I've started a new online gallery of IPSC photos. It's a modest start so far, but I have literally thousands of photos to choose from, and I get more of them every month.
The nice thing about it is that I can also post videos. Some of them are fairly large, definately much larger than the highly edited *.wmv files I've been posting on this blog.
This will provide a venue for hosting large videos which just don't look the same when I limit them to less than 20 seconds of content.
As I build more albums, I'll keep you advised. It's not an entirely bad idea to bookmark the website and check it out from time to time. I expect to add new photos and videos every week, for some time.
Right now, I'm working on the 2005 Croc Match. There have been some inquiries from people who competed in the match, wondering where they could get copies of the photos. Well, this is the place, because that's my first project.
In the future, I hope to add the 2005 Columbia Cascade Section Match, the 2005 Albany Single Stack Tournament, and non-IPSC events such as the Tri-County Gun Club 'shotty' match and the 1st annual PNW Blogger Blastorama. (The Analogue Kid should appreciate having download access to some of those photos, because he's in a lot of them!)
Click on the link.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
What kind of soldier are you?
H/T Geek with A .45 (See the sidebar)
The Geek/45 and The Geek/super (that would be me) scored the same on this meme non-Cosmo Quiz: "Special Ops"
(Note that, due to the extremely NARROW format of the Geek Template, the details of the survey results don't display here. Not a problem. I know, and that's all that matters. )
I suspect that most of the Geekish would end up with the same kind of personality profile. It's shallow, it's weighted toward actiona and, if you aren't a limelight-hog, it really narrows the choices quickly.
(Some would call a 'limelight-hog' by another name: Leader.
Here in Geekistan, we tend to look at doing the job and not expecting help from anyone else. We've been given a job, we get it done and move on.
One thing: Geeks learn quickly that, when you've successfully completed a difficult job, you're given . . . more, even more difficult jobs.
No rest for the Geekish.
The Geek/45 and The Geek/super (that would be me) scored the same on this meme non-Cosmo Quiz: "Special Ops"
(Note that, due to the extremely NARROW format of the Geek Template, the details of the survey results don't display here. Not a problem. I know, and that's all that matters. )
I suspect that most of the Geekish would end up with the same kind of personality profile. It's shallow, it's weighted toward actiona and, if you aren't a limelight-hog, it really narrows the choices quickly.
(Some would call a 'limelight-hog' by another name: Leader.
Here in Geekistan, we tend to look at doing the job and not expecting help from anyone else. We've been given a job, we get it done and move on.
One thing: Geeks learn quickly that, when you've successfully completed a difficult job, you're given . . . more, even more difficult jobs.
No rest for the Geekish.
 | You scored as Special Ops. Special ops. Your sneaky, tactful, and a loner. You prefer to do your jobs alone, working where you don't come into contact with people. But everyonce in a while you hit it big and are noticed and given fame. Your given the more sensitive problems. You get things done, and do what has to be done. "VULCAN NECK PINCH!!!" "owww.......(slump)"
Which soldier type are you? created with QuizFarm |
National Ammo Day
National Ammo Day
'Nuff said?
H/T: too many to mention.
Here's the dealio;
Click here.
'Nuff said?
H/T: too many to mention.
Here's the dealio;
- On November 19, you should go out and buy at least 100 rounds of ammo. This is intended to . . . well, I'm not sure. But what the heck, buying ammo is always a good idea unless you can but a case of Montana Gold Bullets, a sleeve of Winchester Primers, a keg of Vihta-Vourhi N350 powder and a slew of Winchester cases and build 4000 of your own .38 Super reloads! (Approximate cost:
- bullets: $185
- Primers: $80
- powder: $75
- 4000 cases: $400
- Total cost for componenets to build 4,000 rounds: $740
- Cost per 100 rounds? $18.50 (Unless you figure you'll get at least 5 reloads out of every case, in which case you'll be paying $8.26 per hundred)
- The joy of shooting all this ammo: Priceless!
Click here.
home made weapons factories
News - Gun loophole is closed by mother's campaign
Yorkshire, England
The mother of a slain Police Constable has initiated a campaign to make it illegal to privately manufacture ('reload') ammunition by outlawing reloading presses and components.
Given their hopolphobic legislation, this is definately a 'loophole'; it's illegal to buy ammunition, but not the materials and equipment to make it yourself.
Some Yob bought the gear and the goodies, loaded up a batch of ammo, and used it in his ILLEGAL pistol to gun down a bobbie.
Let me see; it's illegal to have the gun, and the laws didn't stop him there. It's illegal to buy ammunition, and that didn't stop him. So just HOW is it going to stop him to make reloading illegal?
So how about you allow the police to carry arms? At least they would be able to defend themeselves.
How about 'victim to a thug, who will do what he wishes, to whomever he wishes, as long as he's the predator and everyone else is prey'?
How about the rights of private citizens . . . and police officers . . . to protect themselves?
Why aren't they talking about societal changes, including an attempt to identify and get killers off the streets before they kill again? Why aren't they talking about rehabilitating a society which makes it EASY for people to become killers?
Why? I'll tell you why?
It's easy to pass laws against 'things'. 'Things' can't rebel, can't exercise free will, aren't intimidated by their illegality.
Yobs aren't intimidated, either; they're challenged. Human ingenuity will always win out, there are always ways to circumvent the law if you've already decided to break the law anyway.
British Parliament isn't able to deal with the real issues. As long as they continue passing laws, the brainless public will believe that they are trying to resolve issues, even when they're NOT!
What's not easy is to deal with people. Laws don't affect humans, except for those who have already made the personal choice to be law-abiding already.
My advice to Great (?) Britain is to get rid of all those laws which handicap only the law-abiding, and let them protect themselves.
They certainly can't count on the police to protect them.
The police can't even protect themselves.
Making laws against private ownership of weapons is as ineffective as making laws against narcotics. They're not protecting anybody, they're only creating a very lucrative market.
Yorkshire, England
The mother of a slain Police Constable has initiated a campaign to make it illegal to privately manufacture ('reload') ammunition by outlawing reloading presses and components.
Given their hopolphobic legislation, this is definately a 'loophole'; it's illegal to buy ammunition, but not the materials and equipment to make it yourself.
Some Yob bought the gear and the goodies, loaded up a batch of ammo, and used it in his ILLEGAL pistol to gun down a bobbie.
Let me see; it's illegal to have the gun, and the laws didn't stop him there. It's illegal to buy ammunition, and that didn't stop him. So just HOW is it going to stop him to make reloading illegal?
THE LEGAL loophole that allowed the killer of Leeds police officer Ian Broadhurst to produce home-made bullets is set to be shut tight by MPs today after a tireless campaign in Yorkshire.Here's a thought: you can't stop the Yobs from arming themselves; God knows you've tried to do so by passing laws, and it just . . . hasn't . . . worked!
Ex-US Marine David Bieber was jailed for life last December for gunning down the 34-year-old policeman in cold blood on Boxing Day, 2003, and firing at two other officers using a pistol loaded with ammunition made from components that had been bought completely legally.
So how about you allow the police to carry arms? At least they would be able to defend themeselves.
During Bieber's trial, Mr Justice Moses said it was "completely barmy" that the killer had legally bought a Dillon RL550 bullet press and re-loader from a Hertfordshire gunshop that he had used to manufacture thousands of bullets in a home-made weapons factory in a Leeds lock-up.
PC Broadhurst's mother Cindy Eaton – backed by the Police Federation and PC Broadhurst's MP, Batley and Spen's Mike Wood – launched a high-profile campaign in the Yorkshire Post for a ban on the unrestricted sale of bullet-pressing kits and primers – the essential mini-detonators which set off the propellant in a round.
Following Bieber's conviction, the MP called directly on the Prime Minister to change the law.I can understand the mother's anguish, but all I'm reading here is that she's blaming the laws (or lack of them?) for the death of her son. Isn't anybody blaming the creep who shot the bobby? Maybe they're missing a good bet. Maybe they could pass a law against humans being ornery. Or vicious. Or human.
His pleas are set to come to fruition today, as MPs give their final approval to the Violent Crime Reduction Bill, which will make buying components subject to the same restrictions as buying firearms.
Clause 28 of the Bill will make it an offence to sell primers to anyone without a firearm licence and Clause 29 will ban cartridge and bullet presses."Victim to home-made bullets"?
Ms Eaton said last night: "We're thrilled at the progress that has been made and look forward to these measures becoming law.
"It's nice to think that something like this can come of Ian's death and that a loophole we weren't aware of previously can be closed."
Mr Wood was delighted that what he called a "lethal historical anomaly" would finally come to an end and that Ms Eaton's successful campaign may well have prevented someone else falling victim to home-made bullets.
How about 'victim to a thug, who will do what he wishes, to whomever he wishes, as long as he's the predator and everyone else is prey'?
"Enacting legislation can be a long and drawn out process – often it has to be – but these restrictions on bullet-making components are well worth the wait," he said.Waiting for these Britanic Buffoons to wake up and smell the coffee is a long and drawn out process, too. How they can catagorize these treat-the-symptoms laws as being "well worth the wait" is beyond me.
"We believe it's totally right that people cannot legally buy the sort of equipment that he used to assemble bullets," ....Rights? They're talking about RIGHTS?
"Bieber made literally thousands and it was always disgraceful that there had been no control on the materials and machines to make these sorts of bullets.
"It's quite right that this ban should be in place."
How about the rights of private citizens . . . and police officers . . . to protect themselves?
Why aren't they talking about societal changes, including an attempt to identify and get killers off the streets before they kill again? Why aren't they talking about rehabilitating a society which makes it EASY for people to become killers?
Why? I'll tell you why?
It's easy to pass laws against 'things'. 'Things' can't rebel, can't exercise free will, aren't intimidated by their illegality.
Yobs aren't intimidated, either; they're challenged. Human ingenuity will always win out, there are always ways to circumvent the law if you've already decided to break the law anyway.
British Parliament isn't able to deal with the real issues. As long as they continue passing laws, the brainless public will believe that they are trying to resolve issues, even when they're NOT!
What's not easy is to deal with people. Laws don't affect humans, except for those who have already made the personal choice to be law-abiding already.
My advice to Great (?) Britain is to get rid of all those laws which handicap only the law-abiding, and let them protect themselves.
They certainly can't count on the police to protect them.
The police can't even protect themselves.
Making laws against private ownership of weapons is as ineffective as making laws against narcotics. They're not protecting anybody, they're only creating a very lucrative market.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Full-Auto Boogie
Last weekend after the IPSC match at Albany, we had a little full-auto frenzy.
Norm the Ungrateful, and his son Zac the Ungrateful, took me back to the deep bays so I could photograph them playing with Norm's semi-new full-auto gun.
I'm hoping that Norm will let me know what this is. I think he must have told me, but I was not paying attention to it because I thought it looked pretty scarey. You know . . .
Black matte finish + short barrel + pistol grips fore-and-aft + folding stock = EVIL!
Only in this case, it was a rock 'n roller, which means I don't shoot 'em very good, so it IS evil.
UPDATE: 11/15:
Norm replied to my query, in which I had asked "What IS that gun, anyway?"
He writes:
We started right out letting Zac shoot it the first time. I think it may have been his first time to shoot it, too. We all had a lot to learn about the little 'machine pistol'. However long Norm had had the gun, and the magazines they all seemed pretty new and rough-edged. I think Norm's going to have to shoot this a LOT to get it broke in really good.
Fortunately, I suspect he can count on Zac to help him break it in.
(BTW, click on the photos to see the movies.)
After Zac had had his fun, Norm got right down to business.
He wanted to shoot his drum magazine, with umpteen rounds (50, I think) of the 9mm rascals in one trigger-pull. Unfortunately, he found he had to download the magazine 3 or 4 rounds before it would feed. Darn, less than 50 rounds after all!
I'm sure that means he just has to do a bit more breaking-in to get that magazine spring tensioned right.
Oh Yeah.
They thought I was having too much fun, just shooting pictures, and started trying to talk me into shooting the gun. I protested "I've shot machine guns all I need to" but they were persuasive and I was easily persuaded.
I've always been easy to talk into the things that look too fun to be really that fun. Guess what? It is that fun.
I tried to remember my "controlled-fire" training, shooting at the B-zone of the IPSC target with two-to-three round bursts. Some of them only fired one round -- I think. Hard to tell when you're shooting, and even the video doesn't clear up the question of how many rounds I was getting off. You'll have to decide for yourself.
One thing IS clear; I wasn't getting a lot of rounds in the B-zone.
Next, Zac tried it again. They were down to just one fully loaded stick magazine, so Zac obliged his dad by shooting the whole thing up in just a few seconds. It didn't appear that he considered the work too burdensome.
Then Norm split the remaining rounds (less than 100 from the original box of 250) between two magazines, and he and Zac wrapped up the day.
First Norm had to do his chores, and from the look on his face it didn't appear that he was feeling oppressed by the task. It's a nasty job, but somebody's got to do it.
Norm told me that there was a special name for the big ol' grin of pure delight you see on the face of people who shoot a full-auto fun for the first time. I never showed it, of course, because I'm entirely too dignified. I wish I could remember what he called the expression, but judging by the look on Norm's face I have to call it a SEG, for Sh*t-Eating Grin.
UPDATE: November 20 - I met Norm at the Sunday TC Club Match and asked him to remind me of the 'proper' expression. He informs me that this is called the "Thirty-Round Grin". Personally, I think I'll just continue referring to it as the SEG (rhymes with 'hedge').
Zac finished off the ammo with a sustained burst that backed him up almost to the counter behind him. He was concentrating so intently, I doubt he even noticed. As usual, I stood right in the path of the hot brass and got splattered. It was a cool day, I didn't mind a bit. It was worth it to get a photo of a fine young man having more fun that ought to be legal.
Shooting full-auto is like cheating, and getting away with it. I can't afford it, but I heartily recommend it.
Norm, Zac . . . thank you for bringing a perfect day to a brilliant finish.
NOTE:
The video files are all 2mb, except for a couple that might have gone to 3mb because, doggone it, the grins were too big to waste on a small format.
As I said, it's all rock 'n roll. The music is all by the Rolling Stones, from their "Hot Rocks 1964 - 1971" album. Now that I've given you a clue, can you identify the songs that are profiled in the videos.
Norm the Ungrateful, and his son Zac the Ungrateful, took me back to the deep bays so I could photograph them playing with Norm's semi-new full-auto gun.
I'm hoping that Norm will let me know what this is. I think he must have told me, but I was not paying attention to it because I thought it looked pretty scarey. You know . . .
Black matte finish + short barrel + pistol grips fore-and-aft + folding stock = EVIL!
Only in this case, it was a rock 'n roller, which means I don't shoot 'em very good, so it IS evil.
UPDATE: 11/15:
Norm replied to my query, in which I had asked "What IS that gun, anyway?"
He writes:
It was a SWD M11/9.(Note: for more M11 photos, see the Stony Creek Armory website. You can find out more about the gun, and how to get one for your very own, at deadbangguns.com This may not be a permanent link)
9mm open bolt SMG. The mags were not new, but the drum had been reworked for me and has not been tuned yet. The drum holds 72 rounds, I had to strip like 5 or something to get it to work.
We started right out letting Zac shoot it the first time. I think it may have been his first time to shoot it, too. We all had a lot to learn about the little 'machine pistol'. However long Norm had had the gun, and the magazines they all seemed pretty new and rough-edged. I think Norm's going to have to shoot this a LOT to get it broke in really good.
Fortunately, I suspect he can count on Zac to help him break it in.
(BTW, click on the photos to see the movies.)
After Zac had had his fun, Norm got right down to business.
He wanted to shoot his drum magazine, with umpteen rounds (50, I think) of the 9mm rascals in one trigger-pull. Unfortunately, he found he had to download the magazine 3 or 4 rounds before it would feed. Darn, less than 50 rounds after all!I'm sure that means he just has to do a bit more breaking-in to get that magazine spring tensioned right.
Oh Yeah.
They thought I was having too much fun, just shooting pictures, and started trying to talk me into shooting the gun. I protested "I've shot machine guns all I need to" but they were persuasive and I was easily persuaded.I've always been easy to talk into the things that look too fun to be really that fun. Guess what? It is that fun.
I tried to remember my "controlled-fire" training, shooting at the B-zone of the IPSC target with two-to-three round bursts. Some of them only fired one round -- I think. Hard to tell when you're shooting, and even the video doesn't clear up the question of how many rounds I was getting off. You'll have to decide for yourself.
One thing IS clear; I wasn't getting a lot of rounds in the B-zone.
Next, Zac tried it again. They were down to just one fully loaded stick magazine, so Zac obliged his dad by shooting the whole thing up in just a few seconds. It didn't appear that he considered the work too burdensome.
Then Norm split the remaining rounds (less than 100 from the original box of 250) between two magazines, and he and Zac wrapped up the day.
First Norm had to do his chores, and from the look on his face it didn't appear that he was feeling oppressed by the task. It's a nasty job, but somebody's got to do it.
Norm told me that there was a special name for the big ol' grin of pure delight you see on the face of people who shoot a full-auto fun for the first time. I never showed it, of course, because I'm entirely too dignified. I wish I could remember what he called the expression, but judging by the look on Norm's face I have to call it a SEG, for Sh*t-Eating Grin.
UPDATE: November 20 - I met Norm at the Sunday TC Club Match and asked him to remind me of the 'proper' expression. He informs me that this is called the "Thirty-Round Grin". Personally, I think I'll just continue referring to it as the SEG (rhymes with 'hedge').
Zac finished off the ammo with a sustained burst that backed him up almost to the counter behind him. He was concentrating so intently, I doubt he even noticed. As usual, I stood right in the path of the hot brass and got splattered. It was a cool day, I didn't mind a bit. It was worth it to get a photo of a fine young man having more fun that ought to be legal.
Shooting full-auto is like cheating, and getting away with it. I can't afford it, but I heartily recommend it.
Norm, Zac . . . thank you for bringing a perfect day to a brilliant finish.
NOTE:
The video files are all 2mb, except for a couple that might have gone to 3mb because, doggone it, the grins were too big to waste on a small format.
As I said, it's all rock 'n roll. The music is all by the Rolling Stones, from their "Hot Rocks 1964 - 1971" album. Now that I've given you a clue, can you identify the songs that are profiled in the videos.
Battlerifles On Board
No, this isn't an article about transporting "Assault Rifles" on vessels.
This is about shooting wooden posts with semi-automatic rifles.
The Tri County Gun Club has a Practical Rifle match every month, and at their last month Match Director Randy S. set up a 'fun stage' at the end of the match. He put a couple of 4x4 posts erected vertically into a shooting bay, arrayed the competitors in a line, and timed how long it took them to break it into two pieces with rifle fire.
There were two squads, so he filmed each squad as they 'assaulted' a post.
Fastest time was 10.366 seconds. (I didn't catch the time for the other squad.)
These are quicktime movies, the first one is 1.5mb and the second one is 1.7mb.
Randy also has a large number of still photos on his YAHOO photo gallery account, most of them depicting people shooting in mud and rain and gravel, in awkward and contorted positions, at targets very far away. I think these guys are people who rejected Rugby because it was too tame.
When I get the address of Randy's Practical Rifle Photo Gallery, I'll add it to this post.
UPDATE:
Email from Randy, the URL for his Yahoo Practical Rifle Photo Gallery is here.
If you look at the 2005 Nov album, you'll see photos taken on the same day as the board-busting exercise.
Here's one of them.
This is about shooting wooden posts with semi-automatic rifles.
The Tri County Gun Club has a Practical Rifle match every month, and at their last month Match Director Randy S. set up a 'fun stage' at the end of the match. He put a couple of 4x4 posts erected vertically into a shooting bay, arrayed the competitors in a line, and timed how long it took them to break it into two pieces with rifle fire.
There were two squads, so he filmed each squad as they 'assaulted' a post.
Fastest time was 10.366 seconds. (I didn't catch the time for the other squad.)
These are quicktime movies, the first one is 1.5mb and the second one is 1.7mb.
Randy also has a large number of still photos on his YAHOO photo gallery account, most of them depicting people shooting in mud and rain and gravel, in awkward and contorted positions, at targets very far away. I think these guys are people who rejected Rugby because it was too tame.
When I get the address of Randy's Practical Rifle Photo Gallery, I'll add it to this post.
UPDATE:
Email from Randy, the URL for his Yahoo Practical Rifle Photo Gallery is here.
If you look at the 2005 Nov album, you'll see photos taken on the same day as the board-busting exercise.
Here's one of them.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Autumn in Albany
They had forecast rain and cold weather for the Central Willamette Valley in Oregon today, but ‘they’ were wrong. It was a beautiful day for shooting. No wind, no rain, and often the sun peeked through the clouds to beam it’s munificent approval of 26 dauntless shooters competing in an IPSC match in Oregon.
During the walkthrough, Match Director Mike McCarter promised that never again would he cancel an IPSC match in Albany because of expected inclement weather conditions. The crowd roared it’s approval! (This was in reference to a scheduled match last winter, which he had cancelled citing the forecast 'icy road conditions' on the I-5 Interstate Freeway, which is the primary conduit to the Albany range.
We broke into three squads, which was an easy division.
One squad was the Juniors, and those who chose to shoot with them. It was probably the biggest squad.
The second squad was the Open gunners (all 3 of us), and those who chose to shoot with them. There were Seven people, total, in that squad.
The third squad was those who had no preference. They just came to shoot, and hang the weatherman.
Also during the walkthrough, Mac discussed the upcoming Glock Match. He had originally stated that all divisions would be recognized, except for Glock Revolver. He seemed to think that no such article existed.
Fellow Shooter Walter proved him wrong, by presenting the handgun he planned to shoot as a Glock (eg. Tupperware, eg. Plastic) Revolver.
Everybody knows that if you’re going to shoot Revolver in IPSC, you better have a good sense of humor. Walter and Mac share that admirable quality.
UPDATE:
Walt read this blog, and couldn't wait to show me the custom modifications he had made on his Glock Revolver.
Kinda kewl, eh?
After we started shooting, I decided that the weather was too nice not to document. The best way I know to document good weather is with pictures, and moving pictures add color to it. I’ve selected one video for each stage we shot, and I offer them here . . . not without comment! . . . for your enjoyment. (Match results can be found at the ARPC-IPSC website.)
(Note: to view the related videos, mouse-click on the thumbnail.)
The first stage was an 80-point Comstock course called “Doh!” (I think this is a quote from The Simsons.) You shoot around a Bianchi Barrier at some steel (this WAS suppose to be a rainy day, so there’s a lot of steel targets in this match) and a couple of paper targets.
“GeeTee” discovered that he had to stretch to get the awkwardly positioned IPSC targets, and fell out of the box at the end. I think this is a take-off on Ralph Machio’s “Crane” position in The Karate Kid.
Stage 2 (Boardroom) was another Comstock course (I think I’ll forget mentioning the scoring style, all the stages were Comstock) worth 80 points. Shoot once at six IPSC targets, reload, do it again, reload, shoot twice at each of two IPSC targets with a lot of hardcover on, standing WAY downrange. It looks as far away in person as it does in these pictures. I chose the video of Mr. Mull because he was having so much fun he just couldn’t stop shooting!
(BTW, most of these videos were chosen because they had something ‘special’ to offer. They either serve as an example of things you should or shouldn’t do, or just demonstrate the kind of mind-poop that happens during a match. You’ll notice that there are no photos of The Geek in this essay. That’s because I had the camera, and nobody else was taking pictures. I assure you that I screwed up big-time on EVERY stage except this one, and I didn’t do as well as I thought I did here.
I threw in a video of Norm the Ungrateful shooting this stage. He made it look good, and when I shot the stage I thought I had done at least as well as he had, perhaps better. I was wrong. I cleaned the stage, but I shot SLOW!
Stage 3 (Hill Billy Run) had a lot of vision barriers, and some steel or IPSC targets hiding behind them. You had to contort yourself to get a sight-picture of at least some of the hidden targets. Also, you had a choice of the order in which you engaged the hidden target arrays (the first array had to be engaged from the starting box.) I chose to go right, then left. Higgie went the other way. He was right, I was wrong; he took over a second less time to ‘do it (his) way’.
Stage 4 (MAKIN' CHANGE CM03-17 ) was the classifier, designed by George “Earthworm” Jones. “It was a bad stage, it was a dangerous stage, it was a Bug stage”. Out of five targets on the stage, I managed to hit all of them at least once . . . including the no-shoot. Starting seated at a table with a “one dollar bill” in your hand, two 12” square rugs on the table, magazines and gun (unpropped) on the rugs, at the buzzer load and fire 2 shots per the 4 IPSC targets. Only eight shots, 40 points, and I managed to catch a no-shoot hidden deep in hard-cover territory. (The score sheet, I find, is wrong: it doesn’t reflect my no-shoot hit.) Norm the Ungrateful, however, does a credible job and deserves credit for it. I know it didn’t feel as good to him as it looked to us; he thought there was a lot of “Wasted Time” in his run.
Stage 5 (DRIVEWAY BLOCKADE) was an interesting stage. You get to shoot at a bunch of IPSC targets through a port on each side of the bay, and in between there are four Pepper Poppers . … the front two are forward-falling, thus slow to clear the view of the two Pepper Poppers behind them. The best way to shoot it is to NOT try to shoot them from the starting box, but to go to one side or the other and engage IPSC targets from the ports, then take the steel as you move between the sides of the bay. The hard thing . . . the IMPORTANT thing . . . is the get the steel down FAST, preferably without having to make up a missed shot.
The shooter here is Zac the Ungrateful, and he has some trouble hitting the steel. I feel his pain. I took just as many shots at the steel, because I missed it as many times as he did. No excuse, I did just fine on the first 3 Pepper Poppers but I could NOT hit the last one. To compound the problem, I kept un-mounting the gun between shots because I ‘assumed’ I had hit it . . . I hadn’t. If I seem to pick on Zac here, it’s only because if it was my video (which thankfully doesn’t exist) I would have to pick on me, too!
This was the first stage our squad shot, Zac was one of the first shooters (the very first? I’m not sure) and that it took him 3 more seconds to compete the stage . . . which should have been an easy 15 or 16 second stage . . . that I did is only a matter of luck. I haven’t shot a match for 3 weeks; he hasn’t shot a match since the Nationals. Also, he was sharing a gun, and it is NOT the SV he usually shoots, but instead his Father’s STI with an OK sight instead of the C-More he’s use to using.
Stage 6 (HIDE AND PEAK), the last stage of the match, was a throw-back to those ancient days when stage designs were not free-form. The stage instructions said, essentially, “Start in Box A, shoot targets T1-T2, move to Box B, shoot targets T3-T6, move to Box C, shoot targets T7-T10.” We all decided that we would not try to game this stage because HEY! It can’t be done.
I have two videos for this stage, and I selected them for very special reasons.
The first video is of Brian, and I’m probably going to cut my throat here because he is the guy who provides web-hosting for me. He just spent 3 days installing a new server, I just KNOW he’s going to think I’m busting his buns here, because I went out of my way to point out that he lost a couple of magazines from his mag-carriers while running pell-mell from the first to the second shooting box. It was “an excellent run”, but the dropped-magazine phenomenon is becoming increasingly common in this day of heavy double-stack magazines held by short mag-carriers. You start running hard, and the magazines just shake out of the carrier. That’s why you see some of the competitors here holding onto their mags while they run. It looks funny, but at least you don’t end up losing your magazines in the gravel.
(Note: This video may try to navigate away from the webpage. You may wish to use the drop-down menu by right-clicking on the image to open in a new tab or window, depending on your browser preferences.)
The second video is of Chris, a Junior shooting in Production. For his age (too young!) and experience (this is his first year shooting IPSC), he’s doing an exceptional job. The video shows him, for example, already shifting his balance in preparation to ‘leaving the box’ which refers to the Shooting Box. It’s a gutsy thing to do, but you have to learn that skill if you’re going to be competitive. In this case, Chris ended up winning the Production Division, over 7 other shooters (including his own father, Jeff) and two shooters in higher classes (including the B-Production Match Director, Mac.)
Still, while he’s running from Box A to Box B, he drops a magazine out of one of his magazine carriers. I offer this not only to show his splendid shooting techniques, but also to prove that it isn’t a matter of having a middle-aged middle that causes us to drop magazines.
That’s about it for today. You may notice that I’ve added music to the videos. I think the selections were admirably chosen and impeccably timed to illustrate something about the videos they represent, although the individuals depicted here may disagree.
WARNING:
SUPERFLUOUS SELF-SERVING RANT FOLLOWS; FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD.
If you think that the music, and the comments, do . . . or do not . . . add to the viewing experience, please let me know in the COMMENTS section. I’ll probably dis you for disagreeing with me, but that’s not my problem. It’s my blog, if you want to provide a dissenting point of view you can start your own blog. [Bad Joke Alert!]
For those of you who may be contemplating the initiation of your own Blog, a word of warning. I’ve just spent eight hours writing this article. This includes downloading the images from my camera; organizing the files; selecting the images to be presented; editing and reformatting the images from 4mb to 8mb MPEG to 2 mb MPV formats; selecting the accompanying music (which has been paid for when I bought the CDs); writing and inserting the comments within the videos; reformatting the MPV videos to include the music, which has been carefully timed to coincide with significant events in the videos; re-organizing the resulting files to fit within a single directory for archival purposes; uploading the files to the server; writing the first draft of this article; providubg links to the server-hosted files; converting the WS-WORD document to a blogspot article; uploading JPG files to illustrate the links to the videos, rewriting the article so it includes the pictures and the links; testing and corecting the links; publishing the final, polished article .
It took me four hours to shoot this match, and twice as long to publish this article. I fully expect to find that some of the links are not entirely compatible with one or more browsers, which will require some re-programming. (If you cannot view it conveniently, or if the links are not operative, please email me at the address referenced at the foot of this page to bring it to my attention. I will endeavor to correct the deficiency. Maybe. Someday.)
I’m not saying there’s anything particularly saintly about what I do, I’m just saying that I haven’t presented any material without having carefully considered the value, the return on investment (if you will), of EVERY video here presented, described, and modified before it is presented. As a consequence, I am painfully aware of the limited value YOU may assign to each video and the comments appended; but I consider them of great value, hence the following copyright statement:
(Note: all images are © 2005 by Jerry the Geek, and are intended for private personal use only . . . no images or text may be reproduced or used for commercial purposes, or other uses without express permission of the individuals depicted AND the photographer. Music is © in various years by the performers and other individuals and similarly may not be used for commercial or other purposes without express permission of the copyright holders.)
During the walkthrough, Match Director Mike McCarter promised that never again would he cancel an IPSC match in Albany because of expected inclement weather conditions. The crowd roared it’s approval! (This was in reference to a scheduled match last winter, which he had cancelled citing the forecast 'icy road conditions' on the I-5 Interstate Freeway, which is the primary conduit to the Albany range.
We broke into three squads, which was an easy division.
One squad was the Juniors, and those who chose to shoot with them. It was probably the biggest squad.
The second squad was the Open gunners (all 3 of us), and those who chose to shoot with them. There were Seven people, total, in that squad.
The third squad was those who had no preference. They just came to shoot, and hang the weatherman.
Also during the walkthrough, Mac discussed the upcoming Glock Match. He had originally stated that all divisions would be recognized, except for Glock Revolver. He seemed to think that no such article existed.
Fellow Shooter Walter proved him wrong, by presenting the handgun he planned to shoot as a Glock (eg. Tupperware, eg. Plastic) Revolver.
Everybody knows that if you’re going to shoot Revolver in IPSC, you better have a good sense of humor. Walter and Mac share that admirable quality.
UPDATE:
Walt read this blog, and couldn't wait to show me the custom modifications he had made on his Glock Revolver.
Kinda kewl, eh?
After we started shooting, I decided that the weather was too nice not to document. The best way I know to document good weather is with pictures, and moving pictures add color to it. I’ve selected one video for each stage we shot, and I offer them here . . . not without comment! . . . for your enjoyment. (Match results can be found at the ARPC-IPSC website.)
(Note: to view the related videos, mouse-click on the thumbnail.)
The first stage was an 80-point Comstock course called “Doh!” (I think this is a quote from The Simsons.) You shoot around a Bianchi Barrier at some steel (this WAS suppose to be a rainy day, so there’s a lot of steel targets in this match) and a couple of paper targets.
“GeeTee” discovered that he had to stretch to get the awkwardly positioned IPSC targets, and fell out of the box at the end. I think this is a take-off on Ralph Machio’s “Crane” position in The Karate Kid.
Stage 2 (Boardroom) was another Comstock course (I think I’ll forget mentioning the scoring style, all the stages were Comstock) worth 80 points. Shoot once at six IPSC targets, reload, do it again, reload, shoot twice at each of two IPSC targets with a lot of hardcover on, standing WAY downrange. It looks as far away in person as it does in these pictures. I chose the video of Mr. Mull because he was having so much fun he just couldn’t stop shooting!
(BTW, most of these videos were chosen because they had something ‘special’ to offer. They either serve as an example of things you should or shouldn’t do, or just demonstrate the kind of mind-poop that happens during a match. You’ll notice that there are no photos of The Geek in this essay. That’s because I had the camera, and nobody else was taking pictures. I assure you that I screwed up big-time on EVERY stage except this one, and I didn’t do as well as I thought I did here.
I threw in a video of Norm the Ungrateful shooting this stage. He made it look good, and when I shot the stage I thought I had done at least as well as he had, perhaps better. I was wrong. I cleaned the stage, but I shot SLOW!
Stage 3 (Hill Billy Run) had a lot of vision barriers, and some steel or IPSC targets hiding behind them. You had to contort yourself to get a sight-picture of at least some of the hidden targets. Also, you had a choice of the order in which you engaged the hidden target arrays (the first array had to be engaged from the starting box.) I chose to go right, then left. Higgie went the other way. He was right, I was wrong; he took over a second less time to ‘do it (his) way’.
Stage 4 (MAKIN' CHANGE CM03-17 ) was the classifier, designed by George “Earthworm” Jones. “It was a bad stage, it was a dangerous stage, it was a Bug stage”. Out of five targets on the stage, I managed to hit all of them at least once . . . including the no-shoot. Starting seated at a table with a “one dollar bill” in your hand, two 12” square rugs on the table, magazines and gun (unpropped) on the rugs, at the buzzer load and fire 2 shots per the 4 IPSC targets. Only eight shots, 40 points, and I managed to catch a no-shoot hidden deep in hard-cover territory. (The score sheet, I find, is wrong: it doesn’t reflect my no-shoot hit.) Norm the Ungrateful, however, does a credible job and deserves credit for it. I know it didn’t feel as good to him as it looked to us; he thought there was a lot of “Wasted Time” in his run.
Stage 5 (DRIVEWAY BLOCKADE) was an interesting stage. You get to shoot at a bunch of IPSC targets through a port on each side of the bay, and in between there are four Pepper Poppers . … the front two are forward-falling, thus slow to clear the view of the two Pepper Poppers behind them. The best way to shoot it is to NOT try to shoot them from the starting box, but to go to one side or the other and engage IPSC targets from the ports, then take the steel as you move between the sides of the bay. The hard thing . . . the IMPORTANT thing . . . is the get the steel down FAST, preferably without having to make up a missed shot.
The shooter here is Zac the Ungrateful, and he has some trouble hitting the steel. I feel his pain. I took just as many shots at the steel, because I missed it as many times as he did. No excuse, I did just fine on the first 3 Pepper Poppers but I could NOT hit the last one. To compound the problem, I kept un-mounting the gun between shots because I ‘assumed’ I had hit it . . . I hadn’t. If I seem to pick on Zac here, it’s only because if it was my video (which thankfully doesn’t exist) I would have to pick on me, too!
This was the first stage our squad shot, Zac was one of the first shooters (the very first? I’m not sure) and that it took him 3 more seconds to compete the stage . . . which should have been an easy 15 or 16 second stage . . . that I did is only a matter of luck. I haven’t shot a match for 3 weeks; he hasn’t shot a match since the Nationals. Also, he was sharing a gun, and it is NOT the SV he usually shoots, but instead his Father’s STI with an OK sight instead of the C-More he’s use to using.
Stage 6 (HIDE AND PEAK), the last stage of the match, was a throw-back to those ancient days when stage designs were not free-form. The stage instructions said, essentially, “Start in Box A, shoot targets T1-T2, move to Box B, shoot targets T3-T6, move to Box C, shoot targets T7-T10.” We all decided that we would not try to game this stage because HEY! It can’t be done.
I have two videos for this stage, and I selected them for very special reasons.
The first video is of Brian, and I’m probably going to cut my throat here because he is the guy who provides web-hosting for me. He just spent 3 days installing a new server, I just KNOW he’s going to think I’m busting his buns here, because I went out of my way to point out that he lost a couple of magazines from his mag-carriers while running pell-mell from the first to the second shooting box. It was “an excellent run”, but the dropped-magazine phenomenon is becoming increasingly common in this day of heavy double-stack magazines held by short mag-carriers. You start running hard, and the magazines just shake out of the carrier. That’s why you see some of the competitors here holding onto their mags while they run. It looks funny, but at least you don’t end up losing your magazines in the gravel.
(Note: This video may try to navigate away from the webpage. You may wish to use the drop-down menu by right-clicking on the image to open in a new tab or window, depending on your browser preferences.)The second video is of Chris, a Junior shooting in Production. For his age (too young!) and experience (this is his first year shooting IPSC), he’s doing an exceptional job. The video shows him, for example, already shifting his balance in preparation to ‘leaving the box’ which refers to the Shooting Box. It’s a gutsy thing to do, but you have to learn that skill if you’re going to be competitive. In this case, Chris ended up winning the Production Division, over 7 other shooters (including his own father, Jeff) and two shooters in higher classes (including the B-Production Match Director, Mac.)
Still, while he’s running from Box A to Box B, he drops a magazine out of one of his magazine carriers. I offer this not only to show his splendid shooting techniques, but also to prove that it isn’t a matter of having a middle-aged middle that causes us to drop magazines.
That’s about it for today. You may notice that I’ve added music to the videos. I think the selections were admirably chosen and impeccably timed to illustrate something about the videos they represent, although the individuals depicted here may disagree.
WARNING:
SUPERFLUOUS SELF-SERVING RANT FOLLOWS; FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD.
If you think that the music, and the comments, do . . . or do not . . . add to the viewing experience, please let me know in the COMMENTS section. I’ll probably dis you for disagreeing with me, but that’s not my problem. It’s my blog, if you want to provide a dissenting point of view you can start your own blog. [Bad Joke Alert!]
For those of you who may be contemplating the initiation of your own Blog, a word of warning. I’ve just spent eight hours writing this article. This includes downloading the images from my camera; organizing the files; selecting the images to be presented; editing and reformatting the images from 4mb to 8mb MPEG to 2 mb MPV formats; selecting the accompanying music (which has been paid for when I bought the CDs); writing and inserting the comments within the videos; reformatting the MPV videos to include the music, which has been carefully timed to coincide with significant events in the videos; re-organizing the resulting files to fit within a single directory for archival purposes; uploading the files to the server; writing the first draft of this article; providubg links to the server-hosted files; converting the WS-WORD document to a blogspot article; uploading JPG files to illustrate the links to the videos, rewriting the article so it includes the pictures and the links; testing and corecting the links; publishing the final, polished article .
It took me four hours to shoot this match, and twice as long to publish this article. I fully expect to find that some of the links are not entirely compatible with one or more browsers, which will require some re-programming. (If you cannot view it conveniently, or if the links are not operative, please email me at the address referenced at the foot of this page to bring it to my attention. I will endeavor to correct the deficiency. Maybe. Someday.)
I’m not saying there’s anything particularly saintly about what I do, I’m just saying that I haven’t presented any material without having carefully considered the value, the return on investment (if you will), of EVERY video here presented, described, and modified before it is presented. As a consequence, I am painfully aware of the limited value YOU may assign to each video and the comments appended; but I consider them of great value, hence the following copyright statement:
(Note: all images are © 2005 by Jerry the Geek, and are intended for private personal use only . . . no images or text may be reproduced or used for commercial purposes, or other uses without express permission of the individuals depicted AND the photographer. Music is © in various years by the performers and other individuals and similarly may not be used for commercial or other purposes without express permission of the copyright holders.)
Friday, November 11, 2005
Tampa Bay Pistol Club - You know you're a shooter when...
I've only been Blogging for one year.
But I've been 'Writing' for intenet folks for about 8 years.
Here are a couple of examples of the Threads From Heck which were introduced (usually) on The Unofficial IPSC List, and which were subsequently posted on the Internet by other subscribers:
Tampa Bay Pistol Club - You know you're a shooter when...
IPSC Haiku
My favorites are ... well, my own poems. But the creativity is astounding, and I'm hard-pressed to pick my own from the others. To be honest, many of the poems are 'in-jokes'. These were all composed in 2001, and thanx to Jeff Maass for preserving them.
Boomershoot
I went to one of Joe Huffman's early Boomershoots in 1999.
(I also went to the 2000 Boomershoot, and I bought the shirt, but that's another story.)
I went with Jim "Bumstead" Boemler, and delighted in getting him stuck in mud while we treked thru the marshlands.
The link cited above, however, deals with my expectations based on EXPERIENCE during other lie-down-on-the-grass-and-squirm-in-the-cold-mud moments.
BTW, if Kim Du Toit would like a genuine Boomershoot t-shirt, I would be willing to make him a gift of mine. It doesn't fit me any more. I think it shrunk.
And here's a picture of Bumstead at the match. Jim is at the telescope, I'm . . . behind the camera.
But I've been 'Writing' for intenet folks for about 8 years.
Here are a couple of examples of the Threads From Heck which were introduced (usually) on The Unofficial IPSC List, and which were subsequently posted on the Internet by other subscribers:
Tampa Bay Pistol Club - You know you're a shooter when...
IPSC Haiku
My favorites are ... well, my own poems. But the creativity is astounding, and I'm hard-pressed to pick my own from the others. To be honest, many of the poems are 'in-jokes'. These were all composed in 2001, and thanx to Jeff Maass for preserving them.
Boomershoot
I went to one of Joe Huffman's early Boomershoots in 1999.
(I also went to the 2000 Boomershoot, and I bought the shirt, but that's another story.)
I went with Jim "Bumstead" Boemler, and delighted in getting him stuck in mud while we treked thru the marshlands.
The link cited above, however, deals with my expectations based on EXPERIENCE during other lie-down-on-the-grass-and-squirm-in-the-cold-mud moments.
BTW, if Kim Du Toit would like a genuine Boomershoot t-shirt, I would be willing to make him a gift of mine. It doesn't fit me any more. I think it shrunk.
And here's a picture of Bumstead at the match. Jim is at the telescope, I'm . . . behind the camera.
ABC News: Granny's Got a Gun ... and Uses It
ABC News: Granny's Got a Gun ... and Uses It
Arlington, Texas:
A Texas Grandmother exercised her Second Amendment right to defend herself, her family and her home by shooting a half-naked 'really buff' male intruder who had broken a window to enter the home shared by the grandmother (66 year old Susan Buxton), her daughter, and her grandchildren.
Not with the 911 operator, with Buxton!
Note: if your access to the ABC video doesn't work for you, here's one from Comcast. No telling if the pop-up video will work any better, or if you need a Comcast subscription to run it. When I viewed it, there were a couple of interuptions in the feed but it was a GREAT interview by ABC. There was a great deal of commentary that wasn't available on the later ABC news video.
Arlington, Texas:
A Texas Grandmother exercised her Second Amendment right to defend herself, her family and her home by shooting a half-naked 'really buff' male intruder who had broken a window to enter the home shared by the grandmother (66 year old Susan Buxton), her daughter, and her grandchildren.
Susan Gaylord Buxton of Arlington, Texas, shot an intruder who broke into her home using the .38-caliber handgun she keeps by her bedside.
(The) 66-year-old grandmother is giving new meaning to the saying, "Don't Mess With Texas."
Susan Gaylord Buxton of Arlington, Texas, shot an intruder who broke into her home using the .38-caliber handgun she keeps by her bedside. The intruder, Christopher Lessner, 22, suffered a leg wound and is now in jail.
"I was scared, I was terrified and I was really, really angry that he was in my house," Buxton said. "He could have harmed me or my granddaughter."
Buxton, a cartoonist and an artist, had already gone to bed for the night. But at 12:45 a.m. on Wednesday, she got up to let one of her puppies outside. She took her gun with her in case a coyote tried to attack her dog in the yard.
On her way downstairs, Buxton noticed that her granddaughter, Mandy Davis, was awake because she had heard a noise like breaking glass. Buxton walked out on her back porch and let her dog out, who began sniffing two big muddy footprints on the porch — a red flag, since they hadn't any rain in about six weeks.
Then Buxton and Davis noticed other odd things: the door to a backroom was ajar allowing the family cats to escape and other items in the room were in disarray. They discussed calling the police, but instead decided to methodically check the house on their own — with a spotlight and her gun in hand.
After checking the entire house, they realized the only place they hadn't checked was the coat closet — and there was Lessner.
"This big, 6-foot-1, really big, buff man jumped out," Buxton said.As Buxton dealt with the intruder, Davis called 911 to get help.
Lessner was on the run from police who were trying to ticket him for speeding in a stolen car earlier that night.
Buxton ordered Lessner to "get down" but he refused. She fired one warning shot into the air and then she shot him in the leg. But Lessner still managed to run out the front door.
Police apprehended him near Buxton's home.
"They found him bleeding and cowering on a neighbor's balcony," Buxton said.
Buxton has owned a handgun for 12 years, but this was her first time shooting anybody, she said. Buxton bought the gun 12 years ago after she says someone tried to kidnap one of her grandchildren while she was baby-sitting.
She has taken a shooting course where she was trained to aim for the torso, but she said she aimed for the leg instead.
"I didn't want to kill him," Buxton said.
The police took Buxton's gun as part of the investigation. In the meantime, she's carrying her other gun, a 9-millimeter semi-automatic. Buxton has a permit to carry a handgun and will not be charged with a crime because she was defending herself.
Lessner is facing charges of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, evading arrest, criminal mischief and criminal trespass. Now that he's out of the hospital, he's sitting in jail.
"I'm glad he's in jail," Buxton said. "That's where he belongs."
Correction to the story:
According to the on-air interview on the Good Morning America television show, Buxton had hit Lessner in the leg with her FIRST shot, deliberately shooting to wound. The second shot was the warning shot, fired after Lessner had dragged himself out of the house and while police were on the way.
Details not available in the text version, or the ABC news video:
Here's the Money quote(s), from the 911 call as Buxton was heard in the background while her daughter made the emergency call for police help:
(Grandmother): Get . . . Get Down!I think I'm in love.
Son of a Bitch!
. . .
How dare you come into my house, you lousy son of a bitch!
...
Get the son of a bitch out of here or he's a dead man!
(911 operator): Did she just shoot him again? The police are on the way. Tell her she needs to stop shooting him!
Not with the 911 operator, with Buxton!
Buxton reported that she had received defensive firearms training, and asserted that ". . . they tell you, when you get a handgun . . . you need to practice, practice, practice!"
Note: if your access to the ABC video doesn't work for you, here's one from Comcast. No telling if the pop-up video will work any better, or if you need a Comcast subscription to run it. When I viewed it, there were a couple of interuptions in the feed but it was a GREAT interview by ABC. There was a great deal of commentary that wasn't available on the later ABC news video.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Thank you, Veterans
Thank you!
Tomorrow, November 11, is Veteran's Day.
If you've never thought of Veterans as "Somebody Special", if you deplore the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you served, or know someone who served their country in acknowledged risk of life and limb, if you "Support The Troops", if you fervently believe that "War Is Dangerous To Children And Other Living Creatures", if you think that soldiers are sadly misguided whose hearts may be in the right place but they are wasting themselves in Somebody Else's War . . .
. . . if you're an American . . .
do something special on Veteran's day to show that you acknowledge the sacrifices and risks that one American is willing to assume in order that you may sleep safely at night.
Going grocery shopping? Stop and buy a Buddy Poppy from the old man in front of the Safeway store. Don't give him a buck; give him a twenty. It helps support the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Make your day THEIR day, by showing your appreciation.
What am I going to do?
I'm going to celebrate Red Shirt Friday, and bring along some momento of military service to my work place.
At 11pm on 11/11, I'll go to the memorial at the local National Guard Armory and offer my Libation to Absent Friends. It may sound strange to you, but THEY know, and understand. If my name was on that pillar, or wall, I would appreciate the gesture.
Saturday, I'll go to an IPSC match.
I hope by then I'll have found a Safeway store, and a VFW guy, because I want to wear my Buddy Poppy.
PS: if the 3-minute movie linked to above doesn't break you up just a little bit, you won't understand any of this.
Never mind.
It's only important if it's important to you.
Tomorrow, November 11, is Veteran's Day.
If you've never thought of Veterans as "Somebody Special", if you deplore the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you served, or know someone who served their country in acknowledged risk of life and limb, if you "Support The Troops", if you fervently believe that "War Is Dangerous To Children And Other Living Creatures", if you think that soldiers are sadly misguided whose hearts may be in the right place but they are wasting themselves in Somebody Else's War . . .
. . . if you're an American . . .
do something special on Veteran's day to show that you acknowledge the sacrifices and risks that one American is willing to assume in order that you may sleep safely at night.
Going grocery shopping? Stop and buy a Buddy Poppy from the old man in front of the Safeway store. Don't give him a buck; give him a twenty. It helps support the Veterans of Foreign Wars.Make your day THEIR day, by showing your appreciation.
What am I going to do?
I'm going to celebrate Red Shirt Friday, and bring along some momento of military service to my work place.
At 11pm on 11/11, I'll go to the memorial at the local National Guard Armory and offer my Libation to Absent Friends. It may sound strange to you, but THEY know, and understand. If my name was on that pillar, or wall, I would appreciate the gesture.
Saturday, I'll go to an IPSC match.
I hope by then I'll have found a Safeway store, and a VFW guy, because I want to wear my Buddy Poppy.
PS: if the 3-minute movie linked to above doesn't break you up just a little bit, you won't understand any of this.
Never mind.
It's only important if it's important to you.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Never point an RPG at the Marines
Caution: This depicts scenes of graphic violence. May not be suitable for just about anybody.
869KB, 37 seconds.
H/T Big Dog
869KB, 37 seconds.
H/T Big Dog
Stamps with Your Photo On Them
PhotoStamps: Home
The U.S. Postal Service has entered into an agreement with various commercial suppliers to allow personally designed stamps to be used on mail entered into the USPSA system.
You provide the photo, credit card and address information (you have to establish an account with the individual supplier - I chose Photo.Stamp.com arbitrarily) and the supplier will print your image on stamps which you can use to send snailmail.
I tried this out. It cost me $32.97 for 'two sheets'. I don't know how many stamps are on a sheet, but the stamps I get from the post office have about a dozen per sheet. I very much doubt they are talking about 50-stamp sheets. The stamps will certainly cost a lot more than their $.37 face value, and until I receive my order I won't be able to say what the actual cost per stamp will be.
I chose a photo of my son, his wife and THEIR new son, J-Bob. (Jakob Robert) This photo was over a year old, taken in the hospital room on the day he was born. My son, Jon Ben, has a satisfied smirk on his face which makes it all worth the expense of memorializing.
Okay, it's a subjective thing. I love my son and his family, and while it may not be the photo THEY would choose, I can't think of a happier moment than the birth of a child.
It's worth it to me, and while they may not appreciate the stamps I'll be sending to hem, at least they have it to use or give to their son for whatever purpose he may have. (I don't expect to be using these stamps to pay my utility bills.)
This was just a test order. A single 'sheet' of stamps costs just under $17 from PhotStamps; I don't know what other suppliers charge, I haven't checked them out yet.
But if the stamps seem to be of good quality, I have plans to submit some other photos which are personally significant and buy even more stamps from them.
FYI, there are restrictions on the images you can submit for stamps. Using PhotoStamp as a typical supplier, no pornography, violence, copyright images (without permission), historical figures (?), suggestive, etc. photos will be accepted. If you send in an order and the image is rejected by the supplier, you will be charged a $10 'processing fee' by photostamp and you don't get your stamps.
I have NO idea whether they would consider this objectionable:
You have to submit your own images and orders to find out what they will accept. If you choose to try this, I would appreciate it if you would send me a copy of the image and the results of your order. I may, with your permission, publish the results and image if only to serve as a warning to others.
UPDATE 11/14:
There are 20 stamps per sheet. At $0.37 per stamp, the actual postage value is $7.40. Your price from this vendor is $14.99 per sheet, which means your paying double price for the stamps.
This is no bargain if all you want is postage. If you want something else, something personal and meaningful to you, it's dirt cheap. For me, it's a bargain and I'll be using their service again.
The U.S. Postal Service has entered into an agreement with various commercial suppliers to allow personally designed stamps to be used on mail entered into the USPSA system.
You provide the photo, credit card and address information (you have to establish an account with the individual supplier - I chose Photo.Stamp.com arbitrarily) and the supplier will print your image on stamps which you can use to send snailmail.
I tried this out. It cost me $32.97 for 'two sheets'. I don't know how many stamps are on a sheet, but the stamps I get from the post office have about a dozen per sheet. I very much doubt they are talking about 50-stamp sheets. The stamps will certainly cost a lot more than their $.37 face value, and until I receive my order I won't be able to say what the actual cost per stamp will be.
I chose a photo of my son, his wife and THEIR new son, J-Bob. (Jakob Robert) This photo was over a year old, taken in the hospital room on the day he was born. My son, Jon Ben, has a satisfied smirk on his face which makes it all worth the expense of memorializing.
Okay, it's a subjective thing. I love my son and his family, and while it may not be the photo THEY would choose, I can't think of a happier moment than the birth of a child.
It's worth it to me, and while they may not appreciate the stamps I'll be sending to hem, at least they have it to use or give to their son for whatever purpose he may have. (I don't expect to be using these stamps to pay my utility bills.)
This was just a test order. A single 'sheet' of stamps costs just under $17 from PhotStamps; I don't know what other suppliers charge, I haven't checked them out yet.
But if the stamps seem to be of good quality, I have plans to submit some other photos which are personally significant and buy even more stamps from them.
FYI, there are restrictions on the images you can submit for stamps. Using PhotoStamp as a typical supplier, no pornography, violence, copyright images (without permission), historical figures (?), suggestive, etc. photos will be accepted. If you send in an order and the image is rejected by the supplier, you will be charged a $10 'processing fee' by photostamp and you don't get your stamps.
I have NO idea whether they would consider this objectionable:
You have to submit your own images and orders to find out what they will accept. If you choose to try this, I would appreciate it if you would send me a copy of the image and the results of your order. I may, with your permission, publish the results and image if only to serve as a warning to others.
UPDATE 11/14:
There are 20 stamps per sheet. At $0.37 per stamp, the actual postage value is $7.40. Your price from this vendor is $14.99 per sheet, which means your paying double price for the stamps.
This is no bargain if all you want is postage. If you want something else, something personal and meaningful to you, it's dirt cheap. For me, it's a bargain and I'll be using their service again.
What are you smiling about?
Last Spring, my Geek Jeep still sported a "SPORTSMEN FOR BUSH" sticker in the rear window.
You may be aware that I work at a University in the Pacific Northwest, and I park on campus five days a week.
One Monday when I went to the parking lot to get my car, I noticed that someone had taken advantage of the thin layer of dust (I had attended an IPSC match the day before, and the dust from the dirt access roads hadn't yet been washed off . . . it wasn't time for my Semi-annual Wash The Car Day) to write "BUSH IS GAY" on the back hatch.
Now, you all know that the entire PNW is a Red State, and the Geek Jeep is red. Honestly, I was trying to get along as passively as I could.
Yet someone, presumably a University student, had decided that the only reasonable response to a Jeep with a "Sportsmen For Bush" sticker in the back window was to write "BUSH IS GAY" on the car. (I'm just grateful that they used their dirty finger, instead of a key, to write it!)
I wondered why this particular phrase was used to disparage the President of the United States. In a Liberal state, at a Liberal college, with a very active Gay Pride center within a mile of my parking place, does someone consider that the unfounded accusation of being Gay is an appropriate insult?
What does that do for the "Celebrate Diversity" movement on campus? How does it correlate to the professed inclusionary slant of the anti-Bush movement?
Is being Gay a Bad Thing? If so, how does the writer get along with his fellow liberals, who seem to take acceptance of homosexuality as a plank on their political platform?
Or was the writer merely commenting that President George W. Bush seemed especially jovial?
I find this a little difficult to accept, considering that Bush 43 has been experiencing one of the most difficult tenures in the history of the country. 911, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, Terrorism in general, the need to expend resources (which could be otherwise slotted for domestic social issues) on defensive measures such as TSA . . . what has Bush got to be happy about?
One could imagine that President Bush, in an introspective moment, would envy President Eisenhower. The worth thing Ike had to deal with was the uncomfortable 6-month period between the day when the USSR orbited Sputnik, and the day when the USA managed to get a satellite in orbit. (Joke of the day: "Why can't Ike ride horseback at night?" Answer: "Because he doesn't have a saddle light". Saddle-light, satellite. Get it? Okay, it's lame, but that was the fifties.)
The reason all of this boiled to the top of the melting pot is because I just read a Doctor Adams article entitled "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog-gone it, Stuart Smalley likes me!"
Here, Doctor Adams discusses Al Franken, whose distinction between "Unfair Mean" jokes and "Fair Mean" jokes is difficult to define, at best. The difference seems to be whether the speaker is a Liberal or a Conservative. If you take Franken's history into account, it's wrong for Conservatives to say anything 'mean' about homosexuals. However, it's okay for a Liberal to say anything 'mean' about homosexuals, if the homosexual in question is a Conservative.
In that vein, I spent the most grueling week in my recent history listening to "Air America" earlier this week. (The actual listening time was just under five minutes; I'm not able to listen to that show any longer for fear of hurling.) I do this from time to time, just to see if the Liberal Voice of America has begun to make sense. I'll save you the torture of listening for yourself: they haven't.
The woman who was talking (Randi Rhodes?) was talking about the big stink those nasty ol' Conservatives made about Clinton's affair with Lewinski, and then asked "What about the homosexual prostitute [note: Gannon/Guckert?], what was he doing in the White House?"
It's not clear whether she was concerned about the homosexuality or the prostitution of this guy, but she made it clear that the relationship between Clinton and Lewinski was a . . . quote . . . "Social Situation", while that between the man who seemed to be carving out a new career as a White House reporter and the President seemed somehow to be comparable.
There's no suggestion here, or elsewhere, that President Bush was carrying on a "Social Situation" with a male prostitute, but Rhodes seemed to relish the inuendo.
That's what it's all about with the Liberal press . . . inuendo. And it's infecting the young people of our country.
It's okay to use homosexuality as a weapon against Conservatives, if you're a Liberal. But if you're a Conservative, and you aren't publicallyl and viciferously in support of homosexuality, you're "Just Mean".
So what does it mean when you only allow a homosexual to attend your White House Press Conferences, and you're a Conservative? Are you inclusive, or are you perverted?
What are you smiling about?
You may be aware that I work at a University in the Pacific Northwest, and I park on campus five days a week.
One Monday when I went to the parking lot to get my car, I noticed that someone had taken advantage of the thin layer of dust (I had attended an IPSC match the day before, and the dust from the dirt access roads hadn't yet been washed off . . . it wasn't time for my Semi-annual Wash The Car Day) to write "BUSH IS GAY" on the back hatch.
Now, you all know that the entire PNW is a Red State, and the Geek Jeep is red. Honestly, I was trying to get along as passively as I could.
Yet someone, presumably a University student, had decided that the only reasonable response to a Jeep with a "Sportsmen For Bush" sticker in the back window was to write "BUSH IS GAY" on the car. (I'm just grateful that they used their dirty finger, instead of a key, to write it!)
I wondered why this particular phrase was used to disparage the President of the United States. In a Liberal state, at a Liberal college, with a very active Gay Pride center within a mile of my parking place, does someone consider that the unfounded accusation of being Gay is an appropriate insult?
What does that do for the "Celebrate Diversity" movement on campus? How does it correlate to the professed inclusionary slant of the anti-Bush movement?
Is being Gay a Bad Thing? If so, how does the writer get along with his fellow liberals, who seem to take acceptance of homosexuality as a plank on their political platform?
Or was the writer merely commenting that President George W. Bush seemed especially jovial?
I find this a little difficult to accept, considering that Bush 43 has been experiencing one of the most difficult tenures in the history of the country. 911, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, Terrorism in general, the need to expend resources (which could be otherwise slotted for domestic social issues) on defensive measures such as TSA . . . what has Bush got to be happy about?
One could imagine that President Bush, in an introspective moment, would envy President Eisenhower. The worth thing Ike had to deal with was the uncomfortable 6-month period between the day when the USSR orbited Sputnik, and the day when the USA managed to get a satellite in orbit. (Joke of the day: "Why can't Ike ride horseback at night?" Answer: "Because he doesn't have a saddle light". Saddle-light, satellite. Get it? Okay, it's lame, but that was the fifties.)
The reason all of this boiled to the top of the melting pot is because I just read a Doctor Adams article entitled "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog-gone it, Stuart Smalley likes me!"
Here, Doctor Adams discusses Al Franken, whose distinction between "Unfair Mean" jokes and "Fair Mean" jokes is difficult to define, at best. The difference seems to be whether the speaker is a Liberal or a Conservative. If you take Franken's history into account, it's wrong for Conservatives to say anything 'mean' about homosexuals. However, it's okay for a Liberal to say anything 'mean' about homosexuals, if the homosexual in question is a Conservative.
In that vein, I spent the most grueling week in my recent history listening to "Air America" earlier this week. (The actual listening time was just under five minutes; I'm not able to listen to that show any longer for fear of hurling.) I do this from time to time, just to see if the Liberal Voice of America has begun to make sense. I'll save you the torture of listening for yourself: they haven't.
The woman who was talking (Randi Rhodes?) was talking about the big stink those nasty ol' Conservatives made about Clinton's affair with Lewinski, and then asked "What about the homosexual prostitute [note: Gannon/Guckert?], what was he doing in the White House?"
It's not clear whether she was concerned about the homosexuality or the prostitution of this guy, but she made it clear that the relationship between Clinton and Lewinski was a . . . quote . . . "Social Situation", while that between the man who seemed to be carving out a new career as a White House reporter and the President seemed somehow to be comparable.
There's no suggestion here, or elsewhere, that President Bush was carrying on a "Social Situation" with a male prostitute, but Rhodes seemed to relish the inuendo.
That's what it's all about with the Liberal press . . . inuendo. And it's infecting the young people of our country.
It's okay to use homosexuality as a weapon against Conservatives, if you're a Liberal. But if you're a Conservative, and you aren't publicallyl and viciferously in support of homosexuality, you're "Just Mean".
So what does it mean when you only allow a homosexual to attend your White House Press Conferences, and you're a Conservative? Are you inclusive, or are you perverted?
What are you smiling about?
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
November Blogmeat
Since my writing tonite seems to be related to the stuff that other bloggers have found, I'm going to switch to a BLOGMEAT format!
One in a Row has early returns from San Francisco's Proposition H.
What does it say? Well, as of this writing (21:20 on Election Night), they have 36,000 votes and less than 10,000 returned ballots. I'm not too concerned . . . so far . . . that the measure to prohibit posession of firearms within the San Francisco City Limits is winning 3 to 2.
It's a SCAM, folks!
UPDATE:
November 9, 2005
The passage of Proposition H in San Francisco caught me unaware. I knew those people were crazy, and I knew that they were stupid, but I had no idea of the extent of their mania.
I use to live there, in the early 1970's. I met some fine folks, and I loved the town. Hated the politics, hated the crime, and I missed 'real weather' so I finally moved.
The weather was just blah. Occasional rain, lots of cold winds, but I admit I was enchanted by the Fog Monster slithering down the main west-east thoroughfares on its way from the ocean to the Bay.
Crime was more than your typical bank robberies and muggings. I was living in Oakland during the Zebra Killings and the Patty Hearst/SLA business. I was there during the Black Panther shootout in Oakland. And I was there when my next door neighbor was mugged in the Safeway parking lot by two middle-school girls. My car was burglarized twice, once while it was sitting in the enclosed parking lot of the apartment house where I lived and which I managed; it was obviously one of my neighbors. Later, someone slit the convertible top 'just for the hell of it'.
The politics, even then, defied imagination. Obviously, the current generation has completely succumbed to the Nanny State mindset which we saw evolving during the period when I lived there.
I got out just in time.
Publicola is incensed that many of his readers come from RKBA-repressed areas . . . DC, California, Illinois, NJ, etc. He asks why, if these read are interested in gun-blogs, they still live where they do?
I'm sure there are good reasons, but darned if I can intuit them.
Vile Bill (Firing For Effect) writes about a pig roast and a Jungle Run!
Hey, this idea is catching on everywhere, and from the many photos Bill provides, it looks like a tough stage..
I'm glad to see that Bill is posting more and more lately, not only because he is an IPSC shooter but also because he always has something interesting to say.
Incidently, he is willing to trade total ownership of his blog for an SVI. Good luck, Bill.
Oh, and before I forget, Bill has joined the Gun Blogs Ring, as I have (see the link array at the bottom of the page, just below the Day By Day cartoon.) His link hasn't yet appeared, but take heart Bill. It took three weeks before they got around to 'certifying' my link. I think this is a worthy effort, if only because it provides a good way to cycle through all your favorite gun-blogs quickly and easily.
And Bill is responsible for the reference to the "How Much Is Your Blog Worth" bot, included here.
Syd at Front Sight, Press offers his usual brilliant collection of RKBA-related links, including this article about Alito's decision that the ban against private ownership of full-auto firearms is unconstitutional! (Scroll down to "SUPREME COURT NOMINEE SAMUEL ALITO'S VIEWS COULD IMPERIL MOST FEDERAL GUN, AMMO, AND EXPLOSIVES LAWS")
Remarkably, this article was featured in SFGATE, those wonderful folks who support Proposition H (See above).
The second quoted paragraph demonstratesHCI's The Brady Center's disenguity; how much credibility can we give to an organization which calls itself the '"Center To Prevent Gun Violence", and then tries to hide its anti-RKBA activism under the guise of an organization which "... supports regulation of the environment and public health." These folks have no shame, no shame at all.
One in a Row has early returns from San Francisco's Proposition H.
What does it say? Well, as of this writing (21:20 on Election Night), they have 36,000 votes and less than 10,000 returned ballots. I'm not too concerned . . . so far . . . that the measure to prohibit posession of firearms within the San Francisco City Limits is winning 3 to 2.
It's a SCAM, folks!
UPDATE:
November 9, 2005
The passage of Proposition H in San Francisco caught me unaware. I knew those people were crazy, and I knew that they were stupid, but I had no idea of the extent of their mania.
I use to live there, in the early 1970's. I met some fine folks, and I loved the town. Hated the politics, hated the crime, and I missed 'real weather' so I finally moved.
The weather was just blah. Occasional rain, lots of cold winds, but I admit I was enchanted by the Fog Monster slithering down the main west-east thoroughfares on its way from the ocean to the Bay.
Crime was more than your typical bank robberies and muggings. I was living in Oakland during the Zebra Killings and the Patty Hearst/SLA business. I was there during the Black Panther shootout in Oakland. And I was there when my next door neighbor was mugged in the Safeway parking lot by two middle-school girls. My car was burglarized twice, once while it was sitting in the enclosed parking lot of the apartment house where I lived and which I managed; it was obviously one of my neighbors. Later, someone slit the convertible top 'just for the hell of it'.
The politics, even then, defied imagination. Obviously, the current generation has completely succumbed to the Nanny State mindset which we saw evolving during the period when I lived there.
I got out just in time.
Publicola is incensed that many of his readers come from RKBA-repressed areas . . . DC, California, Illinois, NJ, etc. He asks why, if these read are interested in gun-blogs, they still live where they do?
I'm sure there are good reasons, but darned if I can intuit them.
Vile Bill (Firing For Effect) writes about a pig roast and a Jungle Run!
Hey, this idea is catching on everywhere, and from the many photos Bill provides, it looks like a tough stage..
I'm glad to see that Bill is posting more and more lately, not only because he is an IPSC shooter but also because he always has something interesting to say.
Incidently, he is willing to trade total ownership of his blog for an SVI. Good luck, Bill.
Oh, and before I forget, Bill has joined the Gun Blogs Ring, as I have (see the link array at the bottom of the page, just below the Day By Day cartoon.) His link hasn't yet appeared, but take heart Bill. It took three weeks before they got around to 'certifying' my link. I think this is a worthy effort, if only because it provides a good way to cycle through all your favorite gun-blogs quickly and easily.
My blog is worth $8,468.10.
How much is your blog worth?
And Bill is responsible for the reference to the "How Much Is Your Blog Worth" bot, included here.
Syd at Front Sight, Press offers his usual brilliant collection of RKBA-related links, including this article about Alito's decision that the ban against private ownership of full-auto firearms is unconstitutional! (Scroll down to "SUPREME COURT NOMINEE SAMUEL ALITO'S VIEWS COULD IMPERIL MOST FEDERAL GUN, AMMO, AND EXPLOSIVES LAWS")
Remarkably, this article was featured in SFGATE, those wonderful folks who support Proposition H (See above).
For John Roberts, it was a "hapless toad'' in the path of a California housing development that represented the limits of the federal government's power to regulate activities within a state. For Samuel Alito Jr., it was a machine gun.
In a lone dissenting opinion as a federal appeals court judge in 1996, Alito argued that the federal ban on possessing machine guns was unconstitutional -- a stand described by both admirers and detractors Tuesday as one of the most revealing cases in the lengthy judicial record of President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Not so remarkably, the SFGATE article strongly features a quote from "The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence", formerly known as HCI.
. . . Dennis Henigan, legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the opinion is "perhaps the most powerful evidence that Judge Alito is very much a right-wing judicial activist'' willing to disregard congressional judgment. Another critic, Douglas Kendall, executive director of the Community Rights Counsel, said Alito's opinion is disturbing for reasons that have little to do with gun control.
The case "suggests that he will impose rather significant limits on federal authority'' over interstate commerce, the basis for a wide range of laws, said Kendall, whose Washington, D.C., organization supports regulation of the environment and public health. He said the issue of federal power is critical to two cases the Supreme Court plans to review this term testing the limits of the government's authority to prohibit pollution of wetlands under the Clean Water Act.
Emphasis mine, and obviously I think that the comment that Alito is "... willing to disregard congressional judgement ..." is the salient quote of the article. I can't think of a better reason to install Alito to the Supremes!
Alito began his dissenting opinion by suggesting that the majority was treating the Supreme Court's 1995 ruling as "a constitutional freak'' rather than a recognition that the Constitution "still imposes some meaningful limits on congressional power.''
The second quoted paragraph demonstrates
In fact, they quoted RINO Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to boister their nebulous criticism.
And I so appreciated the article that I wrote an email to the reporter who wrote it.
UPDATE: December 29, 2005
I fulfilled one of my New Years Resolutions ahead of time, by re-editing this article to change the Judge's name from Alioto (a former Mayor of San Francisco, and a well-known fish-house owner) to Alito, which is the name the judge was born with. I do so reluctantly because I was getting a LOT of hits from search-engines. It seems that I'm not the only one who can't spell Alito's name properly. That's why I've seeded this update liberally with references to "Alioto". If I didn't, I would miss those guys!
Gullyborg (Resistance is Futile!) tosses his hat in the ring to be known as the Jack of Spades.
This is in response to a blogger meme for Hallmark Cards for Bloggers (h/t Arron per Hugh Hewit).
Me? I'm bidding for the Four of Clubs.
The Lost Action Hero?
Hat Tip to Cowboy Blog
 | You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com |
Monday, November 07, 2005
Shooting the Texas Star
A few weeks ago, I commented on another blog that there was a good way to shoot the Texas Star target array.
My preference is (assuming the Star is not moving) to shoot the top plate, then to shoot the top descending plate. That plate is descending because that side has more plates. It's heavier. Shooting that plate shifts the balance, so the OTHER side is then heavier. Consequently, the rotation slows, stops, and changes direction. Continue to shoot the top descending plate, and it slows down the movement of the arms so you don't have a difficult fast-moving target for your next shot. Finally, if you do it right (shoot fast, don't miss!), you finish by shooting a stationary plate at the bottom of the array.
I demonstrated this in my Dundee match article, and when you hit your targets consistently it makes it look easy. Well, it is.
* * *
Somewhere, I got hold of a rather large MPG-format file that shows a series of shooters shooting the Star in a completely opposite manner. That is, they shoot the lowest plate first, and then kind of catch whatever they can. The file is 10mb, and I link to it here even though it's not reasonable to download it unless you have high-speed broadband internet access.
(Thank you, Comcast!)
These guys make it look so easy. I sure wish I knew where it was filmed, and who the shooters are. They're much better shooters than I am.
Here's another MPG-format video, 1.4mb, showing someone shooting the star during an actual match. Crank the volume WAY up here.
Finally, for something COMPLETELY different, here's a video I mentioned several months ago. No stars here, but a Las Vegas LEO (Clark County Sheriff's Deputy?) has a little trouble with trigger control while supporting another LEO in the act of cuffing a suspect.
There's a lot of sirens involved, you'll want to turn the volume DOWN a bit.
UPDATE:
Originally I advised shooting the top RISING plate, instead of the top DESCENDING plate. That was clearly wrong, so I corrected the error and also added some more descriptive commentary. Also, I added the link to the referenced Dundee match article, for convenience.
By the way, the 'large' video showing several people shooting the star looks to me as if it were filmed in Texas. I make this assumption because of the design on several of the shirts, because one of the shooters looks very much like Penny Riggs, and because they all shoot so well!
My preference is (assuming the Star is not moving) to shoot the top plate, then to shoot the top descending plate. That plate is descending because that side has more plates. It's heavier. Shooting that plate shifts the balance, so the OTHER side is then heavier. Consequently, the rotation slows, stops, and changes direction. Continue to shoot the top descending plate, and it slows down the movement of the arms so you don't have a difficult fast-moving target for your next shot. Finally, if you do it right (shoot fast, don't miss!), you finish by shooting a stationary plate at the bottom of the array.
I demonstrated this in my Dundee match article, and when you hit your targets consistently it makes it look easy. Well, it is.
* * *
Somewhere, I got hold of a rather large MPG-format file that shows a series of shooters shooting the Star in a completely opposite manner. That is, they shoot the lowest plate first, and then kind of catch whatever they can. The file is 10mb, and I link to it here even though it's not reasonable to download it unless you have high-speed broadband internet access.
(Thank you, Comcast!)
These guys make it look so easy. I sure wish I knew where it was filmed, and who the shooters are. They're much better shooters than I am.
Here's another MPG-format video, 1.4mb, showing someone shooting the star during an actual match. Crank the volume WAY up here.
Finally, for something COMPLETELY different, here's a video I mentioned several months ago. No stars here, but a Las Vegas LEO (Clark County Sheriff's Deputy?) has a little trouble with trigger control while supporting another LEO in the act of cuffing a suspect.
There's a lot of sirens involved, you'll want to turn the volume DOWN a bit.
UPDATE:
Originally I advised shooting the top RISING plate, instead of the top DESCENDING plate. That was clearly wrong, so I corrected the error and also added some more descriptive commentary. Also, I added the link to the referenced Dundee match article, for convenience.
By the way, the 'large' video showing several people shooting the star looks to me as if it were filmed in Texas. I make this assumption because of the design on several of the shirts, because one of the shooters looks very much like Penny Riggs, and because they all shoot so well!
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Interesting websites about guns and shooting
One of the things I've been doing lately is looking for interesting new websites. I focused on those shooting-related blogs hosted by Blogger.
The first one I found is one that I knew immediately I should have linked to long ago: Matt Burkett's "Shooting Thoughts". I've corrected my lapse and it now has been included on my sidebar under "Gun Bloggers Outside the PNW" (Pacific North Wet).
On top of the blog today is an extended article Matt wrote about the "JP Rocky Mountain 3 gun World Championship". After describing the match, Burkett goes on to give "tips from the match for multi-gun shooting".
Actually, I never understood the difference between "3-gun" and "multi-gun" competition until I read an article in the current Front Sight Magazine this week. In his "From The Editor" column (Page 5, November-December 2005), Dave Thomas describes it:
Personally, the "Multi-Gun" competition sounds a lot more interesting to me. But I'm just a Geek, so what do I know? However, I HAVE competed in "Practical Shotgun Only" matches, and they were a kick. Literally.
Another blog I reviewed was Nebraska Views, hosted by "CMZNEB". In the four months he has been online, he has posted only three articles but they're worth reading. I wish he would post more, he has some interesting things to say.
First he wrote "Why I don't belong to the NRA anymore . . .", and I half-agree with most of his reasons.
Then he wrote "Why do NE Police Chiefs oppose CCS?". Apparently, he actually attempted to contact a half-dozen police chiefs and/or sheriffs with the question. Most of them didn't reply, but those who DID reply had some interesting things to say.
Finally, last month, he wrote "Gun Shows . . . Worth A Visit? Here he had two eminently quotable quotes: "I have yet to find a great deal at a gun show..." and "One thing you can count on for sure is seeing an interesting crowd of people at gun shows."
Maybe if I send him the link to this article, he will be encouraged to continue writing.
Next up is McGinnis, who describes himself as a " gun toting liberal. There are more of us than you think, but election day is never easy." He has two blogs.
First is (not surprising) the Gun Toting Liberal blog. It's an interesting concept, and I wish he had explored it. He had one blog article, in which he said
The other blog was a lot more productive. Here he describes his Journey to USPSA B-Class. It's a worthy goal, and if he has continued to put as much into practice as he details here, he has made it by now. In August and September, 2004, he developed a plan and then described what he did to follow the plan. He documented his draw-times in practice, and evaluated his progress (but not WHY he progressed.) After a few weeks, he was distracted by his thesis and by the realization that it requires sacrifice and priority to get live-fire range time. By June of 2005, he had allowed his USPSA membership to lapse but stated that he was "...one 60+ classifier away from B-class in production".
Nothing from him since then. Where-ever you are, McGinnis, I hope you made your goal. You showed a very personal side of yourself, and I'm grateful for your contribution. Maybe it IS easier to make B-class in Limited 10 than in Production, but unless you resume blogging we'll just never know.
Not-so-interesting IPSC-related blogsites:
Shooting with Woody.
First . . . and last . . . blog:
This is about the point when I realized that "continuing this seems pointless". There are tens of thousands of bloggers registered with Blogger, twelve of them list IPSC as an interest, and six of them (many duplicates) list USPSA as an interest. Most of them don't blog at all, some only a few times, and most of the blogs don't have much (or any) IPSC/USPSA related material.
Most important, and the point of this article, is that you have to keep shooting to maintain an interest in The Game. I haven't blogged for two weeks, nor have I shot a match for two weeks. I think there's a correlation there.
Sunday I went to the range and did some practice. I had some new Winchester brass I wanted to load and shoot before I reloaded it for match use, so I burned some of it up working on draw-and-first-shot times. I found a lot of things I was doing wrong, including not getting the dot on the target when I mounted the gun, and rushing the first shot. There's not a whole lot of difference in time between a 1.48 second C-hit and a 1.55 second A-hit, but when you allow yourself to become speed-oriented you lose track of your own personal limitations. That explains why I had so much trouble getting first-shot hits on steel at my last match.
And that link explains why it's important to keep to a regular regimen of writing. You can build on your earlier work, and use it to demonstrate points which occur to you later.
I'm so bored. I can't wait until the ARPC match next Saturday. I may even clean the pistol.
It could happen.
The first one I found is one that I knew immediately I should have linked to long ago: Matt Burkett's "Shooting Thoughts". I've corrected my lapse and it now has been included on my sidebar under "Gun Bloggers Outside the PNW" (Pacific North Wet).
On top of the blog today is an extended article Matt wrote about the "JP Rocky Mountain 3 gun World Championship". After describing the match, Burkett goes on to give "tips from the match for multi-gun shooting".
Actually, I never understood the difference between "3-gun" and "multi-gun" competition until I read an article in the current Front Sight Magazine this week. In his "From The Editor" column (Page 5, November-December 2005), Dave Thomas describes it:
The difference between "3-Gun" and "Multi-Gun" is that a 3-Gun match is comprised of specific stages for specific firearms while multi-gun blends at least some stages together. In 3-Gun an aggregate championship in each recognized division is awarded as well as individual firearm championships (handgun, shotgun, and rifle) for each division. A Multi-Gun match recognizes only the aggregate championships by division.If I understand this correctly, 3-gun matches have rifle stages, shotgun stages, and pistol stages. You shoot only one kind of firearm on each stage. At the end you have rifle winners, shotgun winners, and handgun winners (plus division awards, etc.) In Multi-Gun competition there are no Rifle, Shotgun or Handgun winners because they are used in combination in each stage, making it impossible to determine which part of a stage score was earned using which firearm.
Personally, the "Multi-Gun" competition sounds a lot more interesting to me. But I'm just a Geek, so what do I know? However, I HAVE competed in "Practical Shotgun Only" matches, and they were a kick. Literally.
Another blog I reviewed was Nebraska Views, hosted by "CMZNEB". In the four months he has been online, he has posted only three articles but they're worth reading. I wish he would post more, he has some interesting things to say.
First he wrote "Why I don't belong to the NRA anymore . . .", and I half-agree with most of his reasons.
Then he wrote "Why do NE Police Chiefs oppose CCS?". Apparently, he actually attempted to contact a half-dozen police chiefs and/or sheriffs with the question. Most of them didn't reply, but those who DID reply had some interesting things to say.
Finally, last month, he wrote "Gun Shows . . . Worth A Visit? Here he had two eminently quotable quotes: "I have yet to find a great deal at a gun show..." and "One thing you can count on for sure is seeing an interesting crowd of people at gun shows."
Maybe if I send him the link to this article, he will be encouraged to continue writing.
Next up is McGinnis, who describes himself as a " gun toting liberal. There are more of us than you think, but election day is never easy." He has two blogs.
First is (not surprising) the Gun Toting Liberal blog. It's an interesting concept, and I wish he had explored it. He had one blog article, in which he said
The Gun Toting Liberals now have a blog. We are so hip.
Unfortunately, he never posted to that blog again. I'm sure the gun toting liberals of the world have a lot to say, but not here.The other blog was a lot more productive. Here he describes his Journey to USPSA B-Class. It's a worthy goal, and if he has continued to put as much into practice as he details here, he has made it by now. In August and September, 2004, he developed a plan and then described what he did to follow the plan. He documented his draw-times in practice, and evaluated his progress (but not WHY he progressed.) After a few weeks, he was distracted by his thesis and by the realization that it requires sacrifice and priority to get live-fire range time. By June of 2005, he had allowed his USPSA membership to lapse but stated that he was "...one 60+ classifier away from B-class in production".
Nothing from him since then. Where-ever you are, McGinnis, I hope you made your goal. You showed a very personal side of yourself, and I'm grateful for your contribution. Maybe it IS easier to make B-class in Limited 10 than in Production, but unless you resume blogging we'll just never know.
Not-so-interesting IPSC-related blogsites:
Shooting with Woody.
First . . . and last . . . blog:
I guess it was. He hasn't posted again in the past year. This only goes to show that it ain't easy to run an IPSC blog, folks.First time
Starting this seems pointless.
This is about the point when I realized that "continuing this seems pointless". There are tens of thousands of bloggers registered with Blogger, twelve of them list IPSC as an interest, and six of them (many duplicates) list USPSA as an interest. Most of them don't blog at all, some only a few times, and most of the blogs don't have much (or any) IPSC/USPSA related material.
Most important, and the point of this article, is that you have to keep shooting to maintain an interest in The Game. I haven't blogged for two weeks, nor have I shot a match for two weeks. I think there's a correlation there.
Sunday I went to the range and did some practice. I had some new Winchester brass I wanted to load and shoot before I reloaded it for match use, so I burned some of it up working on draw-and-first-shot times. I found a lot of things I was doing wrong, including not getting the dot on the target when I mounted the gun, and rushing the first shot. There's not a whole lot of difference in time between a 1.48 second C-hit and a 1.55 second A-hit, but when you allow yourself to become speed-oriented you lose track of your own personal limitations. That explains why I had so much trouble getting first-shot hits on steel at my last match.
And that link explains why it's important to keep to a regular regimen of writing. You can build on your earlier work, and use it to demonstrate points which occur to you later.
I'm so bored. I can't wait until the ARPC match next Saturday. I may even clean the pistol.
It could happen.
End of the Blogging Hiatus
There may have been a few of you who noticed that I haven’t been writing lately. By “Lately”, I mean since October 23 . . . two full weeks!
The reason I haven’t been writing is that I didn’t feel like it. Not a good excuse, but I’ve been engaged in a few other projects which took up too much of my free time. Also, there haven’t been a lot of IPSC matches in the CCS section lately, and I didn’t ‘feel like’ talking about anything else.
Or maybe it was just writer’s block.
Here is a short list of the things I’ve been doing which have taken up so much of my time:
The website isn’t working yet. I bought MS FrontPage, but I can’t use the full publishing capabilities because my server doesn’t support it. That means that all the macros which are embedded in the code don’t work, so the templates need to be re-written. For example, the table-formatted link buttons are just not there! I have a lot of work to do before I get all the bugs out, and what little I DO have that works is mostly just a skeletal structure. Even getting the links right is a learning experience for me. Some Geek, eh?
The photo gallery software I chose is powerful, and it’s free. I chose it because it allowed *.mpeg and *.wmv formatted video files to be posted. It also requires installation on the server, and apparently that isn’t going to happen. The alternatives are to either build my own webpages, or use an existing gallery (such as Kodak Gallery) to host the still photos and THEN build my own webpages for the videos. I’ll probably choose the latter.
I’m not sure if the HALOSCAN code is working yet, because I haven’t blogged since I installed it. We’ll see what happens when I have a few comment-worthy articles posted, but I strongly suspect I still have some code changes to make before it’s fully functional.
In an ironic note, the week after I installed HALOSCAN, BLOGGER came up with new functionality on their Comments processing which provided exactly the kind of controls I was looking for. That is, the comments would be routed to me FIRST, and I would choose which would be accepted. This imposed a delay between the time a reader posts a comment and the time when it actually displays, which is not my first choice.
I have found a couple of interesting websites which I haven’t linked to before, and those will be the subject of another post in the immediate future.
Finally, this article represents another new blogging technique. I’m writing this on my MS-WORD software, and publishing it directly to BLOGGER. It’s a lot easier to compose, and it has a HUGE advantage in the immediate spell-checking and grammar checking. (But I have a lot of words to add to my dictionary, such as ‘blogging’ ‘webpages’ and ‘wmv’. In fact, I just did that!)
So this is something of a test of that new technique, and as soon as I figure out the possibilities of using the word processor for creating a new article, I’ll start playing with the techniques for editing in pictures and links.
UPDATE:
Gee, this looks funny. IT adds comments and trackback BEFORE the post, as well as the full comments-options lines at the end. Unfortunately, while I'm reasonably certain that this is caused by the interface between MS-Word and Blogger, it may have to do with the incomplete installation of Haloscan coding.
I'll play with this for a while, just to see what it looks like when I use the old technique of writting directly via Blogger post-editing. I may end up deleting this post, eventually, because while it's fun to try new toys . . . it's kind of boring to read about it.
The reason I haven’t been writing is that I didn’t feel like it. Not a good excuse, but I’ve been engaged in a few other projects which took up too much of my free time. Also, there haven’t been a lot of IPSC matches in the CCS section lately, and I didn’t ‘feel like’ talking about anything else.
Or maybe it was just writer’s block.
Here is a short list of the things I’ve been doing which have taken up so much of my time:
- trying to develop a website at jerrythegeek.arpc-ipsc.org
- trying to establish a GEEK Photo Gallery on that server or on that website
- adding HALOSCAN commenting system to avoid spammers
- searching for new and interesting websites that I can link to
The website isn’t working yet. I bought MS FrontPage, but I can’t use the full publishing capabilities because my server doesn’t support it. That means that all the macros which are embedded in the code don’t work, so the templates need to be re-written. For example, the table-formatted link buttons are just not there! I have a lot of work to do before I get all the bugs out, and what little I DO have that works is mostly just a skeletal structure. Even getting the links right is a learning experience for me. Some Geek, eh?
The photo gallery software I chose is powerful, and it’s free. I chose it because it allowed *.mpeg and *.wmv formatted video files to be posted. It also requires installation on the server, and apparently that isn’t going to happen. The alternatives are to either build my own webpages, or use an existing gallery (such as Kodak Gallery) to host the still photos and THEN build my own webpages for the videos. I’ll probably choose the latter.
I’m not sure if the HALOSCAN code is working yet, because I haven’t blogged since I installed it. We’ll see what happens when I have a few comment-worthy articles posted, but I strongly suspect I still have some code changes to make before it’s fully functional.
In an ironic note, the week after I installed HALOSCAN, BLOGGER came up with new functionality on their Comments processing which provided exactly the kind of controls I was looking for. That is, the comments would be routed to me FIRST, and I would choose which would be accepted. This imposed a delay between the time a reader posts a comment and the time when it actually displays, which is not my first choice.
I have found a couple of interesting websites which I haven’t linked to before, and those will be the subject of another post in the immediate future.
Finally, this article represents another new blogging technique. I’m writing this on my MS-WORD software, and publishing it directly to BLOGGER. It’s a lot easier to compose, and it has a HUGE advantage in the immediate spell-checking and grammar checking. (But I have a lot of words to add to my dictionary, such as ‘blogging’ ‘webpages’ and ‘wmv’. In fact, I just did that!)
So this is something of a test of that new technique, and as soon as I figure out the possibilities of using the word processor for creating a new article, I’ll start playing with the techniques for editing in pictures and links.
UPDATE:
Gee, this looks funny. IT adds comments and trackback BEFORE the post, as well as the full comments-options lines at the end. Unfortunately, while I'm reasonably certain that this is caused by the interface between MS-Word and Blogger, it may have to do with the incomplete installation of Haloscan coding.
I'll play with this for a while, just to see what it looks like when I use the old technique of writting directly via Blogger post-editing. I may end up deleting this post, eventually, because while it's fun to try new toys . . . it's kind of boring to read about it.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
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