New Toy

Okay, so a new bow miraculously came to me this past week. I shoot bows. Lots and lots of bows in the course of a week after I work on them. As I have been "promoted" to the pro shop's pro-shooter, Bowtech sent me a Destroyer 350. Hopefully, I'll get sponsored by some archery equipment manufacturers in the future.

On my bows, I particularly like the HHA Optimizer Lite sight, which I tinkered with and accurized.See the extra pin coming off the factory brass pin? I made and installed that. It helps increase accuracy to the sight by putting the pin closer to the sighting tape and gives me 3 points of alignment, rather than two - the brass pin, my pin and then the mark I put on the sighting tape. From stock, I wondered how I would be able to align a brass pin to the yardage mark,with only 2 points of reference, when the pin sits a good 3/32" away from the yardage mark, and any deviation of adjustment would change the point of impact at further distances. With this improvement, I'm able to dial in the yardage to the inch, which is how I can consistently group 3" at 60 yards in the bullseye.

I also shoot a Quality Archery Design Ultra-Rest LD, which provides total arrow clearance upon pulling the trigger. This affects accuracy because the arrow rest drops away at the moment of the shot so there is absolutely no contact with the arrow as it comes off the string. I don't like rests that capture the arrow from the start of the shot cycle to the end, because any kind of arrow contact at the shot detracts from accuracy. The one great thing the Ultra-Rest has above all other drop-away rests is that if you elect to not shoot, and you let down on the draw, the rest comes back to its resting position, keeping the arrow fully captured until you decide to shoot later. All the other drop-away rests fall away even if you let down slowly, causing the arrow to drop willy-nilly off the bow shelf. This would make a lot of noise and scare off any prey you are hunting.

So, back to the bow - I had a hell of a time paper-tuning it. After a few hours of shooting it, and then adjusting it, and then shooting it some more, and adjusting it some more, and so on and so forth, it turns out it needed a couple of turns on certain cables to bring the cams into time. I then shot an arrow that blew a perfect hole in the paper.

The only thing left for me to do is to take it to the range and sight it in from 20 yards to 70 yards. That should take me about half an hour. Guess I'll have to wait till the sun is out.

Duracell Brand Batteries Suck

Since 1998, I started experiencing Duracell brand batteries exploding inside my electronic devices. The first incident destroyed an Excalibur 3D-cell flashlight that was a predated the MagLite flashlights. It was the first of its kind in high intensity halogen flashlights and it was special to me because I bought it was my birthday money when I was 16 or 17, back in the late 80s.

Soon afterwards, other devices started suffering these catastrophic failures. No less than 3 mini-MagLites were destroyed by these batteries, because there was no way to get the exploded batteries out of the battery compartments of the flashlights. Other devices started to fail only to find that the batteries exploded and left their gritty white residue all over the battery compartment and battery terminals upon opening the cover. Once the offenders were removed and the residue scrubbed off with a toothbrush, they were good to go again. The latest device to suffer this failure is my favorite portable CD/MP3/FM/AM player. With a bit of elbow grease and a toothbrush, I was able to clean it up and get it working again, but I'm done with Duracell brand batteries. No longer will I buy them again.

I have since switched over to Energizer brand batteries. I have never experienced such epic failures from Energizer before and I am surprised that I even stayed with Duracell brand batteries for this long. I guess I bought into their hype too much.

Disarmed And Defenseless

What do women do when attacked by 3 men who are stronger and larger than themselves, when NYC's draconian gun laws don't make it easy for the law-abiding citizen to get a gun with which to defend themselves? This time, they escaped the ordeal uninjured, but it could have been far worse.

Shooting in NYC #4

Shooting at the South Street Seaport leaves 3 wounded.

Stop Blaming The Gun

I really wish people would stop blaming the inanimate object for shootings committed by people who shouldn't have them.

A six-year-old boy shoots and kills his 10-year-old brother with a gun owned illegally by his criminal stepfather. Sadder still is what the 6-year-old said when the police arrived: “I’m 6 years old. You can’t touch me.” Why would the child say something like this, and from whom did he learn it?

While it is sad that this tragedy happened, it's sadder still that this child felt no remorse for what he did. Personally, I would lock up the stepfather and the 6-year-old and throw away the key, because what this society needs is one less sociopath causing trouble for everyone else. You can't blame the gun for creating a remorseless sociopathic killer, but you can probably blame the mother and the stepfather.

In another story, a Connecticut man goes "postal" (or would that be "brewtal?") when he goes on a shooting spree at his job at a beer warehouse. It was this person who decided to commit this crime and it so happened that he managed to get a gun, but being that he was a truck driver for the company, he could very easily have plowed his truck into his supervisors. Do you then blame the truck for the actions of this person? What's more, the criminal, who has since removed himself from society, was stealing beer long before this incident happened, which was why he was being discipline right before he started shooting. Do you then blame the beer? No, you blame the deranged person for this crime.