July 2019 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

The Rimfire Series: ¡Siluetas Metálicas!

Metallic Silhouette Origins

The sport of metallic silhouette shooting came to us from Mexico, where it started roughly 80 years ago as a part of a culture of rural village celebrations. They used live animals in those days tethered to a stake, which made it a lot harder to hit them because after the first shot the animals tended to take evasive action. I guess it was considered politically correct in those earlier times because the match would be immediately followed by a rip-roaring barbeque (at which, of course, chicken, pig, turkey, and ram were on the menu).

I learned all of this from a world-class metallic silhouette shooter named Jose Porras in the 1970s. Jose used to drive up from Mexico to shoot with us at Fort Bliss when I first got into the metallic silhouette game. He was the guy to beat, and I never did. I didn’t care. I just liked hearing his stories about the old days and the origins of the sport.

Metallic Silhouette Targets and Distances

I had last shot in a metallic silhouette match about 45 years ago. By then, the sport had morphed into shooting at metallic silhouettes, like you see in the photo at the top of this blog. There were chickens at 50 meters, pigs at 100 meters, turkeys at 150 meters, and rams at 200 meters (this was for the handgun competition). All of the silhouettes were life-sized. For high power rifle (which we always shot with a scope back then) the targets were the same, but they were located at 200 meters (chickens), 300 meters (pigs), 385 meters (turkeys), and 500 meters (rams). Those are long distances, and all of the rifle shooting was offhand (no slings or shooting jackets). You could shoot from a sitting position in the handgun matches, but the rifle competition was all a stand up affair. It was challenging, and that’s what made it interesting. The winner usually connected with only about half the targets, and you either hit them or you didn’t.

Just hitting the targets didn’t count. You had to hit them with enough energy to knock them over. In the rifle competition, that alone ruled out the light cartridges. And you couldn’t use magnums, either, because those cartridges would damage the targets. Nope, in the rifle game, it was a Goldilocks affair. The energy had to be just right. 7mm Mauser, 7mm-08, .308, and .30 06 were the favorites back then.

In the handgun competition, everyone either used a magnum cartridge (.44 Magnum was popular), .45 Colt loaded to the max, or a custom wildcat (I’ll say more about that below). .45 ACP, .38 Special, and the standards of the day didn’t have enough energy to knock the targets over, and their rainbow-like trajectories meant there wasn’t enough adjustment in the sights. 9mm? Fuhgeddaboutit. The 9mm was woefully anemic for this game.

Metallic Silhouette Handguns

In the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association (IHMSA) national championships in 1976 in El Paso, I tied for 5th place and then lost a shootoff. I was out of the money in 6th, but I was still pretty pleased because I was using a bone-stock Smith and Wesson Model 27 .357 Magnum with my cast bullet reloads, while all of the guys who did better than me were shooting custom XP-100 Remingtons. The XP-100 was a single-shot pistol based on a rifle action, and in those days, guys would have them custom barreled in 30×223. The 30×223 was a wildcat based on the 5.56 NATO cartridge blown out to take a .30 caliber rifle bullet. It ultimately became known as the 300 Blackout cartridge. Jose used one of these 30×223 custom handguns for culling coyotes on his estate in Mexico during the week and for winning matches in El Paso on the weekends. He was really, really good. I imagine the coyotes hated him.

.22 Rifle Metallic Silhouette Shooting

Well, to make a long story slightly less long, I had been wanting to get back into metallic silhouette shooting for the last four and a half decades, and one day a year or so ago I did. I broke the suction between my butt and the seat in front of this computer and I shot in the .22-caliber metallic silhouette rifle match at the West End Gun Club. I shot my Browning .22 A-bolt (a relatively rare and semi-collectible rifle).

I didn’t know it when I went out there, but they shoot two classes: One with scopes, and the other with open sights. The open sight targets are roughly four times the size of the scope targets, and for whatever reason, on the rams the targets for the scoped guns are set back an additional 10 yards (for the other three animals, the distances are the same). At all distances, though, the targets for the scoped guns are really, really small. Take a look.

With apologies for the lack of focus, here’s a zoomed-in shot of the turkeys. The iron sight turkey targets are on the left; the scoped-rifle turkeys are on the right…

Like I said, the scoped-rifle targets are really tiny. You can see that in the photo above. They were maybe two inches tall. Shooting at these things offhand was a challenge, but I had a blast out there. There were four guys shooting scoped rifles (I was one of them) and 14 guys (and gals) shooting iron-sighted rifles (mostly lever guns; all with expensive aftermarket aperture sights). It was a good crowd…mostly older guys (my age and up) with a few folks in their 20s and 30s. Everybody was friendly.

I could have started this blog by telling you I came in fourth in the scoped class and let it go at that, but the fact is I had the lowest score in the scoped class. I only got 14 out of 60 silhouettes, the next guy got 18, another guy got 20, and the highest guy got 22. It’s a tough game. I’m pretty happy with what I did, though. I had only zeroed my rifle at 50 yards (where I got about half the chickens). I got about a third of the pigs I shot at (these were the 65-yard targets, and every shot at them when I connected was at the low edge of the target). I only got one each of the rams and the turkeys (the turkeys are always the toughest), but like I said, I wasn’t zeroed and those were just lucky hits. Next time I’ll do better (and there will be a next time). This was all shooting offhand at teeny, tiny targets. I’d like to try the open sight class next time, too, just because the targets were a lot bigger. It all was a lot of fun.

The club also has a centerfire lever gun silhouette match, and I’m thinking I’ll try that, too. Those distances go out to about 140 yards, it’s all open sights, and it’s all lever guns. They told me they mostly shoot .357 Magnum (a handgun cartridge) and .30 30 for the centerfire metallic silhouette competition. The bug has bitten and I am enjoying being back in the game.

Good times, folks. Life is good.

More Tales of the Gun stories are here!

The Browning B78

Sometime in the late 1970s, when I was an engineer on the F-16 program at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, I visited a company called National Water Lift somewhere in the Great Lakes area. What we bought from NWL had nothing to do with water (they made the F-16’s hydraulic accumulators). It’s a lead into this story, which is about my Browning B78 rifle. You see, every time I had to visit one of these distant places on my business travels, it was an opportunity to check out the gun shops in the area. Which I did, and the one that stuck in my mind had a Browning B78.

The Browning B78 Rifle

The B78 was a competitor to Ruger’s No. 1 single-shot rifle, and the design was basically a resurrection of the old Winchester High Wall. Ruger did surprisingly well with the No. 1 back in the 1970s (the idea of a single-shot rifle was intriguing to me and many others), and I guess Browning wanted in on the action (pardon the pun).

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Rugers outsold Brownings probably 10 to 1 (or more) in those days because they were less expensive and Ruger’s marketing was better. But the Browning was (and still is) a very elegant rifle. I saw one at that store (I want to say it was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but I can’t remember for sure), and it was nice. It was a 30 06 and it had an octagonal barrel, which was all very appealing. But the Browning was a good $100 more than the Ruger and in the 1970s, that kind of money was out of my reach.

Good Deals on Gunbroker

Fast forward 40 years, the Great Recession was upon us, and all kinds of exotic and collectible rifles were popping up on Gunbroker.com (a firearms auction site). I saw what appeared to be a nice B78 on Gunbroker, with an octagonal barrel, in God’s caliber (that would be .30 06), and I pounced. I paid too much, but we never say it that way. I bought too soon. Yeah, that works. I just bought too soon.

A earlier photo from one of my first range trips with the Browning B78. .30 06, one shot, great walnut, an octagonal barrel…this rifle is elegant.

The B78 is sharp from either side. That’s a Weaver 2×7 scope, and it gets the job done.

After I bought the B78, I wanted to put a period-correct scope on it (you know, from the 1970s) and I found a nice Weaver 2×7 on another auction site. Weavers are good scopes and the ones from the 1970s were blued steel and made in America. It was just what the doctor ordered, and it looks right at home on my B78.

My B78 is used, and it’s got a few nicks and dings on it. But the metal work is perfect, and the walnut is (in my opinion) exhibition grade. Take a look, and you tell me.

Good wood. This is exhibition grade walnut…

Preferred B78 .30 06 Jacketed Loads

I’ve owned the B78 for about 10 years now, and it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve never seen another B78 on the rifle range, and I’ve certainly never seen one with an octagonal barrel. It’s just a cool firearm. But it is finicky. It likes heavier bullets and with the right load it’s accurate, but getting there took a lot of experimenting, a little bit of forearm re-bedding, and a lot of load development. I’ve got two loads that do very well in it…one is a heavy-duty jacketed load, and the other is a cast bullet light load. The heavy load is with a 180 grain Remington jacketed softpoint and a max load of 4064 (I’ve shot three-quarter-inch groups with this load at 100 yards). That load has big recoil, but it’s tolerable. I tried 180 grain Nosler bullets (that’s a premium bullet), but the rifle does way better with the less-expensive Remington bullets. That’s a good thing, because I found a good deal on 900 of those bullets and they have a home on my reloading bench now.

A Preferred B78 Cast Load

My cast bullet load is a short-range low power load, and it’s recoil is almost nonexistent compared to the jacketed load. It’s a 180 grain cast lead bullet (with a gas check) and 17.0 grains of Trail Boss power. After zeroing the Browning for the jacketed bullet load mentioned above at 100 yards, I had to crank the scope up a cool 85 clicks to bring the cast bullets back on paper at 50 yards (I was surprised there was that much adjustment in the scope). But wow, those cast bullets at 50 yards cloverleafed consistently. It was essentially putting them through the same ragged hole. At 100 yards, getting the cast bullet load back to point of aim involved another 25 clicks of elevation on the Weaver, and again, I was surprised there was that much in the scope. At 100 yards, the cast load groups opened up to about 2 ½ inches, and that’s still okay. What’s nice is I can shoot the cast bullet load all day long. The barrel doesn’t heat up and the recoil is trivial. As you might imagine with a load like this and the gas-checked bullets, there was virtually no leading.

When I go for deer later this year, it’s going to be with this rifle. One shot. I think that’s all I’ll need. We’ll see.

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S&S 96 Cubic Inch Stroker Rebuild

My ’92 Softail Harley. After losing a lot of weight.

So this all got started on a trip to Baja. My beloved ’92 Softail started clanging and banging and bucking and snorting somewhere around Ensenada. I was headed south with my good buddy Paul from New Jersey (not the Paul I grew up, but another one). It was obvious something wasn’t right and we turned. It wasn’t the end of the world and the Harley did manage to get me home, but I could tell: Something major had happened. The bike was making quite a bit of noise. I had put 400 miles on it by the time I rode it back from Mexico. I parked the Harley, got on my Suzuki TL1000S, and we changed our itinerary to ride north up the PCH rather than south into Baja. That trip went well, but there was still the matter of the dead Softail.

Here’s where it started to get really interesting. My local Harley dealer wouldn’t touch the bike. See, this was around 2005 or so, and it seems my Harley was over 10 years old. Bet you didn’t know this: Many Harley dealers (maybe most of them) won’t work on a bike over 10 years old. The service manager at my dealer ‘splained this to me and I was dumbfounded. “What about all the history and heritage and nostalgia baloney you guys peddle?” I asked. The answer was a weak smile. “I remember an ad with a baby in Harley T-shirt and the caption When did it start for you?” I said. Another weak smile.

I was getting nowhere fast. I tried calling a couple of other Harley dealers and it was the same story. Over 10 years old, dealers won’t touch it. I was flabbergasted. For a company that based their entire advertising program on longevity and heritage, I thought it was outrageous. Chalk up another chapter in my book, Why I Hate Dealers.

A friend suggested I go to an independent shop. “It’s why they exist,” he said. So I did.

Here’s my internist…Victor, of the Iron Horse cycle shop. That’s my Harley in the background.

There was this little hole-in-the-wall place on Holt Boulevard in Ontario, in kind of a seedy part of town, near where the local Harley dealer used to be. The Iron Horse. You gotta love a shop with a name like that. The guy who ran it was a dude about my age named Victor. I could tell right away: I liked the shop and I liked Victor. I got my Harley over there and I stopped by a few days later to hear the verdict: The engine was toast.

“What happened here,” said Victor, “is that one of your roller lifters stopped rolling, and it turned into a solid lifter. When I did that, the cam and the lifter started shedding metal, and the filings migrated into the oil pump. When that stopped working, the engine basically ate itself….”

An Evo motor roller lifter that stopped rolling. The needle bearing in this lifter failed, and departed for points south. And north. And east and west. You get the idea.

The cam wore a path into the roller. That metal had to go somewhere, and where it went was the oil pump.

“You’ve got lots of other things not right in your motorcycle, too,” Victor explained. “The alternator is going south, your cam got chewed up, the oil pump is toast, the belt is tired, and you’ll probably want to gear it a little taller to reduce the vibration like the new Harleys do.”

Here’s what the failed lifter did to the Screaming Eagle cam. Note the surface on the right most lobe.

Victor showed me that my alternator was getting close to failing. Look at the insulation on the output lines. Yep, I would need a new one of those, too.

Here’s what happened when the metal dust and needle bearing bits got into the oil pump. Note the abrasions on the inner surface.

Another neat shot. It was kind of cool to see what was flying up and down underneath me during those 50,000 miles I put on the Harley over the last 14 years.

Victor gave me a decent price for bringing the engine back to its original condition (in other words, a rebuild to stock), but it wasn’t cheap. Then he offered an alternative.

“I can rebuild it with S&S components for about the same price,” he said, “and that’s with nearly everything new except the cases. We’ll keep the Harley cases because then the engine number stays the same, and it’s still a Harley. It would be a 96-inch motor instead of an 80-inch motor, and I think you’d like it. It would be about the same price as rebuilding it with Harley parts. You’d get new pistons, rods, flywheels, and nearly everything else. I’d have to take the cases apart and get them machined to accept the S&S stroker crank and cylinders, and we’d reassemble it with new bearings. Oversized S&S forged pistons would go in with a 10.1:1 compression ratio, and that means you’d have to run high test. Oh, yeah, there’s new S&S heads, a new manifold, and a new S&S Super carb. And an S&S cam.” Then he showed me the components in a brochure, and another chart that showed the difference in power.

All the S&S stuff that would go into my new motor. I was getting excited. This was going to be cool.

Twice the horsepower, and twice the torque. What’s not to like?

It was an easy decision. For the same money it would cost to bring the Harley back to stock, I could get it redone as a real hot rod. For me, it was a no-brainer. My days of bopping around on a 48-hp, 700-lb Harley would be over. The horsepower would double. Bring it on!

My Harley was still running on the original belt drive, and I had Victor replace that, too. And as long as the belt was being replaced, I went with Victor’s recommendation to swap to taller sprockets. That would give the bike a bit more top end and cut some of the vibration at cruising speeds.

I wrote a check and asked Victor to call me when the parts came in. I wanted to photograph the whole deal. Victor said he would, and I stopped at the Iron Horse frequently over the next several weeks.

Check out the gorgeous S&S cylinder head.

And how about this machined-from-billet piston? These would kick the Harley’s compression ratio up to 10.1:1.

I was enjoying this. The parts didn’t come in all at once, and that was fine by me. I enjoyed stopping in at the Iron Horse and taking photos. It was something I looked forward to at the end of each day. It was really fun as the motor came together. Victor asked if I wanted the cylinders and cylinder heads painted black like they originally were, or if I wanted to leave them aluminum. It was another no-brainer for me: Aluminum it would be!

My S&S motor being assembled. The cases and the valve covers were about the only Harley parts left in the motor.

Isn’t it beautiful? Another view of the S&S 96-incher coming together.

Here’s a closeup of the cam and one of the roller lifters just above it.

One day not long after the motor went together I got the call: My bike was ready. It was stunning and I rode the wheels off the thing. Here’s the finished bike…my ’92 Softail with the S&S 96-inch motor installed.

The S&S motor completely changed the personality of my Harley. I had thought it was quick when Laidlaw’s installed the Screaming Eagle stuff back at the 500-mile service, but now, at 50,000 miles with the S&S motor, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. In the 14 years I had owned my Harley previously, I had just touched 100mph once. Now, the bike would bury the needle (somewhere north of 120mph on the Harley speedometer) nearly every time I took an entrance on to the freeway. This thing was fast! Fuel economy dropped to the mid-30-mpg range, but I didn’t care. My Harley was fast! The rear tire would wear out in 3,000 miles, but I didn’t care. The Harley was fast! It ran rich and you could smell gasoline at idle, but I didn’t care. Did I mention this thing was fast?

You might think I would have kept the Harley and put another zillion miles on it, but truth be told, my riding tastes had changed and I only kept it for another year after the rebuild. I was riding with a different crowd and I had a garage full of bikes, including the ’95 Triumph Daytona 1200 I’ve previously blogged about, my Suzuki TL1000S, a pristine bone-stock low-mileage ’82 Honda CBX, and a new KLR 650 Kawasaki. You wanna talk fast? The TL and the Daytona were scary fast. Yeah, the S&S was a runner, but fast had taken on a new definition for me.

And then one day, it happened. My wife had asked me to pick up something at the store while I was out seeking my fortune on the Harley, and when I came home, I realized I forgot to stop for whatever it was. I could have gone out on the Harley again, but for whatever reason, the KLR got the nod instead.

The bottom line: I had back to back rides on the S&S Softail and the KLR, and that’s when it hit me: I had bought the KLR new for about what I had in the S&S motor. The KLR was quicker at normal speeds, it handled way better, it was a much smoother and more comfortable, and it was more fun to ride. That was a wake-up call for me. The Harley went in the CycleTrader that day, and it sold the day after that. Regrets? None. I’d had my fun, and it was time to move on.

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Gangsters!

My Harley Softail stories seem to be hitting the spot (how’s that for alliteration?), and I mentioned in an earlier blog that I’d tell you about my gangster whitewalls. I keep my promises.

I need to provide some context here, and that entails telling you about two other vehicles. One is what might well be the most beautiful motorcycle Harley-Davidson ever made, and that’s the 1993 Heritage Nostalgia. Quickly dubbed the Moo Glide by whoever did the dubbing in those days, it was a stunning motorcycle. It was essentially a Heritage Softail, but what the Milwaukee maestros did was they painted the thing white with black panels, they dropped the windshield, they made the leather saddlebags smaller, and they left off the windshield.

Harley-Davidson didn’t stop there. The next steps were cowskin inserts on both the saddlebags and the seat, but it just wasn’t a brown leather insert. Nope, it was from whatever breed of cows have that black and white fur, and Harley left the fur on. It worked nicely with the bike’s black and white paint treatment. The motorcycle was stunning.

The 1993 Harley FLSTN, also known as the Moo Glide.

But wait. There’s more. The V-twin virtuosos had Dunlop add a new part number to their catalog, and that made the motorcycle a home run. The Dunlop dudes took the stock Harley blackwalls and added luxurious wide whitewalls. They (whoever “they” was) called them gangster whitewalls. You know, like Al Capone in a V-16 Cadillac or a Duesenberg. The effect was visually arresting. Literally. It stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw a Moo Glide. But I’ll get to that in a second.

The second vehicle (remember, I said I needed to provide some context here) was my 1989 Geo Tracker. Well, actually, it was made by Suzuki, but GM did their badge engineering schtick and they sold it under the GEO Tracker label.

A 1989 Geo Tracker. Mine looked just like this. It was a great little truck.

I saw the very first one of these to arrive in So Cal at our local Chevy dealer, when I stopped to pick up a radiator hose for another Chevy I owned that needed, well, a radiator hose. I liked the Tracker immediately. It was small (a big plus), it was a 4×4 (that appealed to me), and it was a good-looking little truck. My stop for a radiator hose turned into a new car purchase.

As it turned out, I bought the very first Geo Tracker in southern California, and that got me on an early adopter marketing list. I’ve probably been paid to look at new concept cars from a half a dozen manufacturers maybe ten times over the years, but that’s a story for another time.

To get back to this story, I loved that Tracker and I really racked up the miles on it. That’s sort of the point where I’m going with this story. I got more miles out of a set of tires on that Tracker than any vehicle I’ve ever owned. I was at 78,000 miles on the Tracker’s original tires (Bridgestones, as I recall) and they were still going strong. My wife wanted me to get new tires just because of the miles. The Tracker was a small car, and in 1993, a set of tires just like the ones from the factory were $275. Nah, I told her, I can get another 10,000 miles out of these tires. I wasn’t going to spend $275 for tires if I didn’t need to. Money doesn’t grow on trees, I said, and $275 was a lot of money.

So, let’s get back to the point of this story, and that’s my Harley. I had my ’92 Softail in at Laidlaw’s for a scheduled service, and as I recall, I only had about 2,000 miles on its second set of tires. They were blackwalls, just like the bike came with from the factory. They had plenty of life left in them. But at Laidlaw’s I saw my first Moo Glide and my reaction was Wow!

Jerry Laidlaw saw me eyeing the Moo. He knew I wasn’t going to buy a new motorcycle so soon, but he also smelled blood in the water. “We have those gangster whitewalls in stock,” he said.

“How much?” I asked.

“$350 for the pair,” Jerry said.

I didn’t blink an eye. “Let’s do it!”

Yours truly, somewhere in Baja in the mid-’90s, proving that helmet hair is a real hazard if you have any hair at all. And yeah, with my gangster whitewalls.

Mini Motor Madness: 6

I managed to get all the cables routed and connected. The electrical wiring is concealed inside the large diameter front down tube along with the clutch and throttle. Mini Motor Madness was looking sharp but there were still a few more details to attend.

The cute little gas tank has studs spot-welded onto the underside of the tank. Thin brackets fit onto these studs and clamp the tank to the top frame tube. Except that the brackets are so thin they distort when tightened. The studs needed a few spacers to give the nuts something to tighten against.

From there it was a simple matter to connect the supplied fuel line and filter. The fuel line feels like silicone, it’s very soft and flexible, I don’t think it will need clamps. The kit came with a rubber gasket for the fuel petcock but it looked like the gasket would squirt out the side when the petcock was tightened. I used Teflon tape instead. It hasn’t leaked so far. So many little pieces came with this kit. It really is complete.

The Wal-Mart fender supports were made from ultra thin sheet metal. Just by looking at them I created a fracture. I cut some scrap L angle aluminum into braces and made a backing plate to spread the load a bit. Hopefully the fender won’t tangle in the wheel.

Long time Mini Moto Madness readers will recall the chain alignment issue I was having in an earlier episode. I meant to get back to the problem but the bike was nearly complete. I had to hear it run, man. I turned on the gas, pedaled down Tinfiny’s steep, rutted driveway, popped the clutch and the little motor fired right up. For about a second.

There was a loud grinding noise from aft and the rear wheel locked up. The chain, never really happy with the set up, was tangled in the rear wheel. It was so bad a 3-link section was missing! Luckily, the kit chain was extra long to suit many different bicycles and I was able to splice in a section, making sure to peen the pins after fitting.

To ride this puppy I’d have to bite the bullet and take that damn rear sprocket off (again!) and fit spacers. Like I said earlier, this kit is complete. It had everything needed to shim the sprocket, although the shims were a little harder to access.

After butchering the sprocket for shim stock I reinstalled the rear sprocket. Now on their 3rd round trip the elastic stop nuts were losing elasticity but I was all in, I had to ride the beast. The sprocket was a tad wobblier than I remember but my patented sprocket-tuning tool allowed me to true up the mess to a reasonable level.

And it worked! The little beast fired up and settled into a retro idle, the smoke poured from the recommended 16:1 fuel mix ratio. I live in a steep, hilly area and the bike is geared too tall. I don’t know how fast it goes (that will have to wait for the full exhaustnotes.us road test) but it’s faster than any coaster brake bicycle should be going. The gearing would be ok in Florida but at 6000 feet elevation with 1st gear hills all around it’s Light Pedal Assist all the way.

I’ve ordered a 48-tooth sprocket to replace the stock 44 and my front brake should be here any day now. I’m calling this a win! The kit project is complete in my mind. So there! I finished one. The next phase will be modifications to make the rig suitable for my situation.

A Harley wake-up call…

So I had my new Harley, a gorgeous blue ’92 Heritage Softail, and it was a shockingly beautiful motorcycle. Yeah, some of the styling touches were a little hokey, but in a good way. I never even knew what a concho was before I bought the Softail, but I knew after I owned it. I became a Harley-riding cowboy. The conchos made the bike complete. How I ever made it to 40 without conchos I’ll never know. I had them now, though, and they just looked right. My Softail was a fashion statement. It made me look good and it made me feel good. I loved that bike.

My ’92 Softail on a Baja ride to San Felipe. Good buddies Baja John and Marty rode with me on that one. Those gangster whitewalls? That’s a story for another blog.

There was only one problem, and it was a big one: The Softail was a dawg. It was a 700-lb lump that couldn’t get out of its own way. I’ve already spoken about how unreliable my ’79 Electra-Glide was, but that old clunker would get up and choogy, and it would have walked away from my new ’92 Softail in a drag race. I mean, the thing was slow. When I gave it more throttle going up a hill, it seemed like the only result was a deeper moan. It sure didn’t go any faster.

I worked in El Monte in those days and the nearby dealer was a famous one in southern California, Laidlaw’s, and I felt comfortable with them. I knew Bob Laidlaw, their founder, and I knew his son Jerry, and I knew both to be straight shooters. When it was time for the Softail’s first service at 500 miles, that’s where I went. Laidlaw’s has since moved to a larger, more modern facility in a better neighborhood, I’m guessing at Harley-Davidson’s insistence, and it’s still a great place. But I liked the old location better. Like I described for Dale’s in the last blog about buying my ’92, the old Laidlaw’s facility had that crusty old motorcycle shop schtick, and I liked that. You know, grease on the floor, a funky shop area, and guys who looked like their lives revolved around motorcycles and tattoos. Guys with calibrated arms who knew how much torque to apply to a 9/16 by feel alone.

I went to Laidlaw’s on an overcast Saturday morning for that first service, and Jerry wrote the service order. After completing it, he looked at me and asked: Anything else?

“Yeah,” I said. “The thing’s a dog.”

Jerry smiled. He knew. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

“They lean them out pretty good from the factory,” he said.

“So what do guys do?” I asked.

Another Jerry smile. “Well, most guys get a new cam, punch out the pipes, rejet the carb, and put the Screaming Eagle air filter in.”

“How much is that?” I asked. I could see this smoking past another $1500 without stopping to look back.

“It’s about $500,” Jerry answered. Hmmm, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

“So how much would everything be,” I said. “You know, the 500-mile service and the cam and carb and pipes and all the rest?”

“It’s $500 for everything,” Jerry answered, “including the 500-mile service.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

“Let’s do it,” I said. I mean, I know a good deal when I see one. I hung around, as Jerry told me the whole thing would be a couple of hours. In the meantime, it had started raining, and I had no raingear. I walked across the street to some sort of an Army-Navy-99-cent store and bought a $3 rain suit.

In those days, it was no big deal to hang around in the service area and watch the techs work on your bike. The guy who was working on mine was a long-haired dude with lots of tattoos and a friendly smile. He held this giant steel toothpick-looking sort of tool that was essentially a ¾-inch-diameter rod sharpened to a point in one hand, and in his other hand he had a sledge hammer. He stuck the persuader into the end of one of my fishtail mufflers and whacked it with the sledge hammer. Then he repeated the process on the other fishtail. With a big grin, he said, “Adios, baffles!”

Then it was the carb work and the air cleaner replacement. And then it was the Screaming Eagle cam, which actually was pretty easy to install in the chrome cone on the right side of the engine. Then he buttoned it all up.

I finished my cup of coffee, donned my el cheapo raingear, paid my bill, and fired up the Harley.

Good Lord!

It was a completely different motorcycle. It sounded way better than it had before the Screaming Eagle cam work and exhaustectomy. It had been transformed from a smothered, anemic, pathetic, wheezing sort of thing into living, breathing, fire-snorting, spirited motorcycle. It reeked raw power and it had attitude. The idle was lopey and assertive, like a small block Chevy with an Isky cam and Hooker headers. My Harley rocked back and forth on its axles with each engine rotation. It was telling me: Let’s go! I think I’m pretty good at turning a phrase and I’m doing my best here, folks, but trust me on this: It’s hard to put into words how complete and total my Harley’s transformation was. It kind of reminded me of the first time I ever threw a leg over a Triumph Bonneville (I was 14 when that happened, and when Laidlaw’s tuned my Softail I was 14 all over again).

So I rolled out into the rain for my 30-mile ride home and I was afraid to whack the throttle open. I thought the rear wheel would break loose on the wet pavement; it felt that powerful. The rain and the clouds, I think, made the Harley’s Exhaust Notes (love that phrase) sound way mo better. I was there, man.

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Such a deal!

The year was 1991, and the last thing in the world I was thinking about was buying another motorcycle, and within the confines of that thought, the very, very last thought I would have ever had was buying a Harley-Davidson. I had previously owned a ’79 Electra-Glide I bought new in Texas, and that bike was a beautiful disaster. I called it my optical illusion (it looked like a motorcycle). I wrote about the bad taste it left in an earlier blog. Nope, I’d never own another Harley, or so I thought when I sold it in 1981.

My ’79 Electra-Glide Classic, as shown in the 1979 Harley catalog. It was the most unreliable and most beautiful motorcycle I ever owned. I wish I still had it.

But like the title of that James Bond movie, you should never say never again. I was a big wheel at an aerospace company in 1991 and I was interviewing engineers when good buddy Dick Scott waltzed in as one of the applicants. I had worked with Dick in another aerospace company (in those days in the So Cal aerospace industry, everybody worked everywhere at one time or another). Dick had the job as soon as he I saw he was applying, but I went through the motions interviewing him and I learned he had a Harley. DIck said they were a lot better than they used to be and he gave me the keys to his ’89 Electra-Glide. I rode it and he was right. It felt solid and handled way better than my old Shovelhead.

Dick Scott on his ’89 Electra-Glide. The day after I took this photo in Baja, Dick died when he crashed his motorcycle.

That set me on a quest. I started looking, and after considering the current slate of Harleys in 1991, I decided that what I needed was a Heritage Softail. I liked the look and I thought I wanted the two-tone turquoise-and-white version. The problem, though, was that none of the Harley dealers had motorcycles. They were all sold before they arrived at the dealers, and the dealers were doing their gouging in those days with a “market adjustment” uptick ranging from $2000 to sometimes $4000 (today, most non-Harley dealers sort of do the same thing with freight and setup). There was no way in hell I was going to pay over list price, but even had I wanted to, it would have been a long wait to get a new Harley.

One day while driving to work, a guy passed me on the freeway riding a sapphire blue Heritage softail, and I was smitten. Those colors worked even better for me than did the turquoise-and-white color combo. The turquoise-and-white had a nice ‘50s nostalgia buzz (it reminded me of a ’55 Chevy Bel Air), but that sapphire blue number was slick. Even early in the morning on Interstate 10, I could see the orange and gray factory pinstriping, and man, it just worked for me. It had kind of a blue jeans look to it (you know, denim with orange stitching). That was my new want and I wanted the thing bad. But it didn’t make any difference. Nobody had any new Harleys, and nobody had them at list price. I might as well have wanted a date with Michelle Pfeiffer. In those days, a new Harley at list price or less in the colors I wanted (or in any colors, actually) was pure unobtanium.

The Harley Softail I bought at Dale’s Modern Harley. I negotiated a hell of a deal. I kept that Harley for 12 years and rode the wheels off the thing. I’ve since learned how to pack a little better.

So one Saturday morning about a month later, I took a drive out to the Harley dealer in San Bernardino. In those days, that dealer was Dale’s Modern Harley (an oxymoronic name for a Harley dealer if ever there was one). Dale’s is no more, but when it was there, it was the last of the real motorcycle shops. You know the drill…it was in a bad part of town, it was small, everything had grease and oil stains, and the only thing “modern” was the name on the sign. That’s what motorcycle dealers were like when I was growing up. I liked it that way, and truth be told, I miss it. Dealerships are too clean today.

Anyway, a surprise awaited. I walked in the front door (which was at the rear of the building because the door facing the street was chained shut because, you know, it was a bad part of town). And wow, there it was: A brand new 1992 Heritage Softail in sapphire blue. Just like I wanted.

Dale’s had a sales guy who came out of Central Casting for old Harley guys. His name was Bob (I never met Dale and I have no idea who he was). Bob. You know the type and if you’re old enough you know the look. Old, a beer belly, a dirty white t-shirt, jeans, engineer boots, a blue denim vest, and one of those boat captain hats motorcycle riders wore in the ‘40s and ‘50s. An unlit cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth. His belt was a chromed motorcycle chain. I’d been to Dale’s several times before, and I’d never seen Bob attired in anything but what I just described. And I’d never seen him without that unlit cigarette. Straight out of Central Casting, like I said.

“What’s this?” I asked Bob, pointing at the blue Softail.

“Deal fell through,” Bob answered. “Guy ordered it, we couldn’t get him financing, and he couldn’t get a loan anywhere else.”

“So it’s available?” I asked.

“Yep.”

Hmmm. This was interesting.

“How much?” I asked.

“$12,995, plus tax and doc fees,” Bob answered, walking back to his desk at the edge of Dale’s very small showroom floor.

$12,995 was MSRP for a new Heritage Softail back in 1992. That would be a hell of a deal. Nobody else in So Cal was selling Harleys at list price.

I followed Bob to his desk and sat down. I was facing Bob and the Harley was behind me. Bob was screwing around with some papers on his desk and not paying any particular attention to me.

“I’ll go $11,500 for it,” I said.

Bob looked up from his paperwork and smiled.

“Son,” he said (and yeah, he actually called me “son,” even though I was 40 years old at the time) “I’m going to sell that motorsickle this morning. Not this afternoon, not next week, but this morning. The only question is: Am I going to sell it to you or am I going to sell it to him?”

Bob actually said “motorsickle,” I thought, and then I wondered who “him” was. Bob sensed my befuddlement. He pointed behind me and I looked. Somebody was already sitting on what I had started regarding as my motorsickle. That guy was thinking the same thing I was.

“Bob,” I began, “you gotta help me out here. I never paid retail for anything in my life.”

“That’s because you never bought a new ’92 Harley, son, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll throw in a free Harley T-shirt.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or if he was trying to insult me, but I didn’t care.

I looked at the Harley again and that other dude was still sitting on it. On my motorcycle. And that’s when I made up my mind. $12,995 later (plus another thousand dollars in taxes and doc fees) I rolled out of Dale’s with a brand-new sapphire blue Harley Heritage Softail. And one new Harley T-shirt.

Mini Moto Madness: 5

Not only do I rarely finish projects, it takes forever for me not to finish them. I’m a slow worker. I get bogged down in details and miss the big picture. Details like the front engine mount on Mini Moto Madness. The front down tube on the Huffy is a large diameter pipe and the smaller, cast in semi-circle on the engine crankcase will not fit. The engine kit comes with a steel adapter plate and a U-bolt that fits the fat tube but the thing looks like hell.

I got to thinking and planning, figuring on a chunk of aluminum to fit the two different pipe diameters, holes drilled, cuts made, longer bolts, it was getting out of hand, man. This time I was able to catch myself. What the hell am I doing? Every other mini motor I looked at used the stock mounting plates so I said, “Screw it.” and went with the popular choice. Right there is a two-day labor saving decision.

With the motor firmly in place I spent some time on the chain drive. The rear fender came in contact with the chain so I had to trim it and roll the sharp edge. It’ll need a paint job and stronger brackets but I’m going to wait until the mechanical is done before tackling cosmetics.

It’s almost impossible to get two chains to agree on length so the mini motor kit comes with an idle roller for tension adjustment. The idler also turns the chain angle upwards before the lower frame tubes get narrow, keeping the chain from rubbing. I don’t like the thing but I’m not sure what to do about it. My rear sprocket is slightly misaligned; the chain doesn’t jump off the sprocket but it sure favors the hub side. To center the chain the rear sprocket needs to go outboard 1/16” so that means making a spacer and reassembling the sprocket onto the wheel. I’m also considering adjusting the countershaft sprocket instead. I’ve decided to deal with this situation later.

The pretty chrome exhaust pipe didn’t quite clear the Huffy’s crank arms. I didn’t want to mess up the chrome by cutting and welding the pipe so instead clamped the exhaust flange in the vise and twisted the pipe a few degrees. The pipe twisted beautifully with no wrinkles or kinks. The crank arms clear with room to spare. Sadly, the chrome plating did not go along with the program and delaminated. Pro Tip: Buy the kit with the black painted exhaust. It’s easier to modify for your particular bike.

The ignition coil was a straightforward install. I’ve upped the difficulty rating by routing the wiring through the frame. Most of these bike builds look cluttered with wires and cables. I’ll run the controls inside the frame as much as possible.

The rotor output wiring will also run internally. I’m sure this will end in tears but I saved a lot of time not fabricating a front engine mount so I’m using that time credit to tidy up the job.

The other sloppy area on these builds is the handlebar. Unlike a motorcycle, there is no speedometers or bodywork to hide the throttle/clutch/kill wiring. I’ve drilled holes and snaked the stuff through the bars. It looks cleaner to me. Yes, I’ve weakened the handlebars. I’m willing to risk a crash from structural failure in support of aesthetics. We are all artists and it’s about time we started living like it.

Mini Moto Madness: 4

Assembling the Wal-Mart Huffy bicycle was fairly straightforward. When I was a kid, USA-built Huffy bikes were pretty crappy. They were ok if you rode them like a normal bicycle but jumping or rough scrambling would break the frames. Huffys are made in China now and the frame welds look attractive and strong. From the wheels to the handlebars the whole bike looks better than the Huffys of yesteryear. Which is a good thing because I’m strapping a 2 horsepower motor into the frame of the Huffy to see what she’ll do.

As per the Bicycle Motor Builders Facebook page I packed heavy-duty wheel bearing grease into both wheels. This is a pretty simple job as you only need to loosen the bearing cones a bit to push grease into the gap.

Once the bearings were greased I fitted the rear sprocket onto the wheel. This is the cheesiest part of the install as the sprocket sandwiches the spokes between 2 rubber spacers. Keeping the sprocket centered on the wheel is critical so I used a hole saw blade wrapped in duct tape as a mandrel.

The job went well but when I went to spin the wheel to check the sprocket for square the wheel wouldn’t rotate on the axle. As it turns out a small metal dust cap got squeezed between the sprocket center and the hub, locking the wheel.

I dismantled the mess and removed the dust cap. After reinstalling and truing the sprocket I trimmed the dust cap to fit inside the center hole of the sprocket. The bolts for the sprocket are long but you’ll need that length to get the nuts started. One of the 9 bolts in my kit was a bit too short, or I lost the right one so I used a bolt from the junk drawer after cutting it to length. The sprocket to hub deal looks like poo-poo but the sprocket seems like it is attached well and no one complains about it online. We will see.

The sprocket holes are elongated to allow for different wheel hubs but I didn’t like the bit of hole showing so I put ¼” washers on the bolts to conceal the gap. This looks great except that the rear brake stay arm now came in contact with the bolt heads. It’s that tight! A quick realignment in the vise and the arm cleared the bolt heads.

Of course when you alter one item it causes a chain reaction down stream. The re-bent brake stay arm no longer fit between the axle side-plates so I had to make a new clamp to stop the brake stay from rotating under braking. The stock clamp was super thin steel. I figured with 2hp pushing the Huffy to high speeds the clamp needed to be a bit heavier.

The bolt on the stock arm was a tiny #10. That didn’t look so hot to me so I bumped it up to a ¼” size. And since I couldn’t wait for the paint to dry the clamp got a little scratched up.

With the rear wheel fitted back into the frame I started test fitting parts. The rear motor mount clamps securely to the seat post but this frame has a large diameter front tube that is too wide for the bolt centers of the front mount. The motor kit comes with a U-bolt and clamp setup for wide front tubes. I could make it work but it looks horrible and most likely will rattle apart. I’ll have to rethink the front mount. The carb is a little close to the top tube. I will probably run the throttle cable inside the top tube to give it a larger radius bend. The chain run will determine final motor placement.

That’s the progress I’ve made to date. The white frame with black trim looks sharp. The bike feels balanced and not heavy in the least.

Rabbits to Rhinos…

It was a day on the range with three classic and regal rifles: A .22 Hornet Winchester Model 43, a Winchester Model 70 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum, and a .416 Rigby Ruger Model 77 RSM Express. These are rifles that can handle everything from rabbits to rhinos, although my only intent was to punch holes in paper, preferably with the holes as close to each other as possible. It’s always fun doing so, and it’s even more fun when the rifles have an elegance rooted in fine walnut, hand-cut checkering, and deeply polished blue steel. To me, these things are art. Art you can take to the range and enjoy. I’m going to tell you more about the load data for each of these rifles in subsequent blogs; today, it’s a bit of history about the guns and their cartridges, and how I came to own each of these fine rifles.

A study in extremes: From top to bottom, it’s the .416 Rigby, the .300 Weatherby Magnum, and the diminutive .22 Hornet. All three are reloaded cartridges.

The rifles? I’ve mentioned at least two of these in ExNotes blogs before, but for those of you who haven’t read those posts, let me bring you up to speed. The first is a Winchester Model 43 Deluxe manufactured in 1949.

The Winchester Model 43 Deluxe, a .22 Hornet rifle that looks like it shipped from the factory last week.

The next is an early 1980s Winchester Model 70 XTR. It’s one of a very small number of rifles Winchester chambered in .300 Weatherby that year.

Another magnificent Winchester, this time a Model 70 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum. Check out the walnut!

And the last is a Ruger Model 77 RSM Express. It’s a monstrous rifle, chambered for a cartridge designed to slay monsters. Rhinos, elephants, and more. It’s a beautiful firearm.

The .416 Rigby Ruger RSM Express, a rifle so costly to produce Ruger had to stop making it.

As I wrote this blog, I realized that I purchased all three rifles from the same store: Turner’s in West Covina, California. Turner’s is the major hunting and fishing sporting goods chain here in California. I’m usually not a fan of big chain stores, but I’ve found some good deals at Turner’s and I’ll give credit where credit is due: Turner’s did good by me. All three of these rifles were fantastic deals.

People ask how I find guns with great wood. Part of it is I’m picky and I’m patient. Another factor is that today’s firearms market is dominated by folks who want black plastic rifles and pistols. That’s the market Turner’s serves and that’s good for me, because when collectible firearms with blue steel and walnut come into Turner’s they tend to sit for awhile. Most guys who focus on ARs tend to ignore what, to me, is the good stuff.

The Winchester Model 43 was on the consignment rack at Turner’s several years ago. It was the first Model 43 I had ever seen and I liked the look and feel. I like the cartridge, too. Turner’s had the rifle priced at $1000 and after doing my research, I thought that was fair. But I’m not interested in a fair deal. I want an exceptional deal. I visited that store every week or so for a good month and a half, and that little Model 43 had not moved. You see, in that neighborhood, there isn’t much of a market for a collectible Winchester. Like I said above, it’s just not what sells around here.

Winchester only made the Model 43 from May 1948 through 1953, and as mentioned above, mine was manufactured in 1949. When I bring my Model 43 to the range, folks who know what they’re seeing are all “ooohs” and “ahhhs,” as the crowd I run with consists mostly of guys who started driving when Eisenhower was in the White House. These guys get it.

Name one modern rifle that includes a checkered steel butt plate. You can’t. They don’t exist. You have to turn back the clock 50 years or more to fnd this.

Hand checkering, too! Not laser cut, not pressed in, not machine cut, and not a rubber insert…but real hand-cut checkering. Somebody at the Winchester factory probably took the better part of a day 70 years ago to do this, and it was all done with hand tools. Checkering is one of the things that makes this Model 43 a Deluxe model.

Nobody has better rollmarks than Winchester, and these say it all: America, Model 43, Winchester, and .22 Hornet!

I pointed this out in an earlier blog, but it’s so cool I’ll mention it again. That front sight is not a separate part grafted on to the Model 43’s barrel; it and the barrel are machined from one piece of steel. Think lots of machine time and big production expense. Check out the stippling on the sight ramp (it cuts the sun’s glare). That would have all been done by hand.

So, back to my pining over the Model 43. I stopped in at Turner’s for maybe the sixth time to look at the Hornet again. I mean, the thing was on my mind. I was thinking about it at night when I went to sleep, it kept me up, and then when I finally dozed off, I was still thinking about it the next morning. To be a complete human being, I realized, I needed that Model 43. I suspect that if you’re reading this blog, you understand.

If the Hornet was still on the rack at Turner’s, I reasoned, the guy who had it on consignment might be willing to negotiate. I was going to offer $950. The rifle was easily worth the $1000 they were asking for it; $950 would be a killer deal. So I stopped in on the way home one day and asked to look at the Hornet again. I sensed that the guy behind the counter (the Turner’s gun department manager) was a little hesitant to show it to me, but he handed it over after opening the bolt.

I looked at the attached tag. The price had been reduced to $850.

I’ll take it, I said. The gunstore guy sighed. He told me he had wanted to buy the rifle (he was an older guy, like me), but that wasn’t my problem. I filled out all the paperwork, and 10 days later, I took my 1949 Hornet home. I was a complete human being. I could sleep now. All was well with the world.

I have no idea why Winchester stopped making these rifles, but I suspect it was because they were expensive to manufacture and the Winchester Model 70 was selling better. Whatever. And the cartridge itself? The .22 Hornet was first fielded in the early 1930s and when it hit the market, it was a sensation. It was a wildcat cartridge designed at the Springfield Arsenal and its focus was high speed (in those days, the 2400 fps Hornet was fast). The Hornet’s low recoil, relatively flat (for the day) trajectory, and accuracy made it the hot ticket for sending critters to the Great Beyond. I’ve been with Hornet-armed guys chasing jackrabbits and coyotes in west Texas; there is no better cartridge for this kind of hunting in the desert surrounding El Paso. There are more powerful .22 centerfires available today, but the Hornet is the one that started it all. It’s one of the world’s all-time great designs.

Winchester offered the Model 43 in two flavors – the Standard and the Deluxe. My 1951 Stoeger catalog shows that a new Deluxe sold for $66.95 that year; the Standard was $12 less expensive. Mine is a Deluxe, with checkering and a deep blue highly polished finish. And wow, it does its job well. It has iron sights, and I shot some amazing groups with it at 50 yards. I’ll share the load data with you in a subsequent blog.

50 yards, the right load, open sights, and a well-mannered Model 43 all came together on this fine day. Any time I can get under an inch at 50 yards with open sights, I’m calling it a good day.

But wait, there’s more! This old Model 43 gets the job done!

I bought the Model 70 .300 Weatherby rifle in the 1980s. I was an aerospace engineer working at Honeywell in Covina (we did naval gunfire control systems for one of the first cannon-launched laser-guided munitions), I met my wife Sue when I worked at Honewell, and I hung out with my good buddy Ralph. Ralph, as it turns out, had the same affliction as me: He was a gun nut. Ralph told me about Turner’s. I was new to California, and I had never heard of Turner’s.

You can guess where this story is going. I went to Turner’s on my lunch break and I saw the Model 70. I knew enough back then to know that a factory Model 70 chambered for a Weatherby round was an unusual rifle, and I also had a taste for fancy walnut (my Dad made custom gunstocks, so I guess the walnut thing is genetic). The rifle was marked for something like $429 or $439 if I recall correctly (I might be off a little, but it was somewhere in the just-north-of-$400 range). I knew that it was tough to lose money on a gun (not that I had any plans to sell it), but it was the wood on that Model 70 that cinched the deal for me. I paid what they were asking because I wasn’t much of a negotiator back then. Today, I know that gun shops always put the rifles with the most beautiful wood on display. By definition, that’s the one I want and I’ll work hard to get it. But now I always ask for a discount no matter how stunning the stock is, because, you know, it’s the display model. Don’t laugh. It almost always works.

Sweet. The Model 70 in .300 Weatherby Magnum. The time to buy a gun like this is when you see it. They don’t come along too often, and I’ve never seen another one like it.

Winchester introduced the Model 70 in 1936. They value engineered the Model 70 in 1964 (that’s a nice way of saying they cheapened its looks and feel), and the pre-64s used to be far more desirable. But that’s all changed. I’ve owned pre-64s and modern Model 70 Winchesters, and I can tell you from personal experience the current production Model 70s are better guns. You can argue the point, but like I’ve said, I’ve owned both, and you won’t convince me. I’ve got the targets to prove it.

The funny thing about this particular Model 70 is that after I bought it, I didn’t shoot it but once or twice over the next 35 years. I was happy just knowing I owned it, and truth be told, I was a little intimidated by the .300 Weatherby cartridge. Yeah, I know, real men don’t flinch, but let me tell you, those .300 Weatherby rifles kick. I started getting serious about mastering this cartridge recently, though, and that’s what led to my Three 300s blog a couple of weeks ago. I guess I’m getting used to the recoil (a .300 Weatherby will rattle your fillings), because on this most recent range visit, the Model 70 graced me with a couple of 100-yard groups I found astonishing. I can’t do this with a .300 Weatherby all the time, but when I do, I’ll brag a bit. And I did. And I’m bragging a bit.

100 yards, a Weaver T-10 scope, and flinch-free trigger time all came together for a half-minute-of-angle 100-yard group. I shoot 3-shot groups when developing a hunting load. I’ve never been a fan of 5-shot groups, as I’ve found it’s very hard to get an animal to stand still for five shots.

Maybe that 0.519-inch group isn’t good enough? Hey, the very next one measured 0.371. This is from a .300 Weatherby, mind you, at 100 yards. I’m good to go!

The Model 70 Winchester has been called the Rifleman’s Rifle, and for good reason. Model 70s have the right look and they are just flat accurate. I guess you could go wrong with a Model 70, but I never have, and I’ve owned a few over the years. And the .300 Weatherby cartridge? There’s no question: It’s a bruiser. Developed by Roy Weatherby in 1944, it’s still one of the fastest 30-caliber rounds ever and as you can see above, it can be very accurate.

All right, on to the last one, and that’s the .416 Rigby. Wow, what a cartridge that monster is. It was the third rifle I brought to the range with me. I was about five bays away from the rangemaster when I fired the first round. He immediately came over to ask what I was shooting. I thought he was intrigued by the thump (something that might have registered on a Richter scale somewhere), and I guess in a way he was. I proudly answered that it was a .416 Rigby. Then he asked me to move further away from his observation post. The further the better, he said.

The rhino thumper. Big bullets, big bore, big rifle, big muzzle blast, and big recoil! One box of unprimed brass (that’s just 20 pieces) costs $43!

The .416 Rigby is a cartridge with an interesting pedigree. It was first developed in 1911 by John Rigby and Company, the folks in England who made safari rifles for folks who liked to throw money around. The cartridge was designed for dangerous game…big things that can bite you, stomp you, gore you, and maybe even eat you. Over the years, Rigby built approximately 500 rifles chambered for its mighty .416 cartridge, and then it fell out of favor after the .458 Winchester Magnum entered the market. The .416 Rigby probably would have died a graceful death had Ruger not stepped in with their .416 Rigby Model 77 RSM (the rifle you see here) nearly 30 years ago. All told, Ruger built about a thousand of these rifles from 1991 to 2001. Then, presumably because of the manufacturing expense and fewer guys going to Africa to chase the things that bite back, Ruger discontinued the rifle.

I bought the Ruger at Turner’s, and it was a repeat of the Hornet story. The Rigby was on consignment (at the very same Turner’s in West Covina), and it was marked $1400. That was not a bad price, and these Ruger Express Magnums are an investment (you see them now for numbers approaching $2000, sometimes even more). I keep telling my wife that (you know, the line about collectible guns being investments and all). She keeps asking me when I’m going to sell.

Like the Model 43, the barrel and sight are machined from one blank (it’s the rear sight on the Ruger rifle). That means Ruger had to hog the whole mess out of a single piece of steel. Think excessive machine time, and think high manufacturing cost.

The rear sight ramp is the same piece of steel as the barrel, similar to the approach Winchester used for the Model 43’s front sight ramp. The three leaves are for close, mid-range, and long-range game. This is an expensive way to go, but it makes for fast adjustments for someone pursuing dangerous game. It was a common approach on high-dollar safari rifles back in the day. It’s elegant.

This .416 Rigby Ruger had an exceptionally well-figured Circassian walnut stock. All of the Ruger RSM Express rifles had Circassian walnut, but I’ve only seen a few as fancy as this one, and when I saw this one, I knew I had to own it (it’s a disease, I know). And this is another rifle in as-new condition. I can guess what happened…somebody bought it dreaming of Africa, the trip never materialized, the prior owner found out what .416 Rigby ammo costs (north of $200 for 20 rounds of factory ammo), the guy fired one or two rounds and felt the wrath of Rigby recoil, and shortly thereafter the rifle found its way to the consignment rack. It happens more often than you might imagine.

Stunning Circassian Walnut. As supplied by Ruger, Circassian has an almost orange hue to it. This one is beautiful.

I offered the Turner’s dude $1200, and he said he couldn’t do that without talking to the person who had the rifle on consignment. I looked at him and he looked back at me for several seconds. I guess it was a standoff. Finally, I spoke: Give the guy a call, I said.

He did, and yep, 10 days later the big Ruger came home with me. It’s a monster. It weighs more than any rifle I own, and a big part of what drives the weight is that monstrous hogged out .416 barrel. But when you light one off, that weight is your friend. It soaks up the recoil, of which there is plenty.

The Ruger was not nearly as accurate as the other two rifles I had on the range that day, but it still wasn’t too bad. I was shooting at 50 yards initially, and this is the best group I could get…

.416-inch holes at 50 yards. This rifle will do better. I just didn’t have it in me that day.

After shooting five 3-shot groups at 50 yards, I had five rounds left in the box of 20. I wanted to see where the bullets would hit at 100 yards, and I used a pistol silhouette target to make that assessment.

Meh, I could do better. With other rifles, I have on occasion shot groups under an inch at 100 yards with open sights, but it wasn’t going to happen that day (for me or the .416 Rigby).

I held at 6:00 on the target’s orange center, and I used that larger target because I didn’t know where the rounds would land at that distance (I wanted lots of paper around the point of aim so I could see what was going on). I put all five shots on paper, but the group size was a disappointing 6.6 inches. Oddly enough, the rifle was printing very slightly to the left at 50 yards, but it clearly grouped to the right at 100 yards. I need to think about that a little bit. Maybe it was the way the sun was hitting the front sight (that can make a significant difference), as I shot the 100-yard group later in the day. I found the v-notch on the Rigby’s rear sight to be a bit difficult to use (I could not form a consistent sight picture). I guess it’s okay for a charging rhino, but it’s not conducive to the accuracy I sought. I’m not done with the Ruger Express rifle yet, and truth be told, I ‘m kind of glad the results weren’t stellar. Half the fun with these things is searching for the perfect load. Once you find it, for me at least, a lot of the excitement goes away. I figure there’s still plenty of excitement left in the Rigby.

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