My RX3, one of the very first bikes in the US. Numerous Baja trips, a ride through the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest, and more. That little 250 is always good for an attitude adjustment.
Not a lot of writing today, my friends. I fired up the old RX3 and rode into the mountains to clear my mind and create my own reality. It was long past time to shed the shackles of a world gone mad. No left or right wing news media (that’s all there is any more), no Covid 19, no protests, no riots, no police brutality, no defunding police departments, no masks, no shelter in place, no stupid stuff on Facebook (now there’s a redundant expression), no ridiculously bad choices in the next election (damned if you do and damned even more if you don’t), and no one telling me how to think about this, that, or the other thing. No thank you, I can think for myself, and today I thought I would go for a motorcycle ride. Other than captions, I’ll keep the words down and let the pictures do the talking.
That headlight grille and the spotlamps were gifts from Enrique Vargas, AKT Motos General Manager (and a genuine nice guy) in Medellin, Colombia.Steve Seidner, CEO of CSC Motorcycles, created decals for each of our multi-day company rides back in the good old days. I ran out of campaign ribbon real estate on my fuel tank.Glendora Ridge Road, my happy place. That’s Mt. Baldy and Mt. San Antonio dead ahead.Glendora Ridge Road is one of the best wildflower spots in the country. I’ve been up there when there are red, orange, yellow, and purple wildflowers blooming at the same time.I’ve done Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon on my 250. The most beautiful state? That’s easy: Utah, hands down. But they are all pretty if you know where to ride (and I do). The best riding and the best times? That’s another easy call: Baja. I’ve ridden Colombia and I’ve ridden China on RX3 motorcycles. Once, when I was in Turkey, a young Turk let me ride his RX3. This is a bike with long legs, folks.
So there you have it. I’m back, it was a great ride, and I had a good time. You might consider doing the same.
As any loyal reader of ExhaustNotes.us knows, I recently got all new riding gear from British Motorcycle Gear. In this blog we tackle BMG’s Adventure pants, a lighter weight alternative to BMG’s Pioneer pants. When I say lighter weight I don’t want to mislead you; the Adventure pants are still heavier than denim jeans.
The Adventures have two zippered vents on the front side that let in a lot of air when you stand up on the pegs like a real adventure rider is prone to doing whenever there is a camera around. Sitting down like a lazy chopper rider, the vent flow is less powerful but you can still feel it. There is a mesh liner that combined with the 500 denier shell gives a good compromise between protection and sweating.
One feature that stands out for me is the heat resistant, Nomex inner-calf panels. The high-mount, left-side Husqvarna exhaust system has burned a hole through several of my rain pants and street slacks. So far I haven’t been able to melt the Adventure pants.
Another feature I like on the Adventure pants are the three belt loops. I’d like to have a few more loops but three loops beat none because I wear a belt. You’d have to have a misshapen body like mine to appreciate the extra security a belt gives you in big-air situations. There’s nothing more embarrassing than getting pantsed by gravity.
On the sides of the Adventure pants are waist adjusters. These are handy for postprandial riding when your belly is bloated from too many carbohydrates. My odd combination of fat waist and short legs make finding motorcycle pants to fit a real challenge. I’ve been riding motorcycles for 50 years and the BMG Adventure pants come the closest to fitting in all those years. The 29-inch legs could be a 1/2 –inch shorter but as long as I have my belt it’s not a problem.
My Adventure pants came without armor, which is fine with me. I also have the much heavier-duty, armored BMG Pioneer pants to test but that will have to wait for cooler weather. The Adventures have long leg zippers but I didn’t need them to enter or egress the pant. If you are a weirdo who puts their boots on first, then your pants you will find the zippers handy. There is a short piece of zipper on the backside that can connect to BMG’s line of jackets. I never use those back zippers but I bet they stop drafts pretty well. The back zipper will also keep your jacket from riding up in a crash and possibly save a few square feet of road rash. Hmmm…maybe I should start using that zipper!
I’ve worn the Adventure pants down to 40 degrees with only a thin thermal underwear layer and was warm and comfortable. For my personal thermostat 40 to 80 degrees F was right in the Adventure pant wheelhouse. Above 90 and into the 100’s the Adventure pants are a bit too warm for my taste. Really, for motorcycle riding above 100 degrees shorts and flip-flops are the only way to go. Just kidding.
For New Mexico use the BMG Adventure pant is a great 3-season bit of riding kit. If you live where it rarely gets to 90 degrees or above then you can call them 4-season pants. I feel safer wearing them on a motorcycle than I do in plain old dungarees. The retail price of $199 is not out of this world when you consider the price of Levis jeans or cigarettes. Don’t forget to use the exhaustnotes.us discount code (BMGJOES) when you order from BMG to save a few bucks. Run your order up to over $199 and you’ll get free shipping, too.
Good buddy Mike, a fellow former trooper who I met on a ride through Baja a few years ago, has been sort of stranded down there until recently. Mike and his good friend Bobbie went whale watching and they had a unique experience. Mike was kind enough to share the adventure with us. Here you go, folks.
So as someone who is always seeking adventure I may have gotten in over my head with this one. Not only am I three years in living fulltime off a motorcycle, currently in Baja due to a global pandemic, but why not throw in a rescue mission at sea just to ensure I have everything covered. Sure, why not?
It was a dark and stormy night and the sea was angry…actually it was just a bit windy around mid-day when we decided to partake in a whale watching trip on pangas (small wooden boats) in Guerrero Negro, Baja, Mexico. It’s a magical encounter with nature as these majestic creatures, which are the size of a school bus. These gray whales come up to your panga and you can actually pet them and experience these animals at such a close range. It is just a magical experience…a life-altering experience.
We begin with a standard safety briefing and get bussed out to the docks, fitted with life vests, and we are all excited to get out and see these beautiful animals up close. Prior to boarding our panga I noticed another boat with 8 senior citizens leaving the same time as us and for a minute thought maybe we should jump in their boat as there were less people then our boat, but we chose to just stay where we were assigned with 12 people aboard.
The tour was going pretty well, not great as there was a lot of chop in the bay, so the whales don’t get as close as we’d like since the boat was bumping up and down. As the tour seemed to be ending I noticed we were heading not towards shore but in a direction we hadn’t been. I first thought they had spotted more whales and soon saw a giant gray object in the distance. Once we got a bit closer I realized it was not a whale at all but a capsized panga with three people clinging to the upside-down vessel by the propeller. The reality set in as we saw others floating in the water along with backpacks, camera bags, and purses. I put everything I had into a waterproof compartment in my rain jacket and handed it to my girlfriend as I saw it was the panga with the eight seniors and I said “I guess I am going for a swim.”
As we moved in to begin rescuing people from the water I performed a headcount of those in the water. Knowing it was the panga with the seniors I had all nine (eight and the captain) accounted for and saw they all looked to be relatively well. Although it was windy, it wasn’t too cold. I also remembered from the safety briefing that there were no sharks in this part of the bay. We quickly realized no one was in immediate danger.
This is where it gets fun, sorta. As with all “disasters” there’s “that guy.” The guy that has to be a hero no matter how little they know. We were “fortunate” enough to have one on our panga (damnit). The captain of our boat spoke little English but was very competent and was trying to give directions that seemed to drown out by the time they reached us since the newly unelected hero was shouting his own directions on how to handle the situation best.
Knowing the people in the water were not in great danger I sat back on the far side of the boat as a ballast, shook my head, and let the hero begin to rescue people clumsily and haphazardly pulling them into our vessel incorrectly. While this was going on I kept contemplating the consequences of throwing him overboard and rescuing the remaining seniors myself. Would saving eight people but leaving one to swim back result in any criminal charges against me in Mexico? Luckily for everyone that was a fleeting thought.
One haunting moment that really still stands out is when the captain had to re-angle the panga to rescue the last three people clinging to the propeller. Those people thought we were leaving them and began shouting “Don’t leave us, please don’t leave us.” You could hear the fear and panic in their voices. Once we were angled our “hero” had realized his uselessness and backed off allowing us to properly load the remaining three people safely into the panga without issue.
The boat ride back to the docks was a quiet and bumpy ride. Everyone was soaked, including myself (and I never even left the boat). There were three ambulances at the docks by the time we had reached it. It was a great feeling that no one required them other than for warm blankets.
Feeling great being back on dry land (not as great as the nine that were in the water) we returned to the office where we met the owner of the whale tour company and began explaining our adventure in great detail, telling the story over tequila and tacos. He brought out his guitar and played requests for us for several hours.
Mike, that’s a hell of a story. I’m glad everyone got through it without injury. We actually read about that happening in Baja not too long ago. In all the times I’ve been whale watching, I’ve never seen that happen.
Hey, the rest of our readers: If you’d like to see more Baja whale watching, here’s the page you want!
We’re up to Day 5 in Colombia from my December 2015 circumnavigation of the Andes Mountains. The riding was incredible, the scenery even more so. Juan and Carlos were amazing riders, as was every person I saw on a motorcycle in Colombia. Ah, enough of a prelude…here’s what I posted for CSC Motorcycles on December 19, 2015.
Actually, it’s pronounced “Via Da Layba.” I’m learning how to be a Colombian and how to speak like one. Colombian Spanish is different than Mexican Spanish. Much to my regret, I don’t speak either one. Someday.
Juan Carlos and Carlos told me they’re making me an honorary C0lombian because my riding has progressed significantly in the last few days. Folks, these two guys are the best riders I’ve ever ridden with, and for them to tell me that was quite a compliment. Every rider I know in the U.S. would be subpar compared to your typical Colombian motorcyclist. The way they carve corners and carve through heavy traffic on these mountain roads is a thing a beauty. They are the best riders I’ve ever seen, and the two guys I’m riding with are beyond incredible. But I digress…more on that later. The focus of this blog entry is Day 5, which was yesterday for me.
As you know from reading the blog, we stayed in Barichara. It’s an awesome little town and we stayed in an awesome little hotel. Getting there was an experience. We passed through a bunch of small towns up here in the Andes Mountains. In these small towns, everything is either uphill or downhill. The roads are either cobblestone or dirt. And when I say cobblestone, I’m not talking about little rocks. These are 6 to 12 inch boulders that are basically mashed together to form a street. The cobblestones (actually, cobbleboulders) throw the bike left and right and up and down, and this is all going on while riding up or down extremely steep hills. The RX3 is the perfect bike for this. I couldn’t imagine doing it on anything bigger or heavier.
We stayed at the Artepolis Hotel, and it was an experience. The guy in the room next to me was an Austrian photographer who came here just to photograph the place. It’s that stunning. Here’s the hotel the next morning (it was dark when we arrived the preceding evening, and we had to ride up a rough dirt road to get to the hotel).
The next morning Juan and Carlos wanted to ride a bit and get some photos. They took me to the edge of a cliff and we got some great shots…here’s one of Carlos I especially like:
And here are a couple more:
We continued on a paved road to a little town called Guane, and along the way I spotted a couple of Colombian vultures perched in a tree not far from the road. I always wanted to get a decent shot of a vulture during my Baja travels, but my results have always been mediocre. I’m carrying my 70-300 Nikon lens on this trip, and I thought I would try for that vulture photo I’ve been wanting for years. The lighting was perfect and I think I did okay…
After photographing the vultures, I grabbed a couple of shots from the saddle on our way to Guane.
Guane is a beautiful little town with a magnificent church…I was working the little Nikon D3300 and its 18-55 lens as best I could. That camera is really doing a great job on this trip. I bought it because I wanted something light and small. You folks who are planning to ride to Baja with us in March might want to give the D3300 a look if you don’t already have a camera. It really adds a lot to the adventure if you can capture stuff like this.
In many Colombian towns, the taxi services use tuk-tuks. Tuk-tuks are little three wheel things that have two wheels in the back and one wheel up front. I’d seen them in Thailand, but encountering them again in Colombia was something I had not expected. The ones in Colombia are made by Bajaj, an Indian manufacturer (as in India, not Indian motorcycles). They’re powered by a little 200cc single, and I was surprised at it’s ability to haul Carlos, Juan, and me up and down the hills in Barichara (we took one to go to dinner in Barichara). Juan told me he tested one at Bajaj’s request a year or so ago and he was impressed with it.
The tuk-tuks are often customized with really cool paintwork, and so are some of the other commercial vehicles. Here’s the artwork on one such vehicle in Guane that caught my eye:
After our brief exploration of Guane, we rode back to Barichara. The guys had been telling me I had to see the cemetery, and they were right. It seemed weird to visit a cemetery for the artistry, but it was impressive…
After that we were back on the road, headed for Villa de Leyva. I had mentioned to Juan that I wanted to get photos of the police motorcycles in Colombia, and when he spotted a few motor officers in one of the many small towns we rode through, I checked another photo op off the list.
This first photo shows one of the more common Colombian police bikes, the Suzuki 200 single.
Here’s another bike the Colombian police use…the Suzuki V-Strom 650…
There’s a lot more to tell you about the Colombian police motorcycles, but that will come later. I’m seeing and learning so much I just can’t get it all into the blog. I’m thinking maybe another book is in order. We’ll see.
Juan found our hotel just outside of Villa de Leyva, we checked in, and then we rode into town. This is the town square…it’s the largest in all of Colombia.
If you’re really impressed with that last shot, so am I. I wish I could take credit for it. It was a photo for sale in one of the Villa de Leyva stores, and I shot a photo of that photo before they told me I couldn’t.
It was a good day. The next one would be even better.
And one last thing, folks. On that day in Barichara before we left, I did a video in their beautiful cemetery. This wasn’t in the original blog, but I thought I’d add it here.
One more thing…if you’d like to read the first several blogs from Colombia, you can do so here.
A favorite load that seems to work well in any .357 Magnum revolver, including my stainless steel Ruger Blackhawk, is 15.7 grains of Winchester’s 296 propellant and the Hornady 158-grain jacketed hollow point bullet. I use standard rather than magnum primers. This was a 25-yard target.
The .357 Ruger Blackhawk
Ruger’s Blackhawk is an iconic firearm, one that’s been in production since the 1950s in one form or another. I bought my first one in a department store in Texas for under a hundred bucks back in the mid-1970s, and I’ve bought and sold several since. I wish I had not sold any of the Blackhawks.
I’ve owned a few .357 Magnums over the years…Rugers, a couple of Model 27 Smiths, a Model 28 Smith (remember that one?), a Model 19 Smith, and a Model 65 Smith. I’ve owned a couple of Colt Pythons, too. The Pythons were nice, but not nice enough to command the premium prices they pulled in the 1970s, and certainly not nice enough to pull the exorbitant amounts they sell for today. The Smiths were accurate, but they didn’t hold up under constant use with magnum loads. I had a new Model 27 that I wore out in a couple of seasons in the metallic silhouette game; it suffered from extreme gas cutting under the top strap and a cylinder that sashayed around like an exotic dancer in a room full of big tippers. The Ruger Blackhawks seem to last forever.
Every Ruger firearm manufactured in 1976 carries the 200th year bicentennial stamp, just like the one on my 200th year Blackhawk. On my gun, the liberty scrollmark is on top of the barrel.
I’m down to one .357 Magnum now and it’s a 200th year stainless steel Blackhawk with a 6 1/2-inch barrel. It’s one of my favorite revolvers and it’s not for sale (it never will be; I learned my lesson about letting good guns get away). I have a few favorite .357 Magnum loads I’ve used over the last 50 years. I thought it might be a good idea to document how they did in the Blackhawk, try a few more to see how they do, and share it all with you here on the ExNotes blog. I guess this is the appropriate place for the disclaimer: These are loads that work well in my Blackhawk. You should never just take these loads (or any others from the Internet) and simply run with them. Always consult a reputable reloading manual (I like the Hornady and Lyman manuals best). Always start with lower charges and work your way up, looking for any signs of excess pressure, and go no higher if you see signs of excess pressure. Okay, so that’s out of the way. Let’s get to the good stuff.
Last week’s .357 Magnum testing at the West End Gun Club.
.357 Magnum Accuracy Loads
I’ve played with a lot of different .357 Magnum loads over the years. I have a few favorite .357 Mag loads that have been superbly accurate in any of the .357 sixguns I’ve owned. That’s a bit unusual because frequently a load that is accurate in one gun won’t be accurate in another, but that rule doesn’t seem to apply here. The loads I like have worked well for me in any .357 I’ve ever shot. I verified these loads in my Blackhawk with this latest round of testing, and like I said above, I explored a few more loads.
A few of the loads tested for this blog. From left to right, the first five are .357 Magnum cartridges and the last three are .38 Special cartridges (you can fire .38 Special rounds in a .357 Magnum handgun). The bullets (from left to right) are the 110-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point, the 158-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point, the 158-grain Hornady jacketed flat point, the Xtreme 158-grain plated flatpoint, a cast 158-grain flatpoint, a cast 158-grain flatpoint in a .38 Special case, a powder-coated 158-grain semi-wadcutter in a .38 Special case, and the Missouri 148-grain double-ended wadcutter in a .38 Special case.
So, with the above as background info, let’s get into the loads. I’ll start with one of the standard “go to” .357 Magnum loads. That’s the 158-grain cast semi-wadcutter bullet (the Keith-style) over 7.0 grains of Unique. This is not the hottest .357 load (it’s a mild-recoiling .357 Magnum load), but it’s hot enough, it’s very accurate, and it’s relatively flat shooting. I have a guy who casts 158-grain flatpoint bullets for me and I like those with 7.0 grains of Unique even better than the semi-wadcutter bullets. The load is very consistent, and with the same zero and six o’clock hold I use at 50 feet (seen in the target below), I pretty much hit right on target at 25 yards, 50 yards, and yep, even at 100 yards. I was hitting a steel gonger last week at 100 yards consistently with this load. My shooting buddies were impressed, and after all, that’s what a lot of this is all about. This is a good load.
A 50-ft target with the .357 Blackhawk using 158-grain cast flatpoints with 7.0 grains of Unique. Like they say, this is close enough for government work.
For hotter .357 Magnum loads, any of the Hornady 158-grain jacketed bullets (hollow points, flat points, and full metal jacket flat points) work superbly well with 15.7 grains of Winchester’s 296 propellant. These loads have a distinctive bark, high velocities, snappy recoil, and they are superbly accurate.
15.7 grains of WW 296 and the 158-grain Hornady jacketed flat point resulted in the best group fired in this test series. Two shots went through the hole in the lower right.
Another long time favorite load is a bit unusual but it’s accurate as hell. That’s the 110-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point and a max Unique load (10.0 grains of Unique, as listed in a Hornady reloading manual from the 1970s). I first tried this one 40 years ago when I had a Colt Python and I was impressed with its accuracy. I tried it again in this test series and the results were similarly impressive. It’s probably the fastest load I tested because of the max load and the light bullets. My old Hornady manual indicates the 110 grain Hornady bullet with 10.0 grains of Unique exits the muzzle at 1450 feet per second. That’s fast.
If light bullets and high velocity float your boat, try this one (but work your way up to it): 10.0 grains of Unique with Hornady’s 110-grain jacketed hollow point.
Plated Bullets: Are They Any Good?
Surprisingly, the 158-grain plated flatpoint bullets I tested didn’t do well with any charge of Unique, and in the past, they have performed very poorly with 296 (the bullets frequently shed their plating in the bore). These plated bullets are offered by Berry and Xtreme. These are not jacketed bullets; the copper plating is chemically applied and the coating is very thin. I did get one decent showing with a lower-end charge of IMR 4227 propellant, but given the choice, I’d go for a plain cast bullet rather than plated bullets. You may feel differently. Please leave a comment here on the blog if your experience is different than mine.
Powder Coating and Paint Fumes
I tried powder-coated bullets last week, too, to see how they would perform. Powder coating is a concept that’s been around for a few years as an alternative to lubing cast bullets. I found that accuracy was more or less on par with lubed bullets, but not really any better. The powder-coated bullets look cool (the cartridges kind of look like lipstick). When I fired several powder-coated bullets fairly quickly, I could smell the paint. Some folks swear by these bullets and love them for IDPA and similar competitive pistol events. For me, performance was the same as conventional cast bullets. Your mileage may vary. Leave us a comment if you feel differently.
Powder-coated 158-grain semi-wadcutter bullets. I found their accuracy to be comparable to conventional cast and lubed bullets.
A Metallic Silhouette Load
When I shot metallic silhouette competition I used a 200-grain cast roundnose bullet in my .357 Magnum Model 27 Smith and Wesson. That bullet worked extremely well, and because of its heavy-for-caliber nature and high length/diameter ratio, it carried a lot of energy downrange. It was superbly accurate with 12.4 grains of 296. But finding those bullets is next-to-impossible today. It used to be a standard .38 Special bullet for police duty, but very few (if any) departments carry .38s today, and nobody seems to stock the 200-grain bullets. Maybe I need to get back into casting. I sure loved that 200-grain bullet in the .357 Magnum. They actually made the .357 Magnum work better on the 200-meter rams than a 240-grain .44 Magnum. The .44 Magnum wouldn’t consistently take down the rams; the 200-grain .357 Magnum did so every time.
.38 Special Loads
One of the great things about a .357 Magnum handgun is you can also shoot .38 Special loads in it. I guess that’s a good thing, as the .38 Special cartridges have lighter recoil. I tried three .38 Special loads with three different bullets. The accuracy load in .38 Special is a 148-grain wadcutter bullet seated flush with the cartridge mouth over 2.7 grains of Bullseye propellant. That load is super accurate in my Model 52 Smith and Wesson target pistol, and it did okay in the Ruger, too. I’ve always believed that a .38 Special cartridge would never be quite as accurate in a .357 Magnum handgun because the bullet has to make a longer jump to reach the rifling, and my testing last week did nothing to change my mind on that count. The .38 Special does okay in a .357 Magnum handgun, but I believe the best accuracy resides in a .357 case.
.357 and .38 Accuracy Testing Results
Here’s a chart summarizing my accuracy results:
Ruger Blackhawk accuracy testing results. All testing was with a two-hand hold at 50 feet. All groups are five shots. All loads (except the plated bullet loads) were crimped. All cast bullets were sized to 0.358. Note 1: Two shots went off paper. Notes 2 and 3: One shot went off paper.
There you have it. If you have a load that works well, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you.
Good buddy Mike, a fellow former trooper who I met on a ride through Baja a few years ago, has been sort of stranded down there until recently. Mike and his good friend Bobbie went whale watching and they had a unique experience. Mike was kind enough to share the adventure with us. Here you go, folks.
here!