Yes, life was rough today. I was helping the pistol guys do some testing on a product improvement to our .45 semi-auto pistol so I had to spend an hour or so out in the range firing 350 rounds through a .45 pistol to verify their changes. Let me get this straight, you want me to fire a pistol on the range? And you provide the pistol and all the ammo? And you’re PAYING me for my time? Let me think about it…
To make it even better, the afternoon was spent testing a design I had been working on. Gas-operated carbines and machine guns use a blank firing adaptor to create enough back pressure in the gun to cycle the bolt when firing blanks in training. A blank firing adaptor has to be able to contain a live round, though, just in case someone accidentally loads up a live round and thinks it’s a blank. I designed a new quick-connect for a blank firing adaptor and had a prototype made, we got a carbine that was at the end of its life anyway and attached it to the end of the barrel. After verifying that the weapon functioned as designed we fired three blanks through it to check the function then we deliberately fired a live round of .7.62mm (.30 caliber) into it to ensure that it would contain a live round and not damage the blank adaptor or mount. The worst case failure would be for us to send a one pound steel adaptor downrange at high velocity, we recorded everything with the high-speed video to capture the event but it was relatively drama-free. The adaptor contained the live round and only sent tiny fragments downrange where the round fragmented and exited through the pressure vent. In other words, a successful first test and an auspicious start for my design.
I woke up today with a bit of a sore throat and stuffy head. I blamed it on sleeping on the electric mattress pad but since it’s still lingering and it’s 1:30PM now I think I’ll just have to face the fact that I’m getting a head cold. I really had no plans for the weekend anyway, I thought I might go to the range but after today my interest in going to the range on my own dime is somewhat diminished! I should spread crabgrass herbicide in the lawn and then do some cleaning and organizing, and I have some model car projects I need to work on. |
Loading...