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Cheney hunting accident conspiracy

Now there are 10 minutes of my life I wish I had back.

I am no ballistics expert, but I grew up hunting in WV and had shotguns all my life.

As he says the load goes "All around his target, up and over" I just wanted to laugh. Yes, pellet groups expand as they travel... but his description just tells me he was shooting high.

You would also need the shotgun, as it has been my personal experience that all shotguns tend to shoot differently. I had a shotgun once that could keep a dinner plate sized pattern at 25 yards and believe me it would have penetrated your skin had I hit you.

There are several more things that would be needed to make that a valid test... too many for me to list here.

In my humble opinion it's just silly publicity... some dude on the conspiracy bandwagon.
 
There's a response up on his site. Did you send this?

You do realize that Alex Jones is a conspiracy nut nut who thinks the Jews did 9/11 and not a ballistics expert, yes?
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*sigh* He shouldn't have entered in to a field of knowledge of which I am quite familiar:
Jones' claim after the first round: 100 bb's in the load, 50 hit the target
fact: there are ~345 7 1/2 size pellets in 1 oz of shot. This means that there are ~258 pellets in 3/4 of an oz of 7 1/2 shot. http://www.shotgunworld.com/amm.html

Looking here http://www.angelfire.com/tx/ShotGun/ , under the Pattern section you can see that for cylindar (no choke, which was Jones' first shot) you can expect to retain 25-35% of the shot within the kill circle at 40 yards. This equates to 64-90 pellets hitting the target. 40 yards is further out than Cheney was, iirc. I believe Cheney was at ~30 yrds.

2nd round: if this is truly using the "modified" level of choke, we can expect 45-55% of shot to be within the 30" circle at 40 yards. This comes out to 116-141 pellets.

I'm not even going to comment on the "soft rubber" kickboxing dummy, beyond saying that the claim that its material is "very similar to human skin" is crap.

Per http://www.winchester.com/products/catalog/shotdetail.aspx?symbol=X28H7&bn=1&use=6, we also see that (and this is just a standard load, I do not know if Cheney was using hand-loads or not) a 2 3/4" 28ga 3/4 oz shot shell will have ~1205 fps at the muzzle.

Jones' pattern complaint. He's wrong. Consider
Good to 35 Yards. It surprises many shooters that the 28-gauge delivers a consistent pattern out to 35 yards. On a percentage basis, the 28-gauge will put as much of its pattern into a 30-inch circle at 35 yards as a 12- or 20-gauge will. This makes the 28-gauge ideal for small-game hunting within that distance.
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http://www.progressivefarmer.com/farmer/outdoor/article/0,24672,1112682,00.html

http://www.angelfire.com/tx/ShotGun/ Pattern section as mentioned above

http://www.shotgunworld.com/amm.html

Typical Shot Spread Per Choke
Choke....Yards
.........10.....15......20......25......30......35......40......45......50
Full.....10"....15".....20".....25".....30".....35".....40".....45".....50"
Mod......15"....20".....25".....30".....35".....40".....45".....50"
I/C......20"....25".....30".....35".....40".....45".....50"
Cylinder.25"....30".....35".....40".....45".....50"

Dummy, chicken & watermelon: Jones never clarifies which choked barrel he is using. He could well be using the cylindar choke, which has a much larger spread than the modified choke.

Additionally, it is clearly windy. 7 1/2 size shot is only .095" in diameter, and is quite vulnerable to wind drift. This will affect the patterns observed upon the target.
 
One of my old college roomates is now one of Cheney's Secret Service agents and was with him that day. I can assure you it was due to an accident, but of course my personal connection to the case probably automatically makes me suspect in the CT'er mind.
 
why would you need a conspiracy to shoot someone in the face with a shotgun? isnt that something you just go and do?
 
defaultdotxbe said:
why would you need a conspiracy to shoot someone in the face with a shotgun? isnt that something you just go and do?
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No, the evil gubmint conspirat0rs are alien drones, telepathically controlled by the Queen deep inside the hive onboard the mothership orbiting the earth.

Hence for one drone to act, in actuality the entire hive has conspired to act. Ergo, conspiracy. When Bush goes to the bathroom... it's a conspiracy.

-Andrew
 
kevin said:
and then to screw it up and let the guy live. What kind of retard plans these things?
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probably the beaurocracy, he had to get approval from all his co-conspirators to finish the job with a second shot, and by the time he got the OK the guy was already in the ambulance on the hospital
 
I seriously fail to understand how the shooting can be made a conspiracy. Is Jones saying that Cheney "tried" to shoot his hunting buddy?
 
Well, I'll give it a shot. (Thanks, I'll be here all week.)

The shooting itself is not a conspiracy. However, the rationale behind an intentional shooting made to appear as an accident might be. And the delay, including the unusual particulars on how the story was reported, could add to the idea. In a CTer's mind, that is.
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Well, I'll give it a shot. (Thanks, I'll be here all week.)

The shooting itself is not a conspiracy. However, the rationale behind an intentional shooting made to appear as an accident might be. And the delay, including the unusual particulars on how the story was reported, could add to the idea. In a CTer's mind, that is.
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Thanks.

At least I can try to understand where the CTer's are coming from.

Happy Birthday, btw. :)
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Well, I'll give it a shot. (Thanks, I'll be here all week.)

The shooting itself is not a conspiracy. However, the rationale behind an intentional shooting made to appear as an accident might be. And the delay, including the unusual particulars on how the story was reported, could add to the idea. In a CTer's mind, that is.
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I've never considered myself a CTer, but I suspect the people around Cheney conspired after the accidental shooting to hide Cheney's blood alcohol level from the local police.
 
Ladewig said:
I've never considered myself a CTer, but I suspect the people around Cheney conspired after the accidental shooting to hide Cheney's blood alcohol level from the local police.
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These are the kind of conspiracies I think are more realistic. Covering up things to make yourself look better, involving one or two people. Once the conspiracy spreads more than about 5 people it's going to collapse.
 
Ladewig said:
I've never considered myself a CTer, but I suspect the people around Cheney conspired after the accidental shooting to hide Cheney's blood alcohol level from the local police.
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That's been my take on it too - and to delay in order to figure out how best to spin it. What honks me off is that if any of us shot someone, albeit accidentally, we wouldn't have the luxury of waiting a few days before going to the police and not be charged with something.
 
Ladewig said:
I've never considered myself a CTer, but I suspect the people around Cheney conspired after the accidental shooting to hide Cheney's blood alcohol level from the local police.
Click to expand...

IIRC there were conflicting reports about whether there had been drinking or not. I think at one point someone said there was no drinking, and later someone said Cheney had had a drink.
 
So what we've got here appears to be Dick Cheney conspiring to make himself look like an utter dickweed.

And it worked like a charm.
 
I'm not a hunter, and have never fired a shotgun, but what I kept wondering about while I watched that video was, if the penetration really is so weak, how does anyone ever actually kill a bird with these things? Anyone more experienced in shooting want to address this issue? At what range do you usually shoot small animals, and whatnot?
 
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