So America has to suffer cuz u have itty bitty dick syndrome?
Donnie Brasco @D0NNIE_BRASC0
Tweeted on December 19, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from BFD @BigFatDave.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Disarm @Disarm
@NYTimes: The Assault Weapon Myth. A ban on handguns is the only answer to our gun violence epidemic! http://nyti.ms/1m0YCv6 #GunControl
Disarm @Disarm
Tweeted on September 17, 2014
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
Another column on the spreadsheet
Years ago Ry coined a phrase we use when we are perplexed by something we thought we understood, “There aren’t enough columns on the spreadsheet.” This is usually used in the context of Boomerite.
Last week I realized there was another column on the Boomerite spreadsheet. Ry and I then chatted about it a bit and came up with a test plan. Last Friday I mixed and boxed three different recipes and performed the first set of tests.
The story is that we know Boomerite goes, essentially, dead after a week. But we don’t know the rate at which the degradation in sensitivity occurs. Because the quantities involved we make the targets for Boomershoot over the course of two days before the event. Most of the Friday production is used in the High Intensity, Precision Rifle Clinic, and Field Fire events (maximum range is 375 yards). Most of the long range (up to 700 yards) targets for Sunday are produced on Saturday. We expect targets which are one day old to still be close to the maximum sensitivity but we have never done detailed tests on one or two day old targets.
My epiphany last week was that when we have adjusted our recipe over the years we always tested the detonation sensitivity within a few minutes of when we mixed it. We were optimizing for maximum sensitivity for targets which had aged only, say, 10 minutes. What we should have been doing was optimizing the recipe for maximum sensitivity of targets which have aged for one or two days.
On Friday I created batches of Boomerite with various amounts of Ethylene Glycol while keeping everything else the same. The recipe we have been using for years uses 45 mL of EG. So I made targets with 35 and 55 mL of EG to test along with the usual amount.
I then attempted to detonate them with my .22 shooting CCI Stingers at various ranges. The 32 grain bullet is moving fast at the muzzle but it slows down quickly. By changing the distance from the targets I can get an estimate of the velocity required for detonation. Of course the velocity required for detonation is also very dependent on the bullet shape. Just because the hollow point Stingers detonate at a particular velocity doesn’t mean that the much more pointed bullet like this Woodleigh VLD 50 BMG bullet will detonated targets with the same or even significantly greater velocity. Here are pictures of the two bullets:
Yes, what I am saying is that both the bullet energy and momentum at the target are almost irrelevant in making the target detonate. For any give bullet type it is velocity dependent. For any given velocity the more pointed the bullet the less likely it is to detonate the target. We have literally seen multiple .50 BMG holes in a target while nearby targets hit with a .308 detonated reliably.
But since I’m using the same bullet we should (how many more unknown columns are there on our spreadsheet?) be able to determine the sensitivities of the different recipes over time.
The test results were “interesting.” All tests were done at a temperature of 33 F.
Within a couple hours of being mixed all recipes would detonate at 23 yards with a single hit from the Stingers and none of them would detonate from 29 yards. This figures out to about 1370 fps and 1330 fps.
About 26 hours later, after being stored at about 70F, none of them would detonate from 15 yards (~1425 fps). However they would all detonate with hollow point .223 rounds from about 20 yards away.
If the recipes made a difference my test did not reveal the difference. The deterioration while in storage is affected by still another column on the spreadsheet. My next hypothesis is that it is temperature dependent. I need to store a batch of our standard recipe at two different temperatures, say 30 F and 70 F for a day and see if there is a difference in sensitivity.
Random thought of the day
I’m confused. Isn’t it the same group of people who complain about “man-made”, “non-natural”, stuff the same people who are opposed to people wearing leather and fur clothing?
What clothing could be more natural that something made from a freshly clubbed baby seal? I mean, they didn’t even use a chemically powered piece of mined lead to harvest the fur. The only way it could be much more natural is if they were to wring the seals neck with their bare hands and skin it using their teeth.
Quote of the day—Publicoloa
The only reason we have background checks in the first place is so some politicians could get votes or funding, and so government had a mechanism of denying folks a Constitutionally enumerated Right. It does no practical good in keeping people with evil intent from causing harm or even acquiring weapons while it burdens and prevents the Rights of people who intend only good from having the best means of self defense.
Publicoloa
January 6, 2015
The Wrong People
[It’s a bit long but there is some very good information in this post.
See also my post on background checks.—Joe]
Needing clarity
There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over what to do with the “terrorism done in the name of Islam” problem in the wake of the recent events in France, just as there is after each such event. Many talking heads say many things, but mostly their words shed darkness rather than light. The first step in finding a solution is properly defining the problem. Without clarity, there can be no visibility.
I have a simple proposal:
The next time there is such an event in a western nation and we can positively identify and surround the perpetrators before they are dead, we offer them this deal: Drop their guns/bombs and hold up their hands and surrender with the remaining hostages unharmed, and they can be tried in the Sharia court of their choice, with the following caveats: the trial must be started within one year, the verdict delivered within two years, and the court must be formally recognized and approved of by at least two leading national Islamic leaders in the Islamic world (such as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and the Ayatollah of Iran, or similar) who acknowledge in public, in the nation’s native language, to the people of their respective nations, the court’s legitimacy.
Either they find the perps not guilty and we can have an official Islamic court ruling that Sharia is utterly incompatible with western culture, laws, and values; or they are found guilty and executed, and we have an official Islamic finding that terrorism and murder is forbidden under Islam. If no leading scholars will recognize the court publicly it will be a tacit admission they want it both ways – be legal in Islam, but not have the west see that.
Either way, the clarity such a decision would provide would allow the appropriate battle-lines to be drawn, so the proper war could commence with sides more clearly delineated.
A gun for the man in your life
It’s simple; just watch Ramno and get your man whatever he’s carrying (not that I’ve ever been able to sit through a Rambo movie without turning it off and finding something interesting to do, like watching some oil varnish dry, but I can imagine he carries some manly weapons).
I dunno, maybe a scoped 10 inch 500 S&W for IWB carry? Something a man can get his hands around. Ladies; if you want to get me the 500, I’d actually be cool with it. I’d just carry it in a shoulder holster of some kind is all. A set of loading dies for it would be nice too, please. A 7.5″ 454 Casull would be my second choice. That’s just because I already have a DAO 38 snubbie– It serves nicely as ballast for the case it’s stays in.
Quote of the day—AM
When someone pulls out multiple master suppression techniques in their writings, odds are they plan on suppressing a group. Joe is fundamentally correct that these people would torture and murder us if they had the chance, or they would stand by as others did so for them.
AM
December 24, 2014
Humor as a master suppression technique
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
My 2 cents on the AR system
Both Uncle and Tam linked to what seems to me like an excellent article on the failure mode(s) of the M16/M4 system, which cemented, for me at least, a great deal of respect for the platform. If you haven’t read the whole thing, Do Read it.
It concludes (after much explanation of HOW the conclusions were derived);
“How to Deal With Heat Limits
The Training Answer: First, every GI should see those Colt test videos [of firing them to failure] and know what his gun can, and can’t, do. While the Black Hills guys were correct in noting that SF/SOF guys usually manually fire single shots or short bursts, even most of them don’t know what happens when a gun goes cyclic for minutes at a time. A good video explaining “why you can’t do that” would be a strong addition to training, not only for combat forces, but for support elements who may find themselves in combat and feel the urge to dump mags at cyclic rate.
The Morale Answer: Every GI should see the same done to AKs as well. There is a myth perpetuated by pig-ignorant people (like General Scales) that the AK series possesses magical properties and that the American weapons are crap. In fact, nobody I know of at the sharp end is at all eager to change, perhaps because the laws of physics and the properties of materials apply just as firmly to a gun originally created by a Communist in Izhevsk as they do to a concept crafted by capitalists in California. If you’ve ever fired an AK to destruction, you know that it grows too hot to hold, then the wooden furniture goes on fire, then, if you persist on firing it full-auto, it also goes kablooey. Not because there’s anything wrong with this rifle, but the laws and equations work the same for engineers worldwide.
The Systems Answer: As you can see from the Colt videos, if you clicked on over to Chivers’s article, thickening the barrel nearly doubled the rounds to catastrophic failure on cyclic. An open/closed bolt cycle might have practical benefits. They wouldn’t show up in sustained heavy firing like the destruction tests, but they might show up in how a weapon recoups from high temps, and open-bolt autofire would eliminate cook-offs, at least. But any such approach needs thorough testing.
The Wrong Answer: Replacing the M4 with something like the SCAR or the HK416, something that is, at best, barely better, that is much more maintenance intensive, and that, contra Scales’s assertion that his undisclosed client’s weapon is “the same price,” is twice (SCAR) or three times (416) the money. (The 416 mags are the best part of the system, though).”
I’ve fired over a thousand rounds in a day, both from an AK and a Ruger Mini-14, and didn’t come even close to failure, or even serious degradation of the rifles. (I haven’t tried it with the AR simply because my business hasn’t made products for it as yet) But then I’ve WORKED WITH steel since I was a kid, and know first hand how soft and moldable it becomes at high temperature, and I’ve seen how it can be “hammer welded” which is welding two pieces together that are red hot, just by hammering them together). And just about anyone who grew up on a farm understands “instinctively” that even the best steel becomes soft enough to bend like a pretzel, using nothing but hand and arm muscles, at high temperature, because THEY’VE DONE IT over and over. And so, without even having to think about it, it was natural for me to avoid over-heating the weapons. I’ve never had so much as a cook-off (again; as kids we sometimes cooked off naked rounds on purpose, because it was interesting and fun). I have no doubt than an AR-15 would do as well in a thousand round, one day test, though it may need a little attention to keep it cycling with the carbon that gets into the action. My Colt AR has been known to stop after about 350 rounds unless I keep it real wet (and depending on the particular ammo).
That one of the M4s in the battle related in the article was able to get through ~600 rounds in a very short time is pretty awesome. The physical limits of the steel were exceeded at that point, and physics is physics.
Another quote from the article stuck out to me as great. It addresses the trade-off between the ability of a weapon to fire an enormous number of rounds quickly without failure, verses the operator’s ability to actually carry it (because it’s too heavy). This may be a paraphrase, but it’s really close;
“You can carry it all day or you can fire it all day, but you can’t do both.” Yup. Take your pick.
But then if you’re unfortunate and pathetic enough to have gotten your technical and physics information from Hollywood actors you might believe that, “Fire doesn’t melt steel”.
I found it interesting to look at the “service life” of a typical rifle in terms of actual bullet-acceleration-in-bore time. If we assume a nice round number of one millisecond to push a bullet through the bore, and if we assume a nice round number of, say, 30,000 rounds to wear out the rifle, that’s a “service life” of thirty seconds. Compared to your family car’s engine, the combustion system in a rifle runs at awesome power levels, and with no oil pressure. Your actual mileage may vary.
Quote of the day—Nightshade
Tyranny is never forced. It is an act of deliberate and mutual consent between ruler and subject. Refuse. Simple as that.
Nightshade
December 23, 2014 at 10:14 AM
Comment to Refusal as a weapon. There is NO unconstitutional law that Mike Bloomberg can buy that we cannot nullify with armed civil disobedience.
[It’s not quite as simple as that. There are contingencies to plan for. And there may be consequences to deal with. But refusal is a powerful weapon. I do agree that in order for tyranny to succeed there must be a great deal of cooperation between the ruler and the subject.
And that means that every tiny refusal helps. Every tiny cooperation hurts.—Joe]
This is what they think of you
Via a tweet from Linoge we have this:
.
@OfficialJackson 12 slaughtered in Paris w/ a spoon? fork? knife? fist? NO, a “MODERN SPORTING RIFLE”#NRAExtremism
Also about three hours later using the same image:
.
@foxoutdoors This guy on an American street is just another#OPENCARRY Patriot (until he pulls the trigger).#NRAAM
This is what they think of NRA members and I presume nearly all gun owners.
Tennessee
I’m going to be visiting daughter Xenia in Clarksville Tennessee January 16th –> January 20th. I’ll be flying in/out of Nashville. If some readers happen to be in the area and available for lunch or something I might be persuaded get together and chat for a while.
Quote of the day—Steve
Guns and ammunition need to be regulated on performance and capacity and not styling cues. Limiting weapons to single shot breach loaders would keep the second amendment happy (and save a bunch of lives).
Steve
December 17, 2014
Comment to Why Shooting Victims Can’t Win Lawsuits Against Gunmakers
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
Achtung, Juden! Das ist Verboten!
In processing a customer order today, we got a “Service Not Allowed” message from our credit card merchant services bank. They’re the ones who handle all of our credit and debit card transactions. We called them to find out what this message means, because we’d not seen it before. Well, they were by this time quite familiar with the “problem”. The problem is MBNA, in this case, who issued the card to our customer, DOES NOT ALLOW TRANSACTIONS WITH GUN RELATED BUSINESSES.
If you’re doing any business with MBNA, you’d best give them a jingle, and DO NOT FORGET this. This sort of thing seems to be on the rise, and it will get worse unless we push back, soon.
Update, Jan. 7, 2015; The customer called his bank, assuming the “Service Not Allowed” was due to a late payment on his part. As I explained to him several times; we were told by our Merchant Services bank that it was due to MBNA policy, and that our Merchant Services people were quite familiar with said policy as they’d had to deal with such denials many times previous. The customer only repeated what he’d said about a possible late payment. In any case, the transaction, on the same card, was approved today. All I can make of it, given what we were told by Merchant Services, is that MBNA will cave without comment or discussion once they’re called on it. From what commenters are saying, the practice of denying transactions may be random, or it may be targeted toward individual customers or vendors. Without more information I have no way of knowing. This would all seem quite unbelievable, except for what we already know about the recent IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, the attempted intimidation of Sharyl Attkisson and others, and other insidious pranks aimed at the perceived enemies of Progressivism.
Rounds
I reload my own ammo and occasionally a few rounds for friends. I have log files for each caliber and I recently wondered how many rounds I have reloaded for the various calibers. The log files were simple text files and included calibers for which I just did some chronograph measurements and calibers I only did preliminary things like explore powders and bullets to use.
It turned out that the typical log file entries were consistent enough that I could write a simple program to count the number of rounds I reloaded. A typical entry looks like this:
12/27/2014 100 rounds. Win primers. 180 grain Winchester JHP over 6.0 grains of N350. 0 rejects.
All the program had to do was search each line in the files for the word “rounds” preceded by a number then sum those numbers. I found a few cases were I had recorded group sizes or chronograph tests that match the format and changed those to something like “10 shots over the chronograph” from “10 rounds…” and ran the program on *.log in the reloading directory. The result was about double of what I expected in every caliber:
223.LOG: 2027 rounds.
22LR.log: 0 rounds.
3006.LOG: 467 rounds.
300WIN.LOG: 1351 rounds.
40SW.LOG: 34941 rounds.
45.log: 0 rounds.
9MM.LOG: 18643 rounds.
Total: 57429 rounds.
It’s not near as many as a lot of people but I was still amazed. Of course I did start reloading on October 3rd, 1996 which is over 18 years ago. So that only figures out to about 3200 rounds per year. I’m hoping to up that considerably and do a lot more shooting this year.
SAF launches firearms training division
The Second Amendment Foundation is getting into firearms training:
BELLEVUE, WA – Following a year of organization, the Second Amendment Foundation Training Division (SAFTD) has embarked on the development of a program specifically directed at training the new and inexperienced shooters in the defensive use of pistols, shotguns and carbines.
In early 2014, experienced trainers from throughout the country were recruited to act as the core of SAFTD and to begin the development of a number of foundational courses. Initial offerings include MOI – Methods of Instruction, Defensive Handgun 1, Defensive Handgun 2, Defensive Shotgun 1, Defensive Shotgun2, Defensive Carbine 1 and Defensive Carbine 2 in addition to instructor level course work to train a national cadre of firearms instructors to offer SAFTD courses throughout the nation.
All of the courses offered are presented with the defensive use of the individual firearm in mind. While familiar foundational material is presented, additional defensive topics and activities are included such as firearm selection, holsters, use of force, discussions about AOJP – Ability, Opportunity, Jeopardy, Preclusion – Disparity of Force and much more. All Level 1 courses are introductory and foundational. All Level 2 courses take the student’s foundational skill set and builds it into a more comprehensive defensive shooting level.
These courses will be the introductory set rolled out through the Spring and early Summer of 2015. The national introduction of the SAFTD courses will be held at the Shot Show in Las Vegas in late January. Initial instructors will be trained beginning in February. Initial student level coursework will begin in mid-March. All coursework will be scheduled via SAFTD’s website with all available courses and regional trainers being listed along with full course descriptions and full bios of all certified SAFTD instructors.
Instructors will need to attend SAFTD’s MOI course – as well as completing periodic Continuing Education, the course they wish to be certified to teach and the instructor version of that course while achieving passing scores of 90% on all written exams. At the end of the instructor course, they will shoot a qualification course requiring a passing score of 90%. Instructors must also have a First Aid certification from a recognized organization as well as having certified instruction in CPR and the use of an AED.
In addition to the core offerings SAFTD will also be offering a Situational Alertness for Everyone (S.A.F.E.) course which is designed to teach the student to develop and adopt the situational awareness mindset while at home, at work, on the road, traveling, on the phone etc; and teaches how to make your home safe and less attractive to would be robbers and home invasion.
SAFTD will also be offering a Women’s Program. The SAFTD Women’s program was developed by women for women and addresses the specials needs of women, their firearms, security and special concerns with carrying a firearm both on and off-body. Initially our Women’s program will consist of Women’s Defensive Handgun 1 and 2 but will eventually lead to a full women’s program starting in early 2016 including State Chapters and State Leaders for each state.
We are excited about our program. We strongly believe it fills a significant gap in what is being offered to a new defensive firearms student. We look forward to meeting you all at Shot Show and in the weeks, months and years to come.About SAF Training Division:
The mission of the SAF Training Division (SAFTD) is to fill a long standing void in the national training community, by producing a program that is based on enabling law abiding citizens to protect themselves and their loved ones through solid defensive training! Our primary responsibility is to the student and our primary allegiance is to our instructors! We know that we need to support our instructors and their respective businesses, their livelihoods depend on it! By supporting our instructors and providing them with different revenue streams and a responsive organization, we enable our instructors to give a first class experience to the public! For more information, visit saftd.org.
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
I’m not sure what to think of this. SAF has been doing well in the courts and I expected donated money would continue to fund and win cases against repressive firearms laws. Does this mean they are using those funds to compete with the NRA training division?
On the other hand NRA training has traditionally been weak in firearm training for personal protection. It took many years for them to get a minimal set of personal protection classes fielded. If SAF could meet this need more completely and with greater agility then that could help change the culture by getting more people into shooting.
Quote of the day—Guest
You … keep yourself armed to the teeth and have committed yourself to death, mayhem, and destruction. You are thoroughly corrupted and your ilk has caused the deaths of these poor young kids at Sandy Hook that you call “so called dead children.” You are depraved, paranoid, and heartless. Wrap yourself in your warped misunderstanding of the 2nd Amendment as you polish your weapons waiting for more innocent blood to be spilled because of your irrationality and murderous ideology.
Guest
December 16, 2014
Comment to Why Sandy Hook Victims Won’t Win Their Suit Against Bushmaster
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.
When people think this of gun owners taking your guns away will only be a “good first step”. People like this will claim they are being merciful when they send you to the extermination camps.—Joe]
As the Crow Flies update
Last week I updated my Windows Phone app As the Crow Flies. The most significant change was the update to Windows Phone 8.0 which included changing from Bing Maps to Nokia maps. I also added the following new features:
- “Zoom to include both points”
- The last search string is saved
Background: As the Crow Flies allows you to position two “push pins” on a map. These are “Point A” and “Point B”. The app then gives you the great circle distance between the two points. It’s surprisingly accurate even at the multi-foot level. I’ve measure the lengths of buildings that I knew to be 90’ and 40’ on a side and came up with answers within the visual resolution (31 yards and 14 yards which is probably over the actual lengths due to the overhang of the eves on the building) of the map on my phone.
The “Zoom to include both points” feature will change the zoom level and position on the map to just include “Point A” and “Point B”.
I’m annoyed that using the search facilities for Nokia maps. Searches for things like “Space Needle” and “Boomershoot” fail when those same searches succeeded with Bing Maps.
Quote of the day—THE NYCEO
Listen you nuts….go get that surgery to enlarge your private parts so you can put the assault rifle down. Enough is enough.
THE NYCEO
December 15, 2014
Comment to Bride, groom bring out the big guns during Washington state rally opposing universal background checks
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
Quote of the day—Me
The good-intentioned think that they are being a sort of saint, when really they are just arrogant meddlers.
Me
December 24, 2014
Perils of the well-intentioned
[No, not Joe Me, but another blogger.
This is my model of many, perhaps even most, anti-gun people. Particularly the casual supporter of restrictions upon our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. They have good intentions but they are unwittingly attempting to enable evil. They think they know best when really they don’t even begin to understand the subject material.
This reminds me of many other quotes of a similar nature. Such as perhaps the most famous:
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
Walden, “Economy” (1854).
Or Daniel Webster:
Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
One could claim this one is older and better known:
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And superficially they would be correct. But the original meaning is quite different than what we have in the current context.—Joe]