Bullet Boy on Shooting Sports

If you have been following me on Twitter for awhile you know that I have been absent.   Since about the first week of April until today I have been wide open with bits of time in between that I used to catch up on living.

I started off in April planning to work 7 – 10 hr day’s a week   for 1 month and then move to 6 10′s for 6-7 weeks.   Well that didn’t work out exactly as planned.   In the world of Carpentry contract work the job only lasted 4 weeks before labor cut backs.   So then I got day jobs a couple times a week in the same place for other companies for the next few weeks. Then without notice I got offered a really good job doing electrical work with a commercial construction company. Since being laid off from the initial job back at the first of March I have made a couple one day trips up and down the East Coast.   At the electrical job I have managed to work quite a few hours and been very busy on the weekends catching up on things I missed during the Spring Work triathlon.

Speaking of triathlon I managed to loose about 10-15lbs and started to get some muscle tone back after having office jobs for the last few years.     Work seems to be leveling off now and I have what I hope is a job for the summer and possibly even further with a good company.   Things should be returning to normal around here for me soon.

The end of the week I will be shooting in the Alabama State Tactical Carbine Championship.   Since I have not been practicing or even fired a weapon in a couple months I’m not sure I will be ready. After this weekend I’m sure to have plenty of ideas for post and catch up in all the goings on in the world.   The debate over 2nd Amendment rights is heating up recently with the attachment of carry laws in national parks to a credit card bill.   So the summer is looking pretty good from where I sit as a blogger but kind of rough and action packed as a 2nd Amendment Supporter. I am sure I will have more on that in the future.

Wish me luck as I get back in the saddle again.

*image from blog.wired.com

In response to the recent Pirate attacks and rescue Time.com put out a story about new sniper rifle called the “EXACTO”.

The EXACTO rifle stands for EXtreme ACcuracy Tasked Ordnance. According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Time Magazine the “new .50 caliber gun and improved scope could employ “fire and forget” technologies including “fin-stabilized projectiles, spin-stabilized projectiles, internal and/or external aero-actuation control methods, projectile guidance technologies, tamper proofing, small stable power supplies, and advanced sighting, optical resolution and clarity technologies.” “In other words, bullets that, once fired at a specific target, fly themselves into it by changing shape.”" The new weapon will vastly expand the distance and accuracy over the current M107 Sniper Rifle.

*image from community.spiceworks.com

Read the full Time Article:

Pirates Beware: Soon Rifles That Kill from a Mile Away

By Mark Thompson / Washington Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2009

A sniper team trains with .50 caliber rifle: Leif Skoogfors / Corbis

The three Navy SEAL snipers who killed the pirates off the coast of Somalia last weekend were lucky the buccaneers were gullible enough to allow their lifeboat to be towed farther out to sea by the U.S.S. Bainbridge. The shortened towline turned what could have been a trio of difficult shots across hundreds of yards of ocean into relatively easy 30-yd. pops. It’s a safe bet future pirates won’t be so naive. But the Pentagon is drawing up a project to make it easier to hit targets at much longer distances: a super-sniper rifle called the EXACTO, short for EXtreme ACcuracy Tasked Ordnance.

The highly-classified EXACTO program began a year ago, when the U.S. military’s band of scientists and engineers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — which played a key role in the creation of both the Internet and GPS — let the military-industrial complex know it was seeking a supergun. “The ability to more accurately prosecute targets at significantly longer range would provide a dramatic new capability to the U.S. military,” DARPA’S solicitation for bids said. “The use of an actively controlled bullet will make it possible to counter environmental effects such as crosswinds and air density, and prosecute both stationary and moving targets while enhancing shooter covertness.”

The new .50 caliber gun and improved scope could employ “fire and forget” technologies including “fin-stabilized projectiles, spin-stabilized projectiles, internal and/or external aero-actuation control methods, projectile guidance technologies, tamper proofing, small stable power supplies, and advanced sighting, optical resolution and clarity technologies.” In other words, bullets that, once fired at a specific target, fly themselves into it by changing shape. The new gun should be no heavier than the combined 46-lb. weight of the current $11,500 M107 sniper rifle and all its associated gear (including ammo, tripod, scope and slide rules for target calculations).

In November, DARPA awarded Lockheed Martin $12.3 million and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging $9.5 million to begin work on the new weapon. If various technical hurdles are cleared, it could be available sometime around 2015.

DARPA says the Pentagon needs the vastly improved rifle because the use of snipers has ballooned from 250 to 800 annually. The sharpshooters require extensive and expensive training — all of which could be reduced with a better gun. Snipers “are unable to take a shot the vast majority of the time” because of wind or other weather factors, and a lack of confidence in their ability to hit the target or flee if detected. Those shortcomings could be greatly reduced by the new longer-range rifle. How much longer range? “Specific system performance objectives (e.g., range, accuracy and target speed) are classified,” the solicitation said.

Army Captain Keith Bell, former commander of the Army sniper school at Fort Benning, Ga., can’t wait to get his hands on the new rifle. “The EXACTO would be revolutionary,” he says. “It will more than double our range and probably more than double our accuracy.” Current sniper rifles can regularly hit trucks at 2,000 meters, but not bad guys. (The record kill is 2,430 meters, just over 1.5 miles. It was charted by Canadian army corporal Rob Furlong against a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan’s Shah-i-kot valley during Operation Anaconda in March 2002 — but his first two shots missed.) “There’s no limit as far as I can see so long as the bullet’s stable — I think 2,000 or 2,500 meters is very attainable,” Bell says.

“Right now, anything past around 800 meters is an extremely tough shot,” he added during a satellite telephone interview from Mosul, Iraq. “But this EXACTO will take the effects of wind, elevation and humidity all out of play.” Bell spends his days training Iraqis as snipers and for other elements of the martial arts. Did he hear about what the Navy snipers did on Sunday? “Sure did,” he said. “I’m jealous as hell.”

If you have been following me on Twitter you would know that I have been working on getting an M1-Carbine WW2 surplus paratrooper rifle.   Well after weeks of talk and several phone calls my buddy Ray down at Simmons Sporting Goods came through for me.   I knew for almost a month that they had an estate of weapons from a gun collector with about 40 M1-Carbines.   I finally got in to look at them.   I was the second customer that got to pick through them.   I made my choice.

The Inland I choose has some obvious wear marks as any period weapon does. The wood and finish are in good shape. It has a bayonet mount which isn’t common on early M1-Carbine’s making me believe this was not an early war manufactured weapon.
Inland Division was in fact owned by General Motors most famously known for building cars. Many manufacturers stepped up during WW2 and changed their factories over to support the Mission in Europe and Asia.

You can see that the rear sight is a later sight that was fitted and can be seen on the M2 rifles. M2 sights are adjustable where M1 sights are not with a fixed peep hole sight.

The M1 is fitted with a later model M2 Bolt. You can also see the M2 rear sights as well.

The rifle also had this marking on it which makes me think it was a company symbol or some other symbol. It is certainly going to merit some checking to see its history.

I have been looking at carbines for a long time and finally getting one for my collection.   Something about the vintage and the history of the paratrooper weapon really drew me to it.   It shoots a .30 carbine round which is a straight case and can easily be mistaken for a pistol cartridge.   The M1 is reportadly accurate to 500 yards.   I doubt that but will certainly test it out tomorrow at 125yds.

Stay Tuned for the range report as a I get to scratch this weapon off the top of my want list.   The range report maybe a few days as it is cold and have some holiday festivities to tend to.

Let me know what you think?   What is your favorite WW2 era weapon?