From a note I sent a friend last night:
Yes, it rained. And rained. And then rained harder. Surely you can guess how the progression goes?
But we managed quite well. Thanks to a little advance planning, we had all the materials necessary to cope with the rain (in terms of keeping the wet off of the chronographs, which have to be out between the gun and the target).
And the rest went really well, also. Today was the steep part of the learning curve, but by the end we were really cranking along. We should finish up the first three calibers tomorrow (about 1/3 of the total ammo to be tested). And then get a start on the next batch. Which we should finish up this weekend. With a little luck, that’ll be about 2/3 of the data we want to collect. If so, just one more session in April will be needed to wrap it up, and then the hard work of compiling and constructing the website, all the writing and editing and stuff.But still, it went *really* well today, and all three of us are happy but tired from the effort.
Did I mention it went well?
It did indeed. Given that we have something on the order of 7,000 rounds of ammo for testing, if we can wrap it all up with just two testing sessions, that will be remarkable. Granted, it’s a lot of work, but it is a lot more doable than I had feared. By the end of the testing yesterday, we were cranking along at about 10 seconds per shot, complete with recording the data, popping out the spent cartridge (the test platform is just one shot, for simplicity and control of mechanical factors), reloading and preparing the next shot. After each three-shot group of a given type of ammo, we would then run a Bore Snake through the barrel to start with a fresh barrel for the next batch. Chopping the 1″ thick barrels with the abrasive cut-off saw went fine, with only minor glitches, and the process of dressing the end of the barrel was as a result very simple and quick. We got good data from the chronos, and were already starting to see some interesting results from the testing. This information is going to be hugely beneficial to the gun community, once we have everything done, sorted, and published online.
Today the weather is supposed to be nice – about sixty and partly sunny. Tonight storms roll through again, temps drop, and we may have snow mixed with the rain tomorrow morning. Charming.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Guns, RKBA, Science, Weather
Sorry things have been a bit sparse. Monday and Tuesday I was busy wrapping up some conservation work for MU Special Collections’ Adopt-A-Book program (and you can see some of my work results on the ‘adopted’ page). I delivered those Tuesday afternoon, then went and bought a generator.
A generator? Yup. And a chronograph, lots of sandwich items, a couple of sawhorses, some plastic drop cloths, some more bore snakes, and various and sundry items. Because today we’re starting the ballistics testing I have mentioned before. The last several days have been very busy with running around and getting some of the various items we needed, and then yesterday me and my two buddies with whom I am doing this test went out to the site and started setting things up. Everything is coming together very nicely, and it is pretty exciting to finally be starting this project we first conceived of over a year ago.
This morning we have a lot more stuff to load up and lug out to the testing site (private land about 20 minutes south of here). With a little luck, the forecast rain will hold off long enough for us to get set up and settled in (we’re working out of a large cabin tent, which should deal with the weather adequately so long as we’re not facing a deluge). Once we’re set, rain shouldn’t matter.
So, busy here. I’ll try and post a bit each morning before going out to do the day’s testing (we’re doing tests through Saturday), but I won’t have a lot of time to do any real research or extensive contemplation. Not that my usual posts would necessarily make you think I did this anyway, but there you are.
So, later. Whenever.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Civil Rights, Guns, RKBA, Science, tech, Wired
In email discussion with a friend the other day, I realized that I had left something dangling which I had meant to address here some time back. Here’s the relevant email exchange:
I am really glad to hear that you are getting well enuff to get out and blow off some cordite.
Ayup. That was one of the things that helped keep some shred of sanity for me the last couple of years. And I am enjoying it even more now that I have a buddy here who shares that interest (and knows more about guns than even I do!)
You may remember that I mentioned a ballistics test that we were planning – here. Well, everything is now proceeding, and in about ten days we’ll do the first batch of tests. Three days of actual shooting time – see how far into it we get, and then schedule however many additional sessions we need in the coming weeks. With over 7,000 rounds of ammo, it’ll take a while to do it all right. By summer we should have all the data and the website set up – it will be a major source of information for the gun world . . .
In looking back at that post, I see that I had intended to discuss more about the project. But of course the fall didn’t go the way I planned, mostly because of the increasing demands of caring for Martha Sr. Oh well.
But now things are in full swing in preparing for the first session of actual testing. We’ll be doing the shooting on private land, and are deeply into preparing all the logistics necessary (everything from testing equipment to work tables to the chop saw to food & drink) and ironing out our protocols so the data is most valuable. We’ll start setting everything up next Wednesday, then test for three days, and take everything down on Sunday. I am expecting that it will take two more such sessions to complete the tests, but I could be wrong – we’ll just have to see how far we get this first time. It should be an awful lot of fun, as well as a lot of concentrated work – don’t expect me to do a lot of blogging during that time.
Oh, and on the subject of ballistics . . .
Via TDG, this Wired magazine article from last month, about the military’s Barrett M107 long range sniper rifle. It’s somewhat interesting, but misleading in places. This bit:
But the gun’s real selling point is physics. Its big kaboom largely obviates the need for DOPE, data on personal equipment. Putting a bullet into a target takes more than lining up crosshairs — complex equations combine muzzle velocity, ammunition weight, and ballistic coefficient with environmental factors like wind speed and air temperature. But the M107 is so powerful, all I have to worry about is gravity and not flinching when I pull the trigger.
And even the title: “A Goliath Sniper Rifle May Take Some of the Physics Out of War” is just plain wrong. None of the physics are negated. And while the M107 is indeed a powerful weapon (shooting a .50 caliber bullet with over 11,000 foot-pounds of muzzle energy), effects of windage and air temperature are still noticeable at sufficient distances. Even in the article, the author has to have a correction made to the scope alignment to allow for wind. Surprise surprise – physics still works.
Well, anyway, I’m looking forward to doing the testing next week. Almost a vacation of sorts.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Guns, Promotion, Publishing, RKBA, SCA, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff
My shooting buddy S called me up yesterday morning, wanted to know if I felt like getting out to do a little plinking. Since we had a warm front move through the night before, it was forecast to be in the upper 50s – not your typical January weather for Missouri. A chance to get out and do some shooting was most welcome.
He said that his Brother-In-Law was in town. I knew that S and T (the BIL) had hunted together for years, and that S trusted T not to be an idiot with a weapon, but I didn’t know much about him beyond that. S wanted to know whether it was OK for T to come along, try out some of our pistols. “Sure!”
So we set it up and went out to the range. As is my preference, informal shooting on private land – just tin cans at about a dozen yards for pistols, somewhat further for a little 9mm carbine of mine. Relaxed, laid-back, but still sufficient to keep my skills sharp and my mind off of being a full-time care provider for a few precious hours.
Since I didn’t know T, I wasn’t sure of his proficiency with handguns. And as we were talking about the guns we brought, getting them out and getting them ready, it was clear that he hadn’t ever shot a number of them. This isn’t too surprising, since several of them are somewhat uncommon.
My buddy S and I went first – our guns, make sure everything is working OK. When it was T’s turn, with a casual concentration he outshot us both, with our own guns. Turns out he has a law enforcement background, and still is involved in firearms training. As I noted to a friend in an email last night:
Nice to be shooting with someone that good, who wasn’t trying to be a dick about it. I’m a pretty decent shot, and can be quite good if I push myself into a ‘competition’ mindset. But I would really rather just relax and shoot without having something to prove. S is the same way. But trust me when I say that is somewhat rare – too often the competition bug gets in the way.
T was a state level competitor, but that was some years back. So now he’s relaxed – and good. Probably no where near where he was when he was competing, but that’s OK. Shooting cans at 15 yards was perfectly fine.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
OK, I’m going to brag a bit. Though it is all true.
When I was heavily involved in the SCA I was *heavily* involved. For a period of maybe about ten years I was known throughout the world-wide organization, in no small amount because of my ability as a fighter in the SCA style of martial arts. I had achieved the highest awards and rankings, acted as the chief officer in charge of all the fighting rules and safety criteria, and had literally written the definitive instruction manual for one particular sub-set of the martial art (greatsword use, if you want to know). I was, simply, one of the best there was. Given that there were tens of thousands of people engaged in this martial art around the world at the time, this was no small accomplishment, though of course in the ‘real’ world it doesn’t amount to anything of note.
But one thing which you might find a bit curious: in an organization where the basic measurement of skill is winning within the context of a tournament (patterned somewhat loosely on chivalric tourneys of the Middle Ages), I only won exactly four tournaments in my entire SCA career. Two of those were ‘Crown Tourney’, in which the ‘ruler’ for a six month period is chosen, and two others were other somewhat prestigious tournaments. But that’s it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune posted a piece last week titled “50 things I’ve learned in 50 years, a partial list in no particular order.” It’s kind of fun, and while I disagree on a few points, as I approach my own 50th birthday later this year I find it’s a list I pretty much could have come up with myself. In particular, he notes this:
38. In crisis or conflict, always think and act strategically. Take time to figure out what the “winning” outcome is for you, then work toward it.
I learned this long ago as applied to all of life, phrased simply as “define your victory conditions”. It has meant a somewhat less conventional life for me, mostly free of the trappings of “success.” And I’m OK with that.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
My friend responded to my email about shooting yesterday with this:
Nice to be shooting with someone that good, who wasn’t trying to be a dick about it. I’m a pretty decent shot, and can be quite good if I push myself into a ‘competition’ mindset. But I would really rather just relax and shoot without having something to prove. S is the same way. But trust me when I say that is somewhat rare – too often the competition bug gets in the way.
You are men.
Men have testosterone.
It’s very simple math.
My reply:
Over-simplified, actually. It’s more of a mindset.
***
I won four tournaments in my entire SCA career. Crown twice, Valour, and a memorial tourney in Des Moines. That’s it. Yet I had a world-wide reputation, and it was justified. By almost any measure you could devise, I would have been considered an ‘alpha male’ in terms of the prevailing testosterone pop-psych.
Why? For the same reason that I didn’t want to get all competitive with T and S when shooting yesterday: winning things like that just isn’t that important to me. Some guys with *plenty* of testosterone are perfectly happy to define their lives in ways different from the prevailing pop-psych.
My friend’s insightful response:
Although I have noticed that at some level of competence, whatever the subject, people don’t seem to have quite the need to compete that they would otherwise. I’ve run into it myself in some areas. I think that with T and S and you, all of you knew that you’re competent shots and the idea was not to plink off the most cans, but to have fun trying weapons. And that’s what you did. I guess a better way to say it is that when people are comfortable enough in their own skin, their own level of ability in whatever they are doing, they don’t need to compete and can just enjoy participating in the activity.
Is that what you mean?
Exactly.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
After shooting, we got back to my place, and hung out a while back in my bindery (where I have a large working table where we could set out some guns and whatnot to look at and talk about.) In the course of the conversation, S mentioned to T that I had written Communion of Dreams, and that it was up on the web for anyone to download.
“Doesn’t that make it kinda tough to make any money off of it?” asked T.
“That’s not the point,” I answered.
Because, while I wouldn’t mind selling the book to a publisher, and think that eventually having the book online will help in doing so, that’s not what my ‘victory condition’ is. My victory condition is to have people read the book, find it an engaging and thought-provoking story. Sure, lots of money from having a best-seller would be nice, but in all honesty I can earn a decent income from my book conservation work. My real goal is to be respected as a writer. And if I have to do that in an unconventional way, well, that’s a path I’m used to walking.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Firefly, Government, Guns, Joss Whedon, movies, Phil Plait, RKBA, Science, Science Fiction, Serenity, Society, Space
So, a few weeks back, I mentioned that I was going to order in the whole series of Firefly, the brilliant but (therefore?) short-lived Science Fiction series created by Joss Whedon. Well, I did, and off and on since I’ve been thinking about writing something about the series, never getting around to it. Hey, a lot of other stuff has been on my mind, and besides, it’s not like there isn’t a ton of blogging and fandom out there about the series.
Suffice it to say that I watched it all the way through three or four times, then turned it over to a shooting buddy who has good taste in SF (well, obviously, since he really liked Communion). I knew that with his appreciation of good guns and fine Science Fiction, it would be a perfect match. The fact that the series actually ‘gets’ guns, does a good job with ballistics and physics, wouldn’t hurt matters.
Anyway, this morning an item over at Bad Astronomy caught my eye:
Another Firefly movie??
ZOMG.
There may may may be another Firefly movie.
ZOMG.
Ain’t It Cool is throwing some harshness on this. Still. Still.
BTW: Alan Tudyk: on my ManCrush list.
Phil Plait is just so cute sometimes. Not that I disagree with him about the prospect of another movie. Not at all.
Shiny!
Jim Downey
A friend and I got to talking earlier this year about the lack of solid data available on ballistic performance of different common handgun calibers in terms of different barrel lengths and popular ammunition. If you poke around on any of the forums dedicated to discussion of guns, you’ll quickly discover that a lot of people have opinions on the matter, but there is precious little real solid information out there. Even the gun manufacturers and ammo makers only have little bits of information, and none of it is uniform or organized in such a way as to allow anyone to compare apples and apples.
Well, from that discussion emerged an idea: conduct the necessary tests ourselves, compile all the data, then make it freely available to all on a dedicated website. Sounds like one of those great ideas which no one will ever get around to doing, because of the time and expense involved, right?
Except that I now have sitting here at home a custom designed and built testing platform consisting of a single-shot pistol and 11 different caliber barrels which will mount into the receiver. Think Thompson/Center Encore pistol in stainless steel with 11 different barrels, all 18″ long – each one to be fired using a variety of different ammo, then cut down 1″ and fired again, using the same ammo, and that process repeated until you get down to a 1″ barrel. Each firing will be documented using two chronographs, and we’ll standardize conditions as much as possible so we get reliable data.
Oh, I don’t have just the test platform and barrels. I also have the ammo. Enough for three rounds of each type at each increment for each caliber.
Now, the shooting and collecting of data still has to be done. And once all the data is collected this fall, we’ll need to construct a website and put it all online (with pictures documenting the process). There’s still a lot of work to be done. But a big first step has been made, and we’re financially committed to this project in a very big way.
I’m excited about this project, and just wanted to share a bit about what I’ve got cooking in my non-writing, non-caregiving, non-bookbinding world. More bits and pieces about it will probably show up here from time to time, as things progress, and then all of this will be archived on the website for the data when all is said and done.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Constitution, Depression, General Musings, Government, Guns, Iraq, RKBA, Society, Violence, Writing stuff
I’m adapting this from a comment I made during a discussion on UTI, now that I’ve had a chance to digest things a bit. It is a follow up to this post of last Tuesday.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When a tragedy like this (well, any violence directed against innocents is a tragedy, really) occurs, people naturally want to look for ways to curtail the threat in the future. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.
In 1994 something like 800,000 Hutus were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide, and almost all of that was done with machetes. Almost 200 people were killed yesterday in Iraq, by someone using car bombs. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 with fertilizer and deisel fuel on this day a dozen years ago.
Guns do kill – something like 12,000 homicides and an additional 6,000 accidents/suicides each year here in the US. My father was one of those people in 1969, and my step-brother a little more than a decade ago. You never really get over that kind of personal tragedy, as I mention here.
But cars also kill. About 30,000 Americans a year, if memory serves. And about 18 months after my dad was killed, my mom was one of those people. But because it wasn’t an act of violence, it is somehow easier to accept that. Which is curious, because we do seem to accept that level of death in our country (and others) relatively easily.
People are violent. It is part of who we are. Now in the UK guns are almost completely outlawed – yet gun violence is once again becoming a problem in some areas. In an effort to control the results of violent behaviour, the UK is now increasingly becoming a nanny-state, outlawing the carrying of pointed knives, limiting their sale even for home use, forcing pubs to shift from glass bottles and drinking vessels to plastic ones because the others were being used to bash and cut others in pub brawls…you get the idea.
As I mention in that blog post cited above, I hate the facile arguments on both sides: that getting rid of all guns would solve the problem; and that if only someone with a legal CCW had been there they could have stopped Cho earlier. The best you can say is that it is possible that stricter gun control (even to extending to effective bans) *might* have stopped Cho from being able to murder so many so easily…or that someone legally armed on campus *might* have been able to stop Cho once he started shooting. No, there is a lot of slop there on both sides – no one knows the answer to ‘what if?’
For me it comes down to a couple of different deciding factors. We have over 200 million guns in this country, something like 80 million handguns. So, getting rid of them isn’t a practical answer for at least a generation. And prohibiting them will basically mean that you are telling criminals that they can count on law-abiding citzens being disarmed. Which means you either accept the increased power advantage of criminals, or you move towards an increasingly police-heavy state, with all of the implications that carries.
Further, the 2nd Amendment was put there for a reason: to control the worst instincts of wanna-be tyrants. The founders understood that humans being what we are, you needed to control the worst instincts of those who would rule rather than govern. They built checks & balances into the Constitution between the different branches of government – but knew that the real check and balance had to go further – had to go all the way down to the individual citizen. In preserving the right to keep and bear arms, they made sure that there was a final option available to curb dictatorship. Granted, my pistols and rifles will not stand up in a full-fledged firefight to modern military weapons – but that isn’t the point. You only have to look at Iraq to see the effectiveness of small arms and improvised explosives to see what a population can do in resisting a military force. That alone changes the calculus of anyone – foreign or domestic – who thinks that they would like to impose their will on the American public by arms.
Lastly, having the *option* of carrying a concealed weapon legally means that you have more possible courses of action open to you when things go south. No, I would not claim that I would have been able to draw my weapon and stop Cho before he killed anyone. That’s just macho posturing. But I carry a 9mm pistol – the same calibre weapon he used to kill most of the 32 he murdered. I *might* have had a chance, if everything had gone just right. Maybe only a small chance – but that would have been more of a chance than the poor bastards who didn’t have that option open to them had.
Yeah, there are no easy or simple answers. I am willing to consider possible solutions – but we have to consider the entire issue completely and make a rational decision, not one based on the immediate emotions following such a horror.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 