Comments

Episode-348- Listener Feedback 1-04-10 — 9 Comments

  1. Re: the stored food limitation feedback. While I completely agree with the overarching point of the feedback (stored food isn’t a long term answer), in a perfect world, this is why we store very long term foods in buckets, like wheat, beans, and rice. 100 pounds of flour is 150,000 calories, or enough food for 10 people for a 10 days on a constrained diet. You can stored carefully, wheat will last essentially forever. I’m not saying that the people should store thousands of pounds of wheat, but putting up a few hundred pounds extra that you do NOT rotate would give you room to take care of those loved ones for quite a while in a severe crisis (or at least keep them alive). In that time, hopefully everyone would be smart and working towards increasing production before the stores run out.

    My point is this: it’s a good idea to have some wheat (and maybe rice and beans) put aside with the express purpose of NOT rotating and only for emergency purposes.

  2. I recently got turned onto your podcast. Thanks for all the effort.

    Regarding your political comments on voting out all the politicans. A group of us have been thinking about this very “fix” to much that ails our country and endangers our way of life. We refer to it as voter-imposed term limits (the way it’s supposed to be). 1 term and done.

    Please visit our website @ http://www.1anddone.org for more information.

  3. As to the sonic crack…
    You aren’t entirely correct about having the sonic crack or not. Once you cross the speed that you first get the sonic crack (which is somewhere below the speed of sound and depends on the bullet’s shape), the faster the bullet goes the more intense the sonic crack will be. There will be a larger pressure change across the shock wave coming off the nose of the bullet which will create a louder sound that will travel further.

  4. I’ve listened to Orlov’s presentation several times over the past year. It is highly recommended (and remember it is nearly a year old at this point – originally Feb 2009).

    I don’t agree with several of his items and he has a statist mentality (e.g., the government should do this or do that or ban this or ban that) that comes through every once in a while — but it is still a fascinating and entertaining presentation.

  5. I agree with you TeamStone. His book should be entitled: “Why Russians are Superior to Americans”. I was very disappointed.

    On a side note, Igor Panarin–not Dmitri Orlov–is the Russian professor that predicts the collapse of the US into city-states ruled (sphere of influence style) by various other countries. Personally I think he’s just pissed about the breakup of his country and our meddling in that region. Its also clear he doesn’t know anything about America based on the way he grouped some states.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

  6. A note of clarification on Rajendra Pachauri. In addition to his PhD in Economics, he also holds MS in Industrial Engineering and a PhD in Industrial Engineering.

    The more thorough we are in debunking these crooks, the better we will be received. So id we present the guy as having no science background at all, we look like we aren’t covering our bases. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

    Keep up the great work!!

  7. Jack,

    Some corrections on the bullet casting segment:

    First-
    The idea of only recovering 22 projectiles from a range berm to be sure it is “pure lead” doesn’t make practical sense. Why? 22s are 40g at best and it takes a bunch of these to garner enough lead to pour any amount of centerfire pistol or rifle bullets. You can count on jacketed centerfire bullets being pure lead as well. Melting these down is no problem since the copper jackets float to the surface when the lead melts out. I’ve reclaimed several hundred pounds of berm lead and I can assure you it is as easy as melting wheel weights and skimming off the steel clips.
    Second-
    While small amounts of tin added to pure lead does increases the hardness of the alloy, the increase in hardness tapers off relatively quickly. Pure lead has a BNH of 5. Adding a small amount of tin (40:1) jumps the BNH up to 8. At 10:1, the BNH is only 11 at best. For reference clip on Wheel weights typically run around a 12 BNH.
    Adding the additional Tin beyond 2-3% is expensive and has little effect other than reducing surface tension of the alloy, allowing for better fill out in the mold.
    Third-
    The idea of using two alloys in the same mold is a new one on me; I have serious doubts about the benefit of doing this vs the time and effort to pour bullets that way. Creating a crucible or ladle that holds a specific amount under 100 grains or so would be much easier in theory than practice.

    A much better/easier alternative would be to use relatively soft alloy and a gas checked bullet design with a wide meplant. Elmer Keith’s flat nosed designs are time tested and quite effective in taking large game. Also, very effective hollowpoint molds exist if expansion is the goal.

    There is a misconception out there that “harder alloys are better since soft alloys cause leading”. This is not correct; in fact the opposite can be true depending on the application.
    For most applications, the fit of the bullet to the bore is much more important. In rifle velocities a harder alloy might reduce leading but for hunting applications this can create brittleness that reduces terminal effectiveness. I’ve run 44 magnum loads up to 1300 fps in plain based bullets without leading; I’ve also run very soft alloys in 45-70 up to 1800 fps without a hint of leading. (I’ve also had low velocity loads using hard alloys lead horribly- like I said the fit to your bore is critical. )

    I’ve not only studied casting quite a bit I’ve cast thousands of bullets in multiple calibers from my dozen or so molds. Check in a few days, I’ll put together some threads on this in the forum that I would welcome your input in.

    Cohutt