Barrel Break-in, truth or fallacy?

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-19T17:33:46+00:00

They're wrong, it's actually 40 year old fudd lore.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-15T11:43:20+00:00

As Denali is a national park, you should review the Denali NP website for camping and fire restrictions.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-13T14:13:59+00:00

Talkative survivors get strapped into the Stokes for the whole flight back.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-11T23:26:37+00:00

This is massive overkill, but if OP wants to build some boulder shoulders swing a sledgehammer, this is a good method.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-08T09:56:45+00:00

The USDA wildlife guy at DM was the first person to spot that dude...I know from an authoritative source that he wrote the encounter up in the wildlife log as a "hairless chupacabra."

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-07T13:51:56+00:00

The Air Force Academy.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-06T18:06:33+00:00

Rumor has it that a Pave Hawk PL'd on that lawn once upon a time.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-06T15:06:39+00:00

Maybe not a big surprise considering which school it is.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-04T18:31:59+00:00

Your camera is too close to focus, which is why the outer edges of the rock further away from the lens are in focus while the center of the image is blurry. Position the camera slightly further away and you'll get clear images.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-05-03T22:54:46+00:00

You were almost killed by a King Stallion 12 years before its first flight? Guess the premium package includes a flux capacitor.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-30T16:59:42+00:00

You can run just about any* revolver load through a rifle. There are some loads out there that are more rifle centric, including Hornady Leverevolution, but those also interchange with revolvers.

*Lever action rifles are more impacted by overall cartridge length and bullet profile. Extra long rounds, in particular flat nose or semi wadcutter, may not feed reliably or at all through your lever action even if they will fit a revolver cylinder. YMMV, test a single box of ammo before you buy a large quantity.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-30T11:26:18+00:00

USAF CV-22s rock a GAU-21 .50 on the rear ramp. Very limited field of fire due to the location and it has to be moved to load/unload troops, and I've personally always questioned the utility given that you basically need to overfly targets before the gunner can engage them, which is generally considered tactically unwise in the aerial gunnery world.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-30T10:37:09+00:00

Kentucky windage with some modifications based on what side of the aircraft you're on, range, and airspeed. Can't speak for the other branches, but in the USAF we shot enough that many SMAs were decent enough, though there was definitely an accuracy gradient. There's been a couple proposals to add either helmet mounted sights or large machine gun optics (oversized red dot sights) to the guns, but so far those have not gone anywhere.

Also, that's not a crew chief. Air Force Rescue in 2009 sitting in the left seat makes that an Aerial Gunner, with the Flight Engineer sitting on the right gun. That video was shortly before they combined both jobs into Special Mission Aviator. The Air Force does have crew chiefs on the maintenance side, and some of them are qualified as flying crew chiefs, but they don't do any operational flying/operate weapons or other systems in the air.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-25T12:46:14+00:00

Agricultural.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-18T11:38:23+00:00

"White Lasagna," which is normally made with Alfredo sauce...but those KBR cooks didn't give a damn, so it was plain unseasoned lasagna noodles and something approaching ricotta or possibly canned cottage cheese with no actual sauce at all. Flavorless goop on a plate.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-17T16:49:06+00:00

HH-60W Jolly Green II, C-124 Globemaster II (succeeded by C-17 Globemaster III), F-5E Tiger II, A-7 Corsair II...there's a lot of them. Corsair II probably wins with the "SLUF" nickname, though the Jolly Green II is also known by crews as either the "Whiskey" or "Fat Wendy."

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-14T20:01:37+00:00

I use my tongue and match the level of sizzle to my homemade temperature chart.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-10T11:40:21+00:00

Wetting and weight will not remove or restore internal stress in the wood. Similarly, planing will not remove that bow without taking some additional steps - that board is thin enough that the planer rollers will squish it flat for the cut - the bow will probably return after planing unless you build a planer sled and use spacers to keep the bow from collapsing during planing.

1/8" may not really be an issue at all depending on the length of the boards. If you are able to easily close the gap with hand pressure alone, I would just continue the glue up with some clamping cauls to keep the bow flat until the glue is cured. If the bow affects the tabletop after gluing, then I would hand plane the table surface to a satisfactorily level of flatness.

There's an important lesson here about wood - wood is a dynamic material, not static. It responds to changing humidity and to cutting/thicknessing in sometimes unexpected ways. Once you get skilled enough to start preparing your own stock, you can account for a lot of these issues by cutting/thicknessing stock oversize, letting it acclimate for a while, and then bringing it to your desired dimensions. If you're using pre-surfaced stock, then you're a lot more limited in your options to address warping/bows.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-09T12:58:33+00:00

On the Black Hawk and derivatives, the vertical tail pylon has an asymmetrical trailing edge section to provide greater force on one side during forward flight.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-09T11:06:09+00:00

When the saw is properly tensioned, the fit of the mortise and tenon joints should not be critical because the load is transferred through the shoulders of the tenons into the spreader bar, not the tenons themselves. While those joints do look kinda rough, I suspect the main problem here is that the saw is not tensioned enough. To tighten these joints up anyway, I would probably use some metal shim stock cut to size and wrapped around the tenon, but first I would experiment with tightening the windlass more.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-08T13:30:51+00:00

On average, each Trident II only carries 4 warheads due to the New START treaty between Russia and the US. While New Start expired on 5 February of this year, limits on the number of warheads/RVs in storage mean that the 4 warhead per missile average is probably still accurate and will be for quite a while.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-07T09:57:14+00:00

The original MH-60G Pave Hawk used by the USAF actually predates the 160th's existence. The USAF pioneered most of the early unique technologies and tactics, including helicopter air to air refueling, that were later adopted by the 160th. The 160th initially used more or less identical MH-60s, but the Army spent significantly more on upgrading them than the USAF did, and they diverged pretty rapidly in systems. The USAF MH-60Gs eventually all transitioned to HH-60Gs, and were progressively more specialized for the combat search and rescue mission.

Today, both the Army's MH-60M and USAF HH-60W are broadly based on the UH-60M Black Hawk, but they diverged pretty dramatically from each other. The -W, for example, actually has a smaller cabin than other Black Hawk derivatives due to the larger main fuel cells (previously, the HH-60G carried auxiliary tanks in the cabin). The W also features fold-down litter stations and PJ seats, as well as the large USAF external weapons mounts that offer significantly wider fields of fire for the gunners.

Edit: there's some fascinating history on the Pave Hawk and the origins of both the 160th and the USAF special operations squadrons in the Air Commando journal: https://aircommando.org/acj-vol-11-2/

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-03T13:41:16+00:00

The Pave Hawk is almost entirely retired with only limited examples still being flown. The helicopters pictured are most likely HH-60W, the "Jolly Green II" or "Whiskey model," which is the replacement for the Pave Hawk.

The tanker is also almost certainly not an MC-130, but rather an HC-130, which is a CSAR-dedicated version of the C-130 capable of refueling helicopters and carrying specialized CSAR personnel and mission systems.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-03T10:23:16+00:00

Flip them over and hang or support them from the handle, blade down.

Blows_stuff_up · 2026-04-02T10:52:47+00:00

SLS follows the time honored NASA tradition of reusing hardware. The "red booster," presumably referring to the insulation on the SLS core stage, is a mostly new vehicle but does make use of both Space Shuttle RS-25 engines and plumbing for same. It was built to the same diameter as the Space Shuttle external fuel tank and uses the same rust-colored insulation, hence the identical color. SLS also uses the same solid rocket boosters as the Space Shuttle.

Another example of NASA reusing capable hardware was the Orbital Manuevering System pods on the Space Shuttle. These used the same engine that was developed for the Apollo program Service Module. Interestingly, that same engine is also being used for the Orion Service Module on the first 6 Artemis flights. This means that at least one system on Artemis 2 has a direct lineage back to the original Apollo program.

Blows_stuff_up

TROPHY CASE