Hayworth challenges McCain for the Senate!

JD Hayworth closed out his radio show last Friday and made comments over the weekend suggesting he will challenge John McCain for the Senate. I've been collecting my thoughts since then and every time I think about McCain I'd get mad and set it aside.

Today however Great Satan Inc said it very nicely which means now I don't have to. I thank you and my blood pressure thanks you!

John's "My Friends" opening came across like fingernails on a chalkboard and the intonation evoked images of a shark greeting its prey. Four Senate terms and a couple House terms before that is too much already. It's time to retire.

Oops...

Do you know what happens when you start the tumbler in the evening and forget about it until the next day? The brass comes out really shiny!
Here's the result of about 16 to 18 hours. Some of this brass is recent production, but the .30-06 is Korean war surplus with 50 years of tarnish. It looks nice but I don't think I'll make a habit of such long tumble cycles.


Before and After:

Good day to hit the range

One of the local teams has some sort of big match Saturday. Apparently they had a big send off this AM featuring speeches from all sorts of self important people like the governor, even though she came across as though she'd never watched a single inning in her life.

Normally I wouldn't care one whit. As it says in my intro on the left "I'd rather be doing than watching". But it should be a good day to hit the range.

One of the downsides of an outdoor range is the wait for a cease fire to put out a target. That can mean up to a 20 minute delay from arrival to 1st shot on target. This time of year we have an influx of shooters and the range will be full with 20-40 minute waits for a bench most or all of the day. That can mean an hour delay between arrival to first shot. Shooting is fun, but waiting around is not. Pretty soon the pain of the wait begins to outweigh the fun of the shoot. Saturday looks like a good day to shoot.

I wish them well because if I understand the play off scheme, it's basically a single elimination deal. So if they win, the next match will be the reallly big one and yet another opportune day at the range.

Good luck guys. Your success benefits me too.

If you happen to be at Rio Saturday afternoon, I'll be the one with a Chrony! Stop by and say hello.

Update: It was a good day at the range. "Any open bench" said the RO as I signed in. Haven't heard those words in years.

Returning home I came across the game while surfing the channels. 14-35 Not looking good for the local boys. er scratch that - field goal straighter than my shooting 14-38. Continue surfing. coming back around to the game now 14-45 and it's only in the 3rd quarter. It's like watching a train wreck.

Oh well, it was a still a good day at the range.

Chrono Fun - Nerf edition

The SCSon cashed in a couple Christmas gift cards tonight and came home with a "Nerf N-Strike Recon CS-6". This is a caliber .50, magazine fed, removable stock, changeable barrel with rails top and bottom, lights and sights. It even has a "shoulder thing that goes up". [insert your own grunt sound effect here]

He opened it up and started having fun swapping parts around... like any of us and our AR pattern rifles. In typical free association mode he asked "Hey dad... how long would it take to set up that speed sensor thing".

Hmmmm I smell a teaching opportunity in the best Mythbusters/James May kindof way. The chronograph only took a few minutes to set up, but it took far longer to take the data not only from the new acquisition but from the rest of the Nerf collection. That includes the CS-6 at top, a double barrel shot gun lower left and a six shooter on the right. We took 10 velocities from each gun. times 2 for the CS-6, once as a rifle and once as a pistol to see what difference the barrel extension made.


The data shows a couple surprises. Firstly the average velocity for all three guns was just over 50fps (three over, one under). This is likely because they all are powered by the same basic mechanism - a spring powered air pump. This is similar to AirSoft pistols.

Next surprise is that the difference between the CS-6 as a rifle and as a pistol. Velocities were 17% higher for the pistol than the rifle which might mean the extra barrel length actually slows the dart. However the rifle was more consistent with it's velocities showing a standard diviation was about 32% lower with the rifle barrel installed.

Finally the shotgun had the highest speeds both average and single shot - nearly 78 fps. But it also was the least consistent with a range on nearly 44fps. It's probably a combination of leakage between the air pump and dart, and how many times the dart bangs its way down the inside of the barrel.

Here is the raw data for the sake of completeness:


What's it all mean? Abso-fraking-lutely nothing! THESE ARE TOYS! But it was an excuse to pull out the tools and run the data. And sometimes "Because we can" is reason enough.

"Nerf" is a registered trademark of the Hasbro company.

RightTool(tm) for the job

A revelation struck me while putting together a Midway order. I started to order 200 rounds of .30-06 brass when I remembered there are several coffee cans full of MilSurp brass in the garage that I can't use because of the primer pocket. These 200 pieces of brass represented about 70% of the cost of the RightTool(tm) to solve that problem! I canceled the order.

A friend and I made the trek to North Scottsdale today.. I asked for demo of the tool and asked a couple questions. I even brought a couple rounds of the offending brass. Unfortunately the demo was set up for small rifle primers rather than the .30-06 and really didn't teach me anything, nor did most of the questions. However the final question was good enough to seal the sale "If it doesn't work for me, can I bring it back?" She said "yes" and the RightTool followed me home

Back at the SandCastle, I read the manual which is only two 4x6" pages. It didn't take long. A couple measurements, $3 at Ace hardware, a couple minutes with the drill and the unit was mounted to the loading bench.

The first six pieces of brass were swaged and mounted in the press. The primers seated easily! WOO HOO!!! The RightTool works!

The picture here shows the RightTool mounted on the reloading bench. The empty brass immediate left of the blue unit is my carefully hoarded 50 pieces of usable .30-06 brass. It is commercial stuff scrounged from the range. The surrounding three coffee cans of brass and white bin show the quantity of MilSurp brass that was previously unusable. (The white plastic container contains 100 pieces of processed brass, swaged, sized and ready to reload. Bottom left is the 11 test rounds loaded and ready to try. These have the same loads as previously loaded (47.1 gr IMR4895/150 gr Hornady RN/BT). These will be tested before loading more.

Prepping the MilSurp brass adds a lot of time to the reloading process but this is a one time investment. Those crimped primers take a lot of effort to punch out. I ran the depriming pin well down into the die so it would punch out the primer without resizing the brass thus reducing the arm effort. Then a trip through the swager and then back through the resizing die to actually resize the brass. This is a one-by-one process, not part of the progressive reloading process.

Desktop Artillery, Midieval Style

The SCSon's school science fair is gearing up to the science night show late January. His team chose the category of weight and motion or something. Last week the teacher asked apologetically* "Can you build a catapult for the science fair?"

Kits are available for purchase over the internet. However we didn't have time to wait for shipping. Instead I studied medieval designs looked at pictures, as well as some of the "pumpkin chunkin" engineering marvels.

Design criteria required throw weights from 5g to 20g.

A simple catapult is an easy design, lever powered by a spring mechanism (probably a rubber band in this case). I recall constructing one in Boy Scouts in the previous millennium. The downside A catapult needs a stop mechanism equal to the power of the torsion mechanism. This is a waste. I'd rather put the effort into power than brakes, cuz brakes only slow you down! I also recall the Boy Scout catapult didn't last very long.

The Trebuche is a more elegant design, but still simple enough. It uses a lever arm powered by a counter weight hanging off the short end of the lever. The long end of the lever pulls a sling to take advantage of the whipping action to accelerate the projectile. The sling is held captive on one side at the end of the lever arm and the other held loosely on a "finger". Release point is adjusted by adjusting the finger angle.

We hit Home Depot for supplies. First we checked the 55 cent rem bucket for a something to use as a base. The rem bucket was no where in sight, but there was an 18" section of 2x6 in the garbage can. That went into the cart. (side note: The HD Cashier accepted the explanation and gave us the board. Hence the plug as a quid-pro-quo). We also picked up a 1/2" and 3/8" dowel, a bolt and a stack of fender washers (at $0.18 each!). That and four 87cent 4-packs of incandescent bulbs (banned by congress after 2012) still came in under $10.

Measurements and design were from the TLAR* school of engineering. The axle is ~9" off the platform and the beam is ~13" long. The main uprights are 1/2" dowel while the lever arm and struts are 3/8" dowel. A cut off 16 penny nail forms the axle while a 3/8" bolt suspended the counterweights. The SCQueen had the sewing machine setup for Christmas gifts and sewing the sling was a two minute job.

Historical accounts from the 12-15th century talk about throwing 2-300lb stones 300 yards with 12,000lb counter weight. The stones would hit with enough force to knock down the castle walls of the day and forced a complete defensive rethink. I needed the data to estimate a ballast/projectile ratio. 50:1 is in the ballpark. That means ~500g (one pound-ish) to throw the 10g weight. That would provide an over/under for the other weights. Clearly the fender washers purchased were well under weight. We scrounged around the house looking for appropriate ballast. The Hornady box of 100 150 grain 30-06 bullets was heavy enough and plenty dense. But even if sealed in an opaque container (probably a cloth sac), there is a chance the beans might spill and cause exploding PSH that could splash back on the SCClan. That idea was rejected.

The SCQueen found a couple large sockets in the tool box. Experimenting around we found a couple sockets that would nest conveniently and a longer bolt to suspend the stack. It was still short enough to allow the beam to swing freely. Total weight of the three socket stack was about 1.5 lb (750gram).

Kitchen table experiments showed this was a little overpowered for the 5gram weights. (The SCQueen was seriously concerned for the safety of the pictures on the far wall of the SandCastle.) One socket was removed to de-power the weapon. I could also see the points on the end of the lever arm could harm an unwary user and added a couple warning labels "Sharp points" and "Safety Glasses required". Probably not enough to satisfy OSHA or a PI lawyer but I tried. My son was a probable operator so I'm well motivated to ensure he's not hurt in the process. Still I insisted on eye protection for all team members.

Results -
The team's first attempts to throw were unsuccessful. I suspected operator error and suggested some training. We bumped into the teacher at a school function. It just so happened I had some time off the next day and I offered to work with the team. She gladly accepted and offered "any time". That night we again scrounged the garage for accurate masses. The bolt bucket held masses that were close but high. This is good as the grinder can fix that! Within 30 minutes we had 5, 10, 15 and 20g masses accurate to a couple .01g.

The team's problem likely was related to the plastic "Easter eggs" their masses were contained in. They were simply over sized for the sling. Sorry, that wasn't in the Design objective document ;-) The Frankford Arsenal scale I'd borrowed from the reloading bench showed their weights were 5g over.

The trebuchet was well tuned for the 5gram weights. They were consistently thrown in the 18 foot range. We didn't retune for different weights and as a result while some 20g weights flew 36 inches, some released prematurely and only flew a high arc landing only ~11 inches from the datum.

A co-worker asked "was on wheels?" and pointed out that they later found it would throw about 30% further with less stress on the structure if it had wheels. The idea is that the ballast wants to fall straight down but the lever arm forces it to translate aft. If the device is on wheels, the falling weight pulls the rest of the structure forward instead of the mass aft, imparting even more speed to the tip of the lever. It works even better if just the axle is allowed to float as only the mass of the axle, lever arm and projectile are accelerated rather than the entire structure. (I smell a v2.0 in the works).

Epilogue -
I fear my zeal for technology (in a medieval way) may have overshadowed the point of the exercise. The real goal was probably to show the F = MA effects. For a given force, higher mass means less acceleration, less "muzzle" velocity, less distance. The straight catapult would probably have provided a more consistent F with fewer variables to control. But the Trebuchet scores an order of magnitude higher on the coolness scale! And besides, I always wanted to build one! I'm an engineering geek, guilty as charged. (I'll skip the proper analysis of how the catapult's F varies with position/spring tension that is a staple of a decent DiffyQ class. Too many years of dis-use. The Trebuchet is that times 5 and I'm not going there either ;-) For this age "lighter = further" is probably all the results they need.

Meanwhile, these pikers*** had so much to work with and yet stopped short of their capability. If they had placed the projectile near the base with the tip of the throwing arm near the ground, they could have thrown considerably further.

* She knew we would be spending all day Saturday coaching another school function.
** TLAR = "That Looks About Right"
*** While I "disparage" them for the near miss, I envy what they did and always wanted an excuse to link their geekery!

Remembering December 7th, 1941

Visiting the USS Arizona memorial was pretty high on my list of "things to do this life". We finally made it this summer:

Oil still rises from the hull. (click on images for full size)


Names inside the memorial.


Leaving the memorial.