I had a nice shoot with Gary and Jim on Saturday. The weather was nice if a little warmer than expected. The field was grown up pretty well with mostly weeds and a little crop tossed in so we couldn't set out the critters because they would have disappeared. I finally got to shoot the resetting target and it is a blast! No need for a 100 yard+ walk for every shot!

We had a wide range of power this trip. Jim had the Victory pistol, I had the P3 and Woodsman and Gary had the Dragon out for test with the .58 insert. The Victory is a shrouded pistol that has a nice pleasant tone and requires no hearing protection for the shooter or those nearby. The Woodsman with it's .32 insert is not shrouded and at about 250 FPE has a pretty good bark. In the war wagon it certainly requires one to have their ears on. The Dragon is in another league! It makes a serious BOOM when it fires and the recoil is enough to visibly rock the trailor. (The trailor doesn't move like you just dumped a load of wood but you can see it react like someone walked into it...)

Noticing the immense blast from the Dragon got me to wanting to compare the sound and effect of the guns. I took some video of each and it is presented here. Sadly, the microphone of the camera just won't capture the sound of the big guns very well. The sound from the Victory is faily accurate but the Woodsman and Dragon are attenuated down to a fraction of their actual impact.



The sound may not have come out as desired but at least you can see how fast the Dragon flips those heavy steel plates!

Thanks for posting Jerry,

Yeah ... the sound idea was a good one ... that couldn't work without the reader wearing ear cups anyway! haha. You have to imagine the gas hot water heater exploding or something. ;?)

Jerry ... the movie .... "buffering" .... "buffering" ..... what a pain. For me - it only plays a few seconds, and then ... "buffering" .... and jerks along like that. It appears it's "streaming" .... even when you do the "replay". So - this program is not retaining it for a replay - neither is my laptop. Therefore, I wonder if it's different when we go to Photobucket itself, and play them there. I haven't noticed it so bad before - but this was evidently a busy time on my satelitte ... hummm.

Gary

Glad you came up for a shoot. Nothing like a good eight hours of solid work to shoot some entertaining footage.

Here's the extent of my pic taking yesterday with the Sony. Jim had Nikons with enormous lenses laying on every flat surface all day. We barely had room for guns! He should have a pic or two (if he got the film back yet ... haha).

Here's Jerry wringing out the Dragon for Donny (it's owner in Hawaii).



Gary

Hi Gary,
thanks for taking the time to test the Dragon. At 704 fpe with the .58 and 840 fpe with the .87, that's awesome. Glad Jerry had a chance to test it with the insert. Nice little video you made there Jerry. I will be ordering my ammo soon. Can't wait to see the gun in person.

Gary,

The Dragon looks pretty neat. Lots of power and I like the lines.

That resettable target functions flawlessly!

The video worked fine for me.

Lon

Donny,
You're getting a cannon! Here's some more from yesterday's shoot:

Thanks for posting the video, at least now we know what YOU sound like! And yes, that bigbore slaps those targets down with considerable authority, they're not just falling over at their leisure!

That's one big elevation knob on the scope, is the whole thing solid?!?

Nice videos, nice guns, nice day out, by the look of it! I love that shot of the war wagon at the end of the second video, as dusk falls....caps off a great day
And, as an added bonus, I see the Dragon can split kindling. Donny should find that very helpful Mind you, I suppose he could export the kindling to you guys....

Cheers
Neil

The Dragon can split firewood and also help with demolition jobs! We took a look around for standard hollow cinder blocks to shoot but couldn't find any (apparently we destroyed the last couple last year with the Woodsman). All that remained was that solid 4" thick block of concrete and other less suitable chunks of concrete and rebar. Anyway, the block got pressed into video duty as we figured it might split and sure enough the first shot caused a nice fracture and photogenic destruction. The last shot sent up the usual dust burst but what is really remarkable is how far the impact moves the block. Thats a 30 pound block that's getting tossed 2-3 feet back from where it started! The last shot on the block produced a neat effect with the slug remains fusing into the concrete. It took a good bit of effort to remove the slug base and it peeled away concrete as it came out of it's divot.

Nice video Jerry.

Got a good laugh out of the product placement segment. Very subtle. I like it. I got a call from a place that composts the manure from male bovines. They seemed to think I was just the spokesperson they've been looking for! Can't thank you enough.





Gary

I thought we already had them on staff...I mean contract? Did they call 1-800-GO SHOOTIN?

Yes ... they called the hot line. After going thru the phone tree (which was Kelly and I just kidding around back and forth ... "if you are using a telephone ... push 4 ..." "If you cannot understand me ... push ten" ......

They recognized that I contained just what they were seeking. In fact ... I think the direct quote was ... "You're full of it!"

That new marketing strategy of putting in the subliminal product spot .. really worked!

Gary

It's milled out to fit over the orig. At different times, over the last 14 years, it's carried long tapes of various elevation settings for guns. Doesn't weigh more than a good pr. of lineman's boots. No sweat.

Gary

I think your little Nikon Coolpix did the best job with video of any pocket camera I've seen so far. It didn't do high speed, but the video quality and *especially* the audio when recording the big guns was very accurate.

I'll post some pix soon . . .

-- Jim

Jim,

So - was the first video then, shot with the Cool Pix? The three gun comparison? I know I used Jerry's Casio for the last video posted.

It's time to replace my pocket camera. Too much dust, banging into milling machine handles, etc.

Gary

Nah, I used the Casio for everything. I decided to bring more guns than cameras.

The little Nikon did seem to capture sound pretty well but the video is not as good as the casio. It was a good idea but not one I'm going to worry about perfecting.

" ... more guns than camer..... " .... WELL!!! .... Cheap shot alert!!! .... whoop, whooop ....

Ah ... gee ... would anyone like more mashed potatoes? I thought the brussel sprouts were a bit over cooked ... how about you?
How about them "O's ....

I'm sorry! Was that a cheap shot? I thought it was just a friendly little tease back in response to the implication that I used the wrong gear for the videos that might otherwise have rated a comment.

Really, no cheap shot intended. Just thought the video was still good.

Just got back from testing Karl's Nitro. It went well. I used all available light - hey ... these chronos don't work in the dark though. Who knew.

I was just kiddin' ya, and trying to get a line on the Nikon Cool Pix comment. I thought you must have been using your small Nikon outside, when I was in the trailer and couldn't see. Everytime I saw you ... you had your Casio in use. Was sorting out what footage was shot with what. I need to buy a new small pocket camera version. My trusted Sony is worn out.

Gary

pretty cool video. Liked the movie theater popcorn display.

Thats some amazing power with the concrete block.

When i tuned my DS454 to about 250 FPE, i thought the gun was pretty powerful. Now, this was a couple years ago and it was the most powerful gun i owned. Now, it is powerful, but not quite to the numbers we are dealing with nowadays. So, long story short, i took it to the desert and actually ran across a Cinder block and a half broken table. I set up the cinder block on the table and backed off to 35 yrds. In my head, i was like, "this should break pretty easy". Well, upon the first shot, all I heard was a dull impact sound. When i went to inspect the cinder block, the lead ball was simply stuck to the block but there was no fracture line of any sort. I then loaded up a couple of slugs and to my surprise, it had the same effect....NOTHING! So now we come to present day and i have my JH457. Its at 450 FPE and it also has a hard time breaking cinder blocks.

So my point to all this is..................GB you make one hell of a powerful gun to be breaking and tossing around SOLID cinder blocks. That's insane power!

Cool videos! It's good to see the Dragon again. Very impressive power to be able to lift the concrete block like that.