The weather is turning nice here in southern California, the oppressive heat seems to be behind us, and I’ve got the urge to get on my motorcycle. That would probably be a good thing for the ExhaustNotes blog…you know, to generate some motorcycle-related content. But first, I’ve got to share a bit of shooting success with you (we get so many calls for more stuff on guns and shooting). I was on the range this morning with the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1, shooting the 100-grain Sierra bullets, and I scored a couple of groups that were quite satisfying:
Sub-minute-of-angle shooting with a rifle and cartridge combo that has been challenging. The Ruger No. 1 shot a 0.840-inch group and followed it up with a 0.763-inch group this morning, both with the Sierra 100-grain jacketed softpoint bullets.
I’ll do another blog or two on the .257 Ruger No. 1 in the near future. It’s fun.
An Upcoming RX3 Run!
So back to the motorcycle stuff. Both my motorcycles had dead batteries a couple of days ago, so I hooked up my trusty trickle-me-Elmo charger. I did the RX3 first and it’s showing green on the charger now, and I’ll get out on it a little later today. The TT250 is next, but I know I have to clean the carb again. I go too long between rides on that bike and I’m too lazy to add fuel stabilizer. If I get a few more motorcycles that don’t run, I’ll be just like Joe Gresh.
Anyway, I’ve been corresponding with a couple of my RX3 buddies and we’re in the early stages of talking about a 250cc ride in the next month or so. I’m thinking maybe an easy run up the Pacific Coast Highway. That’s always a fun one. Or maybe Baja. We’ll see, and you’ll hear about it right here on the ExNotes blog.
The China RX3 Ride
Speaking of fun rides, I’ve been seeing a series of Zongshen videos on how their bikes are built, and that got me to thinking about our ride across China two or three years ago. Gresh and I were the only gringos on that ride (is it okay to say that?), and every once in a while I’ll watch the two China ride videos just because I like doing that. The first is the official Zongshen video; the second is the one Joe Gresh put together. They’re both great, but I think I like Gresh’s video better. Your mileage may vary.
The trek across China sure was an amazing ride. So here’s the commercial…if you’d like to get the complete story, treat yourself and buy a copy of Riding China.
What’s that? You’d like a copy of Riding China but you don’t want to spring for the cash? Hey, that sounds like a call for a contest. Link this particular blog entry to your friends and as many different groups as you can on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever social media you use, show us the proof (a set of screen captures or whatever; mail it to info@exhaustnotes.us), and whoever posts the most links within the next 48 hours wins. We’ll send you an autographed free copy of Riding China.
The Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. It was a glorious weekend.
I have good news and I have bad news, like my old platoon sergeant used to say. The good news is that the .257 Weatherby chambering issue that I wrote about in the last blog is in the rear view mirror. I learned the secret handshake from RCBS tech support, as I wrote in a previous blog. More good news is that I loaded several more combinations of propellant and charge weights (all with the Sierra 100-grain jacketed soft point bullet) and I saw a few loads that show promise. Nothing really great yet, but better than I’d seen before I solved the chambering issue problem. I’ll show you the results in a second or two.
Reloading .257 Weatherby Magnum Ammo
Beautiful ammo, but getting it to perform in the Ruger No. 1 has been a challenge. I’m not there yet. These are 100-grain Sierra bullets. Phil at Sierra told me they have driven these up to 3500 fps without bullet failure. That’s smoking, folks!
The bad news? Well, it goes like this. Some of the bullets broke up in flight, and I’ve got the evidence on target that proves it. You may recall that I wrote about that in the first blog on the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1, and at that time, I attributed it to the varmint 87-grain bullets I used for those loads. My thought then is that they were thin-skinned varmint bullets designed to explode on impact, and pushing them at .257 Weatherby velocities (with the consequent aero heating and centrifugal forces) induced the failures. It’s what made me step up to the 100-grain Sierra bullets, as I thought the heavier bullets might drop the muzzle velocity enough that this would not occur again.
Like I said, beautiful. But will she shoot?
.257 Weatherby Accuracy Testing
My results on the range with my new loads were a bit disappointing. The rounds chambered okay, but the groups were nothing special and in most cases, downright discouraging. And like I said, I could see that some of the bullets were tumbling and disintegrating in flight. Here are my results from the latest accuracy tests:
So far, IMR 4064 and H1000 propellants show promise at the lower end of the charge range. Several of these combos had bullets break up in flight. I’m searching for cause and corrective action now.
This is what it looked like on target for the best groups that experienced no inflight disintegration:
The load on the left was with 66.0 grains of H1000 propellant; the load on the right was with 52.0 grains of IMR 4064. Both these combinations grouped about the same and experienced no bullet inflight anomalies. That’s the good news, although tighter groups would have made it better news.
And here’s what bullet breakup/disintegration looks like on target:
Whoa, check out what’s going on here! The bullet in the photo on the left came apart in flight just as it was passing through the target. You can see a gray misting at the lower right edge of that jagged hole; that’s lead being sprayed out due to centrifugal action. Two of the five bullets in the target on the right similarly broke up as they passed through the target.
Sierra’s Inputs on Bullet Disintegration
I had such good luck calling RCBS tech support on the chambering issue that I thought I would call Sierra and talk to their engineer, and that’s what I did. I found their number easily on the Sierra website, and a minute later I was chatting with Phil, the Sierra tech guru. Phil listened patiently as I explained what I was seeing on my targets and then he gave me his take on the situation. He agreed that what I was seeing was clear evidence that the bullets were failing in flight. My first concern was that the extra long Ruger barrel might be causing the breakups (it’s 28 inches, as opposed to other .257 Weatherby Magnum rifles that have 24 or 26 inch barrels). Phil said the Ruger’s extra 2 inches would make the muzzle velocity higher, but it wasn’t enough to cause this problem.
Phil pointed me in two or three directions. His first thought was that the barrel might have an imperfection induced either by a machining anomaly or being too dirty. He advised me to thoroughly scrub out the barrel and then inspect it carefully. I felt a bit uneasy (maybe guilty is a better word). I clean my guns after every range session, but I’m not a fanatic about it. Another thing that made this hit home for me is that in both recent range visits, I shot some of my best groups early in the sessions (while the barrel was cleaner). That made me wonder: Maybe there’s enough crud left in there from the prior session that after the first or second group it attracts more copper and combustion fouling and that’s what is killing accuracy. I poked around a bit on the Internet and other folks have commented that these rifles require cleaning every 15 or 20 rounds. Hmmm. I typically test 50 in a single range session. I have the barrel soaking with Butch’s bore shine as I write this blog, and there is a lot of copper fouling coming out. I hope that’s enough to solve the problem. If it’s an errant machining artifact, that means the rifle has to go back to Ruger, and I really don’t want to go that way.
Phil also advised me to take a look at my resizing die. He directed me to carefully check the expander button. It’s the part that opens the case mouth just enough to assure an interference fit with the bullet. If the expander has a scratch or burr on it, Phil said, that will transfer to the case mouth inner diameter, and that could damage the base of the bullet. That, too, could account for the bullets breaking up in flight. Along these same lines, Phil recommended lightly deburring the case mouth’s inner edge. I had done that on these loads, so I’m thinking that may not be the issue. But I’ll do it again on the next reload.
The .257 Weatherby Mag resizing die. That thing sticking out of the bottom (on the right) is the decapper, which knocks the old primer out of the fired case.The expander and decapping pin subassembly removed from the resizing die.This is the expander button. It passes into the brass case on the up stroke (as the case is being returned to spec dimensions), and then expands the inside of the case mouth on the press retraction stroke. If this part had any burrs on it, it could be inducing a scratch on the inside of the case mouth. That, in turn, could damage the bullet when it is seated into the case. I didn’t see any burrs, but who knows? I figured I’d polish it, anyway. There’s a lot going on in the reloading process. I used to be an engineer in the munitions industry, and I love working these kinds of challenges.The expander button after polishing. I chucked this piece in a drill and polished it first with 600-grit sandpaper, and then with polishing compound. I could comb my hair (if I had any) in the now-mirrored surface.
So I’ve got the bore soaking with bore solvent and I’ve been working on it for about a day now. There was a lot of copper in there, and it’s still coming out a few atoms at a time (I figure the bore will be copper free by Christmas at the rate I’ve been able to remove it). I’ve polished the expander button as you can see above. And, I’ve resized 20 cases that I’ll reload this afternoon at the lower end of the spectrum to see if I can get tighter groups out of my .257 (those cases are in the tumbler/polisher now). If all goes well, I’ll be back on the range in another day or two, and I’ll let you know what happens right here on the ExhaustNotes blog. I’ve been drinking my Yoo-Hoo, so things should go better.
I have seen it in my crystal ball. What the future holds. When our readers ask, we deliver. Fred, you da man. (ExNotes Disclaimer: I use that word in the non-gender-specific sense, in case any of our readers get their panties in a knot.)
No animals were harmed in crafting this blog. Please use responsibly.
Standby, Fredo. I’m going to get on my motorcycle and get me a bottle of this stuff. Our review is in the planning stages now.
We human beings spend a large percentage of our life-energy altering the Earth to better suit our desires. Take me, for instance. I’m constantly trying to rise up from Tinfiny’s mud-bound arroyo and beat Mother Nature into submission. New Mexico is no country for old men and I know I will lose in the end. We all lose in the end, our best efforts forgotten by the incurious, but that’s no reason to give up.
One of my favorite ways of taming nature is to pave it over with a layer of concrete. If it worked for Chernobyl’s smoldering, radioactive core it can work for Tinfiny Ranch. My latest attempt to delay the inevitable is the side patio. The ground on the north side of Tinfiny’s Carriage House was washing into the arroyo from heavy monsoon rains and, like the calcified bones of a long-dead Tyrannosaurus, the Carriage House’s foundation was laid bare. This is not good.
About 10-feet from the foundation I dug a footer and laid some blocks to serve as a seawall. I’ve been slowly filling it in with dirt, reburying the exposed foundation and compacting the fill in 8-inch lifts. It’s all going about as well as can be expected.
As I bring the north side up to grade I’m pouring a sloped, concrete patio to stop erosion and re-direct rain water away from the Carriage House’s foundation towards the arroyo. I love concrete as much as the next guy but even I know that great slabs of it are not the prettiest things to behold so I’m finishing the slab in smaller sections with each section grooved to resemble the cut blocks used in The Great Wall of China.
For grooving I’m using a Marshalltown trowel that I ordered online. The thing was not impressive right out of the box. It’s a flimsy looking tool that is not quite wide enough and it tends to create a border to your groove. You’ll need to practice a light hand for best results.
I thought the single direction canoe end would be a hassle, what with having to change the tool’s orientation with each stroke, but I was wrong. Grooving is much less labor intensive than edging so the back-and-forth motion used with an edger tool is replaced by a single stroke with the groover. One pass with this tool and the groove looks pretty well done. You’ll need to hit it a couple more times as the mud goes off but it’s easy as pie.
My initial reaction proved wrong: once you get the hang of it this thing really makes a nice groove. I’m free-handing the cuts just because I’m lazy and I don’t want all the lines perfectly square. The non-canoe end lets you get right up against the form. Except for making it a couple inches longer and a bit wider I am happy with how it performs. It has started to rust already but all my concrete finishing tools rust. I should probably oil them after use.
I’m so happy with the Marshalltown trowel I think I’ll keep on going around the side of The Carriage House and on into the back yard using the same method of construction. After all, you can’t let Mother Nature wash your house into the arroyo without putting up a fight.
I’m a big time Weatherby fan, and I make no apologies for that. I met Roy Weatherby in person and I shoot and hunt with Weatherby rifles. I believe in the company and their cartridges. Your mileage may vary, but that won’t change my opinion. One Weatherby chambering I always wanted but didn’t own yet was the .257 Weatherby. It’s the fastest .25-caliber cartridge there is. The heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wanted a rifle chambered for the .257 Roy.
A .257 Roy Ruger No. 1
I’m also a big Ruger fan, and in particular, I’m an admirer of their No. 1 single-shot rifles. When Ruger offered a limited run of No. 1s chambered in .257 Weatherby Magnum, for me it was a no-brainer: I had to get one. I found the one I wanted, it had great wood, and I pulled the trigger.
A Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. Circassian walnut, a 28-inch barrel, and a classy falling block action. What’s not to like?
Chambering Challenges
The only problem? This was not a marriage made in Heaven. My Ruger did not want to chamber the ammo I had loaded for it. I first purchased a box of .257 Weatherby brass manufactured by Hornady and loaded it in several different flavors. Wow, was that ever disappointing. The rounds just wouldn’t chamber easily and closing the action was difficult. And on the ones that would allow the action to close, accuracy was dismal. I thought I had screwed up by reloading the brass directly without running the brass through the resizing die first, so when I got home I resized the brass. It was still tough to chamber. I measured the brass and it seemed to me it was right at the max dimensions. I called Hornady to complain. They were nice. They sent me three empty new cases.
Hornady versus Weatherby Brass
On my next trip to the components store, I picked up four boxes of new Weatherby (not Hornady) brass. It chambered in the Ruger easily. I loaded up some ammo and I was off to the range again. Yep, I reasoned, it must have been that Hornady brass. The .25-caliber bullets I used, though, were not designed for the very high velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and they were disintegrating in flight. Accuracy, as you might imagine, was atrocious. Then I got busy on other things and the Ruger sat in the safe for a year. You know how that goes…sometimes life gets in the way of having fun.
Earlier this week, I decided to load up a bunch of .257 Weatherby Magnum ammo and work on finding the secret sauce for an accurate load. I resized all my brass (both the Weatherby and the Hornady brass), tumbled it until the stuff glistened, and then tried to chamber it. Son of a gun, the Hornady brass still wouldn’t allow the action to close. Damn, I thought. I probably spent $50 for that box of brass. I made a mental note to call Hornady and get my money back.
Then I tried the Weatherby brass that had chambered easily in the rifle when the brass was new (but was now once-fired and resized). To my great surprise, the Weatherby brass wouldn’t chamber, either. Just like with the Hornady brass, the Ruger’s action wouldn’t close on any of the resized and polished brass (Hornady or Weatherby).
Hmmm. What could be causing this? I wondered if the Ruger had an undersized chamber. That would account for both brands of brass not chambering. That would get messy. I’d have to send the rifle back to Ruger to have the chamber recut, and hope they didn’t ding up the stock or anything else in the process. But the Weatherby brass had initially chambered easily in the Ruger. The rifle’s chamber hadn’t shrunk. Maybe it wasn’t the rifle.
Then I thought maybe it was the resizing die. Yeah, that could be it. If the resizing die was cut too deep, the brass would be too long after resizing, and that would result exactly in what I was experiencing: The resized brass wouldn’t chamber. Hmmm. Yeah, that could be it.
RCBS Tech Support to the Rescue
My next step was to call RCBS, the reloading die manufacturer. I found the number on their website, I called and waited on the customer service line and in a few minutes I was speaking with a guy named Bill. I explained my problem to him and my belief that the resizing die might have been cut too deep.
“We get two or three calls a day on the .257 Weatherby Magnum cartridge,” Bill said. “Tell me how you set up your dies.”
So I did. I explained that I ran the press ram all the way up, screwed the resizing die all the way in until it touched the shell holder, turned the resizing die just a little bit more to assure intimate contact between the die and the shell holder, and then locked everything down.
“That’s where it’s happening,” Bill said. “For the .257 Weatherby, when the die contacts the shell holder, withdraw the ram and turn the die in another 90 degrees. Then lock it down.”
“Geez,” I said. “Won’t that break the press?”
“What kind of a press are you using?” Bill asked.
“One of yours,” I answered. “A Rockchucker. I’ve been reloading ammo on that press for 50 years.”
“You’d have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wheaties to break that press,” Bill said. “Trust me on this. We hear this a lot on all the Weatherby cartridges, especially the .257 Weatherby. And the 6.5 Creedmoor, too. Go another 90 degrees in on the resizing die. Call me if that doesn’t work, but I know it will. You can’t break that press.”
So I did as Bill advised: Intimate contact between the shell holder and the resizing die, another 90 degrees in on the resizing die, and then lock everything down. I resized a single .257 Hornady brass case and then tried the empty case in the Ruger No. 1. Son of a gun (to use an apt metaphor), the Ruger’s action closed effortlessly. I tried several more cases with the same result. Wow, now that’s real expertise and great customer service. The boys at RCBS know their business. As it turns out, so do the folks at Hornady. There was nothing wrong with their brass; I just didn’t know the secret handshake to resize it properly.
It’s beautiful ammo, isn’t it? With help from the RCBS customer service folks, I solved my chambering issue. I loaded 70 rounds immediately after talking to Bill at RCBS. If I were to purchase new ammo, it would cost something north of $220 for those 70 cartridges; by my reckoning, I spent about $50 on the reloading components. Reloading provides more accurate and much less expensive ammo.
That night, I loaded 70 rounds of .257 Weatherby Magnum, all with the 100-grain Sierra jacketed softpoint bullet, and I’m headed to the range later this week to test for accuracy. I’ve got rounds loaded with IMR 4320, IMR 4064, IMR 7828SSC, and H-1000 propellant at both the low and higher ends (but not the max) of the charge spectrum. I’ll report on what works best in a subsequent blog.
We’ve written two Indiana Jones in China blogs so far, one on the lost Roman Legions at Liqian and the other on the Gobi Desert’s Buddhist grottos of Mo Gao. Today’s focus is on a third Indiana Jones episode, and that’s the one about Xi’an’s Terra Cotta soldiers. I visited the Terra Cotta soldiers a quarter century earlier on my first-ever trip to the Ancient Kingdom. They had only recently been discovered at that time and we (Susie and I) actually met the man who first unearthed what would become the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World. I was eager to see the porcelain antiquities again.
We’d been on the road in China on our Zongshen motorcycles about three weeks when we entered the ancient city of Xi’an. It was the adventure of a lifetime, simultaneously exhausting and exciting, and the ride into Xi’an was one of the best parts of the entire trip. We rode on a road that was exclusively built for two-wheeled transport and the photo ops were amazing.
On the road to Xi’an. This 120-mile highway was reserved exclusively for motorcycles and scooters. The Chinese have some good ideas.A Chinese RX3 rider, a member of the Xi’an motorcycle club, accompanying us to the Ancient City. I love this shot. I grabbed it with my Nikon D3300 while riding my RX3. It become the cover photo of Riding China.Furem (it’s pronounced Foo Zhen), one of the guys who rode across China with us. Like me, Furem liked Nikon photo gear.
On the ride to Xi’an, as had been the case wherever Gresh and I went in China, we were celebs. And we were treated as such. There was a large group waiting to welcome us at the Xi’an Zongshen dealership, complete with the obligatory cold watermelon refreshments and floral necklaces. Folks wanted photos. They actually stood in line to photograph me and Gresh, and then they stood in line to get in the pictures with us. It was all quite amazing.
You want a picture, you get in line. We were gods in our younger days, Gresh and I were.The Arjiu and Dajiu Show.The young lady who anointed us with flowers. They didn’t quite go with the bad ombre biker schtick Gresh and I were cultivating, so we gave the flowers back to this young lady before we got on the bikes again.
So, on to the main attraction, and that was the Terra Cotta soldiers. This is another one of those wild stories that actually happened. It could be the plot for yet another Indiana Jones movie. It seems that when emperors of the Qin Dynasty died thousands of years ago, their personal armies were slaughtered and buried with them. The idea was they would provide protection in the afterlife. I know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that was the custom. Maybe it made the emperors feel good knowing they weren’t dying alone. I don’t think the guys in the army could have liked it too much, though.
One of the emperors wanted to try a new approach, which I’m sure endeared him to his troops. This enlightened emperor wanted life-sized porcelain figures of each of his soldiers, and he decreed that the porcelain figures (rather than the real soldiers) would be buried with him when it was his time to check out. That probably sounded like a real good deal to the troops. And that’s what he did, with one life-sized porcelain soldier custom crafted for each of his 8,000 live soldiers. It’s believed that each was carefully modeled to duplicate the face and other body parts of each soldier. It was the ultimate government “make-work” program of its day.
When the Emperor kicked, all the porcelain soldiers were buried with him. They weren’t just buried, either. They were buried in attack formation, facing east toward China’s traditional enemy (that would be Japan).
And then, all of this was lost in time. For two thousand years. Cue up the Indiana Jones music, folks. This could be the plot of the next movie.
About 40 or so years ago, a Chinese peasant was digging a well in Xi’an and he came upon a strangely-shaped rock that looked like a human head. He told somebody, who told somebody, who told somebody, and a few days later a guy from the Chinese government showed up. You know, to see what was going on in Xi’an. “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help,” and all that. That was how the Terra Cotta soldiers, the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World, were discovered and uncovered.
The Terra Cotta Soldiers, the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World! There were 8,000 of these guys (plus one emperor) buried down there! The Chinese believe they’ve uncovered only about 10% of the find.My Nikon D810 and the 24-120 lens did exactly what they were supposed to do, and visiting this place again was what I had in mind when I bought the photo gear.
Seeing the Terra Cotta soldiers again was great, but truth be told, I enjoyed it a lot more when Sue and I were there several years earlier. We actually met the man who dug the well and discovered it all, and Xi’an was a lot less commercialized when we first visited the place. Now, to get to the Terra Cotta soldiers you have to walk through an outdoor mall that has a McDonald’s, a Starbuck’s, and about a zillion trinket stores. Ah, civilization.
Don’t take the Terra Cotta soldiers off your bucket list because I liked it better seeing it with my wife a long time ago. Trust me on this. It’s not the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World because someone thought that would be a catchy marketing slogan. The place really is a marvelous thing to see. What’s even more amazing is knowing that what’s been uncovered is only 10% of what they think is down there. Like I said, this is real Indiana Jones material, with McDonald’s and Starbuck’s tossed in for good measure.
Later that night when we went to dinner, we parked in an underground garage. The Chinese are industrious, and there was a car detailing service in the parking area. You know, to wash and detail your car while you were eating. I thought that was clever. The business ran with military precision, and we happened by just as the car cleaning shift was changing. The young guy in charge had his troops lined up and he was briefing them on whatever they were going to do that evening. I wondered if the soldiers who protected the Emperor 2000 years ago stood the same kind of formation.
When I was in the Army, I had a sergeant who started every morning formation with “I have good news and bad news.” I thought of those 8,000 Chinese soldiers, the Emperor’s personal army, and their learning about the boss’s burial plans 2000 years ago. I would have liked to have been there when they heard their “good news and bad news” morning formation brief.
“The bad news, men, is that you are all being replaced by porcelain dummies. The good news is that it won’t happen until the Emperor kicks the bucket, and those porcelain dummies are the ones who will be buried with him. You’re off the hook!”
Gresh and I have done a couple of blogs about great guys for whom we’ve worked, and in thinking about that last night I asked myself: Who’s the best boss I ever had? The answer was both immediate and easy: Captain Omer McCants. I was a young lieutenant in Korea and Captain McCants was an old man (he was a 28-year-old Captain). Captain McCants was my battery commander and he was a major influence on my approach to work, leadership, and life in general. While remembering those good old days, I did a Google search and this appeared:
Nah, can’t be, I thought. But it was. Captain McCants retired as a Lt. Colonel and went on to do other great things. Watching the video above instantly took me back 45 years, and listening to the “old man” was about as enjoyable an experience as I’ve ever had. I think you’ll enjoy it, too. There are several videos about Colonel McCants (check the link below the video when you go to the page) and my advice is to listen to them all. I did. You can thank me later.
Gresh and I have talked about adding an ExNotes page with links to our “Back in the Day” stories about the great guys we’ve known, and we’ll get around to that in the near future. I’ve been around some great leaders. Do you remember the movie Apocalypse Now and the guy Robert Duvall played, Colonel Kilgore? There actually was a Colonel Kilgore in the US Army and I reported to him (he was nothing like the guy Robert Duvall portrayed). I worked for a couple of company presidents in the aerospace business who changed the way that industry worked, and I’ll tell you about them at some point. I know Gresh has amazing stories, too. I’ve heard them. Stay tuned, folks. There’s more good stuff coming.
On a recent trip to New Jersey, Sue and I took a ride around Princeton and we found ourselves at the Princeton Battlefield Site. I’m embarrassed to admit that even though I grew up in this area, I didn’t know much about this place. It is amazing. It’s the place where the tide of the Revolutionary War turned. Will Krakower (a young historian and Rutgers grad) led us on an impressive tour.
A road used during the Revolutionary War in Princeton, New Jersey.The Princeton Battlefield Site.The Clarke House, used as a field hospital during the battle.Will pointing out where the British and American troops fought.
Good times, and a great tour (thank you, Will). If you ever find yourself in Princeton, this place is definitely worth a visit. Better yet, plan a visit when the Princeton Battlefield Society is giving one of their tours. You’ll love it. You might want to have breakfast at PJ’s in Princeton on the morning of the tour. It’s the best breakfast in town and it’s the place we all hit when we played hooky back in high school.
Surprisingly, there are many great places to ride in New Jersey. A great weekend might include a ride along the Delaware River with stops at Washington’s Crossing and New Hope, Pennsylvania, followed by a Sunday Princeton Battlefield Site tour.
Want to learn about more great Destinations? Check out some of our stories in Motorcycle Classics and other magazines!
Joe Gresh posted a Dream Bike blog the other day about the Buells and I think he was spot on. A confession: I’ve always wanted a Buell, too. Given the choice, I’d probably go for the XB12s like you see in the photo above. I didn’t much care for the ones at the end of the run with the Rotax engines (apparently, neither did Harley-Davidson), and I didn’t like the ones with the lower bars and the bigger (yet still small) front fairing (the lines just didn’t look right to me). But that XB12s: Wow. I think Buell nailed what a hooligan bike should look like, and Bike Looks Matter (I could start a movement under that name, I think).
Buell had versions of the XB12 with translucent body work (the fairing and the tank) in orange, red, and smoky gray, and those are muey cool, too. I particularly liked the orange one. Orange has always worked for me on a motorcycle. Orange bikes are faster, you know.
I went as far as riding out to Victorville Harley about 15 years ago to test ride a new Buell, and that’s what scotched the deal for me. I had the money and I was ready to buy. The bike was beautiful, but it was slow compared to my Speed Triple and the wheelbase was so short it felt twitchy to me. Maybe it was the steering geometry. Whatever it was, the bike just didn’t feel stable.
The handling wasn’t what killed the deal, though. It was summer when I test rode that Buell and when we were stuck in traffic along Bear Valley Road, I suddenly heard this horrific whine from beneath the seat. The noise startled me. I thought something broke, but it was the rear cylinder fan (something I didn’t even know the bike had). Evidently the Buells ran hot (as did the Big Twin Harleys) and they had a problem with rear cylinder overheating. The answer was a thermostat-activated rear cylinder fan. Nope, that was too Mickey Mouse for me, and I kept the $12,000 in my wallet that day.
But the looks! Wow, those Buell boys nailed what I thought were fine aesthetics for a motorcycle. And the Exhaust Note was perfect. Nothing sounds better than a Buell at idle. It was locomotive like: Big, powerful, industrial, all business. I liked that, too.
As a mechanical engineer, I appreciated Buell’s concepts…the oil in the swingarm, the fuel in the frame, the oversized single disk front brake, and the whole mass centralization thing. These were ideas that made sense and were ahead of their time. Maybe that’s why Buell didn’t make it. There were other reasons, but sometimes you can be too far ahead of the curve, and Buells were out there.
Gresh said he liked the earlier Buells better, and even though I’d like to someday own a later model Buell, I agree with Joe that the earlier ones were also beautiful. Buell had an earlier gray and orange color combo that I thought was especially stunning…
I think the earlier Buells didn’t have the rear cylinder cooling fan and I like that. The fact that Buells were slow compared to Triumphs doesn’t bother me these days. I think I could put up with the noisy cooling fan silliness. Or maybe I’d just ride on cooler days, or stay out of traffic. I’ve found myself poking around a lot on CycleTrader and the Facebook sales pages recently. Who knows what the future holds.
An 1886 rifle chambered in .45 70. Octagonal barrel. Color case hardened receiver and other bits. Finely-figured walnut. It was a good day.
It was one of Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite rifles, and it was a rifle I’ve wanted for a long time: The 1886 Winchester, except mine isn’t a Winchester. Mine is a Chiappa, and it’s a faithful reproduction of the original 1886 Winchester. After a diligent search, I purchased mine through Gunbroker.com from an outfit in Pennsylvania called Elk County Ammo and Arms and I had it shipped to my favorite local gun shop, Bullet Barn Guns here in southern California.
I picked up my 1886 this week and I was on the rifle range with it the day I did so. It wasn’t my brightest move; it was over a hundred degrees on the firing line and the heat made me woozy by the time I got home. But I wanted to shoot my 1886. Not surprisingly, I was the only nut on the range that afternoon. Also not surprisingly, I enjoyed every second of my 1886 range session. For me, the rifle’s heritage, beauty, performance, accuracy, and general magnificence overcame the heat. Even though old Davy Crockett did his thing a good half century before the Winchester 1886 came on the scene, I kept hearing the music from that old 1950s TV show while I was on the range. You know. Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier and all that. A stunningly-beautiful 1886 and high temperatures will do that do you. King of the Wild Frontier. I liked that. It’s how I felt that afternoon, a feeling fueled by the vintage look and feel of my 1886.
My 1886: Blue Steel and Walnut
Well, not just blue steel and walnut. Blue steel, color case hardened steel, a 26-inch octagonal barrel, and extremely well-figured walnut. It’s a combination that’s tough to beat, especially on a classy lever gun like the 1886.
Left and right views of my 1886. This is a beautiful rifle. But that buttplate!
The folks at Chiappa know what they’re doing. Check out this color case hardening. It’s stunning.
This is a classy rifle. The color case hardening is magnificent.The craftsman in Italy who do this kind of work are underpaid. I have no idea how much they earn, but I think they are underpaid. This kind of work is priceless.The fore end tip is also color case hardened. The checkering is hand cut and beautifully executed.Painfully beautiful, this buttplate is. It captures the era and the feel of an original 1886, but with full power loads, it’s painful.
The 1886 and 45 70 Accuracy
So what’s it like shooting the 1886? Hey, take a look…
The 1886 Chiappa will shoot. The heat not withstanding, I was having a good time out there. The sun was playing hide-and-seek behind the clouds, and when it went behind the clouds, the difference in accuracy was immediately apparent. I saw firsthand what happens when you have glare on the front sight. When the sun ducked behind the clouds, the front sight stood out clearly. When the clouds moved away and the sun bore down on the 1886 directly, the front sight caught a fair bit of glare. It made getting a clear sight picture difficult, and you can see the results on the target below.
Five 5-shot groups at 50 yards with the Chiappa 1886. The first three groups were shot with the sun behind the clouds. The Chiappa 1886 is accurate! The sun emerged for the last two groups, and the accuracy difference was startling. Glare from the front sight made the groups open significantly. My 1886 had not been zeroed yet. The purpose of this range session was just to see how the 1886 would group, and it did not disappoint.
I had my Marlin 45 70 accuracy load (a 405 grain cast bullet with 35.0 grains of IMR 4198 powder) and I used it on the target above. I fired the first three groups with the sun behind the clouds and no front sight glare. Then the clouds shifted, the sun was out in the open, and the front sight started winking at me. Glare kills accuracy when shooting open sights. I proved it. With no front sight glare, the groups were impressive.
The 1886 was shooting to the right, and when I examined the sights, sure enough, the front sight was slightly biased to the left. On a rifle or handgun rear sight, you move the sight in the direction you want the bullets to go (if you want your shots to move to the left, you move the rear sight to the left). On the front sight, it’s just the opposite. You move the front sight in the opposite direction you want the bullets to move.
Look very closely, and you can see the front sight is a bit to the left. That octagonal barrel is beautiful.
The front sight on my 1886 needed to move to the right because I wanted to move the shots to the left. I had a gunsmith screwdriver kit with me at the range, but between the heat and my sweating like a stuck pig I didn’t want to fool around trying to move the sights out there. I thought it would be best to wait until I returned home and do it in my shop. That’s what I did, and I’m eager to get back out on the range and try it again.
45 70 Recoil
In the video above, the 1886’s recoil looks to be pretty mild, and it was for the three shots you see me firing in the YouTube (I was shooting a light Trail Boss load). I brought two different loads with me to the range. One was the aforementioned light Trail Boss load; the other was the more serious IMR 4198 load that I also mentioned earlier. Trail Boss and IMR 4198 are two different propellants; Trail Boss loads generally give low bullet velocity and low recoil (you know, it’s the old f = ma thing). IMR 4198 makes the bullet step out more earnestly and that load used a heavier bullet. Both resulted in a sharp step up in recoil.
With the light Trail Boss load and a 300-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point bullet, the recoil was tolerable (as you can see in the video). With my accuracy load (the one I developed for my 45 70 Marlin, a 405-grain cast bullet and 35 grains of 4198), the steel 1886 buttplate hurts big time. I had to use a wadded up T-shirt as a half-assed recoil pad for a field expedient. But the rifle will shoot. It’s accurate, as the above groups show.
The Gunstores
As I mentioned above, I bought my Chiappa 1886 from Elk County Ammo and Arms in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of shops selling the 1886 Chiappa, but Elk County Ammo and Arms was the only one willing to take photos of my rifle and email them to me so I could see what I was getting. That was a big plus for me, and it cinched the deal once I saw the actual rifle. I had Elk County Ammo and Arms ship the rifle to my local gun store, Bullet Barn Guns, here in southern California. Bullet Barn Guns is a family-run operation and they are absolutely top notch in every regard. Like me, they appreciate blue steel and fine walnut, and they were blown away by my 1886 when it arrived (so much so that they shot photos of it and emailed them to me, too). The folks at Bullet Barn are enthusiasts, just like me.
The 1886 Chiappa: The Bottom Line
I’m a happy camper. I wanted an 1886 with good wood and this one answered the mail. The walnut is stunning. The checkering is hand cut and sharp (it’s not laser cut or pressed, as is the case on many rifles today). The walnut is oil finished, which makes it easily repairable when the inevitable hunting, range, and general use scratches occur. The metal work is superior (you can see that in the above photos). The trigger is good (there is no creep). And the rifle is accurate. It groups well. After I shot the above target, I used up the remainder of the box of ammo I brought to the range shooting at a rock out at about 150 yards, and I connected every time. That was cool.
About the only thing I don’t care for is that the lever does not lay flush against the receiver; it’s angled out a degree or two. I don’t think that’s a big deal, but I had to find something to bitch about (I’m told it’s part of my charm). That’s it.
The bottom line is that the Chiappa 1886 is a beautiful and accurate rifle. I had wanted an 1886 with nice wood and color case hardening for a long time, and now I have one. Keep an eye on the ExNotes blog, folks. This is a rifle that will be back on these pages.
Like stuff on blue steel and walnut, or maybe the 45 70 cartridge? Hey, check out our Tales of the Gun page!
