Outrageous Malfunction

Some anti-fun maroon stuck together a video to demonize recreational explosives. Joe’s daughter, Kim, appears in the last quarter of the segment. Too bad the anti-fun maroon is a TV station in Atlanta;

Mr Bachman,

In your recent report on explosives availability, you include a segment at 3:35 of Kim Huffman; her father, Joe Huffman, is a licensed manufacturer and dealer in high explosives. Your inclusion of the clip implies that Kim is shooting Tannerite; however, the video is of Kim shooting Boomerite, which had been manufactured by Joe in accordance with his license.

Once a year, the Boomershoot manufactures over 1000 pounds of high explosives for recreational use. We’ve been featured in Newsweek, Outside Magazine, and many local media. You’re welcome to stop by next year; this year, we detonated a toilet for Dave Barry.

As to the general tone of your production, I disagree; unsafe use of explosives is a self-limiting problem, no laws beyond those Darwin outlined are required.

Ry Jones

Assistant Director, Boomershoot

The kids with real toys show up.

100 tons (small shot for us):

Big Boom in Iraq:

429 tons, angle 1; “Look at the Marines run!”:

Angle 2, rednecks:

I re-cut the videos for the toilet detonation; take a look. At 6 megabytes, the new video is lightweight.

Boomershoot 2008, is over; I’d like to reflect on the events of the last few days.

Anna, Arden, and Meghan painted targets this year. Some had uplifting messages, like “HAHA YOU MISSED” and “YOU CAN’T HIT ME”.

Once the targets were set, it was time to get shooting.

Everyone waited with bated breath for the highlight of the year, the totally awesome Earth-rending fireball that totally kicks ass.

Unfortunately, Joe set up the fireball this year; if you were unhappy with it, let him know he should let the pro do it for 2009. Bring nomex.

Fireball Video

Some people chose to fly kites;

some chose to pick flowers.

Two newbies were in my care this shoot; Mark Duell Sr and Jr. Using my Nikon D40 with a 70-300mm VR lens as a spotting scope, I was able to talk them in to connecting with targets. Jr got two; Sr got one.

Mark Duell, Sr showed up from California for some father-son bonding; he got burnt:

Mark Duell, Jr showed up from Texas. Here he is, engaging targets at the 385 yard line:

We blew up a toilet for Dave Barry:



Toilet Video

It was here our troubles began. The fireball set the stubble behind the berm on fire. Joe and I called a cease-fire; Mark Jr and I drove over at Mach 2 and started stamping the fire out. Joe flew over on the ATV and started running over the leading edge of the fire, where it was too hot for Mark and I to step on it. I fell off the front of the berm (yes, I have video. No, you can’t see it) and Joe flipped the ATV over. Joe can speak to his injuries, but mine were minor (my knee swelled a litte, but it was OK after the drive home).

The day ended well. Now for 2009.

The next ten days show at least 10% chance of precipitation each day. Chances of a mud-free shoot are slim.

Went to Moscow to return the daughters - took some pictures.

The warning sign said “winding road”:

but nothing about rocks:

or bored deer:

this way is death:

some ridge in Eastern Washington (huge pano):

The Boomershoot site was a snowy marsh:

The Clearwater River was nice, though:

Land is cheap and mostly flat. Must be what breeds places like Indiana’s steel target Disneyland with targets from 25 to 1000 yards. They have many of the improvements we’ve talked about for the Boomershoot; speaking of the Boomershoot, I had my first Boomershoot dream Saturday and my first nightmare Sunday. The dream was a replay of another dream on the same topic: what if we had a much steeper backstop? The nightmare was around a fire getting started and causing a lot of problems. The great thing was that the fire was started by a car wreck; it had nothing to do with the shoot in general.

Kirkland departure: 2300 Friday. Kirkland arrival: 0100 Monday. In the interim: five boomers taken with the 50 BMG (two at entertainingly close range); at least thirty people who had never shot a 50 BMG now have; I got to put an M16 lower on one of my AR15 uppers and try some full-auto precision shooting; my fireball containment contraption fell in flaming splinters on the crowd. Sorry about the last one, folks; the sandbags did too good a job. Pictures and a short video are available. Sorry; no video of the cleanup. If anyone has some and would be willing to share for promotional purposes, please contant me or Joe.

See for yourself: