Month: November 2021

Grand Canyon National Park

Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park is another bucket list destination.  As As was the case described in our recent blog on Devils Tower, a movie inspired my first visit.  A contemporay review of the 1991 Grand Canyon movie said it was about “random events affecting a diverse group of people exploring the race- and class-imposed chasms which separate members of the same community.”  That’s an artsy-fartsy tinsel-town mouthful.  Grand Canyon was pretty good and it had some big name actors in it.  But we’re not here to talk about the movie.

On to Grand Canyon National Park. The name sounds majestic, and the Grand Canyon surely is.  I’ve been to the Grand Canyon many times (it’s only a day’s ride from home) and I would not pass on an opportunity to see it again.  It’s a great ride in a car or on a motorcycle. I’ve done full-family car trips and I’ve done a number of motorcycle trips. Interestingly, some of the best rides were on the 250cc CSC RX3 motorcycles with guys from China, Colombia, and the US (you can read more about the RX3 trip in 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM).

A Grand Canyon photo from the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride.

There are two places to see the Grand Canyon National Park, the North Rim and the South Rim. The South Rim is by far the most heavily visited area and offers the best views, but the North Rim is a better ride, especially the last 50 miles or so along Arizona Route 67 (also known as the North Rim Parkway). Getting to the South Rim involves riding through a spectacular desert to get to Grand Canyon National Park, at which point you enter a beautiful pine forest. And when you visit the South Rim, you can continue on in the direction you were traveling when you leave — you don’t have to backtrack. The North Rim is different: There’s one way in, and one way out. It takes longer to get to the North Rim along heavily-forested Route 67 (and that road shuts down when it snows), but wow, what a ride!

My first Grand Canyon visit brought me and a riding buddy to the North Rim on a couple of Harleys nearly 30 years ago. It rained all the way in, we were thoroughly soaked and chilled, and I still remember how much fun I had. The Grand Canyon Lodge is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s a magnificent place to stay or you can just have lunch there.  The view is awesome, but I think the views from the South Rim are even better (and there are more vantage points).

Ah, the South Rim. That’s where I took the big photo at the top of this blog and it shows none other than world-famous concrete consultant and moto-journalist Joe Gresh.  It almost looks fake, like I had a cutout of Gresh and pasted it into the photo, but it’s not.  He’s just a very photogenic guy.

You can approach the South Rim from either the east or the west via state Route 64 running along the canyon’s southern edge. On my last trip, we came in from the eastern end, paid our fees to enter the park, and a helpful Ranger explained that there were a series of viewpoints along the way. We hit every one and each was beyond stunning. It’s hard to believe what you see when viewing this magnificent region, and it’s easy to understand why the early Spanish explorers concluded it was impossible to reach the Colorado River a mile below. You can see all the way to the North Rim (10 miles away as the hawk flies, but a full day on a motorcycle).  On a clear day you can see 100 miles.

The Tower at the eastern edge of the South Rim.

There’s an ancient tower of sorts on the easternmost viewing spot along the South Rim and we had an interesting experience there on the CSC Destinations Deal tour.  Our good buddy Orlando left his gloves on this new RX3 while we were taking in the view, and when we returned, we caught a thief red-handed trying to steal them.   Or rather, I should say red-beaked.  It was a big old crow (a bird, not the whiskey) and he was trying to make off with one of Orlando’s gloves.  We all started screaming at that big old blackbird, and it dropped the glove and flew away.  That was a good thing.  It was super cold that morning and Orlando would have had a tough time continuing the ride without both gloves.

Good buddy Rob giving a Grand Canyon elk a drink on the CSC Destinations Deal ride.  Don’t try this at home, kids.

The earliest known Grand Canyon habitation occurred during the Paleo-Indian period nearly 12,000 years ago, but the emphasis here is on “known.” Archeologists are still discovering ancient stuff down there. Geologically, the Grand Canyon started about 20 million years ago.  The Colorado River, flooding, ice, wind and seismic shifts worked their magic to create the 277-mile-long, 15-mile-wide, and mile-deep Grand Canyon.

Fine dining in Williams’ Red Raven restaurant, right on Old Route 66.  That’s me and good buddy Paul after a wild boar hunt.

Hey, here’s one more thought:  If you’re doing the South Rim, it’s something that you can take in in a day.  Most folks stay in Grand Canyon Junction just outside the entrance to the South Rim, but that’s a real touristy area and if you don’t like McDonald’s or pizza, your dining choices are limited.  My advice is to stay in Williams, about one hour south.  It’s just off I-40.  Williams is a bit touristy, too, but the hotels and restaurants are a cut above what’s in Grand Canyon Junction.  It’s a nice ride north to the South Rim early the next morning.   Trust me on this; you can thank me later.

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Mini 14 Bench Cleanup

When you’re a reloader you get a bunch of odds and ends components and you go on a jag to load them all just to get the stuff off the bench.  Oddball bullet dribs and drabs, brass you don’t want to bother cleaning, trimming, or sorting, that sort of thing.   I had a bunch of the above laying around crying out to become .223 ammo, I hadn’t been to the range with my Mini 14, and it was time to shoot up the leftovers.

First, a bit about the rifle.  It’s what Davidson’s called the Mini 14 Tactical, and it was a limited run they had Ruger make with Circassian walnut stocks.  I looked at a bunch of them on Gunbroker before I spotted the one you see here and I pounced (most had very plain walnut).

An unusual Mini 14 with a Circassian stock. I get a lot of compliments on this rifle. It’s not for sale.

This is a rifle that gets compliments every time I bring it to the range.  I’ve written about my Mini 14 before here on the ExNotes blog and I know what it takes to make this puppy group.  This wasn’t going to be one of those days; like I said, I was just using up remnants from reloading sessions for other rifles.

The left side of the Mini 14’s Circassian walnut stock.
The right side. This sure is a nice-looking Mini 14.

The Davidson’s Mini 14s came with 30-round mags and a flush suppressor, both of which are apparently favored by folks who rob gas stations and convenience stores (our legislators have their heads so far up their fourth points of contact they haven’t seen daylight in decades).  I replaced the flash suppressor with a muzzle brake to make the rifle much less intimidating.

You might laugh at a muzzle brake on a Mini 14. It works, though. Fire a Mini 14 with a muzzle brake and then fire one without and you’ll feel the difference.

I also installed the Tech Sights Mini 14 rear aperture sight, which I like a lot better than the standard Mini 14 rear sight.

The Tech Sights rear aperture sight. If you have a Mini 14 and you don’t have one of these, you’re missing the boat.

I loaded three configurations of ammo.   The first was a new load I had developed using XBR 8208 propellant.   For reasons I can’t remember, I had a bunch of Hornady 55-grain full metal jacket bullets I had pulled from another load.  If you look closely at the photo below, you’ll see the circumferential ring where the collet puller grabbed the bullets.  My thought was that pulled bullets would degrade accuracy, which is why they were tucked away and ignored for a long time.  The load was 25.3 grains of XBR 8208, mixed brass previously fired in the Mini 14 (neck sized only for this load), and Winchester small rifle primers.  I seated the bullets about midway in the cannelure, but I didn’t crimp.   For this load, I didn’t tumble or trim the brass, either.

55-grain bullets loaded in .223 Remington brass for the Mini 14. Note the circumferential bullet puller collet marks just above the cannelure.

Surprisingly, the above load shot relatively well.  If the marks on the bullets affected accuracy I couldn’t see it.  I shot a few 10-shot groups at 50 yards just to get into the swing of things, and then I fired a 10-shot group at 100 yards (which I’ll get to at the end of this blog).   The 10-shot group at 100 yards wasn’t too shabby.  The rifle shot low left (my aim point was at 6:00), but I hadn’t adjusted the sights for this load.

50-yard groups with the above load. The flyers are do to operator error. The groups showed promise at 50 yards, and I knew I would test them at 100 yards.

For the next load, I had a few 35-grain Hornady V-Max bullets I normally use for my .22 Hornet.  This is a bullet I guessed would not do well in the much-higher-velocity .223 Remington cartridge, and I was right.  Some of them grouped okay at 50 yards, but they were right on the edge of instability.  A few tumbled and went wide.  I didn’t bother firing these at 100 yards; if they were flaky at 50 yards, they would be positively flaky at 100.

.223 Remington cartrdiges loaded with 35-grain Hornady VMax Hornet bullets. The ammo looks good, but it was not a good load for the Mini 14.
The 35-grain VMax loads at 50 yards. The bullets were right on the stability threshold.

The last group was one I put together using another set of leftover Hornet bullets, the 46-grain Winchester jacketed hollow point bullet.  They shot poorly when I tested them in my Ruger No. 3 Hornet, and they were really terrible in the .223 Mini 14.   I suspect they were breaking up in flight.  Several went wide or through the target sideways.

46-grain Winchester hollowpoint jacketed bullets loaded in .223 brass. This didn’t work out at all.
A huge hollowpoint. It might work well on prairie dogs in the .22 Hornet, but these bullets weren’t stable and didn’t group well in the .223 Remington cartridge.

The 46-grain Winchester groups were huge at 50 yards and I could see on the target that they were unstable.  At least one tumbled.  Some never even made it to the target.

The above load’s poor performance was predictable, but I’m one of those guys who has to pee on the electric fence. You know, just to make sure.  The arrow points to a spot where a bullet went through the target sideways.

After testing the above bullets at 50 yards, I knew that the Hornet bullets were a no go.   Actually, I kind of knew that before I tested the load.  But I had the bullets and I thought I would give it a try.

I wanted to see how the pulled 55-grain Hornady bullets would do at 100 yards, so I moved a target out to 100 yards they did relatively.   The group centroid shifted from my usual Mini 14 load, but it was fairly tight for iron sights with junk/untrimmed mixed brass.

55-grain full metal jacket boattail pulled Hornady bullets, 25.3 grains of XBR 8208 propellant, Winchester small rifle primers, and mixed brass provided a 3.65-inch 10-shot group at 100 yards. The black bullseye is 5.50 inches in diameter. I was pleased with these results.

Well, you live and you learn.  I cleaned off the reloading bench, I had a little fun, and I now know from personal experience that 35-grain and 46-grain Hornet bullets won’t do very well in the .223.  Sometimes it’s good to learn what doesn’t work as well as what does.

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A Note From Zuo

Timely, perhaps…with the reactions we received on our recent Nine Reasons You Should Ride A Chinese Motorcycle blog, I received a nice email from Sergeant Zuo, the man who led our ride across China a few short years ago.

大舅：

最近可好？我买了宗申RX3S，是老版的，排气量380cc，RX3已经8年9.6万公里了。我们国家的机动车有强制报废的规定，所以我还是再换一台摩托车吧，谁让我喜欢呢。RX3我就再怎么喜欢还得卖掉，因为我们小区车棚里我只能申请一个车位，所以还是给RX3找个喜欢她的人吧。

我们这里的疫情是好是坏，你们那里的疫情好点了吗？一定保护好自己。

有一个知道我和你是好朋友的朋友说过：“真正的中美友谊在民间。”我非常喜欢这句话，送给你。

随信寄去几张我的RX3S的照片。（我发给你的信和照片你怎么使用都行）。非常想念你，我的朋友！代我向你的爱人，家人问好，特别是你的几个孙子。

——— 左振义 2021.10.16 中国•兰州

What, you don’t read Chinese?  Okay, here you go:

Uncle:

How are you doing recently? I bought the Zongshen RX3S, which is an old version with a displacement of 380cc. The RX3 has been 96,000 kilometers in 8 years. Our country’s motor vehicles have mandatory scrapping regulations, so I’d better replace them with a motorcycle. Who makes me like it. No matter how much I like RX3, I have to sell it, because I can only apply for one parking space in our carport, so let’s find someone who likes RX3.

Is the epidemic situation here for good or bad? Is the epidemic situation there any better? Be sure to protect yourself.

A friend who knows that you and I are good friends once said: “The real Sino-US friendship is among the people.” I like this sentence very much and I give it to you.

Enclosed are some photos of my RX3S. (You can use the letter and photos I sent you anyway). Miss you very much, my friend! Say hello to your wife and family, especially your grandchildren.

——— Zuo Zhenyi 2021.10.16 China•Lanzhou

Here are a couple of additional photos that Zuo sent to us:

So there you have it.  That “uncle” business…I used to be a secret agent, you know, the Man from U.N.C.L.E., and…nah, just kidding.  The Chinese named me Big Uncle and they called Gresh Little Uncle when we rode across China with them.  The Chinese words are Da Jiu and Ar Jiu (Big Uncle and Little Uncle) and the “jiu” parts sounds a lot like Joe, so it was kind of a natural fit.

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Want to ride with us as we crossed China?  Hey, it’s all right here!

Lee Ermey’s Guns Go To Auction

R. Lee Ermey was the real deal.  A United States Marine and a drill instructor hired to advise the actors in Full Metal Jacket who was so impressive in showing the phonies how to be a real Marine the folks in charge hired him to play the role (or so the story goes; there are various versions floating around).  We’ve all seen the movie; I watch it every time it airs.

What grabbed my attention is that the late R. Lee Ermey’s gun collection is about to go up for auction.  I looked through the guns listed out of curiosity to see what Gunny Lee had, and he had good taste in firearms.  Lee Ermey owned a lot of shotguns, a few handguns, and a few rifles.

Here are a few of the Gunny’s guns that got my attention.

The first is a Colt Python that is part of a three gun cased set Colt offered several years ago (the set included a Python, a Single Action Army, and a black powder revolver).  What’s interesting to me is that Gunnery Sergeant Ermey used his Python (it’s got the scratches and finish wear showing that).

Another one that’s interesting is the Model 62 Winchester. I have one of those that my Dad left to me; he bought it when he was a kid.  One of these days I’ll do a blog on it.

And one more of the many that are going on the block.  It’s a 1932 Mosin.  If you’ve spent any time on the ExNotes blog, you know I love shooting my Mosins.   Gunnery Sergeant Ermey was a man who knew his guns.

You can view the complete Lee Ermey auction here.  I’ll be watching the auction as it unfolds, especially on the Mosin pictured above.  It’s likely it will quickly go beyond my pay grade, but you never know.

More Tales of the Gun!

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KLR250 Reflash: Part 4

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’ve been working on the KLR250 for forever. It seems that way to me also. Since the last KLR blog 325 years ago we have sold The Love Shack in Astor, Florida and the Widowmaker 250 no longer has a purpose in my life. I’m not one to store a good motorcycle and the KLR250 will make some newbie rider (or older experienced motorcyclist) a fine machine to learn the dark art of dirt riding.

It’s time for the KLR to go. I can’t keep all these bikes registered and insured, much less in operating condition. But before I let a new owner crash about on the KLR there are a few more things I need to fix.

Equipped with a worn out 21” front tire, a very popular size, I blew a few bucks on a new Dunlop semi-dirt tire and a new tube. These skinny 21” wheels are super easy to change tires on, it took like 20 minutes.

The Widowmaker’s fork seals were dribbling a decent flow of oil; in fact one tube only had a few ounces left inside. One fork leg came apart easily: Impact wrench on the bottom bolt and zing-zing it was apart. The other leg was more trouble. The recessed allen bolt just spun when I hit it with the impact.

I needed something to stop the inner damper rod from spinning the fork spring, which wasn’t offering enough resistance. Looking through my nut and bolt bins was futile. I found a spark plug was the closest to fitting the damper. I cut down the plug and removed the ceramic, then welded a length of all thread to the plug. With my new eye I could just make out the puddle. It was great, before I saw nothing but glare.

The damper rod retaining tool worked excellent and I was able to dismantle the other fork leg. After cleaning assembly was straightforward. A length of PVC pipe was used to press the new seals into the sliders. I didn’t have enough fork oil in one viscosity so I mixed 10 weight and 15 weight together. I figure I’m running 12.5 weight in the forks now.

I reassembled the front forks and all seemed done at the front. Next I installed a new battery just for the KLR250, no more sharing with the Husky and Z1. The battery has been sitting around a year or so but still had juice. I popped it into the KLR250, lowered the bike off the motorcycle jack and the thing started in about 7 kicks. These KLRs are tough cookies.

Thinking I was pretty much done, I took the bike on a road test. The carb might be a little clogged up as it’s either idling at 3000 RPM or dying. Once up to speed the bike ran as good as it ever has. Parking the bike on the brand new shed floor it was easy to notice coolant dripping from that small hole in the water pump housing. Rats, this is what I mean when I say I can’t keep them all running.

I ordered a new water pump seal and when it arrived I drained the Widowmaker’s coolant and removed the water pump cover and impeller. The seal is a spring-loaded ceramic type of deal and the spring part pulled off with little effort. That left the steel part still stuck in the engine.

If you’re lucky, sometimes you can thread a deck screw into the thin metal seal and pull the thing out with no problem. I wasn’t lucky and the seal kept looking worse the more I tried to remove it.

Finally I gave up and removed the right side engine cover to gain access to the seal from the other side. Removing the cover meant I had to remove the rear brake lever, foot peg and clutch cable. With the engine cover off it was a piece of cake to poke the seal out from the inside with a ¼” punch.

As you can see, I pretty much mangled the seal trying to save taking the engine cover off. For good measure I also destroyed the pump shaft oil seal in the process. I guess it needed changing also. Now I’ve got to look up a pump oil seal and a cover gasket for the Widowmaker. I think I’m going to clean the carburetor and see if I can’t make it run better low speed. Since I have to take the tank of to clean the carb I may as well adjust the valves. It’s super easy on the KLR250. And then it will be ready to sell.

More on the KLR and other Resurrections!

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