Quote of the Day–Paul Barrett (04/30/2012)

“Before we continue let me just say one thing.  That was fucking amazing.”

Paul Barrett – On the Boomershoot Firing Line

April 28, 2012


[I spent the day with Paul and his wife Saturday on the firing line at Boomershoot.  I teamed up with some support from Gene Econ and some of the instructors to ensure that Paul had a good time.

The above was the quote out of his mouth after smacking some steel at 400 yards.  Then we did it again and again.  He was ready to stop after his first hit because his ratio was 1 for 3 on hits.

There is no question though with that comment he had a good time.  Even with what happened later, he shrugged it off and said, “It’s another story.”  I’ll write up details on that one later.  He was also looking forward to telling the story in the office on Monday. –B]

Quote of the Day: Anonymous – 04/26/2012

Joe: Well we have an ATT microcell at Mecca if you want to call your wife.

Anonymous: I’m good, she wants me to call but the thing is, I’m on vacation.

Anonymous – Dinner Conversation with Boomershoot Staff


[I was going to credit this individual but he seemed to think he would be in some sort of trouble with his significant other.  His justification is he spends all day on the phone doing tech support and his wife wants to talk on the phone with him constantly about nothing.  In other words his wife is wanting him to continue his job without pay. -B]

Quote of the Day–Ry Jones

I feel 20% more gay from just looking at it. – Ry Jones

[Ry said this after seeing the bag of Confetti for testing. We chose to try the confetti on a suggestion from BredaThis was her reasoning, this was my response.  I think with Ry’s comment both glitter and confetti are equally bad. It ended up the Mylar confetti was just as bad at getting everywhere, and it did NOTHING to improve the visual effects.]

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Confetti, Non-Dairy Creamer, Charcoal, Steel, and Explosives

Joe, Ry, and I headed out to the Boomershoot site today to do some testing with Chalk Dispenser V3.0.  We had previously tested the chalk dispenser and it did quite well.  The main problems we found weren’t with the design, but with the material being dispensed.  This time we were going to try glitter, Mylar confetti.  At the last second we also added non-dairy creamer and match light charcoal.

In hindsight reviewing the pictures we should have taken a couple from up on the hill because up close it just doesn’t look the same.  From the previous testing though it looked as though we had bruised the hillside. 

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As we got into the middle of the colored area, we noticed more evidence of the chalk problem we saw previously.  It had obviously clumped into small balls.

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First we tested small charges of 50 grams.  While it did work, they were difficult to load requiring special preparation. 

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That is 50 grams of the most fun intoxicant this side of the Rio Grande.  It is so little that it’s hard to place it in such a way to fill the hole to complete a visible target, but it still packs a punch.

Joe forgot the glitter, however we did have the confetti to try as well as the newly added charcoal. First up was the non diary creamer.  We had already done the one 50 gram test when this picture was taken.

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The results were lacking in significant difference, it looked the same as without the creamer.

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Second up was the confetti.

 

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We packed it in there.  The results though were less than pleasing.  Do you see the confetti, we didn’t as it happened.

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Next was the charcoal after that dismal failure.  We were actually hoping to get the charcoal dust to ignite, however these results were still fantastic.

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It wasn’t good just once though.  It was repeatable!

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And I caught the brass in the air on both of those pictures, how awesome is that!  We attempted another test that I didn’t get pictures of since I was shooting.  I some how got the Boomerite to start burning, with the charcoal above it.  I let Ry finish it off since it was his gun and I was frustrated to say the least.  Still no fireball though.  We wanted to get this thing to toss a fireball, how could we get it to toss a fireball.  We then started going through Joe’s truck looking for things that could be used.  We found a spray can of window deicer.  We put that on 100 grams of Boomerite with and we pulled the Boomerite through to make sure we would hit the Boomerite first, not the can.  We also had attached road flares to help with ignition.

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Still no luck.  However we later had a discussion about the road flares and wondering what causes them to be extinguished.  The assumption was that the concussion would result in removing the heat and liquid material preventing the flare from continuing the burn.  It’s only the gases that burn, the burning melts the solid, which will then turn to gas, and burn.  We though maybe the concussion blew off the liquid and gasses killing the flare.  Both this picture and the following one would beg to differ though.

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This brought an abrupt end to our testing.  We had done something very stupid without realizing it.  We placed a piece of metal between us and the explosive.  The pressures from the explosive split the welds along the top.

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So what is a guy to do when you still have Boomerite left, and no target to test it in?

The answer is quite simple, put 4 pounds in the non dairy creamer bottle, put the target on top and launch it in the air.

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The target can be repaired, but I would say it looks no where near like when we got itJoe already has video of the stuff that really matters.  I’ll work on editing the video tonight and tomorrow and see if I got anything worth while.  For now, enjoy the story board and pictures.

Update:Video is here.

QotD Joe Huffman – 01052011

But what really makes me smile is it is hundreds of miles from the nearest major airport with the nearest stop light nearly 40 miles away. Yet, almost for certain, Boomershoot has a bigger turn out that any Brady Campaign event. — Joe Huffman

People come to Boomershoot from all over. I drive an 1.5 hours every day for the 4 days I help from where I live. One of these years I’ll break down and just camp. It just further begs the question though, what do the Anti Gunners have to offer?

Good news and Bad news

First the good news, Guess who’s coming for Boomershoot this year and staying at my place?

Oleg

Now for the bad news.  My goal this year was to manage at least one blog post every day.  This was to hopefully improve my ability and to decrease the amount of time it takes me to make a post; practice that’s how it’s done.  However I may end up blogging a little more on home projects or quick links than thought out posts.  The reason being is I have a couple projects that I figured would be handy for Oleg that have now been confirmed as being something that would be helpful.  Thus for the next many weekends the project for above ground storage in the garage, as well as reorganizing and storage of stuff in the shop.  The goal is to have everything in the shop properly stored, and everything in the garage cleared out by end of March.  This also includes moving all my shop tools currently living in my garage.  Due to conflicting schedules though most of this work is going to be relegated to the weekends.  I don’t run power tools at home by myself, it’s a great way to end up dead.

In the mean time here’s a couple pictures that Oleg took last year at Boomershoot.  If you think my face looks pink, you should have seen it the next morning.  I had second degree burns all over my face.

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