So I’ve been meaning to actually drop this on the blog for a while but busy has barely begun to describe my life.
Why so busy?
Well we went into overdrive getting the house fully ready for sale. It’s on the market, we have an offer and we’re waiting for the other party to sell their current house. If I don’t look at a caulk gun for another 4 months it will still be too soon. Same thing with paint, dry wall, and mud.
We ended up in overdrive to sell the house because well…
TMM 2.0 arriving August 2015.
That’s right, TMM V2.0 is due August 24th. We needed to get as much done in advance because well this month is going to be spent finding more stuff we don’t want/need to clear out, moving stuff to storage, and rearranging the house.
Couple this with job related item and other things I just haven’t had much time for anything and well the outlook into the future doesn’t look good for my spare time either.
If you need a regular fix of my dry sense of humor, make sure to hit up the Gun Blog Variety Cast. It may only be once a week but it’s better than nothing. You can also go follow me on the Facebooks.
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.
So I had previously seen a lot of different coverage in different places about the “festival of colors“. For a quick background see this.
I always thought it intriguing yet weird because well my fascination with fire and explosives has taught me the dangers of such things as dust, especially in large quantities. Well my apprehension was evidently well founded.
I learned about the wonders of dust explosions back in scouts and the ripe age of 13. Non-dairy creamer, flour, really anything in a powdered form that is combustable will produce fantastic results. The MSDS for white chalk further provides data that while it may be chalk, danger is a serious concern for fire and explosion.
So remember, trust your gut and just because a bunch of people are doing it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe.
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.
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.
So we’re coming up fast on Boomershoot. I’ve got a pile of stuff I need to do to get ready and time’s moving quick. In the meantime here’s a pic from last years fireball.
+1 to Ry for convincing me to get the Adobe Cloud. Here’s the before and after on that photo.
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.
First up, we all know the identification abilities of both the press and law enforcement are how shall we say, lacking. So I have a feeling it probably was not an AK-47.
Next up is why I’m writing this post. If you’re going to play around with reactive targets, please be aware, be careful, and do it right. Doing stupid stuff can cause the powers that be to outlaw things in an effort to stop stupidity. They seem to think that laws will actually stop stupidity while those of us with functional brains know it just stops the smart and law abiding from enjoying freedom while making it a little more difficult for Darwin to do his job.
I’m not sure exactly why this fire started, there’s a couple different options. First is that the bullet itself struck something and caused a spark resulting in a fire. Not impossible, but not very likely unless they were shooting steel core surplus ammo. I find this a possibility given the expeditious fleeing.
Laughably is the idea that the explosion itself set something on fire. Combustion, and the heat that accompanies it, dissipates in milliseconds at most. For the fireballs we create at Boomershoot we actually have to have road flares to cause the fuel to ignite because there is no heat remaining as the vapor cloud expands. We have added things such as magnesium and other materials and this does help. Assuming this was Tannerite, it is possible that some of the elements were still combusting when it hit the ground, I just am a bit skeptical.
Lastly they were attempting to be Ry and recreate the following.
It is well known that creating a fireball like that can land you in an interesting position. The heat radiated after combustion begins can easily cause surrounding plant life to ignite. We do it prior to the fire season beginning as well for numerous reasons. Trying to put out a fire as it rages across the field wouldn’t exactly be fun. Think of the exploding toilet in 2008.
There is a second reason and that is Boomerite that is spread on the ground can actually cause a fire. The KClO3 breaks down exothermically under UV and can ignite surrounding material.
But seriously, if you’re going to go out into the woods and create a fireball. Be ready for some stuff to be lit on fire. It is going to happen and you better be ready to fight it. So if you’re going to do it please do the following:
Have fire extinguishers at the ready
Bring numerous friends to help extinguish the fire
Soak the surrounding area with water if it’s been dry over the previous couple days
Be ready with dirt buckets too
Have a plan to deal with fire
Seriously, it only takes one person to screw it up for the rest of us. Please, don’t be that guy.
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.
I still haven’t written up a couple posts from Boomershoot. It hasn’t been as much laziness as I have had other things of interest distracting me. From ideas, to projects, to wish lists(migrating the platform for the blog from Drupal)*.
There is one story from Boomershoot I do need to write up. The lesson though evidently was skipped over yesterday during some testing with Ry and Joe.
You see, after one of the boomers went boom, Ry had a new look.
I made the mistake of standing just slightly further back than Ry, not thinking about the amount of rain and how close we were. I had the same outfit afterwards.
(Yes it was cold).
Eventually I will write up a post on what happened at Boomershoot, one of the other reasons for the delay is it will also contain a review of the eye protection I’m wearing.
On to testing:
So Joe and Ry had a couple project ideas they were working on and I offered to go out and help. While they were working on mixing up explosives for some of the tests I worked on an idea Joe had for making primers go bang.
In this section, I verify that all that Hollywood crap is exactly that. Ry had a setup to create an arch between two wires with AC. It didn’t make the primer go boom. Joe had another idea using DC to make the primers go boom. Stuff got warm but still no joy. Then by luck I inadvertently made the circuit pass through a piece of metal in the primer construction. That turned into a light bulb filament. I attached a primer to it, rigged it up and gave that a shot. 10 seconds after connecting the battery I hear a pop. So heat, not electricity makes the primer go bang.
So they go bang, but not enough for solid computer control. Well we still have the question of will boomerite go off? Put it in the bag of boomerite, wire it all up and it was the most anti climatic thing I’ve ever seen. The pop was so faint I could hear the conversation between Ry and Joe who were further away than the primer.
So primers were a bust, what about the lift experiments for getting a good fuel air mixture? I have video for that, and everyone likes vide!
This is probably one of the more interesting stills from the testing.
You can see the water vapor form the lift, this was with ground under the targets. Ry also had some targets with bags of water underneath. I’m not sure it really made a difference, though it’s hard to tell with a sample size of one.
We have a new target type we’re seriously considering putting out for the shooters. This year things were a bit more difficult that usual. Target distribution didn’t end up in the amounts we would have preferred. This resulted in a lot more 4 and 3 inch targets on the hill than we would have liked. Believe me, I don’t like it when that goes wrong. I made a nice quote of the day that made everyone chuckle but no one remembered to actually blog it… yet another story to be told about this year.
The tubes though are 1.5 inches in diameter (inner) and 4 feet long. We figure we can put them horizontal or vertical. Either it will require precision on at least one axis to make a successful hit at distance. Personally I think they’d just be fun. Yeah you want to get a boomer, but if it was easy that wouldn’t be saying much now would it?
*I’m in the beginning stages of investigating moving from Drupal to WordPress. The latest version of Drupal is lacking a bunch of the features I want that help me with my blogging. I could write and build the features I need but I don’t blog as a forte into working on the computer. I have enough other projects that the last thing I want to do is work maintaining my website. The migration however has me a bit nervous mainly because I don’t want to break any incoming links for other sites to material I’ve written here. I think I have a solution to the issue, but even then it will probably take me about 48 hours to rip apart the databases and port the content to WordPress. I have a VM I am using as a testing area currently and I’m learning what exactly is going to have to happen and how to do it before I bite off more than I can chew.
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.
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.
See, Tango had a couple issues over the Boomershoot event. On his way up his car had issues and had to go in the shop. He figured that was his issue for the trip. The answer to that question was a resounding, “NO”.
See, we got back to the hotel room to eat our dinner while waiting for a call from Phil so we could meet up and chat since we were all departing in the morning. As the wife and I finish downing food our hotel room phone rings. Odd, Phil was going to call my cell phone.
It was Tango informing us he was on the grade and his vehicle had just died. He was in search of a tow truck and currently stranded. Immediately I ask where he is because there’s a secondary problem. He has a trailer behind him so depending on the tow truck that could be a problem. New problem for me, I didn’t drive either truck. I promptly call Phil and say, “We have a blogger in need of assistance. Tango’s rig broke down coming down the grade. He’s currently pulled off at the turn to the dam.”
Immediately he say’s he’s departing the restaurant and he’ll pick me up on the way out.
Yes that’s Tango in the back right as the tow truck driver starts hooking up his rig. Tango was quite pleased that the tow truck showed up. Phil and the rest of us were actually planning on pulling his trailer back up to the Boomershoot site if necessary.
Luckily the tow truck was flat bed. He loaded Tango right up and then hitched up his trailer.
So at that point us bloggers needed to remain no more. Se we left his ass on the curb after taking this parting photo.
After all was said and done and we were relaxing back at the place where RNS was staying Phil stated the following: “Tango is no longer known as Tango, he shall be known as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.”
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.
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