Do you use gloves when shooting guns? If so, what kind?
And, more specifically, do you use gloves when cleaning your guns? If so, what kind?
For me the answers flow like this. While shooting I normally do not wear any gloves. Worrying about soot and lead residue is the last thing on my mind while shooting. My rule is no drinks and food unless I wash/wipe my hands. What I do use religiously is D-Lead wipes. I have a package in my range bag as well as a second in the tool box of my truck.
They’re honestly worth their weight in gold. The few times I do wear gloves it is unbelievably cold out here, read that as single digits or teens at most. Then I am wearing military style flight gloves.
While cleaning, yes, yes, and yes. Here’s the trick through, buy two different types, seriously. Vinyl, Latex/Nitrile all react differently to the different solvents and other things used to clean firearms. If all you’re using is standard Hoppe’s No. 9 as a solvent you can get away with just using Latex/Nitrile.
In my experience though Barnes CR-10 chews up Latex and Nitrile but the Vinyl handles it well. Butch’s Bore Shine eats up the Vinyl making it brittle. Further if you use things like brake cleaner to strip the oils and grease it will go through the vinyl. I recommend using a wire to hold the object and avoid your hand in general in that case. The active ingredient in Brake Kleen for example will absorb through the skin and take anything with it it’s stripped off. Gloves will help prevent or slow it but that little bugger of an ingredient as it likes to go through your skin.
Wearing gloves while cleaning is important. While growing up I mainly just cleaned with No. 9 and didn’t really bother with the gloves. Again you can probably get away with it but I look back on it now and it was stupid. Your skin is porous and absorbs whatever is on it. Honestly I don’t want it absorbing any of that crap.
Butch’s Bore Shine I think is the biggest lesson in, “Wear Gloves!” There is a warning label telling you not to use it bare handed, use of it bare handed can allow the chemicals to be absorbed and they have been known to cause liver failure.
Gloves are cheap, your body is not, when cleaning your guns at least wear latex or nitrile and expect to change them often as they break and die from the solvents.
As for cleaning my rifles I use a mix of No. 9, CR-10, and Butch’s. CR-10 and Butch’s both get used on the barrel. The CR-10 is much better at getting out heavy copper fouling, the Butch’s does a fantastic job at getting any lead and powder out and leaving the barrel in a pristine state. Butch’s takes out the copper too, it just takes forever if you have a lot of it.
The No. 9 I use on my pistols and actions to clean out the gunk and other crap that has collected up. Oil and lube it all back up and put it back together.
So yes, wear gloves when cleaning, don’t worry so much about shooting. Just make sure to wipe down and wash your hands after and you’ll be fine.
Looks like I’ll be meeting and hanging out with a bunch of you the beginning of September. Joe mentioned the Gun Blogger Rendezvous last May and I was planning on going. I saw this and really started itching.
Then I had some unexpected expenses and well the wife an I live in a budget. We’ve stopped using our credit cards and are paying down our debt as quickly as possible so when I dipped into the savings fund I said, “Well there’s always next year.”
I saw Joe last weekend and we ended up talking about it and his travel plans have changed. Initially it still seemed like it wouldn’t work and it was going to kill a bunch of extra time since the point of departure wouldn’t equal the point of return. On the way home from the Boomershoot site I had an idea on how to make that work. I told Joe I’d let him know this week yea or nay.
Then earlier this week I got an email at work, the company calendar uses photos taken by employees. I didn’t get a submission in this year because I didn’t have time to prep the photos I was going to submit. They did however look at my submissions from last year and they want to use some of them. They pay the employees for the use of the pictures. It’s not set it in stone, it’s a risk we can take it though because even without it we could do it, it would just be tight. I suspect it’s one of the following though:
So this morning I dropped my check to Mr. Completely into my mail box along with the GBR-VII form. My leave request has been approved so at this point I will be at GBR! So it looks like I’ll be seeing David, Kevin (for the first time since 2009) and Derek (again since 2009) again. If you’re going, find me and say hi. Seriously I’m kind of hard to miss.
While there are still some details to sort out, it’s pretty clear that making weapons at home using 3-D printers from commonly available materials is going to become much more commonplace in the near future. In fact, as 3-D printing technology matures, materials feedstock improves, and designs for weapons proliferate, we might soon see the day when nearly everyone will be able to print the weapons of their choice in the numbers they desire, all within the privacy of their own homes.
[When even Popular Science is admitting the obvious we all see, it makes me ponder how much longer our opponents will remain in denial. Every once in a while we see glimmers of anger.
I will say this right now though. There will be no bargaining. We will not negotiate with those who would deprive us our rights. Their attitude towards us has been scorched earth, if only by piece meal. It has been us who have compromised historically, no more. It is time to sweep these people into the dust bin of history with the likes of other bigots throughout history. -B]
Yesterday was the USPSA match in which I was the Match Director. I designed all the stages and picked out the qualifier. Overall I was looking forward to it. Mainly because one of the stages was going to be the first stage I ever designed.
We got a bit of video of me shooting that stage.
I laugh because someone was glad that I was pissed for “forcing them to shoot this monstrosity” except everyone I talked to loved it and wanted to shoot it again. In hindsight I should have thought of a way to run it backwards. If you’re wondering about the outburst at the end I looked at the target and saw I broke the perf on a no shoot at the end of the course.
However I’m saddened we didn’t get video of probably the most important thing that happened on that stage. It happened while the RO was scoring my stage and I was standing right there. I’m sad I didn’t even take a picture of it.
You see that white guy in the middle. Yeah I shot the little bastard because he wasn’t smart enough to get out-of-the-way. I drilled two A’s into T2, 2 A’s in to T1, and barely nicked the perf on the No Shoot. When the RO came through he called Alpha Charlie on the target. He thought I was outside the perf. I promptly stopped him and said, “Name redacted, That should be 2 Alpha, 1 No Shoot.” He looked at the target again and said, “holy crap you’re right.” The funniest thing is, I didn’t even think twice about it, it was immediate and without thought.
Now I know some of you will think that some how that was in my favor, it was not. Here’s how the score for that breaks down, if it had been an Alpha-Charlie, I would have gotten 7 points. With a 2-Alpha, No shoot I get 0 points. The No Shoot is –10 points, each A is a 5. If I was a little less ethically inclined I could have taken a 7 point boost on my score for that stage.
It’s not worth it at all. I’m in this for fun and you know what, if I have to cheat to have fun I’m doing it all wrong. If I want to stand up on the top of the hill and say I won, by god I want to be proud of how I got there.
I was really sad when I had to call a FTE for the RO I caught as a shooter ran through. I had actually hoped he was the first guy to just skip the body and take the head shots at an earlier position. He shot the steel and forgot to hit the other target.
Here’s the match stages, both the descriptions and the Google Sketch Up files. If you want to use them at your local club feel free to do so. Just give me credit and I’ll be happy.
That particular stage is 30 Minutes or Less. It started off being just 30 shots but when I redesigned it to fit in our bays and equipment list I ended up adding a target.
Another interesting story was from the standard I created 4×3. I designed it specifically so the shooter would have a choice between which hand to use at which distance. I ended up walking up just after they finished reading the stage description and two of the main shooters shot it strong hand closest, then weak hand when further away. I promptly recheck the stage description which says the following:
String 1. Upon start signal from behind F1 engage targets T1-T4 freestyle with one shot each. Perform a mandatory reload and reengage T1-T4 one hand only.
String 2. Upon start signal from behind F2 engage targets T1-T4 freestyle with one shot each. Perform a mandatory reload and reengage T1-T4 with one shot each with the opposite hand.
I thought about it for a minute and promptly talked to the two guys who read the briefing and had shot. In the back of my head I kind of chuckled at the thought of shooting the course of fire weak hand forward, strong hand rear, but I knew it would immediately cause an uproar. So I clarified it for everyone and we re-shot those shooters at the end.
I still kind of wanted to hear the collective groan after I shot the course and then read the description for everyone. If you are into USPSA, learn this now, pick up the description yourself and read it before shooting. Others may have misinterpreted the rules.
Initially I was going to just leave it at the comment I made over at Caleb’s place. Then there was this incident brought to my attention by Lyle. That gave me the inkling to do a post, then Weer’d posted the video of what exactly happened in the FPS Russia incident. After watching the video I had to pick my jaw up off the floor at this idiocy.
First a note, do not recreate anything in this video, if you survive it will be either because of blind dumb luck or because God has a soft spot for you and your idiocy.
If you want to skip to 4:46 to save yourself 4 minutes and 46 seconds of pure garbage.
Does anyone see what he did wrong there? Anyone? Bueller?
He violated the first rule of explosives. He placed something between him and the explosive. You see when you detonate an explosive inside of something it propels the surrounding material out at extremely high velocity. This is the basic principle behind a pipe bomb. The pipe itself becomes extra shrapnel in the explosion.
This is why when we Idaho Stress test an object we ALWAYS place the explosives in front of the target. We never place the object in front of the explosive, that is how you take shrapnel to the face.
This is serious and this isn’t a joke. That camera man is lucky he isn’t dead or more seriously injured right now. Just because the object is larger in size doesn’t mean that it’s safe. What is a safe distance then? Lets use the 2008 toilet as an example.
We shot that toilet from approximately 400 yards away. When I say we in this case, I mean the entire shooting line. We found pieces of that toilet well over 100 yards away. Note we found them in a field meaning they had to be big enough to be easily seen above the grass.
I know we had approximately 6 lbs inside the large pumpkin in the second video. We found chunks, not bits, 125 yards away. Many of those chunks were also relatively light in weight and had a lower B.C. In that case we were shooting from about 30 yards, however it should be noted the object was not metal or dense in nature. Metal merely rips and turns in to shrapnel which is nothing more than a knife flying through the air.
Given those above examples, I honestly wouldn’t blow anything up that had metal in it from within 200 yards, and due to my love of cushion, I’d double it to 400 for extra safety.
Joe, Ry, and I all almost made this fatal mistake by accident. That is a wonderful example of how much power and force there is behind explosives and why you really need to pay attention. So please, if you want to go out and play with explosives, pay attention and pay heed to the first rule:
Never Place Anything Between You and The Explosive.
Remember to be careful out there and use your head. Sometimes well all forget to think things through, but the more you think about it, the better off you’ll be in the long run.
Remember this is New York City where only the anointed are worthy of carrying firearms and even then ownership is difficult. Given these facts and he was obviously supplying arms to criminals to prey upon those disarmed by the state, it counts.
State Sponsored Criminal #370: Nicholas Mina
Because when you have a drug habit and are a cop, that just means you have a ready supply of stuff to sell on the black market.
I will state this up front. TMW and I received a free pair of ESS frames and lenses with no attachment to them. They were ours to keep and use. I have worn them constantly since I got them at Boomershoot this year. So while I did get free stuff, there was no request for a review, and I was not compensated for this. In other words, the following is entirely my opinion and no one paid for any of this so the FCC can go suck an egg.
My previous eyewear was no slouch however they left something to be desired, doubly so since I was spending considerably more time with ear muffs on. For those who haven’t spent all day wearing hearing protection while wearing sunglasses, let me enlighten you. There is the frame which runs back behind the ear. Your ear muffs sit around your ear attempting to create a tight seal.
Two things happen because of that frame. Extra pressure is applied from the muffs pinching your head between your frames and a decrease in noise reduction from the hearing protection. Enter ESS’s Cross Series.
I have two of the three frames, the Cross Bow and Suppressor.
The Cross Bow frames are your everyday frames and I have worn them every day since Boomershoot and they have been amazingly comfortable. The rubber pads maintain the comfort while also helping to keep them from sliding off your head. I also use these when working in the shop doing things that don’t require hearing protection. That includes cleaning the toys, I just swap out for the clear lenses.
Every part of the series in individually replaceable. Scratch or destroy the lenses order new ones. Break a frame, order a new frame. Break a nose piece, order a replacement.
Now the Suppressor frames are why I fell in love with ESS, plus a little story I’ll get to here in a minute.
Notice how thin the ear pieces are on the frame? They are unbelievably flexible and well are wide and thin to help distribute pressure. Not only do they solve the pressure problem but the fact they are thin helps hearing protection form a good seal around your head. In other words they solve the two main problems you find with most safety glasses. The visibility while shooting with the copper lenses I might add is amazing. The rear strap effectively keeps the glasses in place while you’re not wearing hearing protection.
The comfort and visibility are quite nice. With most glasses if there is a gap anywhere I can see out, I will most often find myself using that to look, completely defeating the purpose of the safety glasses. These however I just look as I normally would, my peripheral vision remains while I cannot effectively look through gaps to try to skirt around the glasses.
These have become my go to glasses for yard and shop work where I need hearing protection. Even my father-in-law, who is a machinist, is going to be ordering a prescription set that he can use at work. My mother-in-law is getting a pair as well. I’m going to get a complete kit to toss in my range bag so I know I’ll always have a set with me when going to the range.
As a FYI for how much use these things see for those who haven’t met me, I am actually unbelievably anal when it comes to eye and hearing protection around tools and equipment. I know growing up with many 4th of July’s I’m sure I’ve done a decent amount of hearing loss. To top that off I enjoy my weekends by spending time shooting guns and blowing up explosives. I regularly wear plugs on top of wearing muffs specifically because I’m around such loud impulses.
It has become such a habit I wear hearing protection if I’m going to be around loud noises, it’s just easier to wear eye and ear protection than to buy hearing aids and hope the doc can repair my eyes… which brings us around to the story.
The Story
You see, your humble host has spent so much of his time around explosives, entertainingly close is entertaining for me. For many it’s terrifying but I’ve been around explosives enough that as long as you remember the cardinal rule I’m not that afraid. In other words a box on the ground with nothing between me and it doesn’t cause me discomfort being close.
Sometimes you just end up turning your clothes a nice shade of brown. So now you’re asking yourself, where is all this going? Well Tango got my earlier entertainingly close excursion on video.
Now, towards the end, the video doesn’t show it too well but I was easily with 10-15 feet of a bunch of those boomers. If you don’t understand how close that was, let me say, I should have been wearing my Carhartt jacket. What do you mean I hear you ask, well let me show you.
That wasn’t from the mud, that was from the ammonium nitrate prills. There were more injuries on the other side of my arm too. That peppering occurred during one of the last couple shots. So at this point I found my limit of how close I was willing to go.
But you see, your humble scribe often acts before the page fault has allowed all the necessary data to be returned to memory for the correct decision. Even more than that, often the page fault doesn’t occur until after the fact where the event itself causes the page fault.
Can you guess what happened? I’m sure you can, especially since this is a post about eyewear. Well let me set the stage for you.
It is the last day of Boomershoot. Everyone but staff has left and we are rounding up piles upon piles upon piles of explosives. There were so many explosives I said, and I quote,
You know something is horribly wrong with you when you’re finding it tedious and exhausting to set off hundreds of explosives.
If you’ve never been there for staff cleanup and haven’t worked the days preceding the event you just can’t really fully understand it. I seriously don’t know how Joe does it but I’m grateful that he does.
So I’m tired and exhausted and we’re tailing down the end of a very long week.
Continuing on though, we have to look for boxes of Boomerite that may have skipped over the berm, while walking behind the berm I discover an ant hill that is by no means small. Well to demolish said ant hill we place a couple of targets of Boomerite on it. I place them in such a manner as to give me the maximum distance without placing anything between me and it.
We start shooting explosives. We shoot more explosives. We shoot three waves of explosives most of us extremely tired and exhausted by the end. We call the range safe after the “last” boomers go off and we start cleaning up. Then as someone walks behind the berm, “TMM, we forgot the ant hill.”
Frick, Joe is already up on the hill in the direction I was originally going to shoot, well I only have one other option. I move about 120 degrees to give myself maximum distance from the target. Without realizing it though I have now inadvertently broken the cardinal rule. Parts of the anthill are between me and some of the explosive.
I squeeze off that round and immediately I’m encased in a cloud and my left hand, arm, and face feel like they’re on fire. It freaking hurts. I start falling off the top of the berm and immediately drop the muzzle and flip the safety on. Tango is behind me and I take off the rifle and hand it to him asking him to clear to make life easier. I probably could have cleared it, but at the time I was wanting to do it one-handed. One handed hand off is easier. I didn’t need to compound this with shooting myself or someone else.
Again for those who don’t know, my pain scale is screwed up compared to most people. There is a reason for that and I have done serious damage and then showed up to the doctor 2 day’s later with him saying “WTF!?”. I would take my pocket knife and dig out glass from my arm and hand when I would find it. In this case my arm felt like I had just take it to a belt sander with 120 grit on it.
I had a high number of pain exceptions and overloaded the system. It took a visual inspection to clear the faults. My brain registered a high number of impacts, thankfully only a few broke the skin, the two most notably.
You can’t really see it but the spot I’m bleeding out of on my knuckle is a ripped open scar, (it’s bigger now), and my lower arm and hand are both bright red from being peppered with smaller spots bleeding. The hit below my left eye was a solid hit, I washed some crap out of it when we got back to the hotel. Inspection of the ant hill after the fact indicated that I was also blowing up a stump. Also not visible in the picture was dirt and marks from larger debris that had obviously impacted the glasses.
I am extremely grateful I wasn’t any closer, given the few major cuts I had along with the peppering of bleeding I was on the hairy edge.
At the time I wasn’t so sure I was going to document my stupidity. I realized though now it actually is one of those things that speaks well for ESS. The glasses didn’t really end up with any pitting and they did their job. I will say I wish I had been at least wearing my flight gloves to save my hand.
So in closing a big thank you to the guys at ESS, especially Steve Dondero and Ari Drougas from ESS.
*Also I forgot to mention, there were a couple of folks shooting next to Shelly and Anette, and thus next to the ESS guys, who were shooting without eye protection. Yeah the ESS guys tried to give them free suppressors to wear but they turned them down. I’m of the mind that an extra 50 bucks in my pocket won’t make a lick if difference if the time comes my glasses have to do their job. In fact, I’ll probably wish I had sprung for the more expensive set.
At which point I started laughing because honestly not everyone can effectively blow up a chunk of America. The good news is, I am capable and have resources to do exactly that. Not only do I have resources though, but the method of detonation provides a method of celebration endorsed by John Adams himself.
However, it must be said, please do not attempt to recreate any of this. I am trained and experienced in mixing and handling explosives. Just watch Caleb’s PSA. Where ever he says “Gun”, replace it with “Guns or Explosives”.
So without further ado, I give you the 4th of July, Boomershoot style.
I’m sure Mr. Adams would have approved.
As a note, it seems Sebastianknows this, but I still think my graphical display helps spread the joy.
*Sorry for the delayed post, Murphy hates me. YouTube was constantly quitting mid-download. I finally achieved success using IE. I left to go to a BBQ and my computer went to sleep. Thus it finally went up a day late.
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