Rant: My Wife just doesnt understand... Aka my Chronograph

[usabaker]

It was my range day to day and I had planned all week to ladder test varmint cartridges I built for a Remington 700 in .223 Rem.

Up at 0530 this morning, put the rifle and ammo box in the SUV, came back grabbed my range back and the Dewalt 24" Tote With Power Tool Case that I keep all of my load development tools in an Old iPAD, kestrel wind meter, green laser, bla, bla, bla... and my Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph.

As I'm walking down the driveway, because I was holding the Dewalt toolbox at an angle I notice a water trail forming as I walked. WTH! I septated the top box from the bottom box and found 1 1/2" of water in the box with my Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph, its accessories, and the iPad swimming.

Talk about being upset... took everything out and set it out to dry. You see May first, I had the hot water pipe burst in my garage and everything in its path got soaked, it didn't flood just sprayed water everywhere. I guess I missed opening up the toolbox to see if water got in, who would think water would get in a close toolbox?

I just home from the range and getting ready to take the Chronograph and ancillary electronics apart in the hope I can dry them out and clean them up.

My wife was very sympathetic to my loss and really took my distress over it to heart, or so it seemed. I thought it would be an excellent time to suggest to the wife that I replace my Caldwell Chronograph with a LabRadar and it ancillary parts/equipment. She of course said yea maybe that's a good idea and then asked how much the LabRadar cost. Just $600 or $700 depending on the options I replied. She HUFFED! then gave me THAT LOOK...

Fellas. I don't think I'm getting a LabRadar, maybe I shouldn't have used the word Just...

She just doesn't understand...

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[ssgross]

don't give up. place all in 5 gallon bucket full of rice (it's still cheap enough. go get a 40 lb sack). I had the same thing happen when a pipe froze a decade ago in my basement office. I had a few high-end computers I was using for research directly under the offending pipe. Thankfully the GFI they were all plugged in to worked, although I didn't know I survived until several sacks of rice filled tubs and over a month later. I had been running a calculation for a few months when it happened. Everything turned on after a month in rice, and I didn't even lose any data. The only consequence was some water spots behind the glass on the screen of a laptop.

Kids left a laptop in the rain overnight on the porch last year too. Thought it was bricked. Bucket-o-rice for a month or so cured it too.

Your milage may vary. my stuff was just directly under a heavy stream of flowing water for an hour at most, not submerged for a month. I've read dust-free kitty litter works faster, but chemicals may react to whatever materials your stuff is made of and cause corrosion.

and BTW...here is the argument for the Mrs...with the purchase your're going to find out that one of your rifles shoots so darn good that you don't need to buy/restore/improve another to try to better it. Isn't $600 worth it to avoid spending another $1000+? If that fails, my fail safe solution is to just take another part time job, with direct deposit into an "off the books" checking account. When the former argument failed for my Labradar, the latter worked just fine. Of course the consequential stink eye was still given, but the argument ended there.

[30Three]

Maybe I'm lucky!
My wife just surprised me with a Wheeler Trigger weight gauge for my birthday last weekend.
I didn't even ask for anything; but we were both shooting a Service rifle competition two weeks ago and a friend showed us his trigger gauge as he wanted to test the weights being used by the scrutineer's.
So she decided I probably needed one!
Great surprise and yes I did need one for my Enfields.

[Ovidio]

Brava donna, I would say!

[usabaker]

Well, looks as though the iPAD is pretty much a lost cause as is the battery pack for the LED's for the Chronograph. I was able to recover the Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph though and it seems to be working, I'll be taking it to the range Friday for a test. Replaced the iPad with a used Samsung 7" Android tablet which will work better with the Chronograph anyhow. For the the LEDs I just bought a USB to 5.5 x 2.1mm 5V DC Cable off the Amazon and got the light working using an old power bank.