Dave, I love the videos. I hope you make them a regular item in this blog.

Great advice, too. Thanks for passing it along.

Not only does Dave shoot off hand through his chronograph, he has discovered the fact that warm air rises and the open hole in the end of your barrel is a quick escape mechanism... a lot of things that some people assume are common sense are beyond the grasp of others. It's nice to have someone so intelligent and yet so down to earth to guide and teach us the error of our sorrowful ways without a condescending attitude and with a remarkable sense of dry humor. Petzal for dictator... after the revolution of course.

Carney, Thanks.

To Beekeeper: I also have a PhD in quantum physics and am working on a cure for abulia, for which I expect a Nobel Prize. So in answer to your question, no.

To Lucky Texan: Thanks for the kind words. And if you really want to see them cool fast and have an electrical outlet near your gun rack, turn a fan on them.

Good tip Dave. Let's hope this works. I will try it out at the range and see what's what.

I like to see how David’s rifle stands up on a Rattle Battle!
Start out at the 600 yard line with a 4 Man team, 3 shooters and one spotter shooting 5 silhouettes and work your way in dumping as many rounds as you can. The higher the yardage hit, the higher the score with total rounds fired 80. I haven’t seen anyone’s hand guards or stocks burst into flames yet.

Marines shooting poodle shooter M16’s

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=nra+rattle+battle&docid=758913826827...

AK47 bursting into flames, lets se you grab this barrel!

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=ak47++flames&docid=704734232836&mid=...

I think Dave's videos provide a certain degree of reality to this blog. The rest of us are merely vitual providers of words, thoughts, and opinions. In addition to the educational value of the short subjects, we realize that there is a real person out there somewhere. Of course those of you who have contributed photos somewhat substancial your existance, a shortcoming that I should overcome myself one of these days. Petzal certainly is more informative and entertaining than Leno or now O'Brien. Maybe he missed his calling.

Scott in Ohio

O’I wish I could, our medical billing business is starting to really takeoff and I got to stick around. Haven’t competed since Oct 95 and really out of shape for the moment. By the way, I finally found what prevented me from making Master and your not going to believe it! The last two matches in 95 I placed the front sight at 6 o’clock as normal then dropped it until I got a flash of white and timed my trigger break at that micro second and drilled the X-Ring every time! NO JOKE!!! 20-20 is hind sight, RRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Pistol Matches?

Shoe box shooters I call them, LOL!

Great tip... actually nice to know because I actually leave my gun sideways to cool... heat travles up so having a place for it to go would certainly help. Tips like this make me realize some of the stupider mistakes I make while in the field.

Video first: Dave, I think you have found your niche. I would guess video is even easier than writing?!?!

Snake: Dr. Ralph, call a local university with a decent biology department. A herpetologist can tell you what you want to know. Jim in Mo: The illegal snake skull is related to wildlife possession laws -- the same laws that make it necessary to buy tags for hunting. In order to prevent poaching it is against the law to possess various wildlife. The laws vary from state to state, but there are some federal prohibitions. Eg, it is against the law to possess certain eagle feathers even if you just pick them up off the ground (unless one has a certain native american tribal affiliation). In Washington State it is against the law to possess a deer skull without a tag, even though it is OK to pick up sheds. So, that's the gist of what's going on with the snake skull being illegal in Tn.

Yeah I'm going to have to make the drive and post some pictures... He's got like thirty skulls so he's pretty familiar with what he has. Don't even think about picking up an eagle feather like you would a turkey feather... I'm pretty sure it's a felony everywhere.

A very nice, informative piece, and much appreciated, Mr. Petzal. I have cooled my barrels that way for about 45 years, and it really works, but have seen many men leave them lying on the rests to cool.
Maybe when you receive the Nobel award they will honor him by taking your picture, posed with that other worthy, Algore. Wouldn't that be a hoot.
Instead of global warming, your caption could read barrel cooling.

crm, a;gore is a complete idjit (Redneck for idiot! :)

chit! Encourage*! (small keyboard FAT fingers!

Completely off the subject but this is something that has been bothering me for a while and I need some input from the esteemed panel of experts that peruse this site... I have a friend that lives WWWAAAAAYYYY out in the hills of TN and is retired and walks every day for exercise. He comes upon dead animals and skulls quite frequently and has quite a collection of dead animal parts. He has three skulls from snakes one is a rattlesnake undoubtedly because it had not decomposed before he found it. The other two are identical. The largest is 6 1/4" long. That's right, a 6 1/4" long skull that he swears has to be a rattlesnake. I did a little research and figured out this snake had to be 13-16 feet long... they don't get that big. I told him to call the TWRA because it was a world record. He did and it is... unfortunately it is $1,000 fine and a year in jail for possessing snake skulls so the man at the TWRA said "you never called" and hung up.

My question is are all snake skulls pretty much alike? Could this be some one's pet Boa Constrictor that got loose? Can anyone tell me how long this snake really was?

Dr. Ralph,
Your friend's snake skull should have either fangs (rattlesnake) or just backward facing teeth in the front of the skull. The latter would be some non-poisonous snake, although it would be hard to figure out with just the skull.

Mr. Petzal,
Thank you for the video tips. They have been a great help to me and I hope you keep making them.

Nate

DEP,

Good job but next time could you have miss Cuthbert do the video in her best beach attire. Now that would get my Oscar vote!!

Del,
Don't do it Dave, I couldn't take it!

Clay,

He won't be shooting (this year). We're just going to observe and enjoy the event.

Oh it's a snake. I mean you can look at it and tell but I just don't understand how it could be so big. I told him no way it was any kind of rattlesnake and he wanted to argue because it looks so much like the other one that he knows came from a rattler. Had to be one of those Pythons that grow to 20 ft. someone let escape. I can't find anything illegal about collecting skulls in the hunting manual either.

If Elisha is shooting make sure we can get the recoil and jiggle effect in slow motion. Or Dave could just take his shirt off and we could watch his belly jiggle after the shot. Glad to see he does use sandbags after all, I was in the beginning stages of some serious shooter envy. I don't have a problem with him jetting all over the world to hunt exotic species I'll never see, but if he's shooting MOA off hand I'm going to be really pissed...

sheesh algore !!

Thanks for the great tip. Keep it up.