Mike Huber’s recent post on ANZAC day in Australia touched on our Memorial Day. Let’s take a minute for a brief review of the three military holidays we celebrate here in the United States (Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Armed Forces Day).
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a federal holiday honoring men and women who have fallen in battle. It is on the last Monday in May. Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day, with origins rooted in several state-specific holidays. The tradition started after the end of the Civil War and has continued ever since.
Veterans Day
Veterans Day is another federal holiday; it is celebrated on November 11. It was originally known as Armistice Day to celebrate the end of World War I which occurred on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Armistice Day was officially redesignated as Veterans Day in 1954. I like to think of Veterans Day as my holiday because it celebrates all veterans of the US military. No doubt many of our ExNotes readers who served feel the same way. Like Memorial Day, Veterans Day is a legal holiday.
Armed Forces Day
Armed Forces Day celebrates our military services and those who are currently serving in uniform. It occurs on the third Saturday in May. It came into being in 1949 when Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced its creation to celebrate consolidation of all military branches under the U.S. Department of Defense. Prior to that, there were separate Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps Days.
Sergeant Zuo on the ride across China. He was a magnificent leader.
I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to serve (as are the vast majority of those who have), and when I meet other people who have worn the uniform of their nations’ military service there’s an instant bond. I felt that way immediately when I met Mike Huber that hot summer day in Baja (I recognized Mike’s jump wings on his BMW at an impromptu gas stop in Catavina), and I felt the same way when I met Sergeant Zuo in Chongqing when we started our 6000-mile ride around China.
Mike was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division when he served. I went through the same jump school as Mike did at Fort Benning, Georgia (I’m Charlie 34 in the photo up top, one of the scared young soldiers a few days away from my first jump at the Benning School for Boys).
Sergeant Zuo is a retired Chinese Army senior NCO. Because I was a lieutenant when I got out of the Army, Sergeant Zuo snapped to attention and saluted me every morning on that great ride around China. At the end of our 38-day ride, Zuo and I enjoyed a swim in the Yellow Sea in Qingdao. When I served in a Hawk missile battery in Korea, my missiles’ primary target line pointed across the Yellow Sea directly at Qingdao. Zuo and I had a good laugh about that.
Good buddy Mike Huber, AATW.
I’m proud of my service in the U.S. Army and the fact that I joined in an era when most people were doing everything they could to avoid military service. It’s paid huge dividends for me, not the least of which are what I consider to be a realistic outlook on life, the ability to focus on objectives (in both my military and civilian careers), and my willingness to listen to others (“seek to understand before seeking to be understood” is perhaps the best advice I’ve ever heard). My belief is that eliminating the draft at the tail end of the Vietnam era and not replacing it with some sort of universal public service has hurt our society, but that’s just my opinion. If you have a different perspective, I’d love to hear from you.
Good buddy Paul recently sent to me a video about the powder charges used by US Navy battleships. The USS New Jersey was featured in the video, and it reminded of my visit to a sister ship, the USS Alabama. I wrote a Destinations piece for Motorcycle Classics magazine ten years ago, and I thought you might enjoy seeing it (along with photos that did not appear in the MC article).
The coastal plains along Alabama’s southern edge are flat and the line of sight extends to the horizon. Ride east on Interstate 10 out of Mobile and you can see her distinctive, bristling profile from a great distance. One can only imagine the fear she induced in our enemies as she emerged from the mist on the high seas.
She, of course, is the USS Alabama. She’s docked at Battleship Memorial Park, just east of Mobile on I-10 where Alabama’s coast meets the Gulf of Mexico. To call the USS Alabama impressive would be a massive understatement. This magnificent old warship is a study in superlatives and in contrasts. Taller than a 20-story building, longer than two football fields, and capable of firing projectiles weighing nearly as much as a Z-06 Corvette at targets more than 20 miles away, the USS Alabama projected America’s power on the open oceans and inland during World War II. The “Lucky A” (she lost not a single crewmember to enemy fire while earning nine Battle Stars) sailed just under a quarter of a million miles in combat conditions and saw action in both the Atlantic and the Pacific theatres. When she passed through the Panama Canal, the 680-foot, 44,500-ton Lucky A had just 11 inches of clearance on each side.
After World War II the USS Alabama was retired from active service. In 1962 the Navy announced plans to scrap this magnificent ship due to the high costs of keeping her in mothballs, but the good citizens of Alabama would have none of that. Alabama kids raised nearly $100,000 in nickels, dimes, and quarters, and corporate sponsors coughed up another $1,000,000 to bring the ship from Puget Sound to Mobile.
The USS Alabama is in amazing condition; indeed, it looks as if the ship could go to war today. Being aboard is like being in a movie (Steven Seagal used it for the 1992 movie, Under Siege). It is an amazing experience eliciting a strong combination of pride and patriotism.
The USS Alabama is a floating artillery base. With armor more than a foot thick above the water line it’s amazing she could float at all, but the old girl could top 32 mph and she had a range of 15,000 nautical miles. When she stopped at the pumps, the USS Alabama took on 7,000 tons of fuel (a cool 2 million gallons).
The guns are what impressed me most. The ship bristles with armament. The Alabama’s 16-inchers dominate everything. Approaching the ship highlights the big guns and when you get closer, they are stunning. Try to imagine nine 16-inch guns, three per turret, firing at our enemies (it must have terrifying). The ship boasts twenty 5-inch guns (two in each of the ship’s 10 smaller turrets). There are another 12 mounts with 48 40mm cannon. And just to make sure, the Alabama has another 52 20mm anti-aircraft cannon. If you’ve been keeping track, that’s 129 guns.
The USS Alabama is only part of the treasure included in Battlefield Memorial Park. The park includes the USS Drum (a World War II submarine), numerous armored vehicles, and an impressive aircraft collection spanning 70 years of military aviation (including a B-52 bomber, numerous fighters, the top-secret SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft, and assorted other planes). The USS Alabama could touch 32 mph on the high seas; the SR-71 cruised at 3,000 mph. The USS Alabama weighs a bit more than 720 million pounds; the SR-71 was built from lightweight titanium. As I stated earlier, the Park and its exhibits are a study in superlatives and contrasts.
Battleship Memorial Park is just east of Mobile on Interstate 10. You can’t miss it (the USS Alabama is visible for miles from either direction, even at night). Admission is only $15 and take my word for it, it’s the most bang for the buck you’ll ever get.
The Skinny
What: Battleship Memorial Park, 2703 Battleship Parkway, Mobile, AL 36602. An outstanding collection of land, air, and sea military vehicles, with the USS Alabama being the main attraction.
How to Get There: Interstate 10 from either the east or the west. From anywhere else, just head south until you hit Interstate 10 and point your front wheel toward Mobile.
Best Kept Secret: There have been seven US Navy ships named Alabama reaching back to before the Civil War. Today, a US Navy nuclear submarine sails under that same proud name.
Avoid: Missing Mobile. It’s a beautiful town, and its Gulf Coast location makes for great seafood and great hospitality.
I had a great day on the range last week with my friends and I did a lot of shooting, including trigger time with the .243 Ruger No. 1 and the .458 Win Mag No. 1 that I wrote about yesterday. I found another load that worked well with the .243 using the 55-grain Nosler bullet. It’s weird; the .243 No. 1 really likes the welterweight Nosler bullet. With all other bullets, it’s mediocre to terrible. But the .243 is a story for another blog. Today’s blog is an interesting follow up on the .458 Win Mag No. 1 story.
Garmin’s new chronograph.
One of the guys (good buddy Russ) had the new Garmin chronograph. They are $600 and way easier to use than the old ones. You just set it on the bench and turn it on. There are no external wires, no ballistic screens, and no other stuff. It can download to your iPhone if you want it to.
I asked Russ if he would chronograph my .458 Win Mag load and he did. As a bit of background, my .458 Win Mag reduced load consists of 28 grains of SR 4759 propellant and the Remington 405-grain jacketed softpoint bullet. I’ve used this load for decades. I found it in an old Speer manual.
Reloaded .458 Winchester Magnum ammunition. It’s a fun cartridge to reload.
With Russ’s Garmin chronograph on my bench, I fired three or four shots. My friends and I were amazed at their consistency. Those first few shots were all right about 1100 feet per second, with an extreme spread of maybe 20 feet per second.
Then I thought I’d get cute. With this particular load, there’s a lot of unused volume in the cartridge case. I tilted a round up to settle the powder near the primer, thinking this would reduce shot-to-shot variability even more. That shot, however, had a perceptibly lighter report and it only registered 600 feet per second on the Garmin chronograph. I checked the rifle after I fired that round to make sure the bullet had cleared the bore, and it had. One of the guys commented that the 600-foot-per-second round sounded different. I picked up on that, too. Convinced that the bore was clear, I fired a few more rounds. They were all right around 1100 feet per second again.
As I walked downrange to the 50-yard target, I could see on ragged whole in the black bullseye as I approached it. I was thinking that even though the velocity was down sharply on that one slow round, it still grouped with the rest of the shots at 50 yards. Then I looked at the target more closely.
Oops! The red arrow points to a low velocity impact.
I don’t know what happened on that one 600-foot-per-second round. It could be that the powder settled in a manner that let the primer shoot over it, so when it lit off, the propellant generated less pressure. I always check all the rounds when I reload them (before seating the bullets), and I remember that the powder levels all looked good. It could be that the primer hole was obstructed by a piece of corn cob media from the brass cleaning operation, although I’m pretty good about clearing those, too, after vibratory cleaning. The round wasn’t a hangfire (there was no pause between the trigger tripping and the discharge); it just sounded lighter.
We all thought this was interesting. To me, it was interesting enough that I decided I’m going to buy a Garmin chronograph. I’ve resisted doing so in the past for several reasons:
My primary interest in load development is accuracy. I have zero interest in maximizing velocity. I just want small groups on paper. If a load does that, I’m a happy camper. I literally don’t care what the velocity is.
I’ve never been a big believer in developing a load to minimize the extreme spread or to minimize the standard deviation (the standard deviation is a measure of parameter variability). I remember from my days at Aerojet Ordnance (we made 25mm and 30mm ammo for the Hughes chain gun and the A-10 aircraft) that there was not strong correlation between standard deviation and accuracy. There are several variables that go into accuracy; standard deviation (or extreme spread) is but one of them.
Prior to the Garmin, the other guys I’ve seen using chronographs on the range were always screwing around with them, mostly trying to get them to work or attending to the screens when the wind blew them over. One friend told me it sometimes took an hour and a half to get his chronograph set up. I didn’t like having to wait on those folks, and I didn’t want to be one of those guys holding up everyone else.
My experience with the .458 last week, though, made me rethink this issue. I’m going to purchase the Garmin , and in another month or two, the gun stories you see on these pages will include velocity (and velocity variation) information. There are a few ExNotes gun stories to be published (ones that are already in the queue) that do not include this info, but at some point beyond their publication, Garmin chronograph results will be part of the data presented. Stay tuned.
About 20 years ago I bought a .458 Ruger No. 1, but until recently, I had not shot it.
I first saw a .458 No. 1 when I was in the Army at Fort Bliss, Texas. Bob Starkey (who owned Starkey’s Guns in El Paso) had one, and that rifle was stunning. I had just bought a .45 70 No. 1 from Bob and I didn’t have the funds to buy the .458. But man, I sure wanted it.
Bob Starkey’s personal .458 Win Mag was a custom rifle built on a 1903 Springfield action. I asked Bob what firing it was like. “Well,” he said, “you’re glad when it’s over.” Call me a glutton for punishment, but I immediately knew two things:
I had to have a .458, and
Someday I would.
I’ve since owned several .458 Win Mags, including a Winchester Model 70 African (long gone), a Browning Safari Grade (it was a beautiful rifle based on a Mauser action; I’m sorry I let that one go), a Remington 798 (also based on a Mauser action), and my Ruger Model 77 Circassian. Every one of those .458 rifles was surprisingly accurate. If you reload and you’ve ever thought of buying a .458, trust me on this: Take the plunge. With cast or jacketed bullets and light loads, .458 Winchester Magnum rifles are very easy to shoot.
Back to the main attraction: My .458 No. 1. Technically, the Ruger .458 No. 1 is called a Ruger No. 1H. The H designates what Ruger calls their Tropical rifle; I’m guessing the Tropical’s heavier barrel means the H stands for heavy. The .458 No. 1 is big, it is heavy, and it just looks like it means business. You might say it’s the Norton Scrambler of elephant guns.
When I saw this No. 1 advertised on the Gunbroker.com auction site, it pushed all the buttons for me. It was a .458, it had beautiful walnut, it had the older red recoil pad (a desirable feature), it had the 200th year inscription, and it had the early Ruger No. 1 checkering pattern.
Every once in a while over the last two decades I’d haul the .458 out of the safe to admire it, but I had never fired it. I was thinking about that a couple of weeks ago, and I decided my failure to get the No. 1 on the range was a character flaw I needed to correct.
With my light .458 Win Mag reloads, the No. 1 grouped about 12 inches above the point of aim at 50 yards. When I examined the rifle more closely, I saw that the rear sight was abnormally tall compared to the rear sights on my other No. 1 Rugers, and it was already in its lowest setting. Evidently the previous owner discovered the same thing (i.e., the rifle shoots high), he took the rear sight all the way down, and then he sold it when it still shot too high. Lucky for me.
My first thought was that the forearm was exerting undue upward pressure on the barrel. I loosened the screw securing the forearm to address this and tried firing it again, but it made no difference. It wasn’t the forearm that was causing the rifle to shoot high.
I realized I needed either a lower rear sight or a taller front sight. The rear sight was already bottomed out, so I couldn’t go any lower with it. I think Ruger put the taller rear sight on the .458 to compensate for the recoil with factory ammo. I have some 500-grain factory ammo so I could fire a few rounds and find out, but I don’t want to beat myself up. The heavier and faster factory ammo bullets get out of the barrel faster than my lighter and slower loads. With factory ammo the muzzle doesn’t rise as much before the bullet exits the bore, so with factory ammo the rear sight has to be taller to raise the point of impact. At least that’s what I think is going on. The bottom line is the factory ammo shoots lower than my lighter, slower loads.
The factory .458 load is a 500-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2000 feet per second. Those loads are designed to DRT an elephant (DRT stands for “Dead Right There”). My needs are different: I want a load that makes small groups in paper targets while drawing ooohs and ahs from everyone on the range (you know, because I am shooting small groups with a .458 Win Mag). Doing so with lighter loads on paper targets keeps both me and Dumbo happy.
If you are reading this and thinking I was obsessing about this situation, you would be correct. I don’t know why, but when a gun is misbehaving I tend to get tunnel vision. I continued to look at the rear sight and started thinking. I knew I needed it to be lower by about a tenth of an inch, so I thought perhaps instead of using a sight picture where the front bead was concentric with the U in the rear sight blade, I could rest the bottom of the front sight’s gold bead lower in the rear sight. I fired five shots with a normal sight picture and then another five with my “lower in the rear sight” concept, and son of a gun, the two groups were right on top of each other. Both were still about a foot above the point of aim (which was 6:00 on the bullseye). What they say about peep sights is true, I guess. Your eye will naturally center the front sight as you squeeze the trigger.
Out there on the range, I kept thinking about this as I stared at the rear sight. It was a nice day and I was the only guy out there. An idea hit me. The rear sight blade is removable (it’s held in place by two screws that loosen to move the blade up or down), and the rear sight leaf (to which the blade attaches) has a much wider and deeper U. Could I remove the blade altogether and use the wider and lower U of the rear sight frame as the rear sight notch?
I had my gunsmith’s tool kit with me and I took the two tiny screws out (the smallest screwdriver in the kit did the trick). I was sweating bullets (pardon the pun) about dropping either of those screws (I knew if I did I’d never find them), but the screwdriver blade is magnetized and it held onto them. With the sight blade removed, I fired five rounds, and voilà, I was in the black. I fired another five, and they went right on top of the first five. The group size, with open sights at 50 yards from a .458 Win Mag, wasn’t too bad. In fact, it was essentially identical to the group size with the rear sight blade in place.
I knew I needed to lower the rear sight, but by how much? The Ruger’s sight radius is 17 inches (the distance from the front sight to the rear sight), and the distance to the target (on which the group was about 12 inches high) was 50 yards. Remember when your junior high school teacher told you that algebra would come in handy someday and you didn’t believe him? Well, today was that day for me. Here’s how it shakes out:
(distance rear sight must be lowered)/(sight radius) =
(12 inches)/(5o yards)
Solving for the distance the rear sight must be lowered (let’s call it x), we have:
x = (12 inches)*(17 inches)/(50 yards*36 inches/yard) = 0.1133 inches
My first thought was to call the Williams Gun Sight company because I assumed Williams made the sights for Ruger. I’ve worked with Williams before and I knew they have excellent customer service. When I called them, I learned that they didn’t make the sights for my Ruger. The guy who took my call had a reference document and he told me that in the early No. 1 days, Marble made the sights. I called Marble, but I struck out there, too. The Marble’s sight base is different than the Ruger’s. While all this was going on, I examined the rear sight more closely and I saw a small Lyman stamp on it. So I contacted Lyman. Their guy told me they haven’t made sights for the Ruger No. 1 in decades.
At that point in my quest to find a lower rear sight, I was up to Strike 3 or maybe Strike 4, so I called Ruger directly. The pleasant young lady I spoke with at Ruger told me they could not sell me a lower replacement sight for my .458 No. 1; they can only sell what originally came on the rifle. So I told them I wanted a replacement rear sight for my .30 06 No. 1 (it has a much lower rear sight). I had to give them a serial number for my .30 06 (which I did), and they were happy to go with that. Ruger charged me $20 for the replacement.
After a week’s wait, I had my lower rear sight from Ruger. I drifted the old rear sight out with a brass punch and I installed the new one. The distance from the top of the old (tall) sight to the sight base is 0.505 inches. The distance from the top of the new (lower) sight to its base is 0.392 inches. Subtracting one from the other (i.e., 0.505 inches – 0.392 inches), I found the new rear sight was exactly 0.113 inches lower than the old rear sight. My calculation was that the rear sight needed to be lower 0.1133 inches lower. The fact that my calculation is almost exactly equal to how much lower the new rear sight is has to be coincidental. I just love it when things work out. Mathematically, that is. You might be wondering how the new rear sight worked out on the range. Quite well, thank you.
The first three shots through the .458 Winchester Magnum Ruger No. 1 with the new rear sight at 50 yards, without making any sight adjustments. I simply drifted the rear sight into the No. 1’s quarter rib and centered it by eye. All three shots would be scored in the X-ring.
You know, if I had mounted a scope all the above would have gone away. The scope would probably have enough adjustment range to compensate for the rifle shooting high. But a scope seems somehow out of place on an elephant gun, and I like shooting with open sights. I’ve read a lot of comments from older guys describing how they need a scope to cope with their aging eyes. I’m certainly an older guy with the inevitable attendant vision degradation, but I’ve gone the opposite way. I find shooting with open sights makes me feel younger, and getting tight groups with open sights is its own reward. I first learned to shoot a rifle using open sights, and doing so again makes me feel like a kid.
Next up will be trying a few shots at 100 yards. Stay tuned.
