I mentioned Thai motorcycle taxis in an earlier blog, and on the way back from Wat Arun today, Sue and I grabbed a few photos just outside our hotel of young ladies riding moto taxis sidesaddle to points unknown (points unknown to me; they knew where they were going). It’s an interesting take on Thai life in the big city. I’d seen this moto taxi business in China 30 years ago, but not anymore. In China today, you just don’t see motorcycles in the big cities. And you sure don’t see anything like this in America.
The photography challenges were interesting. I couldn’t get close to the bikes (it was a wide and busy avenue in downtown Bangkok), the bikes were moving, and the lens didn’t have a lot of reach (it was the 18-55mm Nikon kit lens, an inexpensive lens not nearly as sharp as Nikon’s pricier offerings). I cranked the D3300 camera’s ISO up to 800 (even though I was shooting during the day) to get the shutter speed up (to freeze the action), and then I relied on Photoshop to do the rest (the rest being cropping, adjusting the levels and the curves, adjusting for shadows, adjusting vibrance and saturation, and finally after sizing the photo to the sizes you see here, adding a touch of sharpness. I think they came out well. Consider this photo from the above collection:
Here’s the original photo it came from before all the above adjustments:
If I had a bigger lens (say, a 300mm), I would have had a larger and sharper original photo, but as Donald Rumsfeld liked to say, you go to war with the Army you have. I had my 18-55mm lens with me. And I have Photoshop on my laptop.
I shot all of the photos above and a bunch more in the space of maybe five minutes (Bangkok’s Asok Street is a very busy street), and then I spent maybe another hour selecting the ones I wanted to use in this blog and Photoshopping them. You can have a lot of fun with a camera in Bangkok.
Regarding the safety implications of what you see above, what can I say? The riders had helmets. The passengers? Not so much. We weren’t not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
…and Happy Hanukkah, too. Man, it’s hard to believe the ExhaustNotes blog is 5½ years old. We started in July 2018, and here we are, the day before Christmas, in 2023. Where does the time go?
This is a short blog, and its purpose is simply to wish everyone a happy holiday season. I hope 2023 was a good year for you and that you have a great holiday tomorrow. Keep the comments coming, keep clicking on those popup ads, if you need moto clothes click on over to British Motorcycle Gear, and if you’re headed into Mexico next year, be sure to insure with BajaBound (Gresh and I are talking about another Baja trip in March, and you can be sure that’s who we’ll use).
There won’t be a blog on Christmas day…we’ll be too busy unwrapping presents. From all of us (Joe, Mike, Bobbie, Rob, and yours truly): Enjoy the day.
That photo above? I shot it in La Playa de Belem, Colombia, on Christmas Eve, using my D3300 Nikon, the 18-55mm Nikon lens, and available light. The Moto Colombia ride was one of the best ever. You can get the whole story of our adventure in the Andes here:
So what’s today’s blog all about? I promised I would tell you a bit about the different kinds of motorcycles and motor scooters in Bangkok, and this is that story.
Scooters, Cubs, motorcycles…they are everywhere. Every traffic light is the start of a drag race to the next light by all the bikes.
Bikes dominate Bangkok’s urban landscape. I know that sounds like a catchy thing to say (snappy writing, perhaps), but it wasn’t intended to be literary lavishness. It’s just the way it is. Two-wheeled transportation is everywhere. In traffic, the bikes filter by on the left and on the right. In front of any business or in any parking area, there are hundreds of bikes. And at every stop light, dozens of bikes filter to the head of the line. The excitement builds as the countdown stop light nears green (they tell you how many seconds until the light changes over here), and in the last few seconds before the red goes away, a zillion motorcycle engines start revving. The word “glorious” seems appropriate.
Filter to the front of the line, start revving as the lights nears turning green. The pink autos are taxis (taxis are either pink or metallic green in Bangkok).
There are few big bikes in Bangkok. Oh, you’ll see one now and then, but they are a rarity. Over here anything over 200cc or 250cc is just wasted displacement. I’ve been to Bangkok several times and of the tens of thousands of motorcycles I’ve seen (and those are not exaggerated figures), there were exactly two big bikes. One was a Harley Sportster and the other was a Triumph Bonneville. There’s just no need for more displacement.
A lone Triumph Bonneville, tucked away in a Bangkok parking spot.A Ninja. Honda, Kawasaki, and Yamaha are popular over here. Surprisingly, I didn’t see too many Suzuki motorcycles. We did see more than a few Suzuki automobiles, though.
One moto thing that’s noticeable right away are the orange vests. When you see a rider with an orange vest, that means they are using their bike as a taxi. They give short rides (the folks here tell me typically under 2 kilometers). The riders have to wear the government-sanctioned orange vests and a helmet; passengers don’t wear any safety gear. A lot of the female passengers wear skirts and ride side-saddle (I’ll show more of that in the next blog). I’d say roughly 10 percent of all the bikes are being used as taxis. Most of the drivers are men, but you do see women riders occasionally.
Thai taxi men, and one woman.A mototaxi, a rider, and a food delivery bike.
Surprisingly, it’s rare to see more than two people on a bike. You do see it, but not like I have seen in China or Colombia (I once grabbed a photo in Colombia of a motorcycle carrying six people).
A Thai Freightliner.
Bikes are working vehicles over here. I mentioned the taxi thing; it’s also very common to see bikes weighed down with all kinds of freight.
There are scooters (you know, the things that are styled like Vespas), step-through motorcycles (like the old Honda Cub), small sport bikes (small displacement CBR or Ninja type bikes), plain old motorcycles, and (surprisingly) a lot of Grom-styled bikes.
Another rare sighting…a Vespa in Bangkok. Most of the scooters are of Chinese origin. But this Vespa? If you’re thinking it’s from Italy, you’d probably be wrong. Zongshen (in China) produces these for Vespa.Here’s a guy on one that looks a little like a Ducati. I’m pretty sure these are made in China, as Gresh and I also saw them for sale on our ride across China. If you were wondering, the clutches don’t rattle on these.
When I was last in Bangkok 6 or 7 years ago, I saw a few Kawasaki motorcycles that looked a little like the Honda Grom. Today, the Grom style is very popular in Thailand, with motorcycles of this style from several manufacturers.
I’ll close this blog with a three photos of a bike I spotted yesterday that I thought was pretty cool. It’s a CG-clone-based motorcycle, and its owner has a sense of humor.
A little Beemer. Well, a Beemer wannabe. Unlike modern Beemers, this one has a rational seat height.I wonder if the Cafe Racer decals are factory original, or if the owner added them.It looks good. I like it.
We are enjoying our last full day in Bangkok. We’re up early tomorrow for the flight back to California. It’s been grand. We’re staying in the top floor of a 5-star hotel in downtown Bangkok (the Pullman Grand Sukhumvit) and we’re living in the lap of luxury. The room is awesome, there’s a pool and a gym, there’s a free tuk tuk ride wherever we want to go, there’s free booze and breakfasts and dinners, and it’s costing less than what a Holiday Inn might cost in the United States. We’re going for a dinner cruise up the Chao Phraya River tonight with our good friends Kevin and Nan, and we’re going to hit another one of the temples later today. We took a grand long boat ride on the Chao Phraya yesterday and it was awesome.
There’s one more in this series of Bangkok blogs, and it will feature a set of photos showing Thai women passengers on moto taxis. Stay tuned. I think you’ll like it.
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I recently posted a blog about a couple of accuracy loads for the 6.5 Creedmoor Browning X-Bolt. This blog focuses on a different Browning: A .223 Browning Micro Medallion A-Bolt. It’s the rifle you see here.
I bought the A-Bolt new from a local gun shop in southern California about 35 years ago. I paid $339 for it. It doesn’t have fancy walnut but when I saw it on the rack I asked to see it. I soon as I held it I wanted it. It just felt right. I fancied it as a walking around varmint rifle suitable for rabbits and coyotes, although I’ve never taken this rifle anywhere but the West End Gun Club 100-yard rifle range. I still make gun purchase decisions based on the kind of hunting and shooting I did 50 years ago in Texas. Someday I may get out and chase jack rabbits and coyotes with this rifle again. I can dream.
The right side of the Micro Medallion.
Browning offered their A-Bolt Medallion series, which were full-sized rifles, and their A-Bolt Micro Medallions, which have a shorter barrel and a shorter stock. The Browning Medallions and Micro Medallions were discontinued a few years ago when Browning shifted to the X-Bolt rifle, but you can still find the Micro Medallion A-Bolt rifle on the used gun racks and on the gun auction boards. A recent check showed that they go for around $650.
The rifle you see here is Browning’s Micro Medallion. I like the smaller size. It’s a lighter rifle and the shorter stock fits me well. I don’t like the gloss finish, but at the time it was all Browning offered (they later offered a satin finished rifle). What’s nice about the gloss finish, though, is that it has held up well. It and the deep bluing make this firearm look brand new. I like the rifle’s cut checkering and the darker fore end pistol grip tips, too. Browning made a big deal about their rifle’s short bolt angle in their advertising back in the 1980s and 1990s (bolt angle is the angle the bolt turns through to allow extraction, ejection, and loading). I like it, but if the rifle had a c0nventional bolt throw it wouldn’t have bothered me. It’s something different, but it’s not necessary. It is cool.
Fairly plain, gloss finished walnut. The Browning’s bolt throw is a short 60 degrees, much less than a conventional bolt action rifle’s 90 degrees. The rifle’s bluing is amazing.A nice rifle. I use the notepad to keep track of which load I fire at which target.Cut checkering on the Browning. These rifles were manufactured in Japan. They did a nice job.The fore end tip and the pistol grip have rosewood caps. They look good.
Shortly after I bought the rifle, I mounted an inexpensive 4X Tasco scope on it. That worked okay for a couple of years and then the scope called it quits, so I bought another inexpensive 4X scope (a Nikko this time). The Nikko has held up well.
You might wonder: Why a nonvariable 4X scope? Why not the more popular 3-9X you see on most rifles? In my opinion, the 4X is a lot more useable in the field. I don’t get dramatically better groups with higher magnification scopes, and I like the lightness and the much larger field of view a 4X offers. Unfortunately, not too many companies offer fixed power 4X scopes these days. The scope companies’ marketing has convinced everyone they need variable scopes with high magnification.
The Nikko 4X scope was inexpensive. It has parallax and focus adjustments. Not the roll engraving on the receiver.
In my recent blog about the Browning maple Medallion 6.5 Creedmoor X-Bolt, I described a couple of accuracy loads I developed for that rifle. This time, my objectives were different. I wasn’t shooting the .223 Micro Medallion for accuracy. I was harvesting brass.
Bulk Remington .223 ammunition. It comes in a big plastic bag. I counted out 100 rounds for this range session.A macro shot of the bulk Remington .223 ammo. Note the crimp applied to each round. I generally find that uncrimped ammo is more accurate with this cartridge. I think the crimping induces a bit of tilt in the bullet.
Several years ago I scoured the Internet looking for Remington brass. I’ve always had good luck with Remington brass (it lasts longer and it provides better accuracy, in my opinion). At that time and to my surprise, loaded Remington bulk ammo was cheaper than unprimed brass. For me it was a no brainer: I ordered a thousand rounds of loaded .223 Remington bulk ammo. When I need .223 brass, I’ll shoot up a bunch of the bulk ammo to get the brass.
The bulk Remington ammo was notoriously inaccurate in my Ruger Mini 14, which is the only rifle I had previously used with this ammunition. I wanted to see how the ammo would shoot in the Browning. I knew the Browning was accurate based on previous range testing at 100 yards (some of my reloads would shoot into a quarter of an inch in the Browning; I’ll give you those loads at the end of this blog).
The Remington ammo did well enough in the Browning. It held loads right around a minute and a half of angle at 100 yards, and it printed about where the scope was zeroed. Take a look:
Cheap ammo, but results that weren’t too shabby. I could hunt with this load.
This accuracy is good enough for minute of jackrabbit or coyote. The Browning Micro Medallion rifle is fun to shoot, too. It has negligible recoil, the shorter Micro Medallion barrel helps to keep the weight down, and it connects well at 100 yards.
About the accuracy loads I mentioned above: In a previous load development effort I tested .223 loads in several rifles, including two Remington 700 varmint guns with bull barrels and big scopes. To my surprise, the Micro Medallion and its 4X scope had no problem running with the big guns and their much heavier barrels and much higher magnifications. Here’s how the Micro Medallion and three other .223 rifles grouped a few years ago at 100 yards:
The Browning Micro Medallion shot half-inch groups with ARComp propellant (and it was basically a minute-of-angle rifle with nearly all other loads). I’ll reload the brass harvested from this range session with the Hornady V-Max bullet and ARComp propellant. This is great performance, especially considering the lightweight barrel and the 4X scope. It’s a great rifle.
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AMORAK (a Mexican motorcycle group) is having a Baja endurance run next month. It’s a ride from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas…a cool 1,632 kilometers (or 1,014 miles) that entrants must complete in less than 24 hours. The run commences on 12 January (you have to be in Tijuana on 11 January for inspections, registration, etc.). If you’re interested in taking this one on, here’s the link to get started.
I’ve done that exact same trip on two different motorcycles at the extremes of the motorcycle spectrum. One was a Harley big twin (my old Heritage Classic) with 1340 cubic centimeters; the other was a CSC-150 Mustang replica that had a 150cc engine.
On both of my TJ-to-Cabo rides, we took several days. Doing 1,000 miles in 24 hours anywhere is a challenge (as Rob Morel wrote about here on the ExNotes blog); doing a run like this from TJ to Cabo is an extreme challenge. The roads are a combination of twisties, desert, coastal roads, mountain roads, and rides through the centers of many towns. It’s not freeway riding, and you never know when a burro or a vaca might wander onto the road directly in front of you. Add in the facts that gasolina may not be available in the middle of the night, you would have to eat somewhere along the way, and the police down there (both local and the Federales) are more rigorous about enforcing the speed limits these days…man, I don’t know. It’s more than I’d care to take on, but your mileage may vary. Our job is to help spread the word, and now you know.
If you would like more info on riding in Baja, check out our Baja page. Better yet, pick up a copy of Moto Baja.
Make sure you get BajaBound Mexican insurance before you venture into Baja, and if you want to get the right gear (and world class moto gear), be sure to check out British Motorcycle Gear.
My old man drove an Imperial for a couple of years. In the early days, Dad always bought his cars used, and our dark green 4-door ’56 Imperial was no exception. The car was monstrously huge and it rode as if it were floating on air. I remember one time we were all in the car when it lost its steering. Something mechanical came undone and we ended up in a cornfield, of which there were many in rural central New Jersey in the late 1950s. I can’t remember if that’s why Dad sold the Imperial or if it was something else, but I remember the car. And that’s why when I came across this YouTube video I knew I had to share it with you.
The sales approach back in those days was a little different than what we might see in an advertisement today. These are two more Imperial videos that I think are cool.
This next one, which obviously had as its target market rich old white guys who never went anywhere without a police motorcycle escort, is especially cool (and it fits with our theme of occasionally providing interesting motorcycle content).
So there you have it: 1950s Chrysler Imperial advertising and more. And hey, if you were intrigued by those police Harleys in the video above, pick up your own copy of The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles.
Here’s a chase scene that’s billed as the wildest motorcycle chase ever. I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate, but it is an entertaining few minutes.
The presumption here is that the chase is real, and some dude and his pillion dudette were in a heap of trouble down there in Brazil when they were finally caught. You’ve got to be pretty nuts to attempt outrunning a police officer on anything, but I guess more than a few crazies do so even here in California. About 25 years ago I was in the carpool lane on my TL1000S Suzuki honking along at about 95 mph when I suddenly sensed something on my 5:00 position. I looked in the mirror and there was a CHP cruiser not 5 feet off my rear wheel, just a little bit to my right rear. I hit my turn signal, slowed slowly (I didn’t want that CHP car giving me a proctological examination), wove my way through traffic, and got off at the next exit. I was expecting the indignant, outraged lecture, but to my surprise the CHP officer was an attractive young female who politely asked for my license, insurance, and registration. “I’m surprised you pulled over,” she added.
“Really?” I asked. “You actually get people try to outrun you?”
“All the time,” she said. “If they get away, we can’t go by their tags and arrest them. They’ll just say it wasn’t them, and because of the helmet, it stands up in court.” Hmmmh. You could have knocked me over with a feather. “That’s if they get away,” she added. “Most of the time they get wadded up somewhere down the road. We just follow the ambulance to the hospital and issue the summons there.”
On this topic of motorcycle chases: They are a staple of more than a few motion pictures. I think the classic chase scene (and the best one) is Steve McQueen in The Great Escape (Bud Ekins did the jump in this scene, for which he was paid an unheard of $1000 when the movie was made). There are many great movie chase scenes. Let’s hear from you: What’s your favorite motorcycle chase scene?
The creek is dry and getting to the West End Gun Club is a lot easier these days, so I reloaded some 6.5 Creedmoor ammo in the brass good buddy Johnnie G sent to me. I wanted to try a couple of new loads in my maple-stocked X-Bolt.
A right side view of the Browning 6.5 Creedmoor rifle. Note the muzzle brake on the end of the barrel.
I bought the X-bolt when I saw the wood, and it had a cross-country ride and a half to get to me. I saw it in a shop in Lamar, Colorado, and I knew I had to own the Browning as soon as I saw it. You don’t see many rifles with wood of this caliber.
There was a problem, though. The Colorado shop owner wouldn’t ship it to California. There’s an extra hoop or two a dealer has to jump through to ship a gun to California and I guess folks in Colorado aren’t basketball players. Here’s where capitalism came to the rescue. There’s a guy in Virginia who makes a living off of these kinds of situations, so I had the Colorado dealer ship it to the Virginia dealer, who then shipped it to my dealer in California. None of these dealers did so for free (going to Colorado-to-Virginia-to-California route wrapped the Browning in another $100 bill, and you can guess who had to pay up). But that’s okay. I wanted the rifle and now I have it. It really is an exquisite firearm. And it is exquisitely accurate. I’ll get to that in a minute.
I mounted a 4×12 Vortex scope on the Browning 6.5 Creedmoor. Check out the roll engraving on the receiver.Another view of the 6.5 Creedmoor Vortex scope. The scope includes a parallax adjustment on the objective lens.A macro shot of the receiver’s roll engraving. It’s a nice touch.The stock has a darker wood fore end tip. It’s a classy rifle. The action is glass bedded from the factory.The X-Bolt has a muzzle brake. The bluing is fine; that’s powder residue you see on it. I can feel a light puff a fraction of a second after the bullet leaves the barrel.
I used the Hornady 140-grain full metal jacket boat tail bullet for two loads I wanted to test; one with IMR 4350 propellant and the other with XBR 8208 propellant.
Reloaded 6.5 Creedmoor ammo with Winchester brass and the 140-grain jacketed hollow point boat tail bullet. It’s good looking ammo.The business end of the 140-grain Hornady bullets.
The loads showed no signs of excess pressure after firing. The bolt opened easily and the primers were not flattened.
Winchester brass, and unflattened Winchester large rifle primers.
I full length resized the 6.5 Creedmoor brass because I have two rifles chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor (see our earlier story, A Tale of Two Creedmoors). The alternative approach is to neck size the brass only (which can theoretically offer improved accuracy), but when you neck size the brass the reloaded ammo will only fit into the rifle in which the brass was previously fired. I didn’t want to try to keep my ammo segregated by rifle, and as it turns out, I don’t need to. The full length resized 6.5 Creedmoor brass provided great 100-yard results in the Browning X-Bolt rifle with both the XBR 8208 and IMR 4350 loads.
The first shot of the day at the upper left target was low and to the left, which is a common occurrence when shooting from a clean and lightly oiled barrel. The next three grouped tightly into the orange target (I could see the bullet holes with the rifle’s 12X scope). I let the barrel cool for a few minutes, and then I fired another three rounds at the upper right target. I was pleased; the load returned an even tighter three shot group in about the same spot as the first group. Both groups, when measured later, were a satisfyingly tight half minute of angle.
I let the barrel cool again, and then I moved on to the IMR 4350 loads. Wow, talk about consistent. Both shot to the same part of the target, and both were exactly the same group size: 0.829 inches.
Two great 6.5 Creedmoor powders: IMR 4350 and XBR 8208.My old RCBS powder trickler still works well.
I had read that IMR 4350 was a “go to” powder for 6.5 Creedmoor accuracy, and my results confirmed that. I had not found much information about XBR 8208 accuracy in this chambering, but it sure seemed to get the job done for me. As the above target shows, the XBR 8208 performed even better than the IMR 4350 loads. Here’s a bit more on info on these two loads:
Both had the Hornady 140-grain bullets seated to an overall cartridge length of 2.800 inches.
I did not crimp the bullets in place.
I did not trim the brass for either load.
The powder charges for both loads were weighed for every cartridge. I used my powder dispenser to drop a little bit lower charge, and then trickled in the last few grains.
I used 31.5 grains of XBR 8208.
I used 39.0 grains of IMR 4350.
I used Winchester brass with Winchester large rifle primers.
So there you have it: Two great 6.5 Creedmoor loads for the Browning maple Medallion.
You probably know about the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping last week. What you might not know about is Woodside, California, and the Filoli estate where they met. As always, we want our ExNotes readers to be knowledgeable and up to date, and that’s the focus of this article. I’ve actually been to and photographed the Filoli estate and mansion, and I’ve written a bit about Woodside before.
The Filoli mansion was built in 1917 for William Bourn II, who by any measure was a wealthy guy. He owned one of California’s richest gold mines and was president of the Spring Valley Water Company that served San Francisco and its surrounding areas. If you are wondering about the name, it’s formed by the first two letters of each word from of Bourn’s motto: Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life.
The Filoli mansion and its gardens occupy 16 acres; the entire estate covers 654 acres and extends to the Crystal Springs Reservoir (which still provides water to San Francisco). If you drive south on the 280 freeway from San Francisco (it follows the San Cruz Mountain range), you can see the reservoir on the right.
Big mansions are expensive to maintain and hard to keep up. That’s why a lot of the big ones have been donated by the families that owned them to the state or other organizations and opened to the public for tours. It’s what the Hearst family did with Hearst Castle further south, and it is what happened to the Filoli mansion. The Filoli mansion and surrounding grounds are now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. For a modest fee you can visit and walk through the same rooms and gardens as Xi and Biden. It’s cool. I did it in 2019 and here are a few Filoli photos from that visit.
A bit more about the town of Woodside: Woodside is one of the wealthiest places in America. A partial list of the big names who live or have lived in Woodside include Charles Schwab (yes, that Charles Schwab), Steve Jobs, Michelle Pfeiffer (the classiest actress ever), Joan Baez, Nolan Bushnell (the founder of Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain), Scott Cook (the founder of Intuit), Carl Djerassi (a novelist and the guy who developed the birth control pill), Larry Ellison (the CEO of Oracle Corporation), James Folger (as in need a cup of coffee?), Kazuo Hirai (the CEO of Sony), Mike Markkula (the second Apple CEO), Gordon E. Moore (Intel’s co-founder and originator of Moore’s Law), Prince Vasili Alexandrovich (the nephew of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia), Shirley Temple, John Thompson (Symantec’s CEO), and Nick Woodman (founder and CEO of GoPro). Woodside is within commuting distance of Silicon Valley, so it’s understandable, I guess, why so many high-rolling Silicon Valley types call it home.
This is an interesting and beautiful area. The Pacific Ocean is just on the other side of the San Cruz range, and a circumnavigation of these mountains makes for a hell of a motorcycle ride (see our earlier blog and the article I wrote for Motorcycle Classics magazine).
I don’t know if Xi and Biden accomplished much during their meeting. If I had organized their visit, I would have left all the entourage folks behind and given Uncles Joe and Xi a map and a couple of RX3 motorcycles. They would have had a better time and probably emerged with a better agreement. A good motorcycle ride will do that for you.
You know, we don’t do politics on ExNotes, but I have to get in a comment here. There ought to be a win-win solution to our current disagreements with China. I think if I could be king of the U.S. for about six months (not President, but King) and good buddy Sergeant Zuo from our ride across China could be King of China for the same time period, we could go for another ride and figure it all out. I’d bring Gresh along to keep it interesting and I’d get another book out of it, too. That’s my idea, anyway.
If you’d like to read more about Joe Gresh’s and my ride across China with Sergeant Zuo, you should pick up a copy of Riding China.
And if you’d like to read about Gresh and me riding across America with the Chinese, you need a copy of 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM.
I had a chance to fire the new SIG M18 9mm handgun, which was recently added to the California Department of Justice roster of approved handguns here in the People’s Republik. I was impressed with the M18’s accuracy, grouping, comfort level, feel, and sights. I love the desert tan colors. I was not impressed with the trigger (more on that in a bit).
It was a good day on my local indoor pistol range, and as I was leaving, my good buddy Shannon asked where I’ve been (I hadn’t been there in a few weeks). “Overseas,” I told her. She then pointed to the new M18 SIGs they had in the display case and asked if I’d like to try one. That reminded me of the old joke about the guy with the wooden eye. I responded with an affirmative and rhetorical, “Would I?”
The venerable 1911. It’s chambered in .45 ACP. All steel and with a Parkerized finish, as God intended. In my opinion, you can’t improve on perfection, but the Army had other ideas.
A bit of background: The US Army and I have something in common: We change handguns on a regular basis. The Army had been using the venerable .45 ACP 1911 since about, well, 1911. It served the Army well (and still serves well in certain special ops units), but the Army decided it wanted something better. That led to adoption of the 9mm Beretta 92 (designated as the M9 for the military) in 1985. I never cared for the Beretta, so I’ve never owned one and I can’t tell you anything about how it shoots or feels. The M9 had pushed out my beloved 1911, so I didn’t like it. Period. No handling or testing required.
The Army wanted a smaller pistol cartridge, and it settled on the Beretta M9. The M9 has an aluminum frame. Bob likes it.
The Army quickly decided it didn’t much like the Beretta, either. But the Army is big and it moves slowly when it’s not lobbying for more funding from Congress, and it wasn’t until 2017 that they decided to go with a militarized version of the 9mm SIG P320. There are two versions of the new military handgun: The M17, which has a 4.7-inch barrel, and the M18, with a 3.9-inch barrel. Both are full sized handguns with magazines carrying a gazillion rounds, and until recently, neither was available to lowly and untrustworthy civilians here in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia. Nah, scratch that. Lowly or not, trustworthy or not, no California civilians could purchase either of the new SIGS, although weirdly, we could purchase the civilian gun from which it was derived, the SIG P320. Go figure.
The SIG P320, the gun the M17 and M18 handguns are based on. All three guns (the P320, the M17, and the M18) have a polymer gripframe. You can tell they’re swell (I’m not going to explain that comment; you have to be old enough to get it).The 9mm SIG M17. Note the longer barrel length.The gun I fired: The SIG M18.
The SIG M18 recently appeared on the California Department of Justice approved handguns roster. That’s just a bit on the weird side, too, because the M18 is the version with the shorter (i.e., slightly more concealable) barrel. You’d think in their wholesome attempts to keep us pure our legislators would have approved the longer-barreled M17. Maybe they will in the future.
The Rock Island Compact 1911. This is a short barreled, shorter grip frame 1911 chambered in .45 ACP.My Smith and Wesson Shield. It has a very short barrel compared to either the SIG M17 or M18, which makes my shooting with it a bit less accurate.
I had fun on the range. I shot a box of .45 ammo in my Compact 1911, and then two boxes of ammo in my Smith and Wesson Shield. I was doing pretty good with both, too. It’s a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. As I was leaving the range, Shannon told me about the new M18s they had in stock and offered a trial run, so I put a box of 50 rounds through one of them.
I used a 6:00 hold on the orange bullseye on both targets, and I fired 50 rounds at each. The Shield target is on the left; the SIG target is on the right. Both guns are good enough; the M18 is surprisingly accurate.
As I said above, I didn’t care for the M18 trigger (the M18 is a striker-fired handgun; give me a hammer-fired gun any day). But the thing was accurate, even with the Joe Biden trigger (it was clumsy and creepy). I put nearly all 50 rounds through a single jagged hole at my point of aim 10 yards downrange, and then I started hitting low with the last few rounds. The few that dropped a bit below the orange bullseye were entirely due to me being tired and shaky (it wasn’t the gun; I was coming up on 200 rounds in that range session and I’m an old man). The bottom line: I like the new M18. A lot. I may buy one somewhere down the road, unless the M17 gets approved in California first.
The photography challenges were interesting. I couldn’t get close to the bikes (it was a wide and busy avenue in downtown Bangkok), the bikes were moving, and the lens didn’t have a lot of reach (it was the 18-55mm Nikon kit lens, an inexpensive lens not nearly as sharp as Nikon’s pricier offerings). I cranked the D3300 camera’s ISO up to 800 (even though I was shooting during the day) to get the shutter speed up (to freeze the action), and then I relied on Photoshop to do the rest (the rest being cropping, adjusting the levels and the curves, adjusting for shadows, adjusting vibrance and saturation, and finally after sizing the photo to the sizes you see here, adding a touch of sharpness. I think they came out well. Consider this photo from the above collection:
