Here’s the super-speedy way to turn case-necks. Our friend Erik Cortina figured out how to turn his match cartridge case-necks using his milling machine. Erik told us: “While in Raton [a while back], Mid Tompkins told me that he turns his brass on milling machine. He said he could do about 500 in two hours, so I decided to try it.”
Erik fitted a Don Nielson “Pumpkin” neck-turner to the mill, and he used a modified 21st Century case holder to secure the brass. As you can see from this video, Erik was very successful with the process. The tool spins at 1500 rpm, turning Lapua 6.5-284 cases that have been necked up to 7mm.
Video Shows Eric Cortina Neck-Turning Cases with Milling Machine:
Cartridge Brass: Lapua 6.5-284 necked up to 7mm
Lubricant: Lithium grease inside and outside of neck
Neck-Turner: Nielson Pumpkin running at 1500 RPM
It’s hard to argue with Erik’s results. Here are his turned Lapua cases, which have neck-wall thickness consistent to two ten-thousandths of an inch. Think you could do better turning manually?
Some of Erik’s Facebook friends had questions about this process:
Q: Who makes the shell-holder?
Erik Cortina: I did! The shell-holder you can get from 21st Century. I Tig-welded a punch as a handle.
Q: I love the idea of working smarter not harder! Any galling issues? What are your mitigation techniques?
Erik Cortina: No issues. I use lithium grease in spray can. Makes a foam that I dip necks into.
Q: Shouldn’t either the case or the cutter be floating to allow most precise neck turning?
Erik Cortina: Up until [I tried this] I believed the same thing. I was going to build a floating case holder but decided to try rigid setup on a few cases before I built it. Results were great. Neck thickness doesn’t vary more than .0002″, which is same as when I was doing it with floating case holder on the lathe.
Q: Any problems with the Pumpkin changing the cut as it heats up?
Erik Cortina: No — there were no issues with that.
NOTE: Erik Cortina is a very skilled machinist who custom-crafted fittings used for this process. This kind of neck-turning with a milling machine may not be for the everyday hand-loader!
Nielson “Pumpkin” Neck-Turner
The circular orange cutting fixture on Erik’s Milling Machine is a Don Nielson “Pumpkin” neck-turning tool. Don designed this tool to be used by hand or with power. The Pumpkin boasts an eccentric mandrel that allows the cut to be adjusted easily in precise .0001″ increments. Benchresters like this as it allows for very precise control of cut depth and neck-wall thickness.
Nielson Neck Turner with carbide mandrel. Photo Courtesy Butch’s Reloading.
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Today is October 31st, Halloween (originally “All Hallows Eve”). That means it’s pumpkin time. Just how much fun can you have with pumpkins? Watch these two videos and find out. In the first video, the RatedRR team sends a few orange gourds to pumpkin heaven using Det Cord, C4, and binary explosives. The sequence starting at the 2:00 minute mark in the first video is truly amazing. WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
Watch Pumpkin Blasting with Explosives
In the next video, a pumpkin carved as a Death Star serves as the target for a .50 caliber rifle (looks like a Barrett M82 .50 BMG). As you may guess, the pumpkin Death Star suffers the same fate as the Hollywood version in Star Wars. NOTE: At the 0:42 mark in the video, a graphic displays “30,000 FPS”. That’s the high-speed camera’s frame-per-second rate, NOT the projectile velocity in feet-per-second.
Watch .50 BMG Rifle vs. Death Star Pumpkin
Warning: These demonstrations were carried out on closed ranges by experienced professionals certified to use explosives. Possession of C4 and Det Cord may be a violation of various Federal, State, and local laws. Detonating cord and C4 are classified as high explosives and are regulated by the BATFE. Don’t even think about trying to repeat these stunts on your own.
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Here’s the super-speedy way to turn case-necks. Our friend Erik Cortina figured out how to turn his match cartridge case-necks using his milling machine. Erik told us: “While in Raton, Mid Tompkins told me that he turns his brass on milling machine. He said he could do about 500 in two hours, so I decided to try it.”
Erik fitted a Don Nielson “Pumpkin” neck-turner to the mill, and he used a modified 21st Century case holder to secure the brass. As you can see from this video, Erik was very successful with the process. The tool spins at 1500 rpm, turning Lapua 6.5-284 cases that have been necked up to 7mm.
Video Shows Erik Cortina Neck-Turning Cases with Milling Machine:
Cartridge Brass: Lapua 6.5-284 necked up to 7mm
Lubricant: Lithium grease inside and outside of neck
Neck-Turner: Nielson Pumpkin running at 1500 RPM
It’s hard to argue with Erik’s results. Here are his turned Lapua cases, which have neck-wall thickness consistent to two ten-thousandths of an inch. Think you could do better turning manually?
Some of Erik’s Facebook friends had questions about this process:
Q: Who makes the shell-holder?
Erik Cortina: I did! The shell-holder you can get from 21st Century. I Tig-welded a punch as a handle.
Q: I love the idea of working smarter not harder! Any galling issues? What are your mitigation techniques?
Erik Cortina: No issues. I use lithium grease in spray can. Makes a foam that I dip necks into.
Q: Shouldn’t either the case or the cutter be floating to allow most precise neck turning?
Erik Cortina: Up until [I tried this] I believed the same thing. I was going to build a floating case holder but decided to try rigid setup on a few cases before I built it. Results were great. Neck thickness doesn’t vary more than .0002″, which is same as when I was doing it with floating case holder on the lathe.
Q: Any problems with the Pumpkin changing the cut as it heats up?
Erik Cortina: No — there were no issues with that.
NOTE: Erik Cortina is a very skilled machinist who custom-crafted fittings used for this process. This kind of neck-turning with a milling machine may not be for the everyday hand-loader!
Nielson “Pumpkin” Neck-Turner
The circular orange cutting fixture on Erik’s Milling Machine is a Don Nielson “Pumpkin” neck-turning tool. Don designed this tool to be used by hand or with power. The Pumpkin boasts an eccentric mandrel that allows the cut to be adjusted easily in precise .0001″ increments. Benchresters like this as it allows for very precise control of cut depth and neck-wall thickness.
Jason C., commenting on Erik’s YouTube video stated: “I have a couple of those too. Nothing cuts like a Pumpkin. [Don Nielson] made the best cutter tool ever.” These are still available if you ask around. The photo shows Don with a case-holder mounted to a power assembly. A talented machinist and tool-maker, Don has also been a successful short- and long-range benchrest shooter, who has won NBRSA 600-Yard Championships. CLICK HERE to read about Don’s success with the 6.5×47 Lapua.
Nielson Neck Turner with carbide mandrel. Photo Courtesy Butch’s Reloading.
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Today is October 31st, Halloween (originally “All Hallows Eve”). That means it’s pumpkin time. Just how much fun can you have with pumpkins? Watch these two videos and find out. In the first video, the RatedRR team sends a few orange gourds to pumpkin heaven using Det Cord, C4, and binary explosives. The sequence starting at the 2:00 minute mark in the first video is truly amazing. WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
Watch Pumpkin Blasting with Explosives
In the next video, a pumpkin carved as a Death Star serves as the target for a .50 caliber rifle (looks like a Barrett M82 .50 BMG). As you may guess, the pumpkin Death Star suffers the same fate as the Hollywood version in Star Wars. NOTE: At the 0:42 mark in the video, a graphic displays “30,000 FPS”. That’s the high-speed camera’s frame-per-second rate, NOT the projectile velocity in feet-per-second.
Watch .50 BMG Rifle vs. Death Star Pumpkin
Warning: These demonstrations were carried out on closed ranges by experienced professionals certified to use explosives. Possession of C4 and Det Cord may be a violation of various Federal, State, and local laws. Detonating cord and C4 are classified as high explosives and are regulated by the BATFE. Don’t even think about trying to repeat these stunts on your own.
Share the post "High-Explosive Halloween — Amazing Pumpkin Blasts on Video"
Tomorrow is October 31st, Halloween (originally called “All Hallows’ Evening”). That means kids in costumes will be ringing doorbells as soon as it gets dark. No doubt some of you proscrastinators will wait ’til the last minute to set out your Halloween decorations and Jack-O-Lanterns. Don’t worry, in the video below, our friend, 3-Gun ace Taran Butler, shows how to carve a pumpkin in just about 5.5 seconds, give or take a tenth. Taran performed this feat of speed-carving with his trusty Infinity handgun, chambered in 9mm Major.
What Are the Origins of Halloween?
Halloween or Hallowe’en (a contraction of “All Hallows’ Evening”), also known as All Hallows’ Eve, is a yearly celebration observed on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows (or All Saints). According to many scholars, it was originally influenced by western European harvest festivals and festivals of the dead with possible pagan roots, particularly the Celtic Samhain. Others maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has Christian roots.
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Halloween is just ten days away. Talented trick-shot artist Kirsten Joy Weiss, did something special in prep for the gouls/goblins holiday, “carving” a pumpkin using her semi-auto Volquartsen .22 LR rifle. Kirsten had to send a lot of rimfire rounds into her orange friend. It turns out the little .22-caliber bullets worked better on exit than entry — Mr. Pumpkin’s posterior side was more impressive than his front. But overall, the effort turned out very well indeed, as you can see. Nice job, Kirsten.
On inspection, Kirsten found that the most impressive Jack ‘O Lantern face appeared on the reverse side of her pumpkin. The “exit wounds” were better than the entry holes.
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Can a pumpkin be launched over a mile? Can a gourd go super-sonic? These vital questions will be answered on Thanksgiving Day as the Science Channel covers the annual Punkin Chunkin World Championship held in Sussex County, Delaware. The previous record, set in 2011 by the Second Amendment Too Air Cannon, is 4,329.37 feet, or 0.8199 miles (1443 yards). The heavy artillery will be out in force this year — trying to break that record, and maybe hit the mile mark in the process.
Each year, competitors roll out some amazing machines designed to propel pumpkins “farther, higher, faster”. The mighty air cannons are the distance kings, but the wild and crazy devices in the torsion, trebuchet, catapult, and centrifugal divisions are impressive to watch. Many of these fearsome-looking machines replicate the designs of medieval military siege weapons.
Team Builds $168,000 Air Cannon in Effort to Go Supersonic and Chunk One Mile
With the goal of launching a pumpkin one mile, considered the “Holy Grail” of Punkin Chunkin, the American Chunker team has developed one of the biggest, baddest air cannons ever. With a new 540-horsepower compressor pumping out 500 psi of pressure, the creators of this massive cannon hope to send a pumpkin supersonic. This cannon represents an investment of $168,000 and 2800 man-hours. State-of-the art sensors are used to gauge pressure and measure the pumpkin’s speed in flight. Will the team break the sound barrier? Watch the Science Channel special to find out.
Great Video on High-Tech Air Cannon (Amazing Stuff!)
To catch all the Punkin Chunkin action, tune your TVs to the Science Channel on Thanksgiving Day, November 28th. At 8:00 PM Eastern, the Science Channel devotes a full hour to America’s wildest display of agricultural artillery — Punkin Chunkin. This hour-long special TV event covers the 2013 World Punkin Chunkin Championship. This fun-filled event, held near Bridgeville, Delaware each November, draws up to 70,000 spectators, raising money for charity. The Punkin Chunkin special is hosted by Tory Bellici, Kari Byron, and Grant Imhara from Mythbusters. Like Big Guns? View Chunkin Air Cannons Gallery.
Fly Like a Pumpkin — Pumpkin POV In-Flight Video
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Today is Halloween. That means it’s pumpkin time. Just how much fun can you have with pumpkins? Watch these two videos and find out. In the first video, the RatedRR team sends a few orange gourds to pumpkin heaven using Det Cord, C4, and binary explosives. The sequence starting at the 2:00 minute mark in the first video is truly amazing. WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
Watch Pumpkin Blasting with Explosives
In the next video, a pumpkin carved as a Death Star serves as the target for a .50 caliber rifle (looks like a Barrett M82 .50 BMG). As you may guess, the pumpkin Death Star suffers the same fate as the Hollywood version in Star Wars. NOTE: At the 0:42 mark in the video, a graphic displays “30,000 FPS”. That’s the high-speed camera’s frame-per-second rate, NOT the projectile velocity in feet-per-second.
Watch .50 BMG Rifle vs. Death Star Pumpkin
Warning: These demonstrations were carried out on closed ranges by experienced professionals certified to use explosives. Possession of C4 and Det Cord may be a violation of various Federal, State, and local laws. Detonating cord and C4 are classified as high explosives and are regulated by the BATFE. Don’t even think about trying to repeat these stunts on your own.
Share the post "Halloween High Jinks — Pumpkin Destruction Videos"
The folks at Desert Tactical Arms (DTA) in Utah recently held a Halloween “fun shoot”. How does an arms manufacturer celebrate Halloween? The same way they celebrate every other holiday–shooting stuff! The DTA crew figured the perfect Halloween event would include Precision Rifles, Superheroes, and Exploding Pumpkins.
Accordingly, DTA hosted its first ever Pumpkin Shoot at the Sniper Country range in Northern Utah. Shooters (all dressed as Superheroes) had three (3) rounds to engage targets at different distances, racking up points based on target distance (the farther the target, the higher the points). Participants included Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Captain America (after a few too many doughnuts), and Nacho Libre (still in superhero training). The DTA crew reports this Halloween Superhero shoot “was a great way to enjoy some fall air and pay homage to the all-benevolent pumpkin.” Take a look:
To add spice to the Halloween shoot, the DTA guys set up a few Tannerite reactive targets on the range. When hit, these produced impressive explosions — as the next video reveals:
If you enjoyed these Desert Tactical Arms Videos, check out the Halloween Pumpkin Shoot Out-takes featuring the full cast of Superhero characters (plus one very ‘dazed and confused’ coyote hunter who wandered on to the scene during filming).
Video find by EdLongrange. We welcome reader submissions.
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Tonight at 8:00 pm Eastern Time, the Science Channel features the amazing artillery of the World Punkin Chunkin Championship. This fun-filled event, held each year in November, draws up to 70,000 spectators, raising money for charity.
Since 1986, Sussex County, Delaware has been home to the annual Punkin Chunkin World Championships — a 3-day festival where hardcore engineers and backyard tinkerers trailer their gigantic, homebuilt contraptions with one common goal: to launch 8- to 10-pound pumpkins as far as mechanically possible. The competition is divided into seven categories defined by the type of machine — motorized, centrifugal spinners, and the mighty air cannons.
Tonight, the Science Channel airs an hour-long special on the Chunkin Championship — part science experiment, part genuine Americana. Hosted by comedian Brad Sherwood, this special documents the ingenuity of the biggest, loudest, greatest pumpkin hurling competition in the world. Sherwood follows select teams as they journey from machine design to testing their equipment to the competition’s climactic finale, where every team hopes to reach the one-mile mark. Inspired by the original Delaware event, lesser chunkin competitions have been started in other US states, and in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Great Britain.
If you can’t wait for tonight’s broadcast, visit the Science Channel website for Punkin Chunkin videos, Chunkin engineering analyses, Chunkin quizzes, and even online Chunkin’ jig-saw puzzles. There’s enough stuff online to keep you entertained for hours.
Punkin Chunkin FAST FACTS: - The world record for Adult Air Cannons is Young Glory III at 4,483 feet.
– The world record for Adult Torsion is Chucky II at 3,091 feet.
– The world record for Adult Catapult is Fibonacci at 2,862 feet.
– The world record for Adult Trebuchet is Yankee Siege at 1,894 feet.
– The world record for Adult Centrifugal is 2,770 feet.
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The circular orange cutting fixture on Erik’s Milling Machine is a Don Nielson “Pumpkin” neck-turning tool. Don designed this tool to be used by hand or with power. The Pumpkin boasts an eccentric mandrel that allows the cut to be adjusted easily in precise .0001″ increments. Benchresters like this as it allows for very precise control of cut depth and neck-wall thickness. 
Tomorrow is October 31st, Halloween (originally called “All Hallows’ Evening”). That means kids in costumes will be ringing doorbells as soon as it gets dark. No doubt some of you proscrastinators will wait ’til the last minute to set out your Halloween decorations and Jack-O-Lanterns. Don’t worry, in the video below, our friend, 3-Gun ace 
Can a pumpkin be launched over a mile? Can a gourd go super-sonic? These vital questions will be answered on Thanksgiving Day as the 
To catch all the Punkin Chunkin action, tune your TVs to the Science Channel on Thanksgiving Day, November 28th. At 8:00 PM Eastern, the Science Channel devotes a full hour to America’s wildest display of agricultural artillery — Punkin Chunkin. This hour-long special TV event covers the 2013 World Punkin Chunkin Championship. This fun-filled event, held near Bridgeville, Delaware each November, draws up to 70,000 spectators, raising money for charity. The Punkin Chunkin special is hosted by Tory Bellici, Kari Byron, and Grant Imhara from Mythbusters. Like Big Guns? View 
The folks at 
