(TFT) notes somemore

["Jay Carlisle" <Jay_Carlisle@charter.net>]

Oddness from a day's research.
In competitive holstered pistol fast-draw events a 22" circular target is 
missed roughly half the time from 21 feet away.
This is roughly 2 Scale-hex squares in diameter for the target from about 5 
hexes away.
I heard that on History Channel's "More Extreme Marksmen" programe.
Then when following Guy Fawkes and James II outta York I came upon the 
following.

"(England) - The widow of a vintage shotgun expert had her husband's ashes 
loaded into cartridges and used by friends for the last shoot of the hunting 
season. Joanna Booth organized the shoot for 20 friends after asking a 
cartridge company to mix the ashes of her late husband James with 
traditional shot. A total of 275 12-bore cartridges were produced and 
blessed by a minister before being used for hunting at an estate in England. 
Booth said it was a marvelous day out and her husband would have loved it. 
"It was not his dying wish, but I remembered he had read somewhere that 
someone had had their ashes loaded into cartridges and he thought it was 
very funny." The cartridges accounted for 70 partridges, 23 pheasants, seven 
ducks and a fox."

So Wikipedia says between 4 to 6 pounds of ground ashes from a cremation.

I have a rough mix of gunpowder calling for about 15% charcoal.
I'll call it a die mix w/16.6ish% charcoal for the percentage of a given die 
face.

5.5 lbs of charcoal (1 pt of ST moves this mass 1 ft per second) would make 
around 33 pounds of black powder assuming ground cremation ash equals 
gunpowder charcoal.
Good black paint comes from bone ash.
Charcoal is a slow burn though. but I guess one could "instruct the 
mortician" on oven temps and times.
Anyway, it seems a good load for target rounds today is about 17.5 grains 
for a eighth of an oz trap-round.
At 7000 grains per pound, 5.5 pounds makes about 13,000 rounds.
This suggests about 1300 rounds per animal taken in the "it was not his 
dying wish." shoot.
However, the figure states 275 cartridges were made.
I'm off by an order of magnitude obviously (likely the charcoal) but having 
chosen 5.5 pounds to pound home a point, it surprises me to see the thing at 
around 50 times more shots for my 100% conversion assumption. nothing says 
the widow converted ALL the ashes into powder. if she only used 1 pound.

About six months to copy/write a Wycliffe bible with good materials just 
before printing.
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