Tuesday, June 30, 2015

July E-Postal - Fish In A Barrel

In the past it has been said that my targets have been shall we say, rather challenging. O.K. I can fix that. Here's a target as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. In fact, you can't miss*. Download the target here.
Don't use this one.
*Your mileage may vary. Here's how:

Limited Vickers. You are allowed no more than 10 holes in the paper.
A hit on the paper will count 1 point, assuming that's all you hit.
A hit on the wooden part of the barrel will get you 2 points.
A hit on the ring around the window will get you 3 points.
A hit on any one of the 9 bolts on the ring will get you 10 points each BUT you may score each bolt only once.
Hits on the fish get you points as noted on the fish but again, you may only score each fish only once. All parts of the fish count, including the fins and tails.

Edge hits will favor the shooter. If you put a large caliber hole in the right place, you may claim any one of the 4 fish you nick but only one and only once. A perfect score on this is 100. Since there is no part of the target that doesn't get you at least 1 point, You Can't Miss!

Target to be shot standing, unsupported, 25-30 ft or whatever your range allows. Classes will be the usual suspects:

CLASS ONE: Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, iron sights or red dot, no magnification.

CLASS TWO
: Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, optic sights, magnification.

CLASS THREE
: Any centerfire (non-revolver) handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, iron sights or red dot, no magnification.

CLASS FOUR
: Any centerfire (non-revolver) handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, optic sights, magnification.

CLASS FIVE
: Any revolver with no more than a 12" barrel, iron sights or red dot, no magnification.

CLASS SIX
: Any revolver with no more than a 12" barrel, optic sights, magnification.

CLASS SEVEN
: Any handgun with no more than a 14" barrel, any sights, scopes, laser, whatever. This class is primarily for target pistols.

CLASS EIGHT:
Everything else.This includes rifles, PCCs or whatever.

CLARIFICATION: In keeping with the "you can't miss" theme, if you find you have 2 or more hits cleanly inside one of the fish, give yourself the point score for the fish, and 2 pts each for any additional hits on the same fish which we will assume at least hit the inside surface of the barrel


Send targets to bllew (at) rmi(dot)net

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Gun Control

This graphic has been around for a while, but here we go again:
Note that the graph goes up whenever the government tries to make everyone a better person somehow, and falls when they give up.Source here.

Confederate Flags

The current kerfuffle over Confederate flags is simply a replay of Ben Afflak trying to hide some slave-owning ancestors of his. The Democratic party would like everyone to forget who was the political party behind the Confederacy.

And while you're at it, please to also not notice that they haven't changed very much.

Gun Fun

Went out and shot the ECOIDPA match at Colo Rifle Club. For those of you not familiar, IDPA is essentially Dungeons and Dragons with cardboard orcs and live ammo. A training scenario is set up and of course a back story is added do give it some plausability. Back stories are fun or at least they can be. Someong with a clever mind could probably come up with some that would have the participants laughing so hard that their scores were adversely affected.

Below is video of yesterdays match as shot (!) by my shooting buddy, Mike. Mike shoots better than I do. or at least faster. Being 30+ years younger than me helps. I appear as an extra. These things all had stories, most of which I've forgotten. Here are some I thought up.

Stage 1: Iron Felix. You are "Iron" Felix Dzerzhinsky, dreaded founder of the Cheka, later the KGB. Five prisoners have been brought before you to have their cases decided. For Felix, this was easy, you walk down the line and shoot anyone who looks guilty. Most of them did. If you find this description entertaining, there may be a job opening for you in the upcoming Clinton administration.

Stage 2: I'm drawing a blank.

Stage 3: You are the watchman in a collapsed steel building. Hearing a noise, you look around a corner and discover that rabid zombies have taken your assistant captive. Deal with them, one shot each, then go deal with the other 16 intruders who are clambering through the piles of steel beams. The black paint signifies a chunk of steel so hits there don't count. This is reminiscent of the "Dazzle" camo used by the Navy in WWI and still works just fine thank you very much. Try not to forget where you left off when you reload.

Stage 4: House Party. This is the one actually used. You come home from work and find the local thugs have started a house party in your place. 2 family members are being held hostage in the back room. That box around the doorknob? New rule; Pointing your gun at that box where your other hand might be will get you DQ'd.

Stage 5: Bad Day On The Bijou: Hunting for gators from your swamp boat, you find them. 8 gators, followed by 4 hostile moonshiners, then the big gator.

Action picture entertainment:

Friday, June 26, 2015

The (Far) Future Of Transportation

If you want, the Elio P5 will be making an appearance at Bandemere Speedway on 4 July. If you're dying to see the first production prototype, now's your chance.
Shown here in custom paint, which the actual vehicle will not have, the P5 features the production engine and some styling tweaks. Roll out is still scheduled for mid 2016.

I would think that if the vehicle now has all the production drivetrain in it that the show tour would feature the car being actually driven from town to town instead of riding in a truck. It should be time to begin exposing the Elio people to the real life quirks the motoring public will be seeing.

SCOTUSs Last Decision

The Supreme court in the King decision has effectively said that the law is what the Executive says it is thus rendering superfluous the need for either a Legislative or a Judicial branch of government.

Needlessly rendering judgement on the gay marriage case however, Bearing Arms thinks the implications of that one demand 100% reciprocity for concealed carry permits in the U.S. Happy thought but I think I'll wait before carrying a concealed weapon loaded with hollow points into New Jersey.

Monday, June 22, 2015

$10 Bill

A solution just occurred to me for the problem of picking a sufficiently distinguished dead woman to grace the $10 bill:

Issue an Executive Order declaring that Alexander Hamilton now self-identifies as a woman and leave the bill alone.

Problem solved. You're welcome.

Gun Humor

We all need a good laugh anyway:
A guy walked into a crowded bar, waving his 1911 Colt pistol
with a 7 round magazine with one in the chamber and yelled,
"I have a loaded .45 Colt, I want to know who's been screwing my wife?"

A voice from the back of the room called out...
"You'll need more ammo!”

Just another example for needing higher-capacity magazines.

So get a double-stack. For this it's not like you're concealed carrying or anything. 

Sent to me by a gun show buddy.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Kinetics

The annual Kinetic Sculpture contest, now held in Longmont went off yesterday. A pale shadow of its former self, but still entertaining and now including a second kinetic float contest for the kids to build something on the spot.

The start was its usual well-oiled self with the national anthem being inaudible from my position where I'm supposed to fire the start gun and sculptures hitting the water a good 5 minutes in advance of the actual start time. We saw the floats moving away, couldn't get any confirmation of what was happening, and so fired the start gun 2 minutes early to send off the retreating machines.
The Minions
Something about Cupid and bacon
And the shark among others were entered. We were set up at Rags Folly which involves negotiating a large ditch/creek bed
It helps if you can pick up your sculpture and carry it in places like this. After the race, there were various events culminating in a bonfire at 8:30 which I couldn't stay for. Here's the bonfire float:
a work of art in its own right.

Regardless of your position, the race officially ended at 3 PM at which point I fire the Finish Gun
and wherever you are on the course at that point you are DNF but awarded position. It looked to me like only 3 vehicles got all the way around the course in the allotted 2 hours. At this event the lab coat was de regieur.

Thanks again to Karl who helped with the gun and took the above picture. Best I've ever gotten on the cannon firing. For you gun nuts, that's 400gr of fffg black powder under a tennis ball. The ball did not seem to have survived the experience and splashed down about 100 yards out, exact condition unknown but probably badly shredded.






Maker Faire

The mini-maker faire came off well at the Natural History museum where I saw a bunch of interesting stuff and met several interesting people. Here's a couple of shots of our table where we had an animatronic head and an animated crawling hand
along with some fighting robots. The ones in the background are 2-lb class fighters. The skull will nod his head, roll his eyes, flap his jaw, and engage you in conversation of a sort. The hand will pull itself across the table with its 3 middle fingers and looks better when dressed in a latex glove and a shirt sleeve.

The warning flyers were photos of some of the stuff the newly appointed safety nanny wouldn't let me bring.

This is a trophy
given to the member who does the best job of blowing up his own garage. It used to be a stick of 2x2x1/4" angle until we taped a 2 million candle power photo flash unit to it and shot it with a rifle. It made a fairly bright flash even in broad daylight. I cut off the undamaged part of the angle and added the 2 legs on the bottom.


Friday, June 19, 2015

SC Church shooting

This has brought all the usual suspects out of the woodwork whinging about gun laws, drug abuse, global warming and whatever else and that Something Must Be Done to make sure this doesn't happen again. Nothing they do will prevent this from happening again.

I note that as they say, there's one in every crowd, and statistically if the crowd gets big enough, there will be more than one. Your odds of actually meeting one of these in a life threatening situation are vanishingly small, but...

Ever go on a hike in the woods? Probably. Did you carry a snakebite kit? Probably not. What were the odds you'd actually need it? Vanishingly small, which is cold comfort should you get bitten.

.22 LR ammo

Thanks to a friend, I scored some .22 today, a Winchester 555 pack for $40 or .075/rd. Lowest price I've seen since the great gun panic of 2013.

Should hold me for 6 months of postal matches.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Kinetic Sculptures

Build 'em and race 'em. This Saturday at Union Reservoir also known as Calkins Lake up in Longmont. It's hard to believe that some of those things will actually float, and sometimes your suspicions are confirmed.

Warm weather, skimpy bikinis, and outrageous contraptions. What's not to like? Gates open at 9AM, race starts at 1 PM and ends at 3. Miscellaneous fun stuff continues until 8:30.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Pulling A Gun

As we all know, you can get more with a gun and a smile than you can with a smile alone. If you're thinking of raising a few bucks by jacking a vehicle at gunpoint, your best bet is to pick a candidate out at the local supermarket, wait until the owner has loaded the groceries, and then accost him or her with the gun, take the keys, and leave with the vehicle and the groceries.

The wrong way to do this is to walk up to a group of bikers, pull your gun and demand the keys to the bike that appeals to you the most. Keep in mind that just getting started requires both hands and both feet which means you have to quit waving the gun about well before you make your getaway.

Bikers are notoriously possessive of their rides and even in New York where "everyone" is disarmed, this sort of effort is unlikely to end well for the thief. In this case, to quote Boris Badenov, "I love story with happy ending!"

Fun With Headlines

Reported by Taranto on WSJ online, here's one:
“Researchers Grow a Breast In a Dish”
To my observation, most of the "dishes" I've seen have grown not one, but two, all on their own.

Actual story here.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Solution To High Crime

Got high crime? Want to do something about it? Try this weird trick they used in Norway and reduce your violent crime rate by 30% in one year!

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

High Tech Guns

Remember that "laser rifle in the 40 watt range" the terminator was shopping for?

It's now available as a DIY kit, no serial numbers, untraceable, etc, etc.

Rumor has it that the ATF is looking to ban the green-wrapped Lithium batteries it uses.

Shooting Bowling Pins

I tried shooting bowling pins with the Glock last night with mixed results. First the good news. The low powered loads I've come up with to mitigate the recoil on my arthritic hands will take a pin off a 2 foot table with ease. They would probably be adequate on a 4 foot table as well although I'd be inclined to up the powder just a bit or use a heavier bullet.

The bad news is that the Glock, being much lighter and 2 inches shorter than my Rossi .357 revolver, takes more effort to get it carefully aimed so that speed is taking a bit of a beating to get the accuracy. Practice is in order I suppose.

Which brings me to this: How about an all paper pin match? Use this target:

 Two shooters each get 2 of these, side by side, at 3-1/2 yards as this target is about 1/2 scale. Each shooter gets 6 shots, 3 on each target and must alternate between targets. Whoever has the most hits in the circles is the winner with ties broken by whoever finishes first.

3 classes: Major = any centerfire pistol over 9mm, Minor = any center fire pistol 9mm or less, and rimfire. Sharpen your skills without having to clean up the wood and plastic debris.

Update: Revised the target.

Monday, June 8, 2015

The Electric Skateboard Finds A Home

In the "why didn't I think of that?" category although it's probably because I don't play golf. Here's an electric skateboard that seems to make the game more fun:
The big complaint about it is the lack of beer storage. Still, look at that unoccupied area over the rear wheels and imagine a cooler rack. Since everyone has his or her own board, you only need to carry booze for yourself so even that doesn't need to be very big. A small keg should do it along with a cup holder on the handlebar.

Found here in the WSJ which is behind a paywall. The product and the company is called GolfBoards. This looks as useful as a Segway but far less intimidating.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Man Cave Decor

Sick? Yes.

Twisted? Yes.

Hilarious?
Absolutely.

Gun Fun

Got out Friday and tried the e-postal target. Good thing I brought a lot because that one is addictive. I used 5 different guns on it and surprisingly did better with the Glock 22 than the Ruger Mk 1.

Also the level of accuracy required for a defensive piece or a bowling pin gun is not that required of a tiny bullseye gun. That's tiny bulls eyes, not tiny gun.

After firing 10 shots at the target, inspecting the target with binoculars at 30 feet, I missed a hole, down in a dark corner, in front of a black backstop, and tried for one more shot. The additional shot proved to be hole # 11 in a 10 shot limit target, and to add insult, it was my best target with that gun. Oh yes, and it missed.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Attitude Adjustment App

Yep, now there's an app for your crappy attitude. Feeling down? Zap! you're happy. Got road rage? Zap! you're calmed down and don't care about getting cut off.

The problem I see is that it probably won't work for just anyone on just anyone else, and the people who need it won't use it on themselves.

Going Green

It's that time of year again when all the greenie institutions get out and flog their wonderfulness. Last week the bus people were at my work taking pictures of anyone they could round up to possibly use on a billboard thanking my employer for giving everyone a bus pass.

I had not yet gotten my coffee and they didn't notice my cup had a Jaguar logo on it so I might wind up on a billboard.

Along with that is national Bike To Work day. Again here's the flyer, copied from the very first one published. Note that the word bicycle does not appear anywhere on the poster.
Only the date has been changed in the wording. Oh yes, and the picture. It originally featured a yuppie-looking fellow madly pedaling a 10-speed. I figured a bike is a bike and besides this is more like the way I roll. Just instead of an old Harley flathead, I have an old Honda Sabre.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

DO NOT Shoplift in Greenwood Village

They are an up-scale type of place with a low crime rate and they aim to keep it that way. When someone boosts some goods from a Wal Mart and makes a run for it, best not run into G.V. The cops there take that sort of thing VERY seriously:
This from a 20 hour standoff and what looks to be a years supply of flash-bangs and tear gas.

And no, it wasn't his house.

Update: The homeowner wasn't impressed either.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

June E-Postal

The June match is up at Engineering Johnsons.
In High-visibility black and white at the link. Based on the size of those animals, I have a decent shop at 50%. This is one of those targets that favors the larger calibers so drag out your S&W .500 Magnum, load up with .500 Wimpys and have a go. Good exercise for your carry piece as well.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Another Would-Be Gun Grab

This has been all over for the last week or two:
The regulations range from new restrictions on high-powered pistols to gun storage requirements. Chief among them is a renewed effort to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mentally unstable or have been convicted of domestic abuse.
Yeah, the administration wants to disarm you, but we knew that. My question is this: What's a high-powered pistol?

Maybe one of those cut-down AR's I'm thinking. The ATF could define them as SBRs and demand they be turned in. Of course the owners could simply put on a longer barrel and a stock and voila! the "pistol" is now a rifle.

Still, anybody know for sure or will this be kept secret as long as possible to prevent people pointing out any obvious flaws and making Barry and the boys start all over again.