The IPSC match results are posted now. I knew I didn’t do great but it was worse than I thought. I didn’t realize what was going on until about half way through the last stage when I was having problems hitting some steel targets. I wasn’t doing proper trigger preparation. I had lots of penalities from misses which hurt badly. More actual time on the range is required.
I’m attending another match this Saturday at SVRC. I’m hoping to spend some practice time at Wade’s later today.
Just because you are tolerated doesn’t mean we’re glad you came.
Bill Hall
Lewiston Morning Tribune
February 4, 1998
In reference to the neo-Nazi’s and other ‘hate-groups’ that have moved to Idaho.
After four days in storage (more than required for a typical Boomershoot event) the mix looked like this (click on a picture to get a high resolution version):
All looks good. There was only the slightest hint of clumping.
I used the dead tree to hold the 7″x7″ target while doing sensitivity tests. This was after four days of storage. Multiple hits of a .22LR with a target velocity ~1170 fps failed to detonate it. .22LR with a velocity of ~1500 fps detonated it on the first shot. At the time of mixing 1170 fps would reliably detonate it. The top of the tree was moved rearward and caught by the live tree.
I put four reactive targets on top of four IPSC targets to make it easier to find the targets at 700 yards away. I also hoped to be able to do my own long distance spotting by moving forward to the targets and see bullet holes in the IPSC targets. I was not able to do this. There were no bullet holes to be found after firing one shot at each target from 700 yards away.
It was typical Boomershoot weather–wet. I wrapped the targets in plastic to keep them from getting water logged.
I was unable to hit them at 700 yards with my .223 without a spotter. I moved them to 380 yards to test sensitivity to at least get some hits with the AR-15.
The 50 grain VMAX bullets, with an estimated target velocity of 1970 fps, were successful in detonating the targets. I had not anticipated all the plastic scraps. I will return to pick them up. I ran out of time and had to leave.
I have video of the target detonations which I hope to get digitized sometime this week. In the scope I saw a bright red flash as the targets disassembled in a cloud of smoke but I don’t know if it showed up in the video.
I did not have enough time to do the last test–Boomer Clays. I did get various types of high velocity shotgun ammo that at least has a chance of working. Those tests will have to be another day. Perhaps this Sunday if the range work and rock blasting goes quickly.
Ry created a Wikipedia entry for Boomershoot and I touched it up a bit. If have additional information you think should be included or have corrections go ahead and add it or send it to me. If you do change it please send me an email so I can check it out.
I added the Lewiston Morning Tribune article on the 2005 precision rifle clinic and the KING 5 Evening Magazine video to the News Coverage page on Boomershoot.org.
Test results from yesterday will be posted soon.
We need to reduce government to just the functions authorized in the Constitution. Then, if you believe that makes the federal government too big or too little, you can work to amend the Constitution to make it more to your liking. But the first step is to establish limits, so that we no longer have unlimited government that the politicians can use for anything they want.
Harry Browne
March 1998
Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996
The weather isn’t great (cold and cloudy) but it’s better than yesterday. And I’m out of town for the rest of the week and I really need to get this done so I’m headed to the Boomershoot site in a few minutes.
A few tests need to be done.
If the results are interesting enough I’ll post pictures and perhaps video later this week.
Oh, I probably will be blasting a rock at the local gun range on Work Day this coming Sunday. If you are in the area show up to help make it a better range and then watch me make small rocks out of a big rock and explosives.
See also:
Twenty pounds of HE versus a rock
Rocks and explosives video
Little rocks from big rocks and explosives
I believe a self-righteous liberal Democrat with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell’s Angel with an attitude.
Ted Nugent
Some people say that I have no heart. I am here tonight to tell you that I do have a heart. I have the heart of a liberal…. It’s in a jar on my desk.
Sen. Phil Gramm
1992 Lincoln Dinner at the Middlesex Club in Waltham, Massachusetts
[Something very similar is also attributed to Colorado Sen. John Andrews. — Joe]
I’m about to head off to the range for a special IPSC match (they call it “Action Pistol” to be more PC). I think we are going to have five classifier stages. I reloaded lots of ammo and have been dry firing quite a bit recently. I got lots of sleep last night and after a shower and breakfast I’m ready to go. I may “crash and burn”, but I’m as well prepared as I have been in a long time.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
Edmund Burke
(1729-97)
Irish philosopher, statesman.
I completed the Distance is your friend class of the Looter Shooter rifle postal match today. This was inspired by the events following hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I wasn’t able to conjure up a hurricane here in north central Idaho but we did have rain, wind, and a flood watch:
URGENT – IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
FLOOD WATCH
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MISSOULA MT
224 AM MDT SAT OCT 1 2005
CLEARWATER-LINCOLN-MINERAL-SANDERS-
124 AM PDT SAT OCT 1 2005 /224 AM MDT SAT OCT 1 2005/
…FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON FOR
PORTIONS OF EXTREME WESTERN MONTANA AND NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MISSOULA HAS ISSUED A FLOOD WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF EXTREME WESTERN MONTANA AND NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO THROUGH 6 PM MDT / 5 PM PDT/ THIS AFTERNOON.
A VIGOROUS UPPER LEVEL SYSTEM…WITH AN ABUNDANT SOURCE OF TROPICAL MOISTURE…WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE OVER THE WATCH AREA THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON. ADDITIONAL RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF UP TO 2 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE IN THE AFFECTED AREAS. THE OCCASIONALLY HEAVY RAINFALL IS EXPECTED TO CREATE CONDITIONS THAT ARE FAVORABLE FOR THE FLOODING OF SMALL STREAMS AND DEBRIS FLOWS.
THOSE LIVING IN AREAS PRONE TO FLOODING SHOULD BE PREPARED TO TAKE ACTION SHOULD FLOODING DEVELOP.
These shooting conditions were a contributing factor to me choosing the Quote of the Day for today.
I had planned to shoot it at the Boomershoot site and do at least one set of targets out to 700 yards. That just didn’t work out. My schedule is such that I wouldn’t be able to get out there before the results are due. Instead I went to the Lewiston Pistol Club range where the most distance I could get was 200 yards.
All pictures are clickable to get a higher resolution. Click on that picture to get a still higher resolution image.
It was wet:
It was muddy:
It was supposed to be shooting from behind cover. I was peaking over the top of a hill and looking down the road toward the oncoming “looters”:
I shot the match with two different rifles. One was an AR-15 that I have been having problems with the scope off and on. I thought it was fixed but it was broken again today. It’s time to send it in for repair. The picture above was taken looking over the top of that rifle. The results are for my .300 Win Mag (picture taken a different day at a different range):
Some of the following targets have a couple .223 holes in them in addition to the .30 caliber holes. Please ignore those.
100 yards. 20 points 2X (yes, I put an overlay over both holes and they both more than touch the duck)
~125 yards. 19 points.
~150 yards. 20 points.
~180 yards. 20 points 2X.
200 yards. 18 points.
Total: 97/100 4X.
If I didn’t participate in any event or join any group unless they did things just like me, I wouldn’t be able to do anything with anyone else.
If you want to be a good shooter, shoot. Shoot all you can, under all circumstances. Shoot every kind of gun in every kind of competition.
Greg Hamilton
11/11/2001
Insights Training Email List
He must have known I was an hour’s drive away. He showed up at the house yesterday when I wasn’t here. He knew that for every tear he causes my daughter I cause a drop of his blood to be spilled. I’ve been watching very closely and haven’t seen any tears yet. She’s sad, but not crying (at least when I have seen it). She’s an extremely stoic person. I should have told him a drop of blood for every frown…
Ry saw it prerelease and so did Kevin. James and I went to the first showing in the area and got back about an hour ago. It was very good. James had a few nits to pick but I shot down most of those. I had one nit to pick and James shot it down. As expected with anything that Joss Whedon helps write is going to have some great dialog. This was no exception. Jayne, as usual, is so incredibly self centered and delivers his lines with such timing and such a straight face that the audience bursts into laughter. I think my favorite was when someone (trying to avoid spoiling it for someone) says:
Someone: “Do you really think any of us are going to get out of this alive?”
Jayne (looks around, pauses): “I might.”
My favorite lines of the movie were the following (as best I can remember):
Someone 1: “If I had known this was going to happen I would have done things differently. Back on the ship I would have been with you.”
Someone 2: “Are you saying… sex?”
Someone 1: “That’s what I’m saying.”
Someone 2: “To hell with dying. I’m going to live.”
In another sequence:
Someone 1: “Landing could be interesting.”
Someone 2: “Define interesting.”
Someone 1: “Oh god, oh god, we’re all gonna die?”
This is a “Space Western”. It’s a good one. Lots of guns and blades and a good message. And as Kevin said in his review:
Go see Serenity. You won’t be disappointed if you like this blog.
Ry posted a link to a picture with three deer in it. I could only find one. Here is a picture Barb and I took last month while in Montana. There are two deer in this picture. One is obvious the other not so obvious. We only saw it because it moved.
Click on the picture for a high resolution version. Hint on the second deer: It’s a buck and it’s laying down.
Yesterday I stumbled across a well worn path where no humans would have a reason to be frequently walking. It must be a game trail I thought. Without expecting to find any animals there during the middle of the day I walked along the path for probably only 50 feet before two white-tailed deer burst out from under a tree 30 or 40 feet away, ran down the hill, across the draw, and out of sight over the next hill. The trail had led me directly to where they were bedded down. It was right next to a wheat field. They probably were grain fed, foliage or actually grain, all summer.
On the way home, about five miles from that same location, I saw two more deer. I suspect I could have harvested one of them with my van had I been willing to trade the van for a few dozen pounds of meat (not a good trade).
Hunting season opens in 10 days. Prospects look good at this point.
I went to the Boomershoot site yesterday. I spent the morning rearranging the Taj Mahal and managed to get all but about 100 pounds of the ammonium nitrate inside. On the drive home I realized I could get the remaining AN inside as well. I’ll do that the next time I go back. I also cleaned up some spots that had rusted due to chemical spills and made changes such that spills will be much less likely to get on the metal in the future.
In the afternoon I started doing my experiments with reactive targets. I did six different experiments. I was able to determine a 1 3/8″ thick target is no less sensitive than a 3″ thick target. In each and every test the 1 3/8″ thick target detonated with the same cartridge and at the same range (and in one case at a more distance range) than the 3″ thick target. That is great news. This allows me to use larger shooting area targets without exceeding the neighbors tolerance for the house walls being shaken.
In experiments one and two I couldn’t reliably detonate the targets even at 10 yards distant with .22LR Stinger ammo. With over ten hits at 10 yards I only got one detonation. Examination revealed burn without the boom. Black soot was around the entrance and sometimes the exit hole in the target. The .223 detonated the targets on the first shot. In experiment one I used the same chemical ratios as used for Boomershoot 2005 where we could usually detonate the targets with the same .22 rifle and ammo at 20 yards. At 20 yards the bullet velocity is about 1500 fps and at 10 yards it is about 1550. Something was different–I had introduced another variable and I knew what it was. It was how I mixed the chemicals. I made a change and in experiment three was able to detonate the targets on the first shot from 25 yards. At 25 yards the velocity is about 1475 fps.
If a little of that is good, then how about a lot of that? Experiment four–I moved the variable to it’s limit. At 25 yards the targets detonated on the first shot. Experiment five used the same mixing proceedure but I shot from 40 yards away with an estimated bullet velocity of 1400 fps. One shot one boom. Experiment six, same mixing proceedure and I switched to a different ammo. American Eagle with a muzzle velocity of about 1200 fps. Four hits at 20 yards with an estimated velocity at the target of 1150 resulted in burn but no boom. At 12 yards I got one shot one boom and my thin plastic apron was perforated by small particles. I heard and felt particles bounce off my safety glasses. My legs, being without the body armor, stung from multiple hits and still have red marks 12 hours later. The pain didn’t matter. The targets reliable detonated with an estimated target velocity of 1170 fps.
I made up another five targets and put them in storage for long range testing with the .223. If .223 bullets will detonate the targets at the same velocity as the .22LR bullets and storing the targets for a few days doesn’t adversely affect the sensitivity then we may be able to detonate targets with a .223 at 700 yards.
Americans may like guns because they were reminiscent of the smell of outdoors, military heroism, the intensity of the hunt or merely because they are fascinated by the finely machined metal parts. Maybe the origin of a gun speaks of history; maybe the gun makes a man’s home seem to him less vulnerable; maybe these feelings are more justified in the country than in the city; but, above all, many of us believe that these feelings are a man’s own business and need not be judged by the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Justice.
Samuel Cummings
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.
Lazarus Long
A character in “Time Enough for Love” by Robert Heinlein
[Applicable to those anti-freedom, gun hating people that say “I don’t believe numbers” or “I never trust statistics”. — Joe]
According to the UK Times Online:
Iraqis have reacted furiously to the three-year jail sentence imposed on Lynndie England, the US soldier pictured holding a naked Iraqi inmate on a leash at Abu Ghraib prison, provoking outrage across the world.
England, 22, was convicted on six counts of abuse while working as a prison guard, but was acquitted of a charge of conspiracy.
Last night she was jailed and dishonourably discharged from the US Army, but ordinary Iraqis said that it was not enough. They said the sentence exposed American hypocrisy, as it would have been more harsh had she been convicted of abusing Americans.
…
Iraqis were particularly incensed by the picture of England holding an inmate on a leash like a dog, a degrading act because Muslims regard dogs as unclean. In Iraq’s male-dominated society the idea of men being abused by a woman was said to be particularly humiliating.
Where are all the “furious” Iraqis over all the beheadings, bombings, and the executions of politicians and teachers in Iraq? Do they not exist? Or do they just not exist in the reality of the UK Times?
England stepped over the line in terms of handling of prisoners and is going to jail. But as crimes go there one has to keep in mind there are a lot of people that will pay to be treated like that. Not so with the treatment our enemies are dishing out to innocent people all over the world. I don’t approve of what England did but once she has paid her debt to society (three years seems more than adequate to me) I’m hoping she can become a productive member of society. Perhaps she can utilize her fame and experience in the alternate entertainment industry.
