January 2021 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

The Five Best New Ideas In Motorcycling

I may seem like a cranky old man but I’m not that old. I admit I don’t like many of the useless widgets and features coming out on new motorcycles. As a rule they do nothing to enhance the feel of the wind or the joy of riding. Oh sure, they may make motorcycling safer and protect riders from themselves but the additional weight, more frequent breakdowns, and costly repairs (due to excessive complications) hardly seems worth it to me. I would go as far as to say a 1985 Japanese bike is more reliable than most any 2021 motorcycle.

You know what to do…please click on the popup ads!

Listen, I’m a booster for motorcycling. I know manufacturers need to sell new bikes and new bikes need to appear improved over older models. I don’t want you to think of me as a negative person and a killjoy about your fancy-pants electronic-nanny bike. If you imagine you’ve found something you like and feel happy about I’m good with it. And there have been a few improvements to motorcycles since I started messing with them. Keep in mind that I’ve been riding since the late 1960’s so some of the things I think of as new are not actually all that new.

Modern disc brakes are the biggest improvement to motorcycles. I rode for many years on bikes that would not lock the front wheel no matter how hard you squeezed the lever. Not only were the old drum brakes weak, they faded so badly going downhill that often the rider was left with no brakes at all. The first mass produced disc brakes in the 1970’s were a huge leap but nothing like the new multi-piston, multi-disc brakes on modern bikes. Motorcycle brakes became so good manufacturers had to hobble them with anti-lock systems to keep riders from crashing in a panic situation. You really can flip over frontwards on some bikes. My Husky 510 has a dinner plate sized disc that is a miracle of stopping power and it doesn’t come with a safety net. In the dirt I use one, very light finger. On pavement two fingers will stand the bike on its nose. I like having that power even though I’ll probably wipe out using it.

Fuel injection is the second best idea but you have to make compromises with complexity. Carburetors are relatively easy to adjust and owners can screw them up with just a few simple tools. Fuel injection requires some type of reader or display to tune. Aftermarket companies sell all manner of work-around black boxes and mapping programs. I’d say tune-ability is a toss up between the two fuel/air mixing systems.

At a fixed altitude, humidity, temperature and barometric pressure a carbed bike can run just as well as any injected bike. My token modern bike, the Husky 510, has FI but the rest of my bikes have carburetors and I manage to get from Point A to Point B just fine. I accept FI’s extra complexity because fuel injection works great. Over extreme altitude variations fuel injected motorcycles run so much better than carbed bikes you could almost miss their biggest advantage: less clogging. In a perfect world, a world without alcohol blended in, our gasoline carburetors do an acceptable job. The problem is modern fuel has such a short shelf life that, left to absorb moisture and drop out of suspension alcohol fuel can clog up carbs in just a few months of storage. Draining the carbs before parking the bike more than a month is mandatory.

Once past the fuel pump a fuel injection system is sealed off from oxygen and the elements, drastically improving gasoline’s shelf life. Even if the fuel does goes off in the tank the high fuel pressures of fuel injection tend to pump the crud on through. It’s still possible to gum up a fuel-injected bike sitting long periods of time but much less likely.

O-ring chains are not really new but the most recent versions are incredibly good. My early experience with O-ring chains saw the little o-rings go missing and the chain ended up no better than a plain old chain. After that I stopped using them for 30 years. Skip forward a few decades and it’s not unusual to get 20,000 miles or more out of a brand name O-ring chain. Give an O-ring chain a shot of 90–weight oil every 400 miles or so and you’ll be riding carefree minus the heavy parts of a shaft-driven motorcycle. Belt-drives are good, too, but every time I’ve taken a belt driven bike scrambling the belt starts squeaking and it takes a thousand miles for the noise to go away. On small displacement motorcycles O-ring chains do add a bit of drag but don’t trouble yourself over those things.

Tubeless, spoke rims are a recent development and they are a great new idea. Besides looking cool as hell, tubeless, spoke rims combine the easy hole patching ability of tubeless tires with the light, strong construction of spokes. I don’t know what took so long but I’m all for it, brother. One place I see a potential problem is running low pressures off-road but that has nothing to do with the wheel. If you’re trail riding at 15psi I suggest you stick a tube in your tubeless spoke wheel. I like the looks of spoke rims on a motorcycle but I also like being able to stab a tire plug in a flat tire and be on my way in 5 minutes. Tubeless spoke rims are a win-win idea. One day maybe I’ll have a bike with them fitted.

Liquid cooling has been around since gasoline engines were invented but I still think of the application in motorcycles as modern and one of the best ideas. Besides a few odd bikes like Scott and Suzuki most bikes were air-cooled until the mid 1980’s, and 1980 seems like yesterday to me. The big advantage to liquid cooling is the ability to tune the bike with one less variable to worry about: you know within a few degrees what temperature the engine will be 98% of the time. There’s also a sound deadening benefit that has become more important as we move forward into an eerily silent, clean world.

I own two liquid-cooled motorcycles and the extra complexity of the cooling system has not caused a problem on either one. I forget they are liquid cooled. My old Yamaha V-Max developed a leaky water pump at 80,000 miles but once fixed it rolled on to 112,000 miles without a hitch. Unfortunately, that bike was sunk in one of the many hurricanes that struck the Florida Keys during my time there.

These advancements in motorcycling have made bikes safer, quieter and more reliable, but not any more fun. I enjoy riding my old air-cooled, drum braked, carbureted, tube-tired, non-O-ring chained, Yamaha two-stroke best of all. It goes to show that as we move into the silent, safe, modern world the biggest and best ideas in motorcycling are still inside your mind.

Subscribe to the ExhaustNotes blog for free!

Two .44 caliber 1858 Remington New Model Army Revolvers

This is a guest blog by good buddy Jose, and it compares two modern Italian reproductions of the famed .44 caliber 1858 Remington New Model Army revolver. One is manufactured by A. Uberti S.p.A. (it’s the one on top in the big photo above); the other is by F.LLI Pietta (the revolver on the bottom). Here’s another shot of the two:

The Uberti in on top right, the Pietta is on lower left.

The 1858 Remington New Model Army was a competitor to Colt’s blackpowder percussion sidearm. The Army went with both versions but primarily bought the Colt (it was 50 cents cheaper than the Remington). Then the Colt factory had a fire in 1864. At that point, the Army starting buying Remingtons in quantity. The Remington was considered to be the stronger revolver because it has a top strap over the cylinder (the Colt does not), and some folks feel the Remington is easier to aim because the rear sight is cut into the frame (instead of the hammer, as on the Colt). And there are other advantages to the Remington, which Jose covers. With that as a background, here’s Jose’s article on the modern Uberti and Pietta reproductions. All photos in this blog are by Jose.

Help us publish: Please click on the popup ads!

If you’ve never fired a percussion revolver you’re really missing out on huge part of firearms history. But maybe you didn’t know that even here in California you can order one of these fine blackpowder revolvers online or over the phone with a credit card and have it shipped to your doorstep without background check or going through an FFL. Your state rules may vary.

Cap and ball packpowder sidearms were a huge part of arms on both sides during the American Civil War. The Union Army had a contract for the Colt 1860 Army, but when Colt could not keep up with demand Remington Model 1858’s were ordered. Many troops preferred the Remington over the Colt for a number of reasons. The Remington has a top strap making it stronger, and the Colt was prone to having loose percussion caps jam the cylinder.

Uberti 1858 Remington Revolver

I’ve had the Uberti for about 10 years. It’s an awesome piece of fine craftsmanship. There is nothing cheap about this revolver, the fit and finish are supurb. The cylinder and barrel are a deep blue, the steel frame is color case hardened, and the trigger guard is polished brass, ans walnut stocks, giving it a very classy look. The gun is a six shot .44 cal, rifled 8-inch barrel with 1:18 LH twist, and weighs in at 2.7 pounds.

454 cal pure lead balls, Remington #10 percussion caps, waxed felt wads, and the Uberti 1858 New Army.

Powder measure, balls, waxed felt wads, and caps.

I use .454-inch diameter balls cast from pure soft lead (stick on wheel weights or plumbers lead, BRN 7) weighing in at 143 grains. It fires best when loaded with 35 grains of FFF blackpowder (I don’t like substitute synthetics), a felt pad soaked in bore butter over the powder, and the ball over the top. The felt over the powder charge prevents a chain fire from jumping between cylinders, and also adds some lube to the barrel between rounds helping prevent a buildup of powder. Either Remington or CCI #10 percussion caps provide the spark.

The color case hardened steel frame on this model Uberti is off set nicely by its polished brass trigger guard.

The loading lever on the Remington 1858 is used to ram the ball into each cylinder, after loading powder and waxed wad. The percussion caps are placed on the cylinder nipples only after all cylinders have been loaded.

The cylinder doesn’t require removal between loadings, only for cleaning.

The Uberti is very well balanced and feels good in the hand. The cylinder locks up very tightly. There are noches between the cylinder nipples to rest the hammer on making it safe to carry with all six cylinders loaded. The rear sight is a V-notch on the top strap, unlike the Colt 1860 which has the notch on the hammer because the 1860 lacks a top strap. It’s no exaggeration that out to 40 yards my the Uberti 1858 holds about as tight a group as my Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 mag!

The Remington 1858 has a top strap over the cylinder making it stronger than the Colt 1860 and older firearms. It also allows for placement of a stable V-notch rear sight as opposed to the Colt’s rear site which is a simple notch filed on the back of the hammer.

Nice sight picture. This Uberti has a 1:18 barrel groove twist and holds groups as tight as my Ruger Super Blackhawk out to about 40 yards.

Properly cleaning and blackpowder revolver after a day in the field is a good exercise in gunsmithing. The revolver should be entirely disassembled, down to the Springs, removing hammer from the frame, cylinder pin, loading lever, trigger, mainspring, nipples from the cylinder – everything except for removing the barrel from the frame and front sight.

The notchs between the nipples are for the hammer to rest, allowing the six-gun to be safely carried with all cylinders loaded.

A good set of gunsmithing drivers and properly fittjng nipple wrench are mandatory to keep from damaging the screws. Owning a blackpowder revolver will help anyone gain confidence to start Barking simple dunsmithing repairs and parts replacements on other types of firearms. If you don’t already have a blackpowder gun order one today! They are a blast.

Pietta 1858 Remington Revolver

This one was recently purchased because the price was right. It looks like it has never been fired, and I’ve not fired it yet, either. The specs are essentially the same as the Uberti; however, the claimed weight of the Pietta is only 2.4 pounds compared to Uberti’s 2.7 pounds. For whatever reason the Uberti feels much lighter and more well balanced. The Pietta is noticeably front heavy. The Pietta has a little play at cylinder lockup. The hammer pull and trigger feel smooth and crisp, similar to the Uberti.

The Pietta, another quality Italian replica in a slightly lower price range.

The really nice thing about the Pietta is that it came with an optional .45 Colt conversion cylinder. I’ve always wanted to get a conversion cylinder for my Uberti but they are very expensive, about 2/3 what I paid for the gun, and they always seem to be out of stock.

This Pietta came with a .45 Colt conversion cylinder.

The conversion cylinder has an upper plate that holds a separate firing pin for each cylinder.

The conversion cylinder for the Pietta fits very nice, locks up tightly, and came with a box and a half of .45 Colt ammo which I have no intentions of using. Remington first started converting Model 1858 revolvers to .46 cal rimfire metallc cartridges in 1868. These were still blackpowder cartridges as smokless powder hadn’t yet been developed. So I will hand load .45 cartridges for the Pietta using blackpowder to stay traditional.

I’m looking forward to shooting these two together on a side-by-side comparison soon. For now, I hope you enjoy the photos.

That’s an awesome article, Jose. Thanks very much for sharing it with us here on the ExNotes blog.

I asked Jose to tell us a bit about himself, and he did. Jose is a geologist, an offroad racer, a fly fisherman, an upland game hunter, a handloader, and he likes to teach outdoor sports to young people. He lives on the banks of the Henry’s Fork River in Idaho in the spring and summer months and he spends the winter months in Big Bear Lake, California. Most of Jose’s offroad racing adventures are in Baja. Jose’s other hobbies include taekwando, and cumbia and bachata dancing. An interesting man, to be sure!

Never miss an ExNotes blog. Subscribe here for free!

A place to start for all your black powder accessories is right here!

Hit those popup ads!

The KLR 650 is back!

An new exciting thing is that Kawasaki brought back the KLR 650. A review of the Kawi info makes it look like the big change is fuel injection, along with a few other things (like digital instrumentation, accessory and USB outlets, higher alternator output, optional integrated locking luggage, and optional ABS). Per the Kawasaki announcement:

The all-new KLR®650 dual-sport motorcycle is built to empower your passion to escape and explore. Featuring a 652cc engine, new fuel injection system, all-digital instrumentation, disc brakes, and optional ABS, the KLR650 is ready and eager to make new memories. Dual-sport capability allows the journey to go on- and off-road with all three available models, including two special edition models that are equipped with factory-installed Kawasaki Genuine Accessories. With the KLR650, KLR650 Traveler, and KLR650 Adventure motorcycles, your next great expedition awaits.

This is good; Kawasaki is finally catching up to CSC’s RX3 and RX4 series of adventure motorcycles. Don’t get me wrong; I owned a KLR 650 (first gen) and it was a stellar motorcycle. One of my good buddies is still riding it. They were fabulous motorcycles; I hope the new one is as good. By the way, if you’d like to read our comparison of the KLR 650 to the CSC RX4, you can do so here.

Pricing, per Kawasaki, is $6699 for the base model and $7,999 for the fully-loaded model, with a Kawasaki-listed destination charge of $410. There’s no mention of the setup fee. But they do mention in the small print that the dealer sets the actual destination charge and your price may vary. You think? Mark my words…dealers will throw on a $1500 freight and setup fee on this bike. When you enter the green room, be forewarned: Having worked in the motorcycle industry, I can tell you that actual freight (what the dealer really pays) is well under $400, and setup on a KLR 650 takes under an hour. And as point of reference, when I bought my ’06 KLR 650 new, it was $5200 out the door. Let the good times roll.

A Classic Celeste Bianchi

A lot of geezers like me still love our bicycles. Yeah, we like our motorcycles, fast cars, big trucks, motorcycles, and guns…but a bicycle was our first taste of freedom. You could just get on them and go, it was the first way we could explore the world, and those distant decades-old memories are reignited every time we clip in.

My first bike was an old green and cream balloon tired Schwinn my old man picked up for cheap. It was too big for me initially, but I grew into it. Then he bought me a brand new candy apple red and chome Schwinn Jaguar, another balloon tired, white walled anchor that I positively loved. I bought a Cadet speedometer and pedaled 2873 miles around New Jersey one summer when I was a pimply preteen, loving every second of it. On one downhill stretch, the Cadet indicated 45 miles per hour, all gravity based (I couldn’t pedal nearly that fast on the single-speed Schwinn).

It was grand, but what I really wanted was a 10-speed, and to be specific, my fantasies focused on a yellow Schwinn Varsity. A tank by today’s standards, but it was the subject of my dreams in the late ’50s. With their 10 speeds, the myth was that you could hit 60 miles per hour on level ground (no one could, but believing the myth made for delightful dreams…a freeway-capable bicycle, before freeways even existed).

Fast forward six decades, sprinkled with an addiction to watching Lance dominate in successive Tours de France. Old age was on the horizon and now it’s here, but I can still ride. None of us took any pleasure in learning that Lance cheated and indeed, we would have preferred not to know at all. But the bicycle bug had bitten, and like malaria or leishmaniasis (other bugborne maladies), the disease was incurable. Gresh wrote of collecting motorcycles; one of my serious afflications is a similar attraction/addiction to multi-geared roadbikes. I never got the Schwinn Varsity, but I’ve more than made up for it since.

One of my prize pieces is the Bianchi Campione you see in that big photo at the top of this blog. It’s one of my Italian thoroughbreds, made in a time where made in Italy really meant made in Italy (Bianchi frames are made in China today). You know, Italy. Where they make Ducatis. And Ferraris. And Lamborghinis.

Celeste green, the classic color common to Bianchi bicycles, is itself the subject of substantial and varying mythology. Post-World-War-II, the only paint the Italian manufacturer could find was OD green, and mixing it with other colors created the celeste of Bianchi fame. Don’t like that version? Another holds that it is the color of the Milan sky. Need more? How about my favorite, which is that when the Queen of Italy commissioned Edoardo Bianchi to build her bicycle, he painted it to match her eyes.

I saw the Bianchi on a Craigslist ad down in Laguna Niguel, and I was on it that day. The price was high but reasonable, the bicycle was in impeccable shape even though it was 25 years old when I bought it, and it had interesting accessories (like a color-coordinated frame pump and a stand). It was a steel-framed classic with classic down-tube shifters. Two chainrings up front and 7 on the cassette meant it had 14 speeds (less than other roadbikes I already owned but more than the 10-speed Varsity I was still compensating for), and at 55 centimeters the frame was my size. I was hooked.

A stand (nice to have, but I’ve never used it), and a color-coordinated celeste hand pump in front of the seat tube (I’ve never used the pump, either). The bike rides like a dream.

Downtube shifters. They are actually easier to use than you might think.

“Edoardo, make it green, like my eyes,” she said…

I added a few extras to my vintage Campione, like the carbon fiber bottle cage, the celeste green handlebar tape, and the matching Vittoria Rubino 700×23 tires. With its lugged steel frame (steel is real; it gives the best ride of any frame material) and classy downtube shifters, it drew crowds in the pre-Covid days. To a great extent, that’s what a big part of this collecting thing is all about…having stuff that both you and other folks admire.

Matching celeste green tires by Vittoria Rubino.

Old school brakes, but they work wonderfully well.

Celeste color-coordinated cables. Always avoid alliteration, they said…

This blog came about as a result of a phone conversation between Gresh and me. Our discussion followed its normal train-of-free-thought path and I landed on the Bianchi, and Joe suggested it might make for a good blog. I thought I might have done one on the Bianchi already (we’ve posted nearly 800 blogs here on ExNotes in the last 2 1/2 years), but I checked and I had not. We may do more bicycle blogs. Bicycles are a lot of fun. So is writing about them. Hopefully, reading about them is, too.

Do you pedal your butt all over town? Let’s hear about it. Please tell us about your adventures here in the Comments section.

Never miss an ExNotes blog! Sign up for free.

Colt’s New Python Range Tested

The Colt Python is an iconic handgun that stands out as the pinnacle of the gunmaker’s art. They were originally offered by Colt as their premier .357 Magnum revolver in a run that spanned decades and offered several variants: Blue steel, nickel-plated steel, brushed stainless steel, bright stainless steel, and barrel lengths of 2 1/2, 4, 6, and 8 inches. For a brief period, they even offered one chambered in .38 Special only. That all ended a few years ago when the revolver market subsided and black plastic, semi-auto 9mm gangbanger guns held sideways took over the silver screen (there’s absolutely no accounting for some folks’ taste, I guess). Then, in a surprise move, Colt introduced a re-engineered Python last year, in stainless steel only, with either a 4 1/4-inch or 6-inch barrel. I had to have one, and about a month ago, I scratched that itch.

The new Python carries a hefty $1499 price tag and they are just about impossible to find. And when you do see one, it is always substantially above MSRP. I don’t see the prices coming down on these guns, either. The original Pythons sell for $3K or more (mostly more), and with guns in high demand now and for the forseeable future, I think you’ll always always be able to get your money out of a Python if you ever wanted to sell it. I don’t see the prices going anywhere but up, and like I said, it is near-impossible to find a new Colt Python. But I know people in high places, I got a hell of a deal on my Python, and I am enjoying it enormously. Just looking at it is fun.

I went to my gun club a few days ago to shoot the new Python for the first time, and in a word, it was spectacular. I’ll get to that in a second.

My Python has a 6-inch ventilated rib barrel. The revolver is polished stainless steel and it looks great. The roll marks on the new Python are very similar to the original Pythons. Very classy, in my opinion.

One of the reasons Colt stopped making the original Pythons a few years ago is they were too expensive to manufacture, as they required too much hand fitting of the revolver’s internal components. Colt’s re-engineering effort made all but one internal part capable of being CNC-machined to final dimensions, and in the modern Python hand-fitting is required for only one component. What that did was dramatically improve the double action trigger pull, and somewhat degrade the single action trigger pull. The double action trigger is short and sweet, and the hammer travel is only about half what it used to be. The single action trigger pull is, well, different. Read on, my friends.

Help us keep the content coming: Please click on the popup ads!

Single action, by design on the new Python, has a some take-up and you can actually see the hammer move a little further to the rear when you squeeze the trigger shooting single action. Think of it as a single action trigger that adds a little bit of double action to the dance before it releases the hammer.

I thought there was something wrong with the revolver, but my contact at Colt told me the new Pythons were designed that way to meet the California and Massachusetts drop test requirements. It is definitely not a “breaking glass” single action trigger; it’s closer to pulling the trigger on a Glock (that’s not intended to be a compliment). Double action, though, is absolutely outstanding. It’s a shorter pull than any other double action revolver I’ve ever fired and I like it. I suppose some people might think it’s a good thing that the gun meets the drop test requirements of left-leaning governments. Me? I’d go with Door No. 1 and refrain from dropping my loaded $1499 revolver.

Anyway, the single-action trigger threw me for a loop, but I adjusted to it quickly during a dry firing session. I don’t notice it anymore, and as you’ll see below, it sure hasn’t hurt accuracy.

Fit and finish on the new Python are top notch. You can see that in the photos on this blog, which I shot during and after an extended range session. I probably should have taken pictures before I fired the new Python (when the gun was factory immaculate), but hey, it is what it is.

The new Python has a red ramp front sight, which I like. There is no white outline rear sight (it’s plain black). The combination works well, as the targets you see here show. The Python also has a recessed crown, unlike the original one, which was flush. The recessed crown better protects the bore.

My first shots were 50 rounds I put through the gun using my standard .38 Special target load (2.7 grains of Bullseye and a 148 gr wadcutter, loaded on my Star reloader), all fired single action. I shot from the 50-foot line and it was windy as hell. I had to stop a few times to walk downrange and add more staples to the target because it was starting to come loose, and the target stand was swaying toward and away from me as the wind rocked it. I was shooting, literally, at a moving target.

A complete box of .38 Special wadcutter ammo…50 rounds fired at 50 feet firing single action. All those extra staples were needed to keep the wind from tearing the target off the stand.

I was surprised (and pleased) at how stunningly accurate the new Python is. I hadn’t touched the sights, and it was punching holes right where I wanted right out of the box. It put an entire box of ammo into the bullseye with a standard 6:00 hold and the sights left as they came from the factory. That’s a first for me, and I’ve been doing this a long time. The bottom line: The new Python is accurate.

.38 Special ammo loaded with 148-grain wadcutter bullets. The bullet’s “wadcutter” nose profile cuts a clean hole in the target. I used mixed brass shooting the new Python for the first time.

Then I shot another box of 50 cartridges (using the same .38 Special target load I used for the target above), but this time shooting double action. Let me make the point again: These two boxes were the first time I ever fired the new Python. Here’s my second 50 rounds on the target, fired double action.

Another 50 rounds at 50 feet, this time shooting double action. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. The new Python’s double action trigger is superb.

Eh, one shot went out of the bullseye (it’s that one in the 9-ring, just outside the 10-ring, on the right). Like I said, it was windy out there. But still, for me, this was phenomenal double action shooting. It’s the best I’ve ever done shooting double action, actually.

Then I thought I’d try two 5-shot groups on the 50 foot standard pistol target with .357 ammo (all targets shown here were shot at 50 feet). As you know, a .357 Magnum handgun can shoot either .357 Mag ammo or .38 Special ammo. I brought along some of my standard 357 Magnum reloads (15.7 grains of Winchester 296 powder and a 158 grain Hornady jacketed hollow point bullet). This is a load I’ve been using since my Army days and it does well in any .357 Magnum revolver I’ve ever owned. It came from the pamphlet Winchester published in the 1970s for their powders. It performed superbly well in the new Python.

.357 Magnum shots at 50-foot targets. Point of aim was 6:00 for all shots. Bring it on…fire and brimstone…the new Python handles full power .357 Magnum loads well.

It’s easy to forget how powerful the .357 Magnum cartridge is unless you fire it back-to-back with the .38 Special. The .38 Special is a very manageable cartridge with moderate recoil, especially in a big, heavy, 6-inch handgun like the new Python. When I shot the .357 Magnum loads, I was instantly reminded that the .357 is a real barn burner. Think big recoil and lots of muzzle flash and blast. It was cool, and the big Python handled full power magnum loads well.

As I already mentioned, it was very windy and gusty on the range (two tractor trailers were on their side on I-15 when I drove out to the club). I was the only guy out there (I’m probably the first guy to visit our range with the new Python, too). On a calm day, I’m sure I could do better than the targets you see above.

I finished up another box of .38 Specials shooting 158 gr cast flatpoint Hursman bullets (also loaded with 2.7 gr of Bullseye), shooting at one of those green star target things you throw on the ground (my daughter bought it for me a few years ago and I think the thing is going to last forever). I walked it out to 50 yards with repeated hits, and I’ll bet I didn’t miss but two or three times out of 40 or so rounds.

There were no malfunctions of any kind in the approximately 150 rounds I fired through the new Python. No light strikes, no misfires, and no jams. And like I’ve been saying, accuracy was stellar. It’s almost like the new Python is laser guided.

A prancing pony…the rampant Colt logo that has adorned Colt firearms for more than a century and a half. Long may it live!

You know, there’s an old saying: You get what you pay for. To that, I would add the qualifier: Sometimes. In the case of the new Colt Python, this is one of those times. I love the new Python. It’s an iconic firearm and if you are thinking about getting one, my advice is this: Do so. You won’t be disappointed.

You can see our earlier blog on good buddy Python Pete’s 8-inch, original Colt Python here. And please check out our other Tales of the Gun stories here.

Never miss an ExNotes blog!

Need targets? Order them the way we do and have them delivered to your door!

Want to load your own ammo? Here’s a good place to get started in the reloading game!

Check out our resurrected Star reloader for prepping high-quality .38 Special ammo!

Want to see more on .38 Special and .357 Magnum accuracy loads in a Ruger Blackhawk? Check this out!

Keep us afloat: Please hit those popup ads!

How Many Motorcycles Are Too Many Motorcycles?

Here at ExhaustNotes.us we’ve been discussing the possibility that we may have more motorcycles than anyone actually needs. Personally, I have more motorcycles than I can afford to insure. I can’t ride them legally so the bikes sit in my shed gathering dust. Berk, who has a much smaller shed, is taking aggressive action on the issue by selling off some unused bikes. It’s inspired me to do the same. But which bikes? How many motorcycles do I need? I don’t want to end up one of those hoarders who die leaving Meacham’s auction house to pawn my junk off to the other hoarders.

For the sake of argument lets say X equals the number of motorcycles that your ability and status in life can keep maintained and running. Besides remorseless economics and mechanical talent there are the bikes that have a sentimental meaning to you that goes beyond reason and harsh reality. We’ll call that value Y. For example, you may never get that Norton put back together but if the fact that it exists in your shed brings you happiness why am I judging?

If all we had to deal with was X and Y we could plot the number of owned motorcycles on a simple two-dimensional graph but life is not lived in two dimensions. Reality demands that we consider Z, with Z being the amount of space you have to store the motorcycles. If the value of Z, Y and X were infinite you could collect all the motorcycles. I mean all of them. No one else could own one because you would have the entire world’s output of motorcycles. The problem is X, Y and Z are never infinite; even if they were and you owned them all who would you ride with? Nobody.You’d be a lonely, bitter soul. By simple logic we have determined an upper limit on motorcycle ownership: all of them minus one for your riding buddy.

Since this is a motorcycle blog I will assume the readers like motorcycles. Hence, pandering to the mob dictates that one motorcycle is the lower limit on motorcycle ownership because a story on motorcycle ownership that didn’t involve motorcycle ownership cannot exist in the intellectual vacuum of the Internet.

There are a vast number of motorcycles between one and all of the motorcycles minus one. We can narrow the field a bit by eliminating BMW motorcycles as no one likes them anyway but that still leaves a lot of bikes. I think it’s better to start from the other end, the end that starts with one.

If you can only have one motorcycle (X, Y and Z= jack-all) then that one motorcycle better be an enduro-type. A combination dirt/street motorcycle is the one to have if you only have one. As X, Y and Z grow larger a street-specific motorcycle is handy for highway rides. That makes two bikes and I really feel two is the minimum number of motorcycles regardless of your situation. You’ll just have to put your nose to the grindstone and increase your X/Y/Z, Bubba.

If we break down street bikes into touring, sport, and vintage categories and dirt bikes into enduro, motocross and vintage you could make the argument that six motorcycles are the minimum amount required. You’ll also need a mini bike for bopping around your ranch and a lightweight moped for running down to the post office. This brings the total to eight motorcycles and I feel that eight motorcycles show a good level of commitment to the motorcycle pastime.

With eight motorcycles on site visitors to your home will rightly expect you to loan them a motorcycle and take them on a little tour of your surroundings. Don’t do it. Your bikes are your bikes and if your visitor crashes one it will poison the friendship. Better to own a loaner bike, one you don’t care about for those pesky hanger-onners. An extra copy of your loaner motorcycle will make visitor rides more fun as neither rider has the upper hand in equipment. So you’ll need ten motorcycles to adequately maintain friendships. A small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

Once you’ve got ten motorcycles you may as well go ahead and get a couple nostalgic trinkets from your youth. Maybe a nice example of the first bike you ever owned or the motorcycle your ex-spouse made you get rid of because you had kids. Maybe it’s the bike your dear old dad owned or the model of motorcycle that decapitated a school chum. There are all manner of excellent reasons to own up to sixteen motorcycles.

Moving far from town and building a large shed to house all your motorcycles is a tell tale sign that you may be overdoing things a bit. Living on canned soup, scouring the Internet for motorcycles to buy is not the healthiest lifestyle but it’s not the food choices that get you in the end. Once you start building multilevel lofts to store motorcycles in inaccessible places you are one small earth tremor away from being buried alive by motorcycles.

There’s something about walking in a shed without having to turn sideways that appeals to me. Our economy is built on over consumption. I’m at eight, maybe nine motorcycles now and I’m feeling like I should get rid of a few. So how many motorcycles are too many? What is your comfort level?

Vaccinated!

I didn’t even feel the needle as she stuck it in my arm. That’s how wired I was. Finally, light at the end of the tunnel. Another shot in 21 days, and two weeks after that I should have immunity to Covid 19.

Sue and I took the plunge yesterday in San Bernardino, although for us it wasn’t a plunge at all. I was in one of the high priority groups because of my age (I turned 70 a few days ago; Sue just squeaked in). We waited in a well-organized line for about 2 hours, which seems like a long time as I sit here typing this, but it went by very quickly. I brought along a book (Mindhunter; it’s excellent), and before I knew it the pleasant young lady who gave me the shot was putting a bandaid on my arm.

Some folks have told me they won’t get the vaccine because they know a guy who knows a guy who said (fill in the blanks with the tinfoil-hatspeak of your choice). I don’t know how to respond to such remarks, but my body language probably shows through the K95 mask that covers most of my face these days. Folks, this is not the time to let ill-conceived and whacko conspiracy theories interfere with reality. Save that stuff for the Kennedy assassination, election fraud, and the other things that muddle and mislead simple minds. I personally know (or I guess I should say knew) several folks who died from this disease, some of whom I’ve written about in this blog. Check your tinfoil hat at the door, get the shot, and thank your lucky stars we are living in a time when a vaccine can become available within a year of a worldwide pandemic hitting our planet. And think about the rest of the people in the world. Do you want to be someone who gets the disease and infects others?

Me? I’m looking forward to many more years of living large, exploring the world, poking around down in Baja, riding my motorcycle, and spending time on the range. I want you to be able to do the same.

Dancing with the Devil

Another blog title dilemma. I went with the one you see above. I almost went with “Quoted by the NY Post.”

This is a blog about a dynamite So Cal loop ride, one that I covered for Motorcycle Classics magazine a couple of years ago and one that was (as the saying goes) critically-acclaimed in the NY Post. No kidding. I’ll get to that in a second or two. First, the ride: It’s circumnavigation of the San Gabriel Mountains, with a stop at the Devil’s Punchbowl State Park. The Punchbowl was burned out during one of the recent California wildfires, but it will be back. Here’s the route:

This ride includes a stretch along the northern side of the San Gabriels, a hop over the San Andreas Fault, Mt. Emma Road to cut around the northwest corner, the magnificent Angeles Crest Highway, and more. I like to start south of the San Gabriels and head up through Cajon Pass on I-15, grab the 138, and then take a quick left on Lone Pine Road. That’s a nice long climb up into the San Gabriels, it’s desolate, and it’s scenic.

I wrote up this ride for Motorcycle Classics, and suprisingly, the NY Post newspaper had nice things to say about it. They prepped an article critiquing other motorcycle mag articles, but they liked my piece. Here’s what they had to say:

Funny how it’s Motorcycle Classics, a magazine focused more on the bike than the ride, that really revved our two-wheeled wanderlust.

Joe Berk takes us on a ride through a passage in California’s San Gabriel Mountains called “The Devil’s Punchbowl.” The piece opens with a picture of a San Andreas Fault sign. Berk only gets one page to draw us in, but he has us ready to put our keys in the ignition.

“The Nirvana-like northern segment through the San Gabriels’ scenic twisties is … where the fun begins,” Berk advises. Later he describes a “ragged and rugged canyon” created by “a misbehaving San Andreas fault.”

Having indulged in the “crisp pine-scented mountain air” and taking in views of the Mojave Desert to his right and the San Gabriel summits to his left, Berk stops to recommend the French toast at the Grizzly Cafe. “You can thank me later,” he writes.

You can read the NY Post article here (you might want to see what they said about a couple of the other moto mags) and the Motorcycle Classics Devil’s Punchbowl story here.

You probably already know this, but both the guys who write the ExNotes blog (yours truly and Joe Gresh) are well published. You can read some of Gresh’s work here, and some of mine here.

Like what you see here? Never miss an ExNotes blog! Sign up for free!

The best things in life are free…

Like the title says, the best things in life are free. I wrote about that awesome and classic Star progressive reloader a friend gave to me (you can read the story about bringing it back to life on our Resurrections page). The Star is producing high quality .38 Special ammo and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Here’s something different…two of the best movies ever that you can watch for free on YouTube. It’s coincidental, I guess, that they both use the number 12 in their titles. They are both great movies. Classics, in my opinion.

The first one is one I just learned about on the same day I picked up the Star reloader. It’s 12 Angry Men, and I read about it in a Wall Street Journal review. There’s a recent remake of the original movie (I haven’t seen it), there’s what I thought was the original movie (the one you might have seen in which Henry Fonda plays the lead role), and there’s this one, the actual original 12 Angry Men. Having never seen it before I watched it the night I read about it in the WSJ, and I was blown away by how good it is.

12 O’Clock High is another classic movie that’s free on Youtube. It’s one that’s used in executive leadership training programs in the corporate world, and it’s one of the best movies ever for exploring management and leadership issues. It’s a wonderful movie, and I think you’ll like it.

And this blog…it’s free, too, as you know. So is an online subscription to it. You can sign up below.

A free subscription to ExhaustNotes? You bet!

Ruger’s Custom Shop Super GP100

Colt has a custom shop, Remington has a custom shop, Winchester had a custom shop, Savage has a custom shop, Springfield Armory has a custom shop, CZ has a custom shop, and Smith and Wesson has a custom shop. It seemed Ruger was the only one of the big players that didn’t have a custom shop.

That’s changed. Ruger recently announced that they, too, now have a custom shop, except they do things differently. Rather than taking orders for custom features on their regular line of firearms, Ruger’s approach is to produce limited numbers of highly-customized guns. Stated differently, Ruger picks the features they want to add to their custom guns; your choice is to purchase it (or not). It’s not a bad way to go.

Note the new Super GP100’s dark PVD finish, the green fiber optic sight, the slotted barrel shroud, and other custom touches.

Ruger’s two most recent custom shop models are revolvers they call the Super GP100; one chambered in 9mm and the other chambered in .357 Magnum. These revolvers have a number of custom features, including a shrouded and vented barrel, 8-shot capacity and the ability to use star clips for speedy reloads, radically-fluted cylinder (I like the look), PVD (that’s physical vapor deposition) finish, polished and slicked up trigger and internal componentry, oversized Hogue hardwood grip, an 11-degree barrel crown (that’s supposed to enhance accuracy), and a fiber-optic front sight (never had one of those before; I’m eager to see if it really does anything for me).

Befitting its custom status, the Ruger Super GP100 comes with a higher-quality carrying case.

The Super GP is offered in two chamberings: .357 Magnum and 9mm Parabellum. The 9mm version is not approved here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. That’s probably okay, as I would go for the .357 if given the choice. But that’s not a choice that’s going to be offered any time soon. Read on, and you’ll see what I mean.

The 9mm version of Ruger’s new Super GP100 revolver. It looks good. Note the shorter cylinder.

I like the way Ruger handled the 9mm Super GP100. The cylinder is shorter to match the 9mm cartridge, and the barrel extends back into the frame. This means the 9mm bullet has less of a jump to the rifling in the barrel, which should improve accuracy. It’s the same thing Smith and Wesson does on its .45 ACP revolvers.

Ruger doesn’t stock these guns. True to the custom shop concept, Ruger builds them as orders are taken. But it wouldn’t do any good to order one now, unless you just want to get a place in line. Due to the press of handgun orders induced by the election, the pandemic, and the recent civil rioting in major US cities, Ruger has its workforce focused elsewhere on meeting the unprecedented demand for its standard guns. As an aside, it’s tough to buy ammo right now, too, for the same reasons. That’s not bothering me, as I reload on my RCBS reloading gear and I’m well stocked.

I’m in the market for a .357 Mag revolver, but I’ll probably go with a more traditional handgun. Maybe a .357 Blackhawk or a S&W Model 27. I’ll keep you posted.

Revolvers, rifles, reloading, and more…check out our Tales of the Gun page!