Ballistics by the inch

Been a busy month.

James Downey — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:29:58 +0000

Hey everyone,

So, the BBTI relaunch just keeps plugging along. As mentioned previously, it’s hard to do a direct comparison in terms of hits and whatnot, but it is clear that on all fronts the numbers are up. Thanks, everyone!

I’d also like to thank those who have made donations to help defray our costs. Unfortunately, said donations do not help enough, and as a result sometime soon we’ll be adding in some Google Ads. We’re going to try and keep it minimal, and if donations continue to come in . . . well, we’ll see.

I’ve been keeping very busy with a number of different projects. I continue to do a lot of writing for Guns.com, both feature articles and reviews. Check it out!

And I’m about to ‘launch’ the publication of my novel, Communion of Dreams. The Kindle version is now available, and the paperback will be available in a couple of days. When we ‘go live’ with the paperback edition, there will be three days when anyone will be able to download the Kindle version for free. That’s coming Friday, 1/27 through Sunday, 1/29 – watch for it!

Jim Downey

By any measure . . .

James Downey — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:41:17 +0000

Good morning, and welcome to 2012!

The beginning of January I usually do a look-back over the last year, to assess how things with the BBTI site and the blog have done. That’s a little more complicated because of the massive overhaul of the site on Dec. 1, 2011, but I think we can still draw some conclusions.

A year ago I wrote the following:

My, how things have grown in the last year. Sometimes I feel like we’ve created a monster.

Yeah, same feeling this year. Even though comparing numbers head-to-head between the site before the redesign and after is difficult, let’s see what we can do. January – November of 2010 we had a total of 2,437,348 hits. January – November of 2011 we had a total of 3,493,374 hits. That’s an increase in over one million hits for the two time periods where all the metrics are the same.

Now, because of the way the site loads, trying to compare the hits it receives under the old design versus the new design is very much a case of comparing apples to shoes. So, when I say that in December 2010 we had 457,007 total hits and in December of 2011 we had 387,164, it looks like the redesign didn’t lead to any increase in traffic.

This was something pointed out to me a long time ago, but since I had started keeping track of hits, I was kinda stuck with continuing to do that since the data available only goes back for 18 months. As it turns out, I should have been keeping track of ‘visitors’ all along. If we compare the number of actual visitors for December 2010 (17,643) to visitors for December 2011 (22,498) you can see that there was actually a substantial jump in traffic.

One thing which doesn’t need any explanation is which sites were our biggest referrers in 2011 (excluding search engines and this blog):

Interesting to see how things have shuffled around a bit from previous years. I am glad to see my new writing gig – Guns.com – make the list.

So, there you have it. By any measure, BBTI continues to be a very big success. Thanks to all of you who have cited us in discussions, or posted data from our site in analysis of different firearms, or just told your friends about us. It has been very much appreciated!

Here’s to a great new year to come for all!

Jim Downey

.22 article is now up.

James Downey — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:48:13 +0000

As most know, one of my sidelines is as a feature writer and reviewer over at Guns.com. I don’t cross-promote all my articles or reviews here, but if you’re interested you can find them under my profile there.

Anyway, there’s a new article up there about our .22 tests and the resultant data. Check it out:

To .22 or not to .22, that is the Question: BBTI’s Killer .22 ‘Defense Rounds’ Test Findings

Jim Downey

The Rimfire Podcast interview.

James Downey — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:40:46 +0000

Just thought I would pass along that I had a nice interview with Ken Kowalski, who does The Rimfire Podcast. If you’re interested, it can be downloaded or listened to streaming here: Episode #11 Ballistics By The Inch Interview with Jim Downey. If you’re on Facebook, pop by and “like” his page.

We had a good discussion, mostly about our .22 tests/data, but also talking about the whole project and firearms in general.

Jim Downey

A little chat.

James Downey — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:48:29 +0000

Here’s something for the .460 Rowland fans and those curious: Dear Santa: I want a .460 Rowland AR Upper

Had a bit of fun with that. Though admittedly, I have an offbeat sense of humor…

Jim Downey

Naming names.

James Downey — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:39:15 +0000

I mentioned the other day that we are offering brass from the recent Cylinder Gap tests as a ‘premium’ thank-you for donations received.

Well, that info, as well as recognizing those who have made a donation to BBTI, are now listed on a new page for donations on the site. Of course, only those who wish to have their name listed do – others who prefer to remain anonymous can (and have) done so.

So far I’ve sent out 1,000 cases of .357 brass. I still have something like 1,100 of that cartridge remaining. And about 500 cases each of .38 Short, .38 Long Colt, and over 2,000 cases of .38 Special. I’d love to find homes for all of it.

Jim Downey

Bullets of light. And the other sort.

James Downey — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:27:39 +0000

Wow: a milimeter-long pulse of laser light caught with a camera taking images at a trillion frames per second.

Description from the site:

Volumetric Propagation: The pulse of light is less than a milimeter long. Between each frame, the pulse travels less than half a milimeter. Light travels a foot in a nanosecond and the duration of travel through a one foot long bottle is barely one nanosecond (one billiongth of a second).

There’s complete description of how they do this, along with other videos and images of this effect, there at the MIT site. To see a bunch of great high speed video of actual bullets, check out the work done by Brass Fetcher.

Jim Downey

Via MeFi. Cross posted to my personal blog.

Got brass in pocket?*

James Downey — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:42:53 +0000

OK, as everyone knows, we’ve just put up a whole bunch of new data, most of which was generated during the early part of this past summer.

The bulk of that was generated during the Cylinder Gap tests, shooting .38 Shorts, .38 Longs, .38 Specials, and .357 Magnum rounds. And as a result we had two five-gallon buckets filled with spent brass.

Over the weekend I started doing some re-arranging of my reloading stuff, and it was time to tackle all that brass. I sorted it all. Then started cleaning it. So far I’ve run about 3000 .38 Special cases through the tumbler. And there’s a whole bunch (like 1600) .357 Magnum cases up next. Then the .38 Shorts and the Long Colt cases. This is more brass than I’d use in a couple of lifetimes (and I already have a couple thousand cases from previous tests and my general shooting).

So, here’s the deal: make a donation to BBTI, get some cleaned brass. Yup. For each $10.00, you get 100 cases of your choice (so long as supplies last, postage-paid in the US). This is all premium, brand-name brass, fired once. You can reload it. Or trade it. Or just keep it as proof of your support of our project. Frame it, for all I care.

So, help me out – take some of this brass off my hands.

Jim Downey

*with apologies to Chrissie Hynde.

Excellent initial analysis & discussion.

James Downey — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:56:52 +0000

Check out the post on The Firearm Blog titled: Fascinating Phenomenon in Cylinder Gap Data.

As I noted on our Facebook page, this is exactly the sort of discussion & analysis we hoped to engender by collecting all the data. As I have noted in the past, none of us on the BBTI team are statistics geeks, and all of us have busy lives to demand our attention elsewhere. I am perfectly happy to just do the grunt work, then turn the data loose in the world for others to play with.

Jim Downey

OK, thanks.

James Downey — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:42:04 +0000

I had a bit of a temper tantrum the other day. I won’t apologize, because it was how I really felt. But I will say that a couple of things have happened which have helped me get past my grumpiness.

And those couple of things have been donations. Both of them were decided votes of confidence that our work on BBTI is valued, all our time and effort appreciated.

This may seem silly, because OF COURSE our site is appreciated. Except . . . well, I pretty regularly get emails or come across comments on forums which are complaints. Yup: complaints. That we didn’t test a particular ammo. Or that we’ve slighted some brand or model of firearm by not including it in our tests. Or that we haven’t put our data into this or that form of file so that people can just download it. Or that our data isn’t perfect – that we’ve made mistakes. Or that we haven’t conducted rifle cartridge tests. Et cetera.

It gets old. It gets a little demoralizing, to be honest. The sense of entitlement which some people have is pretty amazing – we’ve busted our asses, worked hard and incurred all the costs of conducting the tests as well as creating and hosting the data on our website, and people bitch because the data isn’t up to *their* standards or expectations. It is very much like we owe it to them to do exactly what they want, and right now.

I don’t mind the criticism. I don’t mind people pointing out where there are areas where we could improve our procedures or range of items tested. We fully recognize that there are more things we could do, ways we can make the data better. And we welcome suggestions on what particular improvements people would like to see – that helps us to make decisions about what is important enough to sink another big chunk of time, money and energy investigating. This isn’t a full-time job for us, after all.

So when I get a note from someone saying “thanks, and oh, have you thought about this…” I welcome it. When someone sends us a donation – of any size – that is a tangible statement that they think our efforts are worthy of supporting. And if someone does send a donation, along with this kind of message, it really means something:

I have used your website for the past two years as a reference tool, and I find the data available amazing. Thank you for putting all of that information together. I was able to donate $x.xx today and I hope the rest of your viewing public gets it and drops you a few dollars as well.

I am sure there is a tremendous personal expense involved in the guns and ammunition used, and I get that you use your personal guns.

Glocks are obviously absent from your data set. I get that you cannot test everything, however with the enormous amount of Glocks in the public, it would seem prudent to at least have one in each caliber and I am positive with your connections they could be provided to you for testing.

You can also just tell me to buzz off…

Thanks again for the awesome data.

Now, *that* is how you make a suggestion which will be remembered.

So, thanks to those who have sent thanks, as well as the donations. It really does mean a lot.

Jim Downey

(Cross posted to my personal blog.)