wsimpso1

Naw, Dr F corrected my cataracts. Understand that you are awake (anesthetized, but awake) when the surgeon sticks a knife into your eye. Big Anxiety for me in the weeks leading up to the surgery. The drugs are good, I did not have nightmares, but still...

There is even a debate about how net effect of PSA checks have a net negative effect on population health and even on individuals. Some pros are recommending going back to detection by symptoms and digital check. Cancer can be encapsulated and not producing elevated PSA (yet), so it can (in some cases) be caught earlier with a digital check. Yeah, it is uncomfortable, but I have also blood drawn, IV's installed, lengths of flexible telescope run into me from both ends and knives stuck into my eyes. Billski

Anybody have any idea how many shots it takes on a 338 to foul the bore and the chamber? My experience is that the rifle cartridges with large powder volumes relative to bore size and high pressures foul both the bore and the chamber quickly. These folks fired a couple hundred rounds through a presumably new gun. I wonder how much the group size opened up during the course of the individual challenge. Next, a number of the later shooters had difficulty closing the bolt, which implies a fouled chamber and/or fouled rifling leade. Both will definitely cause the rifle to throw shots. And all of these things happen quite fast on a brand new barrel. I am suspicious that the later shooters were trying to cope with a rifle that was throwing rounds... And I am sorry to see Gabby go. Billski

Cliff, sorry to see you go. Now, will the hot tub stage video go back up on the web?

Paint the bullet too.

I normally wear progressive lenses in my glasses, but for shooting iron sights, I wear glasses that have single correction, shooting eye is adjusted for the front sight, non-shooting eye for distance. Works great. Everyone says to focus on the front sight, and with these lenses, I don't have a choice. It allows me to load mags, score keep, write in my notebook, run the timer, serve as safety officer, etc. I frequently drive home with them on. I recommend it. being as the correction is single (no blending or bifocals) they are relatively cheap too. Billski

Is there a link somewhere that I am missing?

SE Michigan! Monthly matches and frequent practice sessions at all of these venues: USPSA in Brighton and Romulus and Utica and Williamston IDPA in Brooklyn and Saline and Romulus and Brighton and Utica and Linden and (used to be Williamston too, maybe again). More clubs near Toledo and Fort Wayne. Plenty of options... Just where in SE Michigan are you? Billski

I have shot USPSA Three Gun and Multi-Gun, Outlaw Three Gun, ACTS, USPSA Pistol and IDPA. I have fully competitive rifle, shotgun, and pistols. Quite frankly, the shotgun can hang... One of the best matches I have ever attended was the NY state USPSA rifle match. I am all for one-gun rifle and primarily rifle with some pistol thrown in. Right now, my work life requires weekday lodging, so I don't get enough time at home. I am only shooting a couple IDPA matches a month, as they only suck up a morning here and there. Now if someone had a carbine match that only took four hours, I would be all over that, and the pistols would sit unused... So how about it? More rifle matches or rifle/pistol matches? Billski

Already explained it G-man. Flash and blast are related. If you mix the gun gases with air and ignite that stuff, more energy is released, the gases expand some more, and you may even see the flame. Some powders do a better job of not igniting the gun gas and air mixture than others. And some loads have low enough temperatures at the muzzle to avoid that mechanism for ignition. The chemistry of 99% of the stuff in gunpowder is the same in all powders, and so are the products of combustion that leave the bore. The details in the remaining 1% and some processing issues make up the rest of the differences. If the mix that leaves the muzzle does not have any sparks (incandescent ash) and the temp has dropped low enough, it does not get lit. Toss in a spark and that stuff can burn again, with increased flash and blast. I suspect that your load with 3N38 has either impurities that make sparks or has high enough temperatures to cause ignition of the gun gas/air mix. As to gas ahead of the bullet, it is comprised of air from the bore ahead of the bullet, gun gases left over from the last shot, and some gas that leaked by before the bullet obturated and sealed the bore. Most of the last one gets around the bullet while the bullet is jumping from case to throat. In guns where the bullet does not seal the bore (for instance, bullets that do not fill the rifling grooves), the bullets get gas cut, accuracy is lousy, and the barrel sees rapid groove wear. Not a good combination, which is why we try to shoot bullets that are groove diameter or a tiny bit more. Billski

Geez, Let's clear up a few things. Yes, I worked on ammo for a living as an engineer... Nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin are pretty much done turning into CO, CO2, H20, H, NOx, and some other organic derivatives about a quarter of the way down your bore, if not sooner. And in a Major Nine (or a centerfire rifle), those gases at that point are several thousand degrees F. A good thing about NC and NG as a firearm propellant is that it is oxygen deficient. If you had any free oxygen at those temps, your barrel steel around sharp edges (rifling, chamber, throat) would oxidize and the oxide would rub off, and your barrel would go to crap in very few rounds. Instead, you have no free oxygen, and the barrel lasts just fine. From that quarter point on, the pressure and temperature drops as those gases expand (adiabatic expansion). Then the bullet exits the muzzle and all those gases mix with air. Since the powder system was oxygen deficient, you have a bunch of stuff that still wants to burn, and did not, and now it is mixed with ambient air, and can burn some more. If the gun gases have expanded (and cooled) enough, and there are no little particles of incandescent ash to serve as a spark plug, no big flash. But if your powder or primer produce tiny bits of super hot solids, the powder gases mixed with air will burn again. And some powder makers put stuff in the powder to suppress flash. Usually some other chemical that tends to help the powder burn without making ash... In the Iowa Class Battleships, with those 16" bore rifles, when they fire one barrel at a time, no big flames. When they fire all three on one turret together, BIG FLASH. The explanation is that the three sets of gun gas mixing causes enough friction and/or static electricity to trip the burning of the gun gases after mixing with air. When I worked for Remington Arms, we found that adding tiny amounts of aluminum to primer mix helped with ignition at below zero temps, but it also made fire come out of the muzzle, gas vents at mid barrel, and at the chamber on gas op shotguns. Very exciting at dusk. Now, I am sure some one is going to say, "oh no, I see a flame, it is not done burning yet when it gets to the muzzle". Well, go back to high school chemistry class with me for a minute. You see colors from gases because photons are emitted when electrons that are bound to atoms drop from one quantized state to another as the gas drops in temperature. That is primarily happening as the products of combustion expand and cool. Where the rearranging of molecules is going on, there are few photons emitted, atleast in the visible range. Back to the original question. Flash doesn't hurt a thing. You used a different powder, it flashes big. The prior powder did not flash big, but probably flashed small. If you change primers, the prior powder might flash big with it. The recipe is most of what there is to it. Well, unless you are loading for somebody that wants flash kept down because they operate in the dark and can not stand the loss of night vision or can not stand the telegraphing of position... Last I checked, we were playing a game in daylight. Billski

Cycling the slide generally takes a lot more energy from the ammo than just getting the gun to go bang, so usually, a soft round will cause a malf, even when the bullet leaves the bore. Now I will mention the exception. A Limited Gun Master I know was shooting a Mech Tech carbine (pure blow back gun with a pretty light recoil spring) on a hoser stage and stuck a bullet in the bore, presumably from a squib, and the gun cycled a new round into the chamber. He never even stopped pressing the trigger. The guys watching were trying to stop him, as smoke and flashes were coming form the wrong part of the gun. To the shooter, it did not look very wrong, but to the observers it was obvious. It took a couple seconds (his splits are impressive). He ended up with several MG 180 gr bullets stuck in the bore and the barrel was split axially. So, some guns might allow followups with a stuck bullet. Billski

Do you wear corrective lenses while shooting, or only eye protection? I found during the period I was competing in High Power (Service Rifle) that the correction I needed when I was in prone and sitting positions we use in High Power (and rotating the eye upward) was different from the correction I needed while standing (and looking straight out of the eye socket). The eye doc could not argue with the apparent difference, but it was only about a quarter diopter. This difference would probably not be the huge thing you saw, but maybe it is. Perhaps a corrective lens in your shooting eye that is biased a little towards the sights will help you see the sights better in general... The other possibility is that your eye protection is optically poor up near the top edge... I have had cataracts corrected, have zero ability to focus on the target then the sights, and have to accept that my glasses can only give me one thing. My shooting eye is corrected to see the front sight, and the target goes fuzzy. I have had no trouble shooting teeny tiny groups with my AR15 Service Rifle, and don't usually drop points on 25-35 yard shots on the IDPA target with my pistols. I can tell you that letting the target go fuzzy is no hinderance, and indeed must be accepted. Just put sharply defined sights with excellent alignment onto the fuzzy target and break that trigger without disturbing the sight picture. This type of group shooting is excellent practice. Brian Enos himself recommends some of this during your practice sessions. Billski

I go for consistency in velocity and grouping (simultaneously) in ammo that will require accuracy. Stick powders are where it is at in rifles for me as ball powders tend to be heat sensitive in both grouping and velocity variation. I used to shoot High Power, and velocity variation is vertical stringing at 600 yards, so that was really important for me. Remember that if it shoots well at 200, it might do OK at 600, but it will never get better, so test at the longest range you can... One other point - Standard Deviation is your best unbiased indicator of velocity variation, but two numbers that are different by 50% on ten shot groups are probably not different statistically. if one is double that of another, you can begin to say it is too much variation. At one point, I even went so far as to print a clear plastic scorer with lines every quarter inch (vertical and horizontal, and documented the x-y coordinates of my 200 yard groups, putting them into the computer and running mean dispersion... Yeah, I am a bit over toilet trained too After that experiment, I became far more concerned with raw group size, velocity variation, shooting to the same point of impact each time out. If your ammo is only going to be used for blasting (most three-gun rifle) that is where FMJBT bullets (55's and 147's) and ball powder and primers that were found to be inconsistent get used. Don't stuff a mag full of these into the rifle for a 300 yard plate rack - you will be bumming. One other thing I found useful in working up loads. Load at the range. Micrometer seater in a portable press and a Harrels powder meter, plus powder, primed shells, and my chrono make for productive sessions. You can work up in increments, test the entire range of charge weights from "pop" to "whoa!", get groups and velocity, and do several powders in one session. Billski

Actually, one gram is lot bigger than a grain. 7000 troy grains is one pound, one kilogram is about 2.2 pounds, about 15,400 grains, so one gram is about 15.4 grains. 3.9 Grams is about 60 grains, which is above 30-06 zone for charge weights. So, if this was indeed the source of your problem, you would have been getting a clue from your scale - the decimal point would have been one place to the left. It would have been reading 0.39 grams to give you a 6 grain charge. Billski