the picture on the left I applied a couple ounces of pressure to get it to seat all the way. In the second picture I put the maximum amount of pressure I could comfortably apply with my thumb to get it in that far.

So why is just the ammo with the polymer coated lead bullets giving me problems?

I measured a few bullets. Depending upon which axis I measure the bullets they have a diameter of 0.400” to 0.403”. The specification is 0.401”. The Montana Gold JHPs I measured have a diameter of 0.399.

Here is the cartridge:

IMG_3315

You can’t really see it but you can feel a bulge where the base of the bullet is in the cartridge.

Five conclusions:

  1. With a slightly over spec bullet and probably max thickness brass** I end up with an oversized cartridge.
  2. The Midway case gauge, on the left, is slightly oversized.
  3. My gun has a minimum sized chamber.
  4. Two thousands of an inch can make a huge difference in the reliability of a gun.
  5. I must use the L.E. Wilson case gauge (on the right above) for this gun.

I might be able to use the Midway gauge for some other gun(s).

Scary thought… Can you imagine needing your gun in a life or death situation and losing the fight because of two thousands of an inch?

* I can’t use this ammo at indoor ranges and I don’t have easy access to any outdoor ranges except when I shoot at matches.

** Not all cartridges with polymer coated lead bullets fail the tighter case gauge. Only some of them fail.

Mental problems

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Having more than a casual interest in the mental problems of people I recognize a trait described by Senior District Judge Richard P. Matsch regarding The Brady Campaign lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, THE SPORTSMAN’S GUIDE, et al.:

plaintiffs try to have it both ways by complaining that the injury was foreseeable to the defendants on the one hand, and complaining that defendants knew nothing about their customer on the other.

One of the traits present in people with Borderline Personality Disorder and some other personality disorders is they create or complain about situations of which you cannot win. For example, “You must be home in time for dinner” and simultaneously imposing the condition, “You must complete your work before you come home regardless of how long it takes.” Or “You must bring home more money.” and “You must work fewer hours.”

Read my post Crazy talk for numerous anti-gun examples.

When you point out the impossible situation they have created they will probably attack you (verbally and/or physically). It is always your fault they are angry with you because you violated some “rule” they imposed or you “should have known” about. They insist upon a myriad of rules which are conflicting, nonsensical, and impossible to meet. They then insist you are the problem when you fail to abide by the rules. This is the Brady Campaign, and anti-gun people in general, mindset. This is conclusive proof they have mental problems.

The exact diagnosis of their mental problems is not particularly important. What is important is how to deal with them. In still another anti-gun crazy talk example Stacy, my counselor on such matters, has some advice on how to deal with these people.

Quote of the day—A Reader

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I think genocides were/are actually useful to the planet’s preservation. Imagine if all these ppl would have not died how much more pollution there would be? I did follow this statement by ” yes genocide is horrific…but” I honestly know that genocides are terrible things however I actually don’t feel bad for these humans that were killed.  I don’t care  at all….. I know it’s wrong as society thinks it’s wrong but I actually think it’s not entirely a bad thing….it has its positives?

A Reader
June 21, 2015
Sociopath?
[Yes. These people exist.

And the interesting thing is that it doesn’t take very many of them to implement a genocide. I think it was in Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust that I found it was something like only 2% of the population were directly involved in the genocide. That can explain why gun control is an essential component of every genocide. If that 2% is attempting to exterminate 20% of the population and half of the intended victims are armed then that means the intended victims outnumber the bad guys by about five to one. Even with an equipment advantage it’s going to be “challenging” to put those “reluctant” victims in the boxcars without losing a lot of bad guys. Which tends to make them “reluctant” to proceed.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jerry Larson/The Associated Press

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Six witnesses interviewed by the AP describe a melee that began with a few pistol shots but was dominated by semiautomatic gunfire.

…

some officers carry semiautomatic weapons, which fire a single shot with every pull of the trigger and automatically reload between shots.

Jennifer Cicolani, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, noted that a semiautomatic gun can shoot more bullets in less time than a small-caliber weapon.

Jerry Larson/The Associated Press
June 6, 2015
Semiautomatic gunfire dominated Waco biker shootout, several witnesses say
[There is so much crap for brains demonstrated here that I don’t even want to think about it.—Joe]

Washington State Steel Championship video

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Via Pat Kelley:

You can see how slow I am starting at the 1:01 mark.

This is from the match I shot in last Saturday.

Here are stills of all the stages except stage 4:

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Stage 1: Dot the Box.

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Stage 2: Total Recall.

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Stage 3: Texas Tree.

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Stage 5: Hidden Option.

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Stage 6: Basic Instinct.

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Stage 7: Treed.

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Stage 8: Tin Men.

Firing 40 S&W in a 10 mm Glock

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Over at The Truth About Guns.

Pretty interesting. I was confused for a bit though, until I realized that by “excessive headspace” the author really means “excessive case length” which would result in inadequate headspace. Using the shorter 40 S&W cartridge in a 10 mm barrel results in excessive headspace, so it’s a sort of Opposite Day article in that regard. It’s a well-written and interesting article otherwise.

The greater implication, at least for Glock shooters, is that you can go ahead and trim your brass at or below minimum spec and the gun will run just as well and possibly better. This would explain some of the commercial ammo I’ve seen, which has what appears to be a roll crimp rather than the prescribed taper crimp. That COULD result in a dangerous situation, as the crimp opens up across the chamber shoulder. So long as the case is short enough though, that the case mouth never touches the chamber shoulder, everything’s fine and dandy.

I’m one of those people who regularly checks finished rounds by plunking them down into the chamber (barrel removed from gun) to check for headspace. That’s a fine idea for several reasons, but this article puts all that into a rather different light when it comes to Glocks.

I have some 40 ammo lying around, though I don’t own any guns chambered for it, so now of course I’ll have to try it in my G20.

As an aside; I wish we could get past the little, political/legal/social dance we often perform when it comes to disclaimers. The author of that article asserts that using 40 in a 10 is actually safer than using 10 in a 10 or 40 in a 40, but still feels the need to dance the “Don’t try this at home, Kids” dance. I understand how this social twitch came about (I witnessed the whole thing) but really you can stop any time you like.

Quote of the day—Windy Wilson

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So, now with words having no meaning until the court interprets them for the masses, we do not know what any law means until it comes back from the high priests holy of holies. The Senate and Congress no longer need the high salaries they get, nor do they need to be in session more than a week or so out of the year. They no longer need staffs of statute writers, since all they need to do is give the high priests of law a general request. Perhaps the title, and some language analogous to asking a tailor for a fully custom suit. It took over 100 years for the Administrative State to swallow Congress through the actions of this administration, I don’t think the next step, eliminating Congress as legislature will take as long.

Windy Wilson
June 25, 2015
Comment to Quote of the day—Robert W. Tyson
[This was in reference to the SCOTUS decision in regards to subsides for Obamacare.

Everything I have to say about this ruling Ry and I have said before in regards to a previous Obamacare SCOTUS decision. It’s good to have clarity.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Robert W. Tyson

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Former supreme courts could just as easily have interpreted that amendment to require gun ownership, be well-regulated and linked to a militia, except for single-shot rifles for hunting.

But that ship has sailed. To unilaterally disarm citizens would only leave them vulnerable to bad guys with guns. The darkness has won. Get used to the bloody carnage. Beelzebub must be gleeful.

Robert W. Tyson
June 23, 2015
Letter: Gun control ship has sailed
[“…courts could just have easily..”? I guess there are people that think that. There is no “original intent”. The words used don’t mean what they say. The courts can just make up whatever they want and insert words like “hunting” that have nothing to do with the Second Amendment.

Then Tyson goes on to say citizens can’t be unilaterally disarmed because they would become vulnerable to the bad guys. But then immediately says the current situation with citizens being armed results in “the darkness” having won and “bloody carnage”. But wouldn’t people have been vulnerable to bad guys even if they had been disarmed decades ago?

I think this guy has crap for brains.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rich Hanlon

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74% of gun owners support closing the gun show loophole. Not the subhuman NRA.

Rich Hanlon
June 23, 2015
Comment to Here’s the deal with the Australian gun control law that Obama is talking about
[This is what they think of us. We are subhuman if we don’t support closing a loophole that doesn’t even exist.

There is a reason they describe us as subhuman. It makes it easier to implement their solution to the “gun owner problem”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brian Doherty

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Certain anti-gun folk seem to sincerely believe that the only reason Second Amendment advocates want to have a gun, or want other people to have the right to have a gun, is because guns are so great at killing people; that a gun not used to kill someone isn’t really worth having. But it isn’t true.

Brian Doherty
June 22, 2015
Gun Rights Advocates Don’t Just Want Guns in Order to Kill Criminals (Believe it Or Not!)
A much-hyped new Violence Policy Center study grossly misses the point about guns’ value in self-defense.
[Doherty points out the straw man almost all of us have encountered with the anti-gun people. It comes in various flavors, such as

  • The only thing a gun is good for is killing.
  • Guns are designed to kill.
  • If you own a gun you must want to kill something.

No matter how many times we correct them they keep coming back with the same or essentially the same straw man. And we keep pointing out the data, as Doherty does in his article quoted above, that successful defensive use of firearms seldom involves killing anyone or anything.

So why do they keep attempting to use this straw man when each time they get what appears to be a full mouthful of reality shoved in their face? I believe it is because their minds don’t operate in our reality. They live in their own imagined reality.

I’m reminded of something Richard Feynman observed in one of his books. I think it was a musician friend was teaching Feynman music and Feynman was teaching the musician physics. After a few weeks the musician told Feynman, “When you say you know something, you really mean it.”

What this means to me is that there a lot of people who believe knowledge is a personal thing. One person’s beliefs, knowledge, and opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s. This is emphatically not true. But yet I am certain there are a great many people who believe this. These people cannot understand facts and logical trains of thought. You can no more teach them logic than you can teach colors to someone blind from birth.

Personal interactions with these people should elicit your sympathy. Their public claims of relevance should be greeted with mockery.—Joe]

That was odd

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Yesterday I mixed up some Boomerite a little differently than normal and had some interesting results from tests done within a couple hours of the mixing. This morning, about 20 hours after mixing I did some more detonation tests. I expected the original mix would be difficult to detonate with the .22 and maybe one or more of the new mixes would be relatively easy to detonate.

Wrong.

I had one original mix target fail to detonate at 25 yards, but then the next one detonated at 25 yards and the next two detonated at 30 yards. The decreased sensitivity after storage did not seem to occur. What is going on? Was the period of storage too short or the temperature too low for it to occur? It was stored at a temperature in the low 80s for several hours cooling to the low 60s at night.

The new mixes, except for the desiccant dried (DD: Dried with Desiccite 25) version seemed to be about the same sensitivity with fairly reliable detonation as 25 yards with occasional detonations at 30 yards. The DD version required 15 yards for reliable detonation.

The estimated velocities for this mornings test (60F) are:

  • 15 yards => 1429 fps
  • 25 yards => 1366 fps
  • 30 yards => 1335 fps

I guess I’ll have to store the targets longer to see if that makes the difference. It seems that it is always the case that more tests are needed.

Quote of the day—James Burdick

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I believe he’s never seen a tough guy close up, or a drunk or a tough guy drunk on liquor or pcp. So I know he has no idea what he’s doing, but that he also probably has a very tiny wee-wee, which explains the gun.

James Burdick
June 15, 2015
James Burdick: My Visit to Costco in Bloomfield Hills and the Gun-Toting Twerp
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via Sean Sorrentino on Facebook.

What I found most interesting about the article was that Burdick constructed a fantasy world around someone open carrying then started insulting the guy based upon the fantasy he had created. There were similar things in the comments too. What they “believe” is more important than reality. There is a technical term for that. Crazy.

I just call it crap for brains.—Joe]

That was interesting

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I’m at Boomershoot Mecca today and among other things I started work on a Boomerite experiment.

The hypothesis being tested was that water from the Ethylene Glycol (it’s part of the manufacturing process) was degrading the mix over time. “Doc Brown” from work, as well as others, suggested I use a desiccant to remove the water. Ammonium Nitrate is a desiccant and I have tons of that laying around, would that work? Doc Brown said, “Tons? TONS!” I had a hard time getting him to stop obsessing over the quantity and focus on my question but ultimately he insisted that silica gel might be better. Because it probably won’t react with the Ethylene Glycol. He wasn’t sure what would happen with the AN. “But we mix the AN with the EG all the time now. I just want to grind it up some of it first, then mix it with the EG, rather than use it in prill form like we do now. He kept repeating “Tons!” and I had to change the subject.

Today I got to start the experiment.

I thought I had a bunch of silica gel laying around but it turns out it was Desiccite 25. Oh well, I’ll work with whatever I have. I cut open the bag and spread the content on a electric frying pan set at about 230 F. It was amazing the amount of water than condensed on the lid covering just half of the pan. After about 45 minutes no more water was condensing and I put the contents in a zip lock bag.

I put a couple of cups of AN prills in the blender and ground that into a fine powder then put it in the frying pan at about 200 F for about five minutes. No condensation so I put it in a zip lock bag as well.

I put about 3/4 of an inch of the two chemicals in the bottom of some paper cups and poured EG over the chemicals. I mixed the EG and the chemicals, put lids on them, and let them set for an hour.

While those were setting I made two batch of Boomerite. One was the original mix with no attempt to dry the EG. In the second batch I put 3/4 cup of the powdered AN in the bottom of the mixing bowl and put I the usual amount, 45 mL, of EG and mixed it into something which looked like a slushy. I then added 1500 grams prilled AN, mixed for a five seconds, added 400 grams of Potassium Chlorate, mixed for 30 seconds, add the mystery ingredient, and mixed for another 30 seconds. I called this mix Powdered Ammonium Nitrate Mix.

I then used the EG I poured off of the two paper cups I had set aside and mixed as usual.

All Boomerite was put in 3” boxes and closed up using heat shrink bags. The shrink was done using the electric skillet set at 225F.

That gave me four different batches of Boomerite:

  • OM: Original Mix
  • DD: Dried with Desiccite 25
  • DAN: Dried with Ammonium Nitrate
  • PANM: Powdered Ammonium Nitrate Mix

A couple hours later stored at a temperature of about 80F I tested them with CCI Stinger ammo from 25 yards away.

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The original mix failed to go boom from 25 yards while the other three mixes detonated with solid hits. I moved to 15 yards and then the OM target detonated as well.

That was interesting. It was a sample size of one for the OM, but it appears that all three of the other mixes were more sensitive after two hours than the OM. That’s a good sign as long, as brother Doug pointed out, I don’t end up creating a contact explosive.

I’ll do the ~1 day storage detonation test tomorrow morning and report sometime after I get home tomorrow night.

It appears we may be filling in some of the columns on the spreadsheet.

That wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be

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Yesterday I participated in the Washington State Steel Championship. I knew this was going to be a whole new level of competitors for me and I didn’t expect to have results that would appear to be anything beyond, maybe, average. After shooting a couple stages I was concerned I would come in dead last even though, from my perspective, I was shooting pretty good. I was clearly the slowest shooter in my squad.

I started out shooting polymer coated lead bullets in my STI. These have almost zero hazard of bullet fragments returning to hit shooters and observers. I had put every single round through the case gauge and hoped that would fix my feeding problems I had last week. The first and second stages were fine. On the third stage I had one failure. On the fourth stage I had something like five or six with one set of three failures in a row.

I brought out my handloads made with Montana Gold JHPs which I also had run through the case gauge. I switched to that ammo and never had another failure. There were lots of fragments coming back but that was no different than anyone else.

I was shooting fairly consistently. I had few misses but many of the other shooters on my squad would have multiple misses and still have times a second less than me. And this when my time for a string might be in the four to five second range. So they were shooting, including multiple misses, in 25 to 30 percent less time than me.

Pat Kelley was in my squad and there were other shooters in our squad doing as well or better than he was. I consider Kelley god-like with a shotgun and wonder of nature with any other gun.

The overall results are here. I came in 44th with my iron sighted .22 and 58th with my STI in .40. This is out of 105 entries. I was actually concerned that I would come in dead last so I feel pretty good about being in the middle of the pack.

But look at where Kelley came in! He shot his Limited gun in the open division as well as limited and came in 30th and 40th overall. Mike Gallion (he went to the European Steel Challenge Championship and came in 12th) came in 39th! The competition was really tough.

That was overall. In Limited division Kelley did win and I came in 11th out of 35. Okay. I don’t feel bad at all about that. Especially with a gun that was malfunctioning on some of the stages.

In Limited Seniors I came in second, behind Kelley, out of nine.

In rimfire iron sighted pistol I came in 9th out of 21.

In rimfire iron sighted pistol Seniors I came in 1st! I also came in last as the only senior in this division.

I had fun and wasn’t completely embarrassed by my results so it was a good day.

Quote of the day—John M. Snyder

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These trying times demand that traditionalist Americans develop, defend and promote a manifesto of freedom

…

Let us fight for the right to life, the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to be free from the abomination of same-sex marriage.

John M. Snyder
June 16, 2015
Manifesto of Freedom Needed
[I don’t think that word means what you think it means John. Both laws against abortion and “the right to be free from the abomination of same-sex marriage” would appear to require the use of the force of government. That’s not “freedom”.

You aren’t helping when you don’t even make sense.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jewel Staite ‏@JewelStaite

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Maybe that last tweet wasn’t clear enough: let’s take all the guns, lock them in a box, and drop it in the middle of the fucking ocean.

Jewel Staite ‏@JewelStaite
Tweeted on June 18, 2015
[She deleted the tweet above a short time later. Here is what she said about it:

Had to delete a tweet cuz someone whose name rhymes with Dadam Raldwin pointed his nutjob followers in my direction. The crazy be out today!

That would be Adam Baldwin who said:

@JewelStaite Would the “taking” be worth the bloodshed necessary to “take” all of the guns?

While I doubt that she has been convinced of the error of her thinking she has probably been harassed enough over this and it wouldn’t do any good to further aggravate her.

Think of it this way. In this case we have the police and the military on our side of the issue, as well as nine Supreme Court Justices who agree the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. The anti-gun side has someone who plays make-believe for a living.

Basically I just wanted to remind you to never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Firearms Policy‏@gunpolicy

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How do you “prevent” people from violating laws? You can’t –there is no “pre-crime” division.

Firearms Policy‏ @gunpolicy
Tweeted on June 18, 2015
[I have tried to say the same thing over the years but this expresses it so much better.

You know The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is nonsensical simply by it’s name.—Joe]

Quote of the day—The Contentious Otter

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Thank you for demonstrating the criminal mentality of conservative gun owners. Your comment was an excellent demonstration of how all conservative gun owners are guilty of illegally trafficking in firearms, and confirms a recent study which stated that over half of all rural white males who identify as conservatives have lent, gifted or sold a firearm to a friend or family member who was not able to own a gun because of past criminal convictions.

The Contentious Otter
June 10, 2015
Comment to Sensible Gun Regulation Isn’t Unconstitutional
[This is what they think of you. If you are a conservative gun owner you have a “criminal mentality”. And “all conservative gun owners are guilty of illegally trafficking in firearms.”

It’s hard for me to imagine that people like this exist. Who could believe this? Let alone not be embarrassed to say it out loud?

It’s quite apparent that either this person is living in some alternate universe and/or they have crap for brains.—Joe]