Ninth Stage

If Microsoft is the Borg then Apple is the Imorg (givers of pain and delight.)  That makes Steve Jobs “Spock’s Brain” and Apple users the Morg.

Via Insty.

There’s a post over at Accurate Shooter about overbore cartridges with an accompanying chart purporting to list cartridges in order of their “overboreness”. I commented:

Volume/area is a poor proxy for “overboreness”. I haven’t thought it through yet but since a .50 bmg is basically a scaled up ‘06 it should equal a 30?06 in “overboreness”. It would serve us better to examine different methods that would reflect this.

I wasn’t too clear there so I thought I’d amplify here.

The way John L. calculated his table, in order of relative overbore, was by dividing the case volume (capacity in grains of water) by the bore area (Volume / 1/2dia.^2*Pi). You can see his numbers in the fifth column below. I realized as soon as I read the post that John had left something out. He was mixing volume with area, skewing large capacity cartridges towards being overbore. His method is missing a stand-in for the projectile.

It would be hard to find a standard bullet for each bore size and the design might vary enough that one couldn’t directly compare one to another in a different dia. So instead I just defined a slug, a cylinder, one bore dia. long (1/2dia.^2*Pi*dia.) as a stand-in that scales directly with bore dia. and divided that into the case volume (Volume / Slug). You can see the results below in column four. Understand that you could replace my slug with a bullet defined by it’s diameter (say a 8 dia. tangent ogive, 1/5 dia. meplat, 1-1/2 diameter long cylyndrical section, 3/4 dia. long boat-tail tapered to 2/3 dia. bullet) and get different numbers but the order would remain the same.

The Editor over at Accurate Shooter replied to my comment quoted above:

Editor: There may be better, or more sophisticated formulas we can develop. Looking at the Index Chart, I think John’s approach has merit for initial comparative purposes. It’s not the “final answer”, but it’s a good start in my mind.

Quote: “Since a .50 BMG is basically a scaled up ‘06 it should equal a 30-06 in ‘overboreness’.”

NOT True at all….

When comparing the 30-06 vs. 50 BMG, remember that the volume of a cylinder goes up with the SQUARE of the Radius of the column: pi*r2*h

This means that though the 50 BMG is only 1.406? longer, i.e. 56% longer, than a 30-06, it actually has VASTLY larger case capacity. The 30-06 has 68.20 grains of capacity, while the 50 BMG has nearly 300 grains! 300 grains is 440% of the 30-06 capacity! That’s why the 50 BMG can and should be considered much more overbore than the 30-06. The 50 BMG may look like a 30-06 clone but the ratio of length to Volume is WAY different.

30-06: 2.494? case length, 68.2 grains capacity
50 BMG: 3.900? case length, 293-300 grains capacity

DATA from Quickload

Let’s examine the .30-06 and BMG then. If the .50 is 3.9″ long and the ‘06 is 2.494″ long then the .50 is 156% as long. Cube that, for volume, and you get 382% the VOLUME. So an ’06’s 68.2 grains expands to 260.7 grains, close to the .50’s 293-300, hmm. What about projectiles? With a .511″ dia. a .50 scales volumetrically as 457% larger than a .308. Divide 750 grains, a nice .50 cal bullet weight, by 4.57 and you get 164 grains, just about what you might expect a nice .308 bullet to weigh. We can see that a .50 BMG is not EXACTLY a scaled up ‘06 but damn it’s right in the neighborhood. And in my chart you’ll find that the ‘06 is more overbore.

Here is my table in order of overbore, less to more. Column four is my calculation and column five is John’s number for reference. Please note that I am using the term “bore diameter” where really it is groove diameter or better yet, projectile diameter. If I am still not clear please comment. BTW, the quart jug is listed for grins, would have to be 6″ long (at 3.5″ diameter) to hold a quart, and is as overbore as a .50 BMG by John’s calculation.

A final comment: As I understand it, measuring water capacity of a case includes filling the case to the top of the neck. That can mess up these calculations since there is usually a bullet taking up some portion of the neck. In the case of the 6.5 Grendel, the bullet takes up a lot of the boiler room too. In the case of larger bore cases, the neck adds unused capacity at a greater rate than smaller bores. Just something to note if anyone wants to try to refine these measurements.

ADDED: Food for thought. The quart jug in the table above has about the same aspect ratio as a .22 Short. By John’s calculation, it is as “overbore” as a .50 BMG. Does that make any sense?

Insty says yes, I say hell yes.  ” Should prosecutors who withhold exculpatory evidence face criminal charges?“  Hell yes, severe, harsh, and frightening criminal charges.

I am not one to single out prosecutors, any government employee that violates the law and/or civil liberties of an individual should be prosecuted in the most severe manner possible.

Read this letter to “Billy” from Charles Manson.  Sounds positively Frischian.

Too inbred, over trained, and over drugged.  Barbaro two years ago now Eight Belles.  I have lost all desire to watch these beautiful animals destroyed for sport.

Congratulations to Kevin on his new rifle.  It’s all dressed up and ready to go.  I’ve heard great reviews from others about the 700 R5, yours should shoot like a dream too.  I particularly like that spirit level [wink].

Yeaa me!

Second week in a row I win Cowboy Blob’s caption contest.  Last weekend’s win (contest) is here (NSFE*) and the win (contest) before is here.  I didn’t mention the first one because I didn’t know about it until the second one.  By then I’d put an entry in and didn’t want ANY more competition.

Cowboy Blob will probably have a new contest (that I win) next week, keep checking here.  Thanks Cowboy, or is that Mr. Blob?

* Not Safe For Eyes

Metrosexuals need their “me time.” That’s why.

I know it’s not scientific but I’ll take my pleasure where I find it. And I know it doesn’t “give”, it protects.

USA Today poll: Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?

We’re winning 32 to 1.

Microeconomics: The study of who has the money and how I can get my hands on it.

Macroeconomics: The study of which government agency has the gun, and how we can get our hands on it.

Via Oleg Volk.

I believe we can achieve a fair society by taking away your house and giving it to someone else. I disagree. It is my house. Then let us agree to give away half of your house. Compromise! But that is not a compromise. You have taken half my house. We have compromised on your behalf with those who would have taken it all. Let us not return to the politics of division. There are strangers living in my spare bedroom. Then we have truly come together. Look, this isn’t a matter on which we can compromise, because we have conflicting premises. You’re pretending matter and anti-matter have the same relationship as Coke and Pepsi. They don’t.

Lileks.

People like these are the only ones. The only ones that should be subject to the death penalty; government agents involved in violating citizens.

Via Two-Four.

Anti-freedom Clark Garen proposes on his website here that we:

1. Create a one year period for the United States of America to purchase at fair market value all guns and firearms, including hand guns, rifles, and even antique guns and rifles from domestic private ownership.

2. Prohibit and criminalize the domestic sale of guns and firearms, whether new or used.

3. Seize and destroy any gun or firearm found after the termination of the purchase period without compensation.

4. Prohibit and criminalize the domestic possession of a gun or firearm after the termination of the one year purchase period.

5. Provide exemptions for governmental law enforcement agencies, the armed services, and bona fide museums.

So the government takes a chunk of my money, returns it, after skimming off it’s take, in exchange for my firearms? Sounds fair. What a jackass.

UPDATE: The big laugher comes elsewhere on that website where, writing about Garen, it says:

It’s no surprise that Clark finds these people interesting. In his legal practice, he relishes cases that emphasize the rights of the individual. “Even though the preservation of individual rights is out of fashion now,” Clark explains, “I’ve always admired Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, who understood that the primary purpose of the Court was protecting every individual from being oppressed by the Government.” As Clark notes, this philosophy sometimes puts him at odds with the trends of the day.

Clark believes a small group of con artists are fooling our citizens into throwing away the rights our founding fathers paid for with their lives. Think Radio advocates “awareness and thought” as tools to defeat these evil and sinister con artists.

What a self deluded tool.

When DC’s right to arms is recognized again, residents can get hooked up with a pistol through Josh Sugarmann, FFL. Yeah, it’s the same Josh Sugarmann that heads the anti-rights Violence Policy Center.

Stealing stuff from Kevin and Sean.

I like Cthulhu’s foreign policy of killing everyone and consuming everything, but I don’t agree with his domestic policy of killing everyone and consuming everything. Still better than Hillary. - “Sean”

There’s a new L. Neil Smith graphic novel, Time Peeper, available as an online serial at Big Head Press.

A five year old child was refused boarding as a “national security risk” because his name is similar to one on the feared “no-fly list.”

A five-year-old boy was taken into custody and thoroughly searched at Sea-Tac because his name is similar to a possible terrorist alias. As the Consumerist reports, “When his mother went to pick him up and hug him and comfort him during the proceedings, she was told not to touch him because he was a national security risk.

As Bruce Schneier says, “[F]ollowing procedure is more important than common sense.”

I laughed out loud when I read this:

The Bush tax cuts, more than any other policy, are crippling the government financially.

If only it were true.

Murderous cops go unpunished as a matter of course in Chicago. Best excuse:”Come on. This is Chicago.”

On the street, when a shooting is inappropriate, autopsies can help reveal the contradictions in a police officer’s version of how it occurred. But it’s up to police and OPS investigators to make that connection and follow up.

Edmund Donoghue, former chief medical examiner in Cook County, said he was not surprised to see cursory investigations. “When you see this stuff going on for 30 years, you don’t expect much,” said Donoghue, who retired last year. “Come on. This is Chicago.”

Come on. Whattaya expect?

Via Balko.

Now there’s a documentary about girls and guns, A Girl and a Gun (really, judging by the previews, it’s girls and guns). Trailer here and more here.