9mm Fails To Penetrate Ballistic Gelatin

Here's the shocking evidence on video.

Now I've forgotten where I first found the link.

Gun Fun - Cheap Ammo in the 4095

Sometimes the stuff will surprise you. I got some Blazer 155gr .40 S&W from my good friends at Lucky Gunner while I was at Gun Blogger Rendezvous and the stuff delivered better accuracy than my hand loads and before the snark surfaces, way better than the Remington UMC and Winchester commercial stuff I had been trying. I was wondering what all was going on there as I've noticed that the Hi Point 4095 generally seems to like the heavier bullets (180gr) better than the lighter ones (mine were 165gr) and the Blazers were 155gr RNFP jacketed.

Took some down to the club range and ran them through the chroney. Nice tight groups and:

Shot     MV
1          2127
2          2150
3          2153
4          2236
5          2200

Avg     2173
Dev      62.8, 2.8%

My previous high score was about 1500 fps with 165 gr bullets and a full load of Power Pistol. This is  a bit more than 30% faster and more accurate to boot. for comparison:

Bullet	Velo	Wt, gr	M, slugs	Ek, ft-lb	PF
Blazer .40	2173	155	0.0006876664	1623.6	336.8
Typ .223	3000	60	0.0002661934	1197.9	180.0
Typ .40	1200	165	0.0007320319	527.1	198.0

The .40 numbers are from my carbine with 16.5" barrel. I'm impressed. I guess I'll have to get some more.

Medical Advances

Here's a doctor who knows how to drum up business. This note was issued to Churchill.

Found this on Power Line.

Birtherism - Definition

‘Birtherism,’ the now-discredited suspicion that Obama was telling the truth when he claimed for many years to have been born in Kenya.
                                       Ed Driscoll on Insty

So as a "foreign student" at Columbia, did he get a discount on his tuition? Did he defraud Columbia?

Chicago Attacks Gang Problem, Sort Of

Chicago has announced an attack on one of its more violent gangs, the Hobos, bringing some 6 of them up on assorted charges. Seems they have been getting into the drug and "services" trades and killing anyone who objects.

I've never heard of the Hobos but I'm sure this will return control of the above mentioned trades to the rightful owners, the Crips, Bloods, and the Latin Kings, all of whom have a working relationship with their respective aldermen in Chicago.

Cynical of me I suppose but somehow I suspect that a timely donation to the right people could have averted the crackdown.

GBR XI

More news from GBR this time to include results from the steel challenge match we held on Saturday.

	Anthony Welsch	CF-LR			Keith Hunwick	CF-LR
Stage 3
Stage 4		30.20				62.25
Stage 5		20.74				27.48
Stage 6		15.30				21.82
Stage 7		24.97				33.96
Stage 8		32.72				34.83
Total Score		123.93				180.34
	Mike Gallion	RF-O	CF-O		Bill Llewellin	RF-I
Stage 3					Glock	26.80
Stage 4		11.24	18.43			25.28
Stage 5		8.42	18.16			20.20
Stage 6		8.11	13.18			12.32
Stage 7		11.71	16.19			21.93
Stage 8		11.51	25.05			35.88
Total Score		50.99	91.01			115.61
	Myles	CF-LR
Stage 3
Stage 4		33.80
Stage 5		19.45
Stage 6		11.28
Stage 7		24.94
Stage 8		39.95
Total Score		129.42

There was no Stage 3, that was me trying Stage 4 with my IDPA pistol so that score isn't counted toward my total. Thanks to Lizzie for putting this spreadsheet together. Also it's fun to shoot at a range frequented by the wealthy as the ground is littered with once-fired brass.

Derrik Cecil gave us a fine lecture on the use of tourniquets and other first aid one might need on a really bad day at the range. Very edifying as it even included treatment of sucking chest wounds. Just the thing to go with the emergency first aid kit I won.

 I caught everyone Sunday morning at breakfast and joined in the discussion about the future of GBR then decided to skip the simulation shooting at Reno Guns and Range and just hit the road. Made it all the way to Rock Springs where I missed my exit in the dark, came back, fouled up my carefully written directions, couldn't find the Super 8 motel I was looking for and wound up staying at the Motel 6.

NOTE to travelers: If you just need a room for the night, for about $10 more, Super 8 beats the pants off Motel 6 with free Wi-Fi and morning food. Of course if all you need is a bed and a shower, Motel 6 will fill the bill.

Speeds coming back were right up there with the speeds going out, in the upper 70's all the way until I decided to try Google's recommendation of US 287 from Larimie to Ft Collins. 287 was 70 mph with 3 lanes, 2 uphill and 1 down hill so not too bad until:
1. Owl Canyon road which allows you to skip driving through Ft. Collins turned out to be dirt so I passed it up, and
2. 287 into Ft Collins is under some major construction so average speeds for about 20 miles ran to about 15 mph. 25 miles shorter sure, but WAY slower. Should have gone with Owl Canyon.
3. All that plus heavy traffic on I25 and municipal traffic cut my average speed from Rock Springs to home to 67.5 mph.
4. The 6 cyl Camaro gets 30 mpg at 85 mph with the A/C off, and 28.6 mpg with the A/C on.

Hill Campaign Pivot

Here's the latest bumper sticker:

Pining for the fjords, she is.

QOTD - Ms. Inevitability

Found at National Review, you have to wonder if the candidate doesn't have a plan to deal with this problem.

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

It would be reasonable to suppose that the merely deplorables would be given re-education at special centers for extended education.

The irredeemables would go directly to the dog food factory.

And you thought Trump had a rough-edged bedside manner.

Trump v Sanders?

Or just an example of life imitating art

in a real-life (?) Weekend At Bernie's.

Several other alternatives here.

GBR XI

Due to several people having unplanned occurrances this year, the event was rather sparsely attended. More range time, food and swag for the rest of us.

The BP paintball gun worked pretty much as advertised although the folks at Washoe county gun range didn't like the sparks coming from the barrel and shut me down after only 2 shots.

The Hi Point was shooting erratically at 200 yards with my spiffy new hand loads but came right in to a 4 minute group using Blazer aluminum cased 155 gr ammo. Go figure.

The Steel challenge ran to 4 stages. There were enough different shooting types that sorting the results out may take a bit. Lizzie is doing the math and will pass the overall results to me and I'll post them, bringing the national breath holding to a merciful end.

I won a shot timer, a blowout first aid kit, a DeSantis holster and several additional items including a 30 round magazine for my AR which I've owned since 2012 if anyone asks.

Tomorrow will be shooting simulation at Reno Guns and Range which I will probably depart early as I have a long commute home.

Incidentally the trip out involved a leg from Denver to Rock Springs WY, Fuel economy was 30 mpg, followed by the leg from Rock Springs to Elko NV with the A/C on which reduced my fuel economy to 28.5 mpg. 775 total miles, 10 hours.

Last leg was Elko to Reno, 290 miles in 4 hours. I'm getting to like this car but it needs better seats if I'm going to make a practice of this.

Gun Blogger Rendezvous

GBR XI starts Thursday in Reno.

I'm hitting the road tomorrow for Reno so posting will be scarce, in other words, about like usual. My planned co-conspiritor flaked out at the last minute so I'm driving this by myself and a 16 hour drive is best done in 2 stages.

Three days of fun at various ranges and evenings involving speakers from various quarters and a raffle with some nice swag, all proceeds to Honored American Veterans. Shooting will range from plinking to steel challenge and cowboy action and the food is great.

Sponsors include Lucky Gunner who is giving pre registered attendees $150 worth of free ammo, Ammo To Go who is putting ammo and knives into the raffle, and Front Sight Acadamy who is putting a training course on the raffle table.

Fun stuff like this Gardner MG sometimes show up as well. It shoots great! Photo taken at the Washoe County Range where the neighbors never complain.

Coincidentally the Reno Balloon festival is this weekend as well.

Posting if any will be done from my little Asus tablet which frankly I'm still learning to use.

Back on Monday.

Gun Sales

To go along with the finding that some 40+% of U.S. households are now willing to admit to a stranger on the phone that they have a gun, note also here the sales anomaly for June and July.

Summer usually represents the doldrums for gun sales if you consider 2M/month to be doldrums. I guess you hold a riot or two and pass some state level laws and everyone runs out and gets one while the getting is good. Since 2006 population increase has been about .83%/year so one would expect gun sales to follow the population curve. Over the same period year on year gun sales have increased by about 10%/year or about 12 times faster than the population.

Photography Tip

The impact of a photo can be enhanced by cropping distracting elements out of it. Take this shot of Muslim refugees adrift in the no doubt shark infested ocean:

Not how distracting the fellow at the upper right is, apparently standing in waist-deep water with no life jacket. Of course he could have been standing on the back of one of the sharks.

Found here at Barenakedislam.

Living With The Wild Life

I was out picking dessert from the raspberry patch when my neighbors son called to my attention this piece of high density housing that had sprung up in the lilac bush:

Click to embiggen. You can see one of the residents on the twig next to the entry hole and several more just inside. The entry hole is about 1-1/2" in diameter. I found one of these a few years ago in the early fall and brought it home as all the wasps had died. Cut it open to see how it was built and found that it consists of several stories of honeycomb layers, small ones on the upper and lower ends and big ones in the middle. No honey, just cells. The wasps seem to die off in the fall and leave the nest empty. Not sure if the nest typically survives over the winter but I don't think so.

UPDATE: These are Bald Faced Hornets, an invasive species but considered beneficial as long as you don't get into territorial disputes with them. They eat other insects, specializing in yellowjackets, but will switch to pollen if that food supply dries up. Most of the nest dies over winter but a few eggs survive to start the hive the next year.

Big boys, about 3/4 to 1 in long.

Asking The Right Question, Obliquely

Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Jeff Sessions appeared in Arizona sporting hats embroidered with "Make Mexico Great Again Also". This is causing some heartburn among the usual suspects who would themselves never think of asking why all those Mexicans are flooding across our border in the first place.

Mexico has a lot going for it including a large population, natural resources, good climate and deep water ports on both coasts, so why does the best job in Mexico seem to be pushing a lawnmower in the U.S.?

For that matter, in the 19th century Argentina had the second largest economy in the world behind only England and giving rise to the expression "As rich as an Argentinian". Where are they now?

There are 3 solutions to the U.S. immigration problem:
1. Build our own version of the Great Wall of China and man it with DHS drones which should work about as well as the original.
2. Establish a solid socialist economy in the U.S. which will at least keep people from coming here looking for jobs.
3. Explain to the clueless dweebs in the State Department that a big part of their job is exporting the idea of free market economies which will have the effect of creating jobs on the other side of the border, reducing the incentive to come here looking for one.

Of course since everyone at Foggy Bottom works for the government and thus supports the ideology of bigger government, asking them to do this will probably sound like asking them to commit suicide.