Shot my first exploding target this weekend.... IT WAS AWESOME!
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Shot my first exploding target this weekend.... IT WAS AWESOME!
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/...20130423134837
Like this? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Someone had to do it.
Been busy this week. Friday night we had a good storm happening. I woke up at 1am feeling weird. Half awake I thought to myself, "I know this feeling. Where do I know this from?" Seconds later "BLAM!" the entire room lit up blue. Wife screams, I'm outa bed with the pistol in my hand. (stupid, you can't shoot lighting) So I start checking the house inside and find half the panel is tripped. Smell of burnt electronics is pretty light but there. Once the lightning tapers off, I head out into the rain the check the outside. Can't find a mark on the house or nearby. So go back in and wait till morning. Can't sleep after that and the TV was dead. The next day I check the house and surrounding acreage and still can't find the strike mark. Spend the day checking circuits and appliances. Here's the final damage tally. Every GFI in the house was completely blown, bathroom fart fans timers blown, AC/DC phone power source dead, one cell phone charger dead, two single throw wall switches dead, TV dead, DVD dead and a couple of LED bulbs are dead. The TV and DVD suck to replace, but both were over 10 years old, so I finally got to upgrade (42" flatscreen) Switching out the bad boxes is not hard, but GFI's are damn expensive. Looks like most of the bad stuff was on only one of the legs. (staggered on the panel) Good reminder for me to add whole house surge protection, but the weird thing to me is how some stuff like the LED's blew. The switch was off, so there was no physical connection between the bulbs and the hot. (unless it arc'd the gap) It was a close strike so my guess was it energized the neutral or came up the ground. Well, got the new TV plugged in last night and couldn't get a good fix on a station. Put up the ladder and went to check the antennae. Found the littlest little burn mark on top. Started looking real close and found more evidence. The TV antennae is mounted on a 1" pole that is sunk into the ground. It definetly took the hit. COAX cable was completely intact and ohm'd out fine. Antennae itself is one of those wound coil units. It's fried. There is a small arc mark between the pole and the roof line, so my current guess is that part of the charge lit up the roof and traveled through the house ground. Whatever happened, the final result sucked. I have decent protection on the house, it just sucks that even good surge protection and ground doesn't always protect during a direct strike like I had. If anything, I'm gonna change the TV antennae to a outside wall/ roof mount instead of the pole. That way, at least I figure, the lightning rods will be a more attractive target to ground than the antennae pole.
Dang! That sucks, man!
a few weeks ago, I had a very close bolt of cloud-cloud lightning right over my house that tripped most of my GFIs and fried a few electronic things like my garage door opener and my nice sound bar by the TV. I guess I got lucky. [Dunno]
Lightning strikes suck.
We had a direct hit on our big tree at the corner of the house several years ago. It survived but has a huge seeping crack about 12 feet up. I had some large dead limbs pruned off last summer by a pro that was working at the neighbors (funny what a Benjamin will get ya). He initially thought the tree had been recently struck and was potentially going to have to come down. When I told him it had been a few years and he looked it over better when he got roped up into it, he agreed it was still healthy. The last snowstorm has done a little more damage, so I don't know how much longer it will last. Big ass "hybrid cottonwood." Someone once told me "Russian Cottonwood," but I don't really know.
Last night, we had one of those flashes that light up the room and the crack came nearly instantly. It seemed like it hit just on the other corner of the open space behind the house. Probably 300 meters away.
Luckily, we've never lost anything electronic that I recall. My primary AV stuff and all computer stuff in my office is on good UPS.
Shot a few 10mm's for the first time today. A S/Action Kimber, the other the new SIG . Fuck me standing. The snap / re coil on those puppies was
non-existent. So much so i'm considering dumping a few toys for one of those wrist breaking, shoulder wrenching units.
Thank you johnnyego.
I might be offering one (IAI Javelina) in the near future. I'm overinvested in new projects and need the funds. I'm going 300 BLK ACR, Friend and I are colluding on either replacing the barrel on my new ACR with a 300 or maybe even making up an entire assembly from a mix of scratch and factory parts. Looking to modify the gas reg to a 3 or 4 setting setup to get the piston to work right with all ammo. Outa be fun. Got my Colt New Service Project put back together, still need parkerization. Got my latest stamp in, so my new 6" Ti suppressor won't take long. Some people are amazed at my total disregard for "taking a dremel" to a brand new high priced firearm. But, like I've said before, tools are fun.