Physics and Bullets

I'm trying to add weight to my rifle so that I can increase it's accuracy and precision without destroying my right shoulder. So I started to think about how much weight I should add. And then I remembered my physics.

My rifle weighs about 8 lbs (3.6 kg) and generates a bullet muzzle velocity of 3000 feet per second. I'm not absolutely concerned with the actual force that the gun exerts on me, inasmuch as I am about the final velocity of the gun (since acceleration equals the change in velocity with respect to time, and initial velocity is zero). It's this backwards movement that makes it hard to aim and hard to fire accurately.
So, if momentum is conserved in that the bullet's forward momentum is equal to the rifles backward momentum, calculating the momentum of the bullet will have the same absolute value of the rifle's momentum. 3000 feet per second equates to 914 meters per second, and a 130 grain bullet is equal to 8.43 grams. Multiplying those two together and using kilograms, I get the bullet's momentum to be 7.699 kgm/s, which means that a rifle with a weight of 3.6 kilograms moves backwards at 2.139 m/s. Increasing the weight of the rifle will decrease the actual velocity of the rifle, although the momentum will still be equal. I want the rifle to move at 1.5 m/s, so I should increase the weight of the rifle so that it weighs 5.13 kg or 11 pounds.

For right now I think I'm going to remove the recoil pad, put lead shot in a sock or sturdy cloth bag, and see if the rifle performs better. It can't hurt, but it's crushingly difficult to hold the rifle steady out past 100 yards. I can shoot from a sitting position groups that are .3 inches at 25 yards. But that's like saying you can hold your breath for 15 seconds; it's not very impressive. But, that kind of accuracy should theoretically hold out so that the groups I shoot at 100 yards would be about 1 minute of arc, or a 1" group. But it's just not happening. The rifle is too light for me to hold steady; my idea of aiming is to wait for the crosshairs to flit across the bullring upon which I squeeze the trigger quickly lest the rifle's line of position moves down 4 or 5 inches from where I want the bullet to impact. Even if I hold steady, the bullet either strays, or goes off target completely.

It's unreasonable to demand a lower end hunting rifle that can shoot bullets all day long into a .5" ring at 200 yard, but if a rifle can't shoot at least a 3" group with good ammunition at 100 yards(and admittedly a group like that isn't considered great at 100 yards), then you have a serious problem on your hands. And unfortunately, I managed to hit a cardboard box that was 16"x24" twice at 100 yards. Tomorrow I'll get the lead out and see if it improves my performance.

Napoleon Dynamite

Apparently this guy has never seen Napoleon Dynamite! Otherwise, he'd have known just how dangerous those things are.

Kunming Guyi 2006 Jingmai Spring

This tea has really changed since I first tasted it.  It could be my dry storage or it could be the additional months added to the bing.  Whatever the reason, the taste has gone from strong medicinal camphor with a sweet finish, to more refined tastes.  This sheng starts off with a prominent green taste that melds with a smooth creamy taste and mild sweetness. Camphor is still present, but it's more of an accent.  

The bitterness of the first few infusions has given way to an assertive astringency that eventually yields to a green tasting tea with mild sweetness, and progresses to an creamy, airy sheng in later infusions.  In other words, the tea's tastes gradually progress.

Caffeine-wise, this'll blow your head off if you're not careful. 

So to sum up the tastes in three words: astringent, green, sweet.

Classical Halloween

I'm trying to decide what would be a perfect mix CD for Halloween music. So far I've got Hector Berlioz's Simphonie Fantastique and Night on Bald Mountain which scared the hell out of me as a kid when I saw it on Disney's Fantasia, Ave Satani from The Omen, Mozart's Requiem (At least the Dies Irae portion), Mussorgsky's The Hut on Fowl's Legs, Chopin's Mazurka No.3 in F#m Op 59, Vivaldi's Winter from The Four Seasons, Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach, Der Erlkonig by Schubert, Palladio Allegretto by Karl Jenkins (which you'd recognize as the DeBeers' commercial music), Arnold Schoenberg's Serenade Op. 24 (He of the Second Viennese School and the 12 tone chromatic scale), Franz Liszt's Mephisto Waltz
and finally Chopin's sublime Fantasy Impromptu.

Volunteering

Today I got to help 'volunteer' for a librarian at a middle school. They were planning for a book sale and most of the books and crap (and some of the stuff really was crap that had no educational value) were in cardboard boxes. The librarian showed me where it all was and said, "You can just set them on the tables with the tablecloths. I really don't care." I was tempted to say, "I really don't care either," since I'd planned on biking and lifting weights but somehow got roped into doing this instead. So I dutifully unloaded the boxes and glanced at some of the titles. I noticed that some of the titles were far below a middle school reading level. Then again, I had no idea what the average reading level for the school was.
So I worked my way from one table to the other while the librarian chatted on the phone until I'd finished my handiwork and stepped back to take a look at it in all of its stacked book glory. God it was hideous. My display would've sent Christopher Lowell into tears, yelling, "EEEEEEeeeee! And with all the decorating information out today! No excuse! No excuse!" As a matter of fact, when I told the librarian that I was done with the display, she walked into the room and took a step back, shielding her eyes from all the ugliness overwhelming her sight.

But what's a guy like me to do? Arrange books in alphabetical order? Arrange them by subject? Color-coordinate them? Actually those are pretty good ideas, but too bad I didn't think of those when I was actually bringing the books out of boxes.

Tomorrow I get to volunteer again, but this time it's something worthwhile that I'm actually good at doing. I'll be helping kids with their math practice problems and generally overseeing.

Yixing the Day After & Before the First Cup

Yesterday I cracked open my bing of Kunming Guyi factory's 2006 Jingmai Spring sheng pu'er. I like it; it's sweet and medicinal so far. But I used it in my little yixing teapot and the camphor scents of that specific tea seem to have lingered in the pot which makes for an interesting cup of Xiaguan Tibetan Flame brick!

I decided to also read online about the different ideas for maintaining yixing teapots. The information tag I got with my purchase was laconic. It simply said, "heat water, add one teaspoon to pot, steep 1 minute. Empty tea leaves when done and rinse teapot with water."
Very little information as to where the clay was sourced, how it was made, what benefits it has over porcelain, and all that jazz.
I found this odd, considering this is Chapel Hill; all the health food stores have massive poster displays on stands that go into great length with details and photos on where you're buying your food from, the farmer's name, the farmer's region's troubles with politics or threats of logging, and why buying this farmer's crop will allow him to have an extra goat or three chickens more. And then I wonder if all the store's chains have this poster display with the same amount of ink and paper, and then I wonder if the potato farmers have the same displays for them along with the bok choy farmers, and then I begin to wonder if perhaps the store would've saved money in the long run by simply buying the farmer a goat or three chickens with the amount of money spent on paper and ink and just have a handwritten sign saying, "GOOD FOOD."

So, buying something food related that doesn't have a display that goes into great depth about the digestive problems of the crops' earthworms is mighty suspicious. So, to the internet I went to find out more about the care of yixing.

And the amount of info I found was large. On youtube, I found a video of a guy boiling a teapot in water, and then adding tea leaves to season the pot. After all of this, he put toothpaste on a toothbrush and with some elbowgrease gave that pot a good, clean, fresh feeling. Hmmm. Another tea blog had a simple "rinse three times, brew a pot of tea, rinse teapot and let dry" for its advanced seasoning and maintenance advice, and offered that seasoning an yixing teapot closes its pores and makes it similar to a porcelain teapot. And one upscale site had a bunch of monotonous made-up advice which I've paraphrased: "One should first take into mind what sort of teapot would go best with a type of tea. Upon meditation and discovery upon the type of tea corresponding to the shape of the yixing, or as the Chinese are found of saying, Eyashwong, you must then put the teapot in a larger pot boiling water and place tea within the boiling pot, but take care! One must not make the resulting tea bitter or this shall affect the taste of the Eyashwong! When it is finished, one must then put on kidgloves or use all natural, unsealed bamboo tongs such as the type used in the Ming Dynasty (which we conveniently happen to have for a mere $45) to remove the teapot. But do not touch it with the bare hands! The oil of the hands might stick to the yixing, or Eyashwong, and forever mar the enjoyment of your teabags!"

For right now, I've decide to ignore all the advice except for the blog that said to rinse, brew, and enjoy. I drink tea to relax and enjoy it.

Bodhisattva

For whatever reason, a small bronze statue of a bodhisattva sits in my parents' yard. I sometimes wonder if this sort of eastern religious decoration works both ways with people in India and Thailand hanging up pictures of notable Christian figures and decorating their walls with crucifixes.