September 2018 – Page 2 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Baja, 150cc at a time: Part II….

To pick up where we left off, we’ll roll as far south as breakfast in Colonet in this blog. This was to be our first full day on the road, headed south to Cabo San Lucas!

We trucked the bikes down to San Ysidro just north of the border, hopped on the little Mustangs and we were off, with J following us in the chase truck. We had a spare bike in the back of the truck, and that’s when the fun began. We went through the border and took off; J was stopped immediately. Damn, we’re in the Tijuana traffic crucible, we lost J, and we didn’t have any telephone communications. But we did have a plan. Our rendezvous point in case we became separated was the Rosarito Beach Hotel, about 35 miles south of the border.

J was basically kicked out of Mexico as soon as he crossed the border because he didn’t have ownership documents and I guess the Mexican border agents didn’t want him bringing a motorcycle in the back of his truck into Mexico. It just never dawned on me that this would be a problem. Well, maybe it had…he had a letter from CSC authorizing use of the bike, but that wouldn’t cut it with the Mexican immigration folks.

Once he was back on the US side, J was able to reach the CSC truck by phone before it got too far north of the border. J and the CSC guys moved the bike from J’s truck to the CSC truck, and J hotfooted it down to Rosarito Beach, where we had a great lunch.

Simon Gandolfi, Mustang rider, having an early lunch at the Rosarito Beach Hotel.

We rode through Ensenada, and then continued south into the northern Baja wine country. It was grand. Here we were, trekking south, on 150cc hardtail bikes, living large. We stopped in Palomar to top off at a Pemex station, had a snack, and continued.

Yep, you read that right. The CSC Mustangs were all hardtails. The only suspension was in the seat springs. Old school. Cool. You’d think our butts and back would take a beating, but that wasn’t the case at all. Those seat springs did what they were supposed. Surprisingly, at the end of the day we’d be feeling it in our wrists. The handlebars weren’t rubber mounted on the Mustangs, and when the rear wheel hit a bump, the shock went directly to your hands. But I digress. Back to the main attraction…our trek south…

Our little 150cc California Scooters purred. The bikes liked to run right at 45 mph. They just felt relaxed at that speed, and it’s about the perfect speed for riding on Mexico’s Transpeninsular Highway. Here’s a bit more on the impressively-named Transpeninsular Highway. Once you’re south of Ensenada, it’s a two-lane country road (one lane each way) that runs north and south (with lots of zigging and zagging along the way) for a cool 1000 miles, all the way down to Cabo.

A stop for fuel and a snack in Palomar, headed south on the Mustangs…

After the wine country, Mexico Highway 1 (that’s the Transpensular Highway’s numeric designation) winds through little farming towns. In these little agricultural towns, the road is 4 or 5 feet higher than everything else. When you get off the road, you go down a pretty steep hill to get to the same level as the stores and other businesses, and there’s about a 30-foot dirt area between the street and the town on both sides of the street. People use this dirt area as sort of a parking lot and a street, so there’s traffic on the main road and the dirt areas on either side of the paved road. Which way the traffic flows in these dirt lanes depends mostly on…well, I don’t know. If I ever break the code, I’ll let you know.

We called it a night in San Vincente, and we checked into an inexpensive hotel (they’re all inexpensive down there). San Vincente was a hopping place that Friday night, which was a bit surprising to me. What wasn’t surprising is that we were the only gringos in San Vincente. That notwithstanding, we felt completely safe. All the bad press in the LA Times in those days about Mexico being dangerous was bunk (“bunk” is a nice word for, well, you know). There was so much bunk in the world back then about Mexico being dangerous that I sometimes wonder where it all came from. Is there a high-volume-production bunk factory out there I haven’t heard about? The mainstream media, and the LA Times in particular, was hell bent on portraying Mexico as a war zone. It’s not.

The point I’m making is that the Bajaenos are friendly, warm, and grateful that we visited this wonderful place. They had a double whammy down there…the recession, and the news media sensationalism painting all of Mexico as a terrible place. Not that San Vincente is a tourist area (it is not), but my sense of things is that the people we hung out with in San Vincente were glad to see us.

J waiting for tacos in San Vincente. The smile is real. Good times.

Dinner in San Vincente. Wow, that was good!

Arlene and I wandered around a bit, checked out a couple of mercados (grocery stores), and we ended up at another little place that was cooking up a bunch of stuff. Folks were lined up and there were barstools at a makeshift counter. All of this was outdoors. Arlene and I had quesadillas (I had two, actually). The guy who took care of us had this cool meat cooker that looked a lot like the ones I’ve seen in Turkey. He was cool with it all and he seemed to be greatly amused that I was taking his photo.

Vinny and his brother, part of the San Vincente welcoming committee…

While we were enjoying the festive atmosphere and dinner, two young kids came up to us as I was savoring a real quesadilla (Taco Bell has no idea how good these are). It was pretty obvious we were out-of-towners, and one of the boys slowly said to me in perfect, unaccented English “It is very good, isn’t it?” I told him it was and asked his name. “Vinny,” he said. I took a flyer and asked if the other boy was his cousin. “No, he is my brother,” he said. Ah, okay. Not his cousin Vinny. Too bad. It would have added to the story.

We were up with the sun and on the road early the next morning, and it was cold. I had checked out the bikes the night before and all were fine (oil, tire pressure, the standard big-road-trip-preflight-stuff for loose nuts and bolts, etc.). I was surprised at how cold it was, because September is the hottest month of the year in Baja. I guess nobody told the weather people, though. Then the fog rolled in. It was thick. Not so thick that we couldn’t ride in it, but thick enough to soak my jeans and my gloves. We saw a coffee shop in Colonet and stopped for a caffeine fix.

Baja John, Mustang-mounted on a cold and damp morning in Colonet. That’s the Transpeninsular Highway in the background.

I’ve done this run on big bikes many times previously and before we left I had a bit of trepidation about doing it on a 150cc motorcycle, but my fears were groundless. The seating position on those little Mustangs was perfect for this kind of riding, and the ergos were about the same as a Harley Sportster. Simon was surprised…he told me he felt the bike was extremely comfortable, and that it felt to him like a full-sized motorcycle (which is kind of what I was thinking). And this was coming from a guy who rode a 125 cc pizza delivery bike to the southernmost tip of South America and back, and then rode another bike across the length of India.

After that great cup of Colonet coffee, our 150cc trek south resumed…

To be continued…

Baja John weighs in…

Baja John with Joe Gresh in the Grand Tetons.

A week or so ago we posted a blog about my good buddy Baja John considering the purchase of a bike to keep at his home in Bahia de Los Angeles. We asked for your inputs and we received several (thanks very much). John pulled the trigger, and he wrote a guest blog to tell us about the rationale behind his decision. Here you go, folks…

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As Joe mentioned in an earlier post, I have been considering a bike to keep at my house in Mexico. Although I’ve had the house for several years, I never kept a motorcycle there because I had no secure place to store it. Thus, my motorcycle riding in Mexico was limited to bikes that I could ride long distances at highway speeds from my home in the U.S. Both my KLR 650 and my CSC RX3 250 fit this bill, however, I recently built a garage at the house in Mexico, and now I can keep a motorcycle there. Since this motorcycle will only be ridden in Mexico, and primarily on the Baja Peninsula, I don’t necessarily need a bike that can do more than 60mph comfortably. I also want a bike that will probably see on and off road equally. So, I laid out the requirements, and set out to find a bike.

My requirements are a bike that is 1: reliable, 2: simple to work on in the field, 3: lightweight with a smooth power band, 4: comfortable for long distances, 5: a range of at least 150 miles on a tank of gas, 6: has enough ground clearance for the majority of off-road riding that I will do, and if I’m lucky, 7: has a kick starter that will fire the engine up in the event of a dead battery. That last requirement is tough to satisfy these days, so it became more of a desire. If I were going to ride in cold weather, I would also require enough wattage to power heated gear, but fortunately, the majority of my riding will be in temperate climates.

So, why the desire for the bike to start with a dead battery. For me it boils down to peace of mind. Many years ago, when I rode the 2,200 mile round trip to Cabo San Lucas on a small 150cc bike, the battery died before I was halfway through. No problem. I used the kick starter and rode that bike all the way back to the border with a dead battery. I thought that all motorcycles would start with a dead battery, as long as you could turn the engine over. I recently found out that this is not the case when I went to the movies on my RX3. I came out of the movie theater and started the bike. It cranked over as usual, and started. About 2 blocks down the street, I came to a stop sign. The engine died. I hit the starter, but nothing. I thought that I had inadvertently hit the kill switch. Nope. I pushed the bike to a nearby downgrade, rode it down, popped the clutch, the engine sputtered a little, but would not run. Put in a new battery and it was business as usual. I called Gerry, the mechanic at CSC at that time, and he explained that fuel injected motorcycles will not run without a good battery. Lesson learned. Thus, my strong desire to find a bike that won’t leave me stranded in the desert because the battery died.

My first thought was to use my KLR, but the riding height always bothered me even though I am 6’ tall. That’s OK though, because I can get some lowering links, but it is also a heavy bike with enough power to get me into trouble. I know that dirt bikers rely on a bike with a good power band to maintain control with the throttle when they need to, but I’m not a dirt bike rider, and I prefer not to throttle my way out of trouble. Buying another RX3 also crossed my mind. A gentleman near my home in AZ is selling one with 9K miles for $2,195 with a few extras already installed. I like the RX3 for the majority of off-road riding that I do in the U.S. I like the lower seat height so that I can plant both feet firmly on the ground when I need to. I like the smooth power band so that I don’t break the rear tire loose if I accidentally blip the throttle. No surprises with the RX3. I like the confidence that it instills in me to take roads that I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking on the KLR, however, I don’t want to have to carry a small alternate battery with me in Mexico with enough power for the EFI system, and then attempt to find a way to push start it in the desert. It is also a heavier bike than I prefer for the dirt, and as an adventure bike, it doesn’t have quite the ground clearance of a dual-sport bike.

So, how heavy is the RX3? The internet says 385lbs wet with the stock side bags and trunk. I decided to find out by taking my RX3 to the local scale. It weighed in at 420lbs with a half-tank of gas and my aluminum Tourfella trunk on the back with no side bags attached. The Tourfella just had a few tools, air pump, and some tie-down straps in it. The internet says that my KLR is 370lbs dry, so it shouldn’t be much heavier than the RX3 when wet, but I’m staying in Wisconsin for the summer, so I currently don’t have the KLR with me to take to the scales, but it feels like it’s quite a bit heavier than the RX3, and it definitely feels more top heavy. Based on the discrepancy between the RX3 advertised wet weight and the actual wet weight that I saw at the local scale, I’m going to guess that the KLR is close to 500lbs. Although neither of these bikes are too heavy to pick up by myself, I’m 65, and it appears that I’m never going to get any younger, no matter how much wishful thinking I do, so I prefer something lighter. Enter the Yamaha XT250.

The XT250 pretty much checks all of the boxes. I recently stopped by a dealership to see one. I wanted to sit on it and check out my riding position and standing position. Everything good so far. The tank is only 2.4 gal, but at the advertised 78mpg, it should meet the 150 mile range. It’s Yamaha reliable, easy to work on, and less than 300lbs wet with a very comfortable 32” seat height. I would still have to ride one to get some feel of the power band and comfort while riding, but at a price of $5,200, I decided that a new one was out of the question, so I didn’t bother with a test ride at the dealer. A little research told me that the 2008 to 2012 models were carbureted, so I searched Craigslist and Cycle trader to find a used one. The pre-2013 models were running a much more reasonable $2,500 to $3,200, but I couldn’t confirm whether there was a kickstarter kit available for them like there was for the Yamaha TW200. Yep, this bike is looking good, but I still prefer to find a bike with a kickstarter that is post-1980’s and not a pure dirt bike, so the search continued, however, I may still buy a used XT250 in addition to another motorcycle. After all, it’s always good to have a spare bike, especially in Mexico where my bike may be down for a couple of weeks waiting for someone to bring me a part from the U.S.

I remember seeing the CSC TT250 when I was visiting CSC a couple of years ago when I returned from one of the CSC sponsored rides, so I went online to review the specs. Wow, this bike had possibilities. Although it’s a Chinese bike, my RX3 has been very reliable, and probably the best motorcycle that I’ve ever owned, due to its reliability, versatility, and comfort. I take that bike with me wherever I go, either on the back of my motorhome or on a hitch carrier attached to my Jeep. Manufactured by Zongshen, the same company that builds the RX3, I was sure it would be well made and reliable. Plus the Honda CG clone engine has been known for its reliability for decades. So, let’s check the boxes.

I went online to the ADV and China Rider forums to see what TT250 owners had to say about the bike. 1: Reliable: Yes. 2: Simple to work on: Obviously, being a CG clone engine. Plus CSC provides a service manual and online service tutorials. 3: Lightweight with a smooth power band: Advertised at 309lbs it looks like it will be about 100lbs lighter than the RX3, and riders say it has a smooth power band. 4: Comfortable for long distances: Riders say that they like the wider seat, the riding position, and apparently there is not too much wind buffeting. 5: Range of 150 miles: At 65mpg, the 2.9 gallon tank should make 150 miles even if only 2.3 gallons is usable. 6: Good ground clearance: Yes. 7: Kickstarter that will fire up the engine even with a dead battery: Yes to the kickstarter, but I haven’t been able to verify whether it will start with a dead battery. I suspect that this is true since it’s a carbureted engine. Steve at CSC Motorcycles said that he believes that this is true as well. One other thing that I like about the TT250 is that CSC offers a seat that will reduce the seat height to 32” if I feel uncomfortable with the 34” stock seat height.

So, what did I decide to do? Looks like that answer would be obvious, but first I wanted to verify the price out the door for a CSC TT250. $2,195 seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? So many times we find that things cost much more than the advertised price by the time the dealer tacks on fees for everything that they can think of. So, I asked Steve what the price would be shipped to my home. He said that they only add $400 to the price of the bike for prep, documentation, and shipping, so the cost to my door would be $2,595. At this point I was close to ordering one, but I had one last thing to check; accessories. I wanted to see what kind of accessories CSC offered, as well as the prices. Turns out, CSC offers a number of accessories, although not as many as the RX3. That’s understandable due to the type of rider and riding that the TT250 is designed for. Also the accessories are much less expensive than those for the majority of motorcycles manufactured today, so I chose a power outlet kit, rear luggage rack, handguards, helmet lock, and a 47 tooth rear sprocket in case I want a little more speed and less torque than the OEM 50 tooth provides. I was still thinking about waiting a few weeks until I returned home to Arizona to order one, but Steve said that they could hold the bike for me and ship it when I arrived home in October if I wanted to buy it now. Steve also told me that the next shipment of bikes arriving in October might be more expensive due to the possibility of additional tariffs imposed on Chinese products. In addition, he said that CSC stocks all accessories and OEM parts that you need for the bike, and they will usually arrive at your home within 2 or 3 days of ordering them. At that point I said, “Sold”, and ordered the bike. Within 15 minutes I had received and approved the invoice from Sara. They will ship it to my home in Arizona shortly after I arrive during the 3rd week of October.

Now that I pulled the trigger, I’m very happy with my decision. During my lifetime, I’ve seen customer service slowly decline over the decades. It’s refreshing to deal with a company that has a strong customer service ethic. I’m anxious to get home, break the bike in, and change the oil before I take it to Mexico at the end of October. I’m also going to run the battery down and see if I can kickstart it with a nearly dead battery. It turns out that there was an added bonus to ordering the bike when I did, since I found out after the fact that I bought the last white one that CSC had in stock. “Hoorah!!!”

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Awesome inputs, John, and thanks very much. We think you made a good decision. CSC is one of our advertisers, so we are glad to see that you bought the TT250. For those of you following the ExNotes blog installments about the CSC 150 Mustang ride to Cabo and back, John was one of the guys on that ride. And those of you who read Moto Baja! will know that John is the guy with whom I’ve ridden many, many miles in Mexico (he and I rode my first trip ever to that magical land).

With Baja John in Mexico many moons ago….

And for our other readers…do you have a story you’d like to share with us? Hey, let us know, and we’ll consider it for the ExNotes blog!

Juan in Colombia…

Good buddy Juan, who showed me a grand time riding in Colombia, recently posted this video. I don’t speak Spanish, but I didn’t need to. The riding scenes brought back fond memories of the Colombia adventure…

The video features a new AKT Motos bike. AKT is a fine company; one of the four big ones manufacturing motorcycles in Colombia. I know Enrique, the General Manager, and he was a most gracious host during our visit. Good times. I sure miss Colombia.

The power of the press release…

One of the things we’ve done to publicize the ExhaustNotes site has been to issue a press release, our very first, and you can see it here. When I was with CSC, one of the guys we talked to early in the game was a young fellow named Mike Satterfield. Mike’s a cool guy who has a clothing line and a couple of cool websites (we’ll be telling you more about those in a subsequent blog).

Anyway, Mike mentioned the power of press releases, and when I was at CSC I put one together. The effect was phenomenal, and CSC sales and media coverage took off sharply. We thought we might try it for the ExNotes blog, and son of a gun, the same thing happened again. Our pageviews and site visits jumped sharply. This press release business works!

Another cool Janus article…

One of my favorite publications, Motorcycle Classics magazine (I write their Destinations column), recently published an article on Janus Motorcycles, one of the companies we featured just a few blogs down. Richard Backus (MC‘s Editor-In-Chief) penned this one himself. It’s an awesome motorcycle review titled Artisanal Ambitions: 2018 Janus Gryffin. You might want to take a peek; it’s a great read about a great motorcycle.

One hardcore dude: Bill Murar

Wow, we mentioned good buddy Bill Murar’s endurance racing exploits just a few blogs down on a 150cc motorcycle circling Lake Erie, and while we were posting a blog, Bill was wrapping up a 400-mile bicycle ride. Good Lord!

Here’s Bill’s post describing the ride…

Today I finished riding the Ohio To Erie Trail, a 326+ mile bike route from Cincinnati (Ohio river) to Cleveland (Lake Erie). It took me 6 days to complete with a couple all time bests for me. Best speed 39.11 mph, most miles in a day 88+. It was a long, grueling affair that was both terrible and wonderful. Some needed recovery time is in order before contemplating anything like this again. But it’s over and done with and another goal’s been achieved. I couldn’t have done it without my loving wife and companion, Joyce. She followed me and procured all the campgrounds we needed, where we needed them. She fed me, encouraged me, stopped and bought stuff, etc., etc., etc. I’m exhausted, beat and very satisfied.

Bill, that’s most impressive, and thanks very much for allowing us to share it with our readers!

Janus Motorcycles

The ExhaustNotes post today has two videos, and both are from Janus Motorcycles.

Janus checks all of the boxes for us: Small displacement, custom crafted, ultra-high quality, hand-built-in-America motorcycles. What I found especially intriguing is that one of the Janus founders, Richard Worsham, rode his 250cc motorcycle across the United States. That, my friends, is extremely cool (it’s downright inspirational, in my opinion). It grabbed my attention because long trips on small-displacement motorcycles to demonstrate reliability is one of the things we did when I was at CSC Motorcycles. It’s a brilliant strategy.

We’ll be telling you more about the Janus line in the future, but one of the things I’ll mention up front is that Janus uses an overhead valve CG-clone engine, which is probably the most-frequently-used engine on the planet. My experience with these engines has been that they are bulletproof, and I say that because I’ve put tons of miles on them. They’re easy to maintain, as they should be. That’s what Honda had in mind when they designed the CG engine.

So, enough yakking. Let’s get to the videos. First, the ride across the United States…

And here’s another one about the Janus culture, and the inspiration for their motorcycles…

If you’d like more information on Janus, just give a click here.

Baja, 150cc at a time…

This was a trip I did almost 10 years ago with a few good friends, and we were all on 150cc hardtail Mustang replicas. California Scooters, to be precise. Just as they were being introduced to the market. Yep, we rode to Cabo San Lucas and back on 150s.

Anybody can ride Baja on a big bike. We wanted to do something different. It was all a big publicity thing. Dog bites man, no big deal. Man bites dog, that’s a story. Ride to Cabo and back on a motorcycle? No big deal. Do it on a 150cc repop of a bike made 70 years ago? That’s something the media would pick up, I reckoned, and I was right.

But first, let me introduce the crew…

Simon, Arlene, J, Baja John, and me. And the star of this show, the CSC 150 Mustang Replica.

I invited folks on this ride who had to meet two criteria: They had to be able to help maximize CSC’s exposure in digital and print media, and they had to say yes.

Simon Gandolfi is a British novelist who rode a 125cc bike all the way to the southernmost tip of South America and back, and then he rode another 125cc bike across India. He had a blog and he posted a lot on ADVRider.com.

My good friend Arlene Battishill is president and CEO of Go Go Gear, a maker of high end women’s riding apparel. Arlene had a custom California Scooter, she’s a tweeter, and she’s all over that great American institution fortuitously founded before the #MeToo movement, Facebook.

I wanted my longtime Mexico riding partner Baja John Welker to ride with us. John and I have been all over Mexico on our motorcycles. He keeps me from doing really stupid things on our Baja trips. To hear him tell it, it’s a full time job.

My good buddy J Brandon (president of American Sahara), tagged along in his Dodge Power Wagon, carrying spare parts and water. I thought having a chase vehicle might be a good idea. It turned out that having the chase vehicle along was just okay. Having J along, though, was great.

You might be wondering…how did I hook up with CSC? I kind of fell into the CSC gig. I was initially hired to duel the digital dufi, the cretins badmouthing CSC on Internet forums (dufi is the plural of dufus). I knew the digital dufi supply was infinite, so I reckoned this new gig might be a job for life. Dealing and Dueling with the Dufi. It almost sounded like a TV show (you know, Dancing with the Stars). What intrigued me beyond that, though, was the CSC motorcycle. I liked it. A modern Mustang. That could be a hell of a thing.

As I was being clever and outwitting unarmed digital opponents in the Great Forum Wars of the New Millenia, I pitched the Baja idea to Steve Seidner, the guy who owns CSC. Steve was all for it. “Don’t be gentle,” he said. “Take the bikes down there and break them.” Seidner wanted to unearth the modern Mustang’s weaknesses, and Baja’s broad badlands would bubble those up.

So, what was it like? Okay, here ya go…

A sneak preview of the next 2200 miles….on 150cc California Scooters!

I’ll tell you about the ride, and I’ll tell you a bit about each of the riders on this trip, and in this first installment, Simon Gandolfi gets the spotlight. Like I mentioned above, he’s a British author. A famous one. And he’s a blogger, too. I started reading Simon’s blog during his travels through South America, and I was hooked. He wrote Old Man On A Bike about that adventure. This guy would be perfect for our ride, I thought. World traveler, small bikes, and he has a following. And then Simon met the most important criteria: He said yes when I invited him. Simon blogged our Baja adventure, and his words were mesmerizing. Here’s one of his descriptions…

Joe and Arlene ride production bikes. John and I ride pre-production bikes. These are small bikes, pretty babies to treasure. The average owner will ride down to the store on a Sunday or drop by a neighbour’s – say twenty minutes max. Steve wants the bikes tested to destruction. John is massive and I’m no light-weight. Steve wants destruction, we’re his men. Day one south from Tijuana is horrific coastal-strip development on the cheap side of cheap. Pass Ensenada and I begin to understand Baja’s magic: clarity of light, range upon range of mountains, immense spaces across which merely to travel is an adventure. Even Big John becomes little more than a moving microdot.

Baja John, a microdot somewhere up there…riding south of Ensenada, headed for Cabo San Lucas…

This will be maybe six or seven blogs in total, spread out over the next month or so. It’s a good story and I like telling it. This has been the first installment.

To be continued…

Bill Murar: Distinguished Gentleman!

Bill Murar on a CSC 150 in the Lake Erie Loop!

That’s my good buddy Bill in the photo above, at speed, riding the Lake Erie Loop, a 600-mile scooter endurance rally. I first met Bill shortly after starting the CSC blog. Bill is a retired firefighter who is a serious Iron Butt rider, and he wanted a CSC scooter to ride in the Lake Erie endurance event back in those days. We were only too happy to oblige.

Yesterday, I received a nice note from Bill, and I want to share it with you…

Joe:

I’ve just registered for the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, a fundraising motorcycle ride to help beat prostate cancer. You’re receiving this because you happen to be in my phone directory and because you know what a fanatic I am about riding. This year’s ride is on September 30th and, ironically, my birthday is on September 29th. Now, I know you were going to send me some kind of gift (nudge nudge, hint hint), but in lieu of that, I’d prefer that you make a nominal donation in my name for this great cause. Or, better yet, join me on the ride. To do either (or both) go to www.gentlemansride.com/fundraiser/WilliamMurar227980

Thanks,
Ride Aware,
Bill

Bill, that’s awesome! Thanks for writing and we’re only too happy to post your request here on the ExNotes blog. How about it, folks…let’s help Bill in this most noble cause!

The Rimfire Series: A tale of two Springfields…

Good buddy Greg admiring my M1922 Springfield on the range this past weekend. This rifle is about as old as Greg is, but it looks like it left the factory last week. It’s super collectible.

So, what’s this all about? A tale of two Springfields? Well, the topic is Springfield rifles, and specifically, the 1903 Springfield and its variants. I own two, and I think they are two of the finest firearms ever made. One is a 1903A1 with a scant stock (more on that in a bit). It’s a recent acquisition of a century-old rifle, and mine is essentially in as-new condition. It was gunsmithed from selected components so it’s not an original rifle, but I don’t care. I bought it to shoot it, and that’s what I’m doing. My other Springfield is an M1922, a special number chambered in .22 Long Rifle. It’s a magnificent rifle, it’s one I inherited from my father, and it is an amazing firearm. It’s in pristine condition, and boy oh boy, can it shoot!

The challenge here is to keep this blog short. There’s just so much to tell when the topic is the 1903 Springfield rifle and its variants. I’ll do my best to keep it manageable.

The M1903A1 Springfield, chambered in the mighty .30 06 cartridge.

The M1922 Springfield, which shoots the much smaller .22 Long Rifle cartridge.

The Reader’s Digest version of the story goes like this…although we won the Spanish American War (and its Battle of San Juan Hill probably put Teddy Roosevelt in the White House), we very nearly got our butts kicked by the Spaniards. We were armed with antiquated, big-bore, rainbow-trajectory, single-shot rifles. The Spaniards had modern 7mm Mauser bolt action rifles, which were flatter shooting, faster (both in terms of reloading time and bullet velocity), and far more accurate. It was a dicey victory for us, and shortly after, the US Army incorporated the 1898 Krag rifle. We had to keep up with the Spanish Joneses.

While the Krag was a bolt-action rifle, it was not without problems, and we quickly developed a new rifle based on a modernized Mauser action initially chambered in a round called the .30 03. It fired a .308-inch diameter bullet (which is where the .30 part of the .30 03 name came from) and it was adopted in 1903 (which is where the 03 came from). We then improved the cartridge a bit in 1906 and it became the .30 06, or simply, the ’06. The ’06 is one of the world’s premier hunting cartridges, and many folks think is the best all-around cartridge on the planet. I’m one of them, but I digress. One more photo, and then back to the story.

A modern Winchester Model 70, chambered in the 102-year-old .30 06 cartridge. That wild boar, late of Arizona, fed us for a year!

Like I said, the original Springfield rifle was cambered for the .30 03 and the rifle was designed as the Model 1903. The .30 03 only lasted a short time and all of the 1903 rifles chambered for it were recut for the improved .30 06, but the rifle’s name remained the Model 1903. These early ones were cool, with straight grip stocks and elegant (but complex) rear sights. Then the rifle got a pistol grip stock, which I think looked cooler, and they became the 1903A1 rifles. Then they were made with stocks that were supposed to be straight grip stocks, but the Army wanted the pistol grip and the arsenal’s walnut blanks did not have enough meat to allow for a full pistol grip. The solution was to get as close as possible to a pistol grip from a straight grip walnut blank, which resulted in a shallow pistol grip; these became the “scant” stocks (presumably so named because the wood was too scant to allow a full pistol grip).

The 1903A1 “scant” stock. Note the relaxed pistol grip aft of the trigger, and on this particular rifle, the crisp Springfield Armory cartouche stamped into the walnut.

Check out the 1903’s early, complex, adjustable rear sight. There’s was a lot of machine time and money there. The Army needed something less expensive.

Load development for the 1903A1. These were cast bullets loaded with IMR 3031 powder. This particular rifle prefers jacked bullets with IMR4320 powder.

Later, the Army realized that the 1903’s fancy rear sight and other features were overly-expensive for a standard-issue battle rifle, so the ’03 was “value engineered” to make it less costly to manufacture. These became the Model 1903A3 rifles, often referred to simply as the ‘03A3.

Somewhere while all this was going on, the Army introduced versions of this rifle chambered in .22 Long Rifle. They were intended to be trainers, but they proved to be exceptionally accurate and the Army’s shooting teams (and others) competed with them.

The .22 Long Rifle cartridge (fired in the M1922 rifle), and the .30 06 Springfield cartridge (fired in the Model 1903).

The M1922s are phenomenal rifles, they are rare, and they are expensive in those rare instances they come on the market. My Dad bought one released through the Civilian Marksmanship Program 60 years ago for $25. Today, when one changes hands, you can bet the price is somewhere around $3,000. They’re that rare, and they’re that good.

The starboard side of the M1922. It is an elegant rifle.

Lyman competition aperture sights on the M1922.

The M1922’s Lyman aperture front sight. This rifle has “peep-to-peep” sights; both the rear and the front sights have holes to allow “peeping” at the target. They work very, very well.

You might be wondering: How do these rifles shoot?

Very well, thank you.

The M1922’s results at 50 yards. On the first bullseye on the left, the lone shot out of the black (at the 12:30 position) was the first shot of the day, fired from a cold and wet barrel.

Targets shot with the Model 1903A1. The one on the left was terrible; I shot it with cast bullets at velocities too high for the bullet (the lead smeared in the barrel and the bullets wouldn’t group). The remaining four were shot with one of my favorite .30 06 loads (a 130 grain Hornady jacketed soft point bullet and 52.0 grains of IMR 4320 powder).

So, what happened to the 1903 as a military rifle? It served in World War I (although we couldn’t make them fast enough, so another rifle, the Model 1917, accounted for more than half the US battle rifles during the Great War). By the 1930s, we were already hard at work developing the Garand (that rifle fired the same .30 06 cartridge, and it was a semi-auto). The Garand became the US Army’s standard rifle in World War II. Interestingly, the US Marines stuck with the 1903 going into World War II, but they, too, soon switched to the Garand. The 1903 evolved into a specialty item. It was still recognized as phenomenally accurate and it became our sniper rifle in World War II (with a telescopic sight, it became the 1903A4).

Like I said, all of the above is the Reader’s Digest version of the story behind the Model 1903 rifle. The definitive reference on the 1903-series Springfield rifles is Joe Poyer’s The Model 1903 Springfield Rifle and Its Variations, and if you have a deeper interest in these historic and fine rifles, it is a book you should own. You can find it on Amazon.