Bullet Boy on Shooting Sports

University of Alabama Birmingham professor Timothy Kraft, PHD is developing a new gunsight design using his experience as competitive marksman/shooter and Retinal Electrophysiologist.  Dr. Kraft is a member of the Vision Science Research Center in Birmingham, AL and has trained with the US Olympic Shooting team.

According to UAB Magazine Kraft “is developing a new kind of gunsight that relies on a trick of the eye to improve a shooter’s aim.” Little information is available about the new sight but trails are expected soon.  The sideshow below from the UAB Magazine provides some insight into the groundbreaking new weapon sight.

The video below shows Tim Kraft demonstrating and talking about the new gun site at the very same range I practice.

On Target: UAB Researcher Aims to Build a Better Gunsight from uabnews on Vimeo.

As new information becomes available I will post and keep you up to date.  I look forward to seeing more of the sight.  I especially like to see great innovations coming out of a great University in my home town.

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When was the last time you checked your mental plan of what you should do if someone knocks at your door?

A North Carolina man had a 20 year long enemy that paid him a visit to only begin an attack but surprised the attacker with a hastily prepared plan that could have cost him his life.   The victim had to run to his bedroom to get his weapon.   He is lucky that he was even able to get to his weapon.   It very well could have cost him his life.

Dustin of Dustin’s Gun Blog offered some pretty good advice:

One free piece of advice I have for anyone interested: don’t open your door to anyone if you’re not armed. I put my gun on in the morning when I put my pants on, and I never open the door without my pants. Additionally, don’t open your door at all tor a stranger – communicate through the door & tell him or her to leave the package on the doorstep. If you end up being attacked at the door it is much quicker to retrieve your handgun from the holster you’re already wearing than it is to run to your bedroom.

This types of story’s should be a reality check for anyone. What is your Home Self Defense plan? Are you prepared? Things happen quickly and everyone in your family should be prepared. Make a home safety plan and go over it. Practice it with them via-live fire at the range. Obviously you want to use targets and not real people. Don’t forget that training will earn you about a 30% chance of doing it correctly in an actual circumstance.

Practice, Practice, Practice

*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.”