Chalk Dispenser 3.0 Testing

Joe, Ry, and I braved the cold yesterday to go out to the Boomershoot site and do some testing.

We did numerous different tests trying to get different information.  While we learned a lot, we also discovered that many ideas we had to try and learn the information weren’t going to work as expected.  We learned things we weren’t setting out to learn

Here’s the full test video along with pictures and different things we learned.

There were numerous video cameras and stills take by Ry.  I had only my single video camera and SLR with me, so I’m sure a video will probably be coming soon from Ry correcting everything I messed up in my video.

Joe was doing all the shooting, for those of you familiar with the area, we were actually shooting from the road into the side of the berm.  The snow was too deep to easily do the tests in the field.  Ry was out there the day before and got the van momentarily detained for 20 minutes.

We attempted to launch softballs to measure time of flight to estimate launch velocity, however the ball was thrashed beyond maintaining a reasonably consistency for experiments.  We attempted to add a buffer to lessen the shock, and initially we thought it worked, till we saw that it was just in a slightly larger piece than before.

We then instead decided to attempt to launch a golf ball.  The ones we were using were bright pink.  However we think we placed them into LEO to never be seen again.  The last launch we did with 3 golf balls was quite impressive with the resulting smoke ring.

We learned a lot yesterday and the three of us had a long discussion trying to figure out what we learned, as well as how to deal with the newest piece of information we discovered.  While searching for the initial golf ball Ry saw a small hole that looked as if it was from the golf ball.  He reaches in, has to punch through snow to get it and then pulls it out.  While I did not get a picture of that exact extraction, I did get pictures of a extraction Joe did to a similar hole.

Initially that chalk was a powder when placed on the dispenser.  The explosion however compacted it back into a block, and you can even make out the grooves from the plastic baggie.  When Joe first picked the piece up there was still plastic embedded in it, but it fell off.

The compaction of the chalk results in there not being as much color, further all you get is raining chunks.  I ended up staying over at his place chatting… MUCH longer than initially expected, however the wife did have an idea to add to the conversation worth experimenting with.  Instead of chalk, what about colored glitter?  As Joe said, that’s only something a Woman would think of.

Another interesting discovery is the fact that each time we would set of the target, it would pound the stakes about another 3/4 of an inch to an inch into the ground.  When we noticed this and measured the target top to the ground below the snow.

In this picture the top of the target is about 32 inches off the ground, note this is when we first started measuring, we have already set off a couple boomers.  At the end of the day this is what it was at:

The chalk dispenser appeared to survive this test with nothing more than flaking paint.  Between the design changes and operating only using 100 grams of Boomerite (half charge relative to the previous test) it appeared to function quite well.  Also with the addition of the 1/4 in AR500 on the front Ry is reasonably sure the front plate can be made thinner which would help shed some weight.  For more details on the AR500 testing see here, here and here.

Overall though it was an absolutely beautiful day out there yesterday.

Can you see the berm?  With that, here is your friendly reminder that Registration for Boomershoot opens this week.

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About TMM

TMM is the owner, editor, and principal author at The Minuteman, a competitive shooter, and staff member for Boomershoot. Even in his free time he’s merging his love and knowledge of computers and technology with his love of firearms. Many know his private name and information however due to the current political climate, many are distancing themselves due to the abandonment of Due Process.

2 Responses to Chalk Dispenser 3.0 Testing

  1. Confetti, Non-Dairy Creamer, C says:

    […] 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 […]

  2. Confetti, Non-Dairy Creamer, C says:

    […] 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 […]