Posted On: Monday - December 4th 2023 8:53AM MST
In Topics: Science Inflation
(Continued from here.)
Yes, this stuff will end, I promise. After all, this site is called Peak Stupidity, not Peak Solid Mechanics. I just want to finish what I started. The "table" in our title today has 2 meanings:
1) 2 x 2's are not thought of as structural lumber, but they can be used as such, and my use of 1 x 2's and 2 x 2'sfor a table I made* is an example.
2) I wanted to put my numbers from Saturday in a couple of nice tables.
2 points should be mentioned. One is that my rounding is off (1% pt) from my previous post.
Secondly, note the last row. If one doesn't care about any of this structural stuff, that is just the decrease in material in mass and volume. Because that's just based on cross-sectional area (they surely won't change length off of the Nominal, will they?), the numbers are the same as for Axial Loading "strength", also based on cross-sectional area. The point is just "how much wood am I getting for my money?"
Just as in the last post, let me tabulate the decreases from a mythical piece of wood with a 2 inch by 2 inch cross-section
OK, fine, last week was inflation week, carrying over into this week, so what about all this? Wood is still not so dear (British terminology) that we don't build nice solid outdoor furniture, for example, that is surely not going to fail, just based on common sense. I.e., it's not something we need to do this engineering on, probably.
That's if you don't build thousands of some item like this as a business. At that point, one may calculate that he needs to use more wood in his structure. That would be this inflation by deflation in action. If nothing else, for our general readership, at least we can look at that last row - how much wood for our money, and think of it just as with containers of Dannon coffee-flavored yogurt. They're making it smaller, so if it's a regular purchase, we're going to have to buy more of it to keep up.
But wait, there's LESS! Adam Smith brought up a good point, using the image below. (A description is in the original. Look at the difference:
Let's talk solid mechanics for just a little longer. Yes, pulling a nail out may demonstrate the difference it inherent strengths of the new vs old wood. I used no quotes this time, because that's just it: inherent "ultimate strength" and other values are obtained by testing material samples in the simplest loading - Axial. A tension test is done using a big machine to pull the sample apart very slowly while taking both load and deformation (stretching) readings.
The breaking strength, a property of say, yellow pine or oak, but also, per Mr. Smith's point, lumber from older vs newer trees, can be compared to the stresses determined by the type of work seen in Saturday's post. It gets a lot more complicated than this, but to put it simply, when stress = strength, it breaks.
Let me digress to that "deformation" measurement. It's important for other reasons, but note that there is that E (Modulus of Elasticity) in the buckling formulae. Also, stress (to compare to strength) does NOT appear. As I said, buckling, being a phenomena of instability, is an odd duck. The critical buckling load is not a function of the inherent strength of the material, but it IS a function of that Modulus, a property that represents elasticity, that is the inverse of stiffness.
We get values of E from tensile tests. Interestingly, E does not very much at all for a same type of material. For example, an alloy of steel can have 3 x the ultimate strength of another alloy of steel, but their E's will not be significantly different. For wood loaded in the grain direction, as both the new and old would be, I also wouldn't expect much of a difference in E, so the buckling "strength" for columns made out of each would be close to the same.
That's not the same for their ultimate strengths, so as to Inflation, the nominal(?) point here, the older stuff gives more for one's money if used structurally and not just for its decorative value at the lodge. I will say that those older 2 x 2's I bought and used in the '90s were probably similar to the current ones in this respect, but who knows? That's just another form of inflation (decrease in value).
I will leave that strength reduction out here and even all the reductions in loading, and get back to the basics. Even here, I will unfortunately have to guess a price for a '90s 2 x 2, but I'll try my best and be conservative. I know that 8 ft. 2 x 4's were in the range of a buck and a quarter or so. (Chime in PLEASE if you have some hard memory on this - I'll change this post.) 8 ft. 2 x 2's couldn't have been more that 75 ¢. Those were not pressure-treated, so I'll compare apples to apples. Let's use that and the current 1.3215" square vs the '90s 1.5" square - a reduction in material to 78% - and the $3.35 (yikes!!) I saw on the Lowes website.
That's 4.7 x the price for a piece of wood, but with the material reduction, 5.7 x the price per volume of wood.*** Over to the MoneyChimp site calculator for the compounding bit: After plugging in 30 years (1993 to 2023) the Chimp says: 6.0% average inflation rate compounded.
Yep. Much of it was recent. You really did that, Zhou! "Awww, shucks ... I had lots of help, from the FED and the PanicFest."
* There were 4 at one point, but some went missing.
** The reason for the quotes was explained previously, but it should be more clear from material later in this post.
*** I was about the write "weight", but, as discussed above, the wood just may be less dense than the '90s stuff.
Comments:
Moderator
Tuesday - December 5th 2023 1:49PM MST
PS: I'm glad you're finding what you want, first of all, Adam. I bought only .22 LR recently - at 7.5 cents/round in a big pail - what are you seeing for that? From what you wrote, all of this was all on-line, right, from OpticsPlanet?
That Governor, since you're talking shotgun shells, must be like that Taurus "Judge" revolver.. well, I'll check out your videos to learn more.
I did a calculation of inflation of .22LR, just because I DID have a fairly precise price in my head ($10 for a "milk carton" that I think had 500 rounds then, not the 550) from the very early '90s. If you have a few different other data points, in addition to the 410 triple-0, then we can do some compounded inflation checks. There is so much different ammo, though, so it'd be hard to get the big picture without a great memory.
That Governor, since you're talking shotgun shells, must be like that Taurus "Judge" revolver.. well, I'll check out your videos to learn more.
I did a calculation of inflation of .22LR, just because I DID have a fairly precise price in my head ($10 for a "milk carton" that I think had 500 rounds then, not the 550) from the very early '90s. If you have a few different other data points, in addition to the 410 triple-0, then we can do some compounded inflation checks. There is so much different ammo, though, so it'd be hard to get the big picture without a great memory.
Moderator
Tuesday - December 5th 2023 1:40PM MST
PS: Adam wrt greater than vs equal, with real numbers, such as this ultimate tensile strength, there's really no difference. What I didn't put in was the lots more solid mechanics stuff that combines the different types of stresses together and then that, for metals, at least, there is the yield strength (where the material permanently deforms) and then the ultimate strength. That's for "ductile" materials as opposed to "brittle". (A material can be brittle but very strong, BTW, so the meaning is not the colloquial one.) Wood is kind of a different animal, as it's non-homogenous.
There's a whole lot to that stuff, but I wanted to put enough to explain the comparisons enough.
There's a whole lot to that stuff, but I wanted to put enough to explain the comparisons enough.
Adam Smith
Tuesday - December 5th 2023 12:39PM MST
PS: Good afternoon, Mr. Moderator,
I guess I'm the only one interested in your inflation by deflation/solid mechanics posts. Oh, well. There's not much for me to say about it either as I'm in agreement and you've said it better than I could. One small quibble though...
You wrote “when stress = strength, it breaks.” and while I suppose this is correct I would have expressed it as “when stress > strength, it breaks.” (even if it only needs to be slightly > to reach the breaking point.) But whatever. It's not really an important distinction.
In other inflation related news...
I finally found some 410 shot shell for my revolver. And the good news is that the inflation really isn't as bad as I thought it would be.
https://www.opticsplanet.com/winchester-ammunition-supremeel-410ga-pdx1-2-5-persdef-s410pdx1.html
I bought a couple boxes of PDX Defender 410 shot shell yesterday for $18.49 a box. I have a box that I bought about 5 years ago with a $14.99 price tag on it. Given the current 410 shortage I thought that was pretty good. I also ordered 8 boxes of this...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/hornady-ammo-410-2-1-2-triple-defense-cd-20-86238.html
I prefer federal 410 handgun ammo (which is currently unavailable)...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/federal-premium-personal-defense-410-bore-2-5-inch-000-pistol-buckshot-20-rounds.html
in the governor, though I guess that's not really fair to say as I have not yet tried the Hornady triple defense. I imagine it would work well in a home defense or carjacking situation. I know I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a 115 grain 41 caliber flex tip slug followed by a pair of 35 caliber high antimony lead balls, especially at close range. Here's how it compares to the federal and the pdx...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-shZtQbSJC0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCHLBiGilzw
Apparently the Hornady does a better job of utilizing the rifling in the barrel. As the two balls push the hollow slug out of the barrel they expand it slightly. This, in effect, allows the slug to grip the rifling just a little which (evidently/supposedly) results in tighter groupings...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtdYVk4ugHc
More on that inflation. OpticsPlanet has the Federal 410 000 buckshot listed at $28.99 (currently back ordered so who knows what the real price might be.) I have a box which is also about 5 years old. The price tag in it is $12.99. So that is quite a bit higher than the PDX inflation wise, and more inline with what I would anticipate given the inflation of ammo prices and the general decline in the purchasing power of the currency.
Perhaps the $22 price on the Hornady is a good comparison to the federal 000 for inflation calculation purposes, but I really don't know as I never bought that flavor of ammo before and I don't know what it cost in the before times. I certainly don't have the convenience of having a box with a price tag on it to compare it to.
Anyway, I'm really pretty excited that I could finally find some 410 handgun ammo to buy. I've been too lazy to build that time machine so I could go back to 2015 to stock up on ammo so finding someone with 410 handgun in stock is a welcome development. I placed a small order because I've never dealt with this company before. They say my package is ready to ship and that it should arrive by next Monday. Assuming it does, I do imagine myself buying more of the currently hard to find ammo from OpticPlanet in the future.
(Not trying to sound like an advertisement for them, I'm just happy 🙂 to find some 410 in stock.)
Cheers! ☮️
I guess I'm the only one interested in your inflation by deflation/solid mechanics posts. Oh, well. There's not much for me to say about it either as I'm in agreement and you've said it better than I could. One small quibble though...
You wrote “when stress = strength, it breaks.” and while I suppose this is correct I would have expressed it as “when stress > strength, it breaks.” (even if it only needs to be slightly > to reach the breaking point.) But whatever. It's not really an important distinction.
In other inflation related news...
I finally found some 410 shot shell for my revolver. And the good news is that the inflation really isn't as bad as I thought it would be.
https://www.opticsplanet.com/winchester-ammunition-supremeel-410ga-pdx1-2-5-persdef-s410pdx1.html
I bought a couple boxes of PDX Defender 410 shot shell yesterday for $18.49 a box. I have a box that I bought about 5 years ago with a $14.99 price tag on it. Given the current 410 shortage I thought that was pretty good. I also ordered 8 boxes of this...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/hornady-ammo-410-2-1-2-triple-defense-cd-20-86238.html
I prefer federal 410 handgun ammo (which is currently unavailable)...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/federal-premium-personal-defense-410-bore-2-5-inch-000-pistol-buckshot-20-rounds.html
in the governor, though I guess that's not really fair to say as I have not yet tried the Hornady triple defense. I imagine it would work well in a home defense or carjacking situation. I know I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a 115 grain 41 caliber flex tip slug followed by a pair of 35 caliber high antimony lead balls, especially at close range. Here's how it compares to the federal and the pdx...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-shZtQbSJC0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCHLBiGilzw
Apparently the Hornady does a better job of utilizing the rifling in the barrel. As the two balls push the hollow slug out of the barrel they expand it slightly. This, in effect, allows the slug to grip the rifling just a little which (evidently/supposedly) results in tighter groupings...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtdYVk4ugHc
More on that inflation. OpticsPlanet has the Federal 410 000 buckshot listed at $28.99 (currently back ordered so who knows what the real price might be.) I have a box which is also about 5 years old. The price tag in it is $12.99. So that is quite a bit higher than the PDX inflation wise, and more inline with what I would anticipate given the inflation of ammo prices and the general decline in the purchasing power of the currency.
Perhaps the $22 price on the Hornady is a good comparison to the federal 000 for inflation calculation purposes, but I really don't know as I never bought that flavor of ammo before and I don't know what it cost in the before times. I certainly don't have the convenience of having a box with a price tag on it to compare it to.
Anyway, I'm really pretty excited that I could finally find some 410 handgun ammo to buy. I've been too lazy to build that time machine so I could go back to 2015 to stock up on ammo so finding someone with 410 handgun in stock is a welcome development. I placed a small order because I've never dealt with this company before. They say my package is ready to ship and that it should arrive by next Monday. Assuming it does, I do imagine myself buying more of the currently hard to find ammo from OpticPlanet in the future.
(Not trying to sound like an advertisement for them, I'm just happy 🙂 to find some 410 in stock.)
Cheers! ☮️
I bought a box of Remington at WalMart on a whim a couple months back for ~$40...
https://tinyurl.com/3t2j9skd
Because of the convenience I really didn't pay much attention to the price, but at about 8 cents/round (including tax) it seemed like a good deal. When I got home I put the new box of ammo away and I found, amongst the other .22lr that I knew I had, an unopened one of these that I forgot about...
https://tinyurl.com/axhpja5b
They're pretty much the same 36 grain 1280 fps copper plated hollow point, but they are a little different when you look at them side by side. The Winchester has a larger hole in the tip and the Remington is a little more rounded at the nose. (I guess this proves that they were made in different factories?) The box of Winchester is also (probably?) about 5 years old and (unfortunately for inflation calculation purposes) I don't remember what I paid for it.
If you're looking for a little better price on good .22lr, it seems OpticsPlanet has some for .06/round...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/aguila-ammunition-aguila-ammo-22lr-high-vel-1280fps-38gr-plated-hp-500pk.html
https://www.opticsplanet.com/aguila-ammunition-aguila-ammo-22lr-high-vel-1255fps-40gr-plated-lrn-250p.html
Yes, the OpticsPlanet transaction was all online. This is actually the first time I've bought ammo online. Living in Georgia I usually have no trouble finding any flavor of ammo I want so I've never had to order online before.
OpticsPlanet made it easy enough. As straight forward as any other online shopping experience. I did have to put in my debit card number as paypal won't do transactions involving ammo. (OpticsPlanet does take paypal, but only for things that don't violate paypal's policies. I've bought gun parts and magazines using paypal before. I have no idea what their policies actually are.)
The only other ammo I've bought recently is some 9mm...
https://tinyurl.com/5yz8apt2
I paid $16/box at the local gun shop. Seemed good enough. If I really cared about shaving off a few pennies per round I guess I could...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/9mm-luger-ammo.html?_iv_sort=lowest-price-per-count
About that governor...
Yeah, it's much like the Taurus Judge. The biggest differences are that the governor holds six rounds and it also shoots .45acp with moon clips. (The original Judge only shoots 45 colt and 410. Taurus makes something called the raging judge that also shoots 454 casull.)
Some people seem to think that the Smith and Wesson is a little higher quality than the Taurus. But I don't know how true that is or if it matters. I have a few neighbors who really like their Taurus judge.
The governor is like a really small sawed off shotgun and a large frame revolver all in one.
https://www.smith-wesson.com/products/governor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nu5u6ON-E8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a484VNz3umU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3hPdG1oJDk
I think the governor would make a great varmint gun with some 7.5 shot or 9 shot in the cylinder. It would also be cheaper per round than your standard varmint load...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/s/pest-control
At 60 cents per round this would probably be good to have for the Ruger 10/22 or a .22lr handgun...
https://www.opticsplanet.com/cci-ammunition-22-long-rifle-31gr-12-rimfire-shot-20-rounds.html
But I do find that a shovel is an effective weapon against a copperhead. So I don't know. I might buy a couple boxes anyway.(?)
Well look at that. It's cocktail time!
Hope you have a great evening, Achmed. ☮️