That Took A Bit of Work

In my "What This Blog is About" page I mention about doing something yourself and then explaining it to someone else so you can really start to understand something. I have been asked a number of times my take on the Covid 19 business, and I have tried to stay honest and say I don't know enough about it to offer up much in the way of an opinion. I have been trying to rectify that ignorance and have made the first steps. This is my description of what I know to this point and what I have done.

That Should Do It

I've finished my shooting Android application to my satisfaction. It has my current burn model in it and some, I repeat some, error checking in it. As usual it can be found in my Downloads Section under Mk1ShooterMod1.apk for the built Android App and Mk1ShooterMod1.aia for App Inventor file.

...Onward Through The Fog.

A Burn Model Updated

I decided to put together a simplified burn model to incorporate into the Android App I put together for re-loading and exterior ballistics calculations. It gives me a little better feeling for the overall veracity of the application. The powder mass function was developed with a 4th order Runge-Kutta scheme which can be found in the Open Calculators downloads section of the blog. The velocity was derived from a lumped parameter energy balance model. I used a thermochemical solver for developing some of the powder constants. I'll probably put together a thermochemical solver for here which will also be useful for detonation and explosive properties calculations which I plan to write about in the future.

The Explosive Bonded Packer

During my undergraduate days I ran a shock physics lab primarily studying the welding window for explosively welding dis-similar materials. You can find a very brief article on the subject here. The gentleman I worked for at the time was considered one of the world's experts on the subject. I published a few journal articles and learned quite a bit. A few years later I was working at my career job and I got a phone call out of the blue. The caller told me that he got my name and organization from a quite obscure thing known as a world wide web search, Netscape was still fairly new and the only real browser, and he understood I knew something about explosive welding.

This is my Rifle...

This is my gun... I don't suppose I need to repeat that little ditty that one picks up in Basic Training in the U.S. Army. I assume they don't use that anymore given the coed nature of the Army these days. This is the object I'm speaking of.

Bacon is a Many Splendored Thing

On occasion, living like we do out in the boondocks some things get a little old. Everything has to be done by myself, maybe not alone, but certainly you have to take care of it yourself. Recently I had to replace the booster pump on one of the water wells. What a chore, I'm one of those people who inspect everything when I'm doing a job and replace it if necessary (Do It once, Do It Right). Yeah, anal retentive over our infrastructure about covers it. But then again I rarely have to hear at 0 dark 30 from my family that something is wrong with... (insert appropriate system here). There is also the idea of having personally taken care of it for myself and my family which always appeals to me.

Most of our food comes from my supplying it either through growing or raising it, or getting the raw ingredients from other people I know and trust. I don't like pigs, but I do like pork, especially the belly, because of Bacon! I get my pork belly from a fellow who raises hogs who also supplies me with the cuts I need for making our hams. I just got a slab which yielded about 10 pounds of cured meat ready for the smoker. I always wet cure my bacon. Below is the cure I use.

Some New Ballistics Calculators Added

As I've been developing my Android application for a shooter's assistant I've also been putting the pieces I need to make it function in spreadsheet format. The recent one I have completed was looking at the exterior ballistics problem using Pejsa's Methodology which you can read about at the link. An internet search will bring up a number of uses of it. I have provided my version of it in my downloads area. The spreadsheet can be found here.