Joe Berk

Product Review: Garmin Chronograph

By Joe Berk

In an earlier blog on my 458 Win Mag No. 1, I mentioned that I used a friend’s Garmin chronograph and decided I needed one. I pulled the trigger and I’ve been using my Garmin constantly since I bought it. I’ve shot rifle with jacketed and cast bullets and I’ve shot several handguns to see how it performed. The bottom line? Garmin hit a home run with their new chrono. Is it perfect? No. But it’s so good I can live with the few minor things I think could be improved.

The Garmin has a bunch of features (and I’ll get into them in a minute), but let my start by saying the most important feature is ease of use. Basically, you turn the thing on, make a few screen inputs, set it on the shooting bench, and you’re good to go. There’s no screwing around with setting up screens in front of the bench, running wires, or any of other stuff you need to do with earlier chronographs. It’s plug and play, but you don’t even have to plug it in.

Operation

Operating the Garmin is straightforward, but it’s not entirely intuitive. The On-Off button is one of four buttons on top of the device. Garmin labels it “Power.” Touch it once and the device is on; hold it down for two seconds and it turns off.

The buttons up top. They are a little confusing at first.

Getting to what you want to shoot involves scrolling through a series of screens and menu options via two of the buttons on top of the Garmin. One points up; the other points down, and that’s how you move from one choice to another on each data screen. Basically, the choices are rifle or handgun (there’s also choices for archery, but I’m not Robin Hood), and their selection is governed by projectile velocity. After navigating up or down on that screen, pressing the OK button gets the next screen up. That asks if you the Garmin to calculate power level (bullet energy). I always tell it no, but getting through that requires pressuring the down button and then the okay button again. Then another screen pops up, advising chronograph placement with regard to gun location. Then it’s necessary to press the OK button once more. That gun placement screen is unnecessary, and it just necessitates pressing more buttons and scrolling through more screens. Finally, the device is ready to use. It’s a lot of button pushing and scrolling. Granted, it is way, way easier than screwing around placing chronograph screens downrange, aligning them with your bullets’ flight path, and making electrical connections, and it’s easier than placing what used to be the most modern chrono (before the Garmin came along) out in front of the firing line. The Garmin is a major step forward in the chrono game.

Once the string has been fired (as many as the shooter wants to include in the string), the scrolling and selecting game starts anew (along with pushing the back, up and down, and OK buttons). I thought it would become intuitive for me, but I’m not the brightest bulb in the box and it seems I have to relearn it every time I go to the range (and I’m on the range at least a couple of times each week).

Charging and Battery Life

Charging is done via a laptop. The chronograph comes with a cord that connects the chrono to your laptop, and that’s how it charges. One charge is good for a couple of range sessions (or more, depending on how much you shoot). Although I didn’t time it, I’m guessing it took maybe an hour to fully recharge.

Downloading Data

I thought the cord connecting the computer to the Garmin would allow me to download the data from each range “session” (a session is a string of shots for which you wish to record data), but if there’s a way to do that, I couldn’t find it. I could the files for each range session, but they were in a format I couldn’t read. What I can do, though, is Bluetooth connect the Garmin to my cellphone. Then, once the data is in my cellphone, I can send the data (in an Excel spreadsheet) to my laptop via email. That’s more bother than I wanted to mess around with, though. I just look at the results on the Garmin screen.

Packaging and the Optional Case

The Garmin chrono doesn’t come with a carrying case. It should. I had to spring for an optional $15, cheaply constructed carrying case that probably cost about 25 cents to make in China. But I’m glad it did. It does a decent job protecting the Garmin and storing the charging cable.

The extra cost case. It ought to be included with the chronograph.

A Few Pistol Examples

I shot three handguns to assess how the Garmin would perform. I thought I could do this at my indoor pistol range (I belong to a couple of gun ranges). The indoor range is usually crowded, and that highlighted one of the Garmin’s weak spots. Even though there are barriers between shooting positions, the Garmin was consistently capturing data from the guy shooting on either side of me. As I had no interest in what they were doing, I picked up my marbles and to the West End Gun Club, an outdoor range.

1911s in .45 ACP, 9mm, and .22. The 1911 is one of the best pistol designs in the world. It’s been around for more than a century.

On the outdoor range there was more room between shooting positions, and the Garmin picking up another shooter’s bullets was not an issue. I shot and captured data for three different handguns. All were 1911s. I’ve written about them before (a .45 ACP Springfield, a 9mm Springfield, and a .22 GSG), but now I can bring you chrono data. My plan was to shoot 50 rounds from each pistol and record the data, shooting at the same silhouette target at 25 yards.

1911 .22 Long Rifle GSG

The GSG .22 Long Rifle 1911. There’s a lot of plastic in this gun, but wowee, does it ever shoot!

The first pistol up was the .22 GSG with Federal Champion ammo. It’s cheap ammo and it’s advertised as having a muzzle velocity of 1260 feet per second, but that’s probably from a much longer rifle barrel. I expected it to be slower from the 1911 and it was.

Federal .22 Long Rifle High Velocity Ammo. The GSG needs the high velocity ammo to function reliably.

I ordered a bunch of ammo when a court found California’s mail order ban unconstitutional. It’s since been overturned, but I brought in a couple thousand rounds when justice prevailed.

The Federal ammo is advertised at 1260 feet per second, but that’s out of a rifle. The chronograph doesn’t lie.

Here’s what the Garmin revealed for the 50 .22 Long Rifle shots fired from the 1911.

1020 versus 1260 feet per second. My lower velocities were due to shooting this ammo in a handgun rather than a rifle.

The velocity was lower than advertised, but as mentioned above, I fired from a 5-inch-barreled handgun and not a rifle.

1911 9mm Springfield

I then turned to my Springfield 9mm 1911, which is one of my all time favorite pistols.

My 9mm Springfield Armory 1911. This is a great handgun.

I fired another 50 rounds through it with my handloaded ammo (the load I used is the 124-grain roundnose plated Xtreme bullet and 5.5 grains of Accurate No. 5 powder. That ammo had about the same average velocity as the .22, but the extreme spread and the standard deviation were lower (a good thing). Accuracy at 25 yards was about the same as the .22 1911.

1035 feet per second ain’t too shabby. I could go higher by running a hotter load, but this one is hot enough and it’s accurate.

You may have noticed that the Garmin only picked up 49 of the 50 shots I fired. I don’t know why it did that.

1911 .45 ACP Springfield

For my final quick look handgun trials I used another Springfield 1911, this time chambered in .45 ACP.

One of the great ones: A .45 ACP 1911. This is also a Springfield Armory handgun.

The load was 4.6 grains of Bullseye under Gardner 185-grain cast semi-wadcutter bullets. This has always been a great target load in any of my 1911s, and it proved that to be the case again. I was not shooting for accuracy; I was simply showing 50 rounds through each of the three 1911s to wring out the Garmin. On the target, the GSG .22 and the Springfield 9mm were grouping at about 10 inches (again, I wasn’t try to put them through the same hole during this test). But that .45? Wow. It put 50 rounds through one ragged hold about 4 inches in diameter. If I had put any effort into it, that hole would have been smaller.

A .45-caliber bullet at 850 feet per second will settle most arguments. It’s accurate, too.

You can see the inherent accuracy in the .45 load I used in this portion of the test. Check out the very small standard deviation and extreme spread. Both are much smaller than the corresponding values for the 9mm and .22 handguns.

Mosin-Nagant Cast Bullets

I next wanted to try cast bullets in the Mosin-Nagant 91/30 rifle. I knew the load I was using (a 173-grain cast bullet and SR 4759 powder) to be an accurate load from previous forays.

I love the Mosin-Nagant. There are certainly more elegant milsurp rifles out there. I haven’t found any that shoot better than a Mosin-Nagant.

Cast bullets loaded in 7.62x54R cases. This is a fun load.

Fast enough, and no leading. This is a great load.

As I said above, I knew this to be an accurate load, and the Garmin showed why: It had a l0w standard deviation.

Mini 14 Jacketed Bullets

Finally, I wanted to see how the Garmin would do with a small bullet moving at higher speeds, so I ran a few shots through my faithful Mini 14.

You don’t see many Mini 14 rifles with wood like this one. It’s stunning, and it can be surprisingly accurate with the right load.

My accuracy loads for the Mini 14 have been a Hornady 55-grain full metal jacket boattail bullet and a max load of either IMR 4320 or ARComp. The results you see below are for the IMR load. You might be wondering why the velocity is a bit less than the expected 3000 feet per second speeds attained with a .223 cartridge. My Mini 14 has a 16-inch barrel.

The Garmin had no difficulty picking up those little 55-grain bullets flying away at 2800+ feet per second.

The results looked good to me. Those five shots went into less than 2 inches at 100 yards. Four of the five went into less than an inch.

A Mini 14? Are you kidding me? I never joke about my work, folks.

The Bottom Line

There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good is the Garmin chronograph has upped the ante by bringing an easily-used chronograph to the masses. There’s no screwing around wires or screens, and you don’t have to get in front of the firing line to set it up. This is a major breakthrough, and it’s what prompted me to finally pull the trigger on a chrono (well, that and my good buddy Walt telling me that any serious shooter and reloader needed a chrono).

The bad? There’s not much. I mentioned the tendency to pick up rounds fired from an adjacent lane on an indoor handgun range. I think the screen scrolling drill could be simplified a bit. The chrono occasionally failed to pick up a round (but that could be me not positioning it correctly). I think the chrono should allow downloading data sessions directly to a computer (without having to Bluetooth the thing to a cell phone and then email it to myself). These nits wouldn’t stop me from buying one, and they shouldn’t stop you, either. I love my Garmin chronograph. The Garmin engineers did a good job.

What surprised me (but maybe didn’t surprise me too much) was that the lowest standard deviation did not necessarily result in the tightest group. Barrel harmonics, bullet issues, and the guy behind the trigger also have a huge influence. I suspect the so-called accuracy loads in the Lyman reloading manual are based mostly (perhaps exclusively) on standard deviation. There are a lot of things that go into rifle and handgun accuracy. With a Garmin chronograph, you can get a better understand them.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

The Bisley Revisited

By Joe Berk

One thing about Ruger: Nobody can top their customer service. Ruger may not explicitly state their firearms come with a lifetime warranty, but in effect, they do.

You may remember my story on the Ruger Bisley I won in a Rock Island Auction (I wrote about it several months ago). I had wanted a .357 Magnum Bisley for its heavy construction and longer barrel and, truth be told, I was surprised that my bid prevailed. When I won the Rock Island Auction, I ponied up all the nutty fees that come with such an undertaking (they are significant), and then when I received the Bisley I was disappointed. It wasn’t particularly accurate (the group sizes were mediocre), and it shot so far to the left the rear sight had to be adjusted all the way to the right to get the shots on paper.

I figured I was kind of stuck with the Bisley and my initial thought was I’d look at the gun for a while, stick it in the safe, and then maybe sell it somewhere down the line. But it bothered me. Owning a firearm that doesn’t meet my expectations doesn’t set easy. If there’s such a thing as having an obsessive-compulsive disorder with firearms that are less than perfect, I’d make for a good clinical study.

I wrote to Ruger and told them what I wanted, which was an accurate Bisley that didn’t shoot to the left. I told them the revolver left their plant in 1986, so I was more than willing to pay whatever it took to make me happy. I also mentioned that I wanted to buy new grip frame screws and a new ejector rod shroud (cosmetically, they looked beat up). And finally, I mentioned that extraction was difficult with hotter loads. I asked the Ruger folks to hone the chamber walls so the fired cases would extract easily.

Ruger charged me $45 for a Fedex mailer (which they emailed to me), told me how to package my revolver (a plain brown box, with nothing on the outside to indicate its contents), and advised it could be 4 to 6 weeks before I saw the gun again. Four days later, it was on its way back to me, with no additional charges other than the initial $45 I paid for the Fedex mailer.

The rear sight, approximately centered. This is way better than what it was when I returned the Ruger.

Ruger honed the chamber walls to prevent sticky extraction. The gun extracts flawlessly.

Ruger mentioned in the paperwork returned with the gun that they retorqued the barrel, installed a new ejector shroud, honed the chambers, replaced all the grip screws, test fired it, and sent it home. The first thing I looked at was the rear sight. Comfortingly, it was a lot closer to being centered than it was when I sent the gun to them.

So how did it do?

Yessiree, that’s what I’m talking about!

Just fine, thanks. The day I received it, I hopped in the Subie, motored over to my indoor range, and fired three different .357 loads at 10 meters. Now, I know 10 meters is only 30 feet, but I wanted to get an idea how the revolver was working. One load was a relatively mild Bullseye-powered concoction with cast 158-grain bullets, another was a gonzo 158-grain Hornady jacketed bullet load with a max charge of Unique, and the third was an even more energetic load with the same 158-grain jacketed hollow point Hornady bullet and a max load of Winchester 296 propellant. On that indoor range, even with my Walker electronic earmuffs, the concussion of the big Bisley and its full throated .357 loads was starting to give me a headache. But the targets? Oh, boy…the Bisley and I were back in business. I ran another target out to 50 feet (the longest range available at the indoor range), and that group was just as good as the ones at 30 feet.

Winchester’s 296, Unique, a finished .357 Magnum cartridge, the 158-grain Hornady XTP bullet, and the 180-grain Hornady XTP bullet.

A macro shot of the Hornady 159-grain and 180-grain XTP bullets. Viewed from outside the cartridge case, the bullets appear identical. The difference is in their length below the cannelure.

A couple of loaded .357 Magnum cartridges. I’ve always liked the .357 Magnum cartridge.

The day after that, I took the Bisley to our Wednesday morning Geezer get-together at the West End Gun Club. I had three things in mind: I wanted to show off a bit to my friends, I wanted to chronograph the two balls-out .357 loads I mentioned above, and I wanted to see how the revolver would do at 100 yards. Yes, you read that right: 100 yards.

100 yards with the Bisley. The first 30 shots or so were with the Unique load. When i switched over to the 296 load, the group tightened. Next time I’m out I’ll try the 180-grain bullets with 296 and dial in a little windage.

My buddy Kevin spotted for me with his spotting scope, and he was amazed with the first load (8.0 grains of Unique and the 158-grain Hornady jacketed hollow points). Kevin gave a hearty “whoa!” and I suspected things were looking good.

Kevin said several of the shots (after I had warmed up a bit and got into my long-range groove) grouped like I was shooting a rifle. I sure didn’t mind hearing that. I checked the chronograph and the velocities were respectable, too. The bullets were hitting to the left a bit, but I had room to adjust the rear sight to bring that in. And where a gun prints on target is a function of how it is held. I wasn’t consistent with the Bisley yet (I actually haven’t shot it that much).

The 158-grain Hornady bullet with 8.0 grains of Unique. It’s a max load and velocities were respectable, but not like what I attained with Winchester 295.

Then I switched to the heavier-duty 296 load (with the same Hornady XTP bullet), and wowee, I was keeping them in the black on that same 100-yard rifle target. And those loads were smoking hot. Winchester;s 296 propellant is good stuff. Check this out.

Whoa, baby! 1500 fps plus! 296 is a dynamite powder in the .357 Magnum.

All the cartridge cases extracted easily and even with the 1500 feet per second 296 load above, there were no pressure signs (other than a hellacious muzzle blast). As mentioned above, Ruger honed the chambers for me and the prior extraction issues had evaporated.

With replacement of the grip frame screws and the ejector shroud, the Bisley looks like a new revolver. And other than me paying for the initial shipping to Ruger, it was all on the house (Ruger’s house, that is). Bear in mind what I said earlier in this blog: The Bisley, purchased used, is a 38-year-old revolver.

The Bisley went from being a regret to a gun I’m excited about owning. You probably know that Ruger also made these guns in other chamberings, to include .44 Magnum and .45 Colt, and you might be wondering why I wanted the .357 Magnum. Back in the 1970s when I was a handgun metallic silhouette shooter, I competed with a .357 Magnum and I was a rarity. While everyone else was shooting a .44 Magnum or a .45 Colt, or custom-built bolt-action handguns shooting what were essentially rifle cartridges, I was one of the very few people (in fact, the only one I knew of) who shot a .357 Magnum in that game. With the right loads, the .357 would topple the 200-meter rams (the toughest target to knock over) more reliably than either the .44 Magnum or the .45 Colt, so there was a certain coolness (and a bit of smugness) on my part associated with that. The other reason is weight. When Ruger chambers different cartridges in the same firearm, the gun’s external dimensions remain the same, so the .357 Magnum Bisley weighs more than the .44 Magnum or the .45 Colt versions. More weight means the gun holds steadier and that means greater accuracy.

What’s next for this revolver is working up a load with Hornady’s 180-grain jacketed hollow point bullet and 296 powder and getting the sights dialed in at 50, 100, 150, and 200 yards (the four stages of a handgun metallic silhouette competition). When I used to compete in metallic silhouette competition, I used a cast 200-grain bullet, but nobody makes that bullet commercially. Well, almost nobody. I previously found a guy who sold a 200-grain bullet for the .357, but his bullets leaded terribly and accuracy fell off after the first three or four rounds (and cleaning the bore was a pain). If I can get the 180-grain jacketed bullets to group well, I think the metallic silhouette rams at 200 yards won’t know the difference between a 200-grain cast bullet and a 180-grain jacketed bullet, and I may get back in the game. We’ll see.

That term: Balls out. You might think it’s a crude anatomical and testicular reference, but it’s not. Engine governors used to use lever-suspended rotating metal balls that moved further away from their axis of rotation as rpm increased. When the engine speed reached a preset maximum value allowed by the governor, the centrifugal outward movement of the balls operated a lever that prohibit engine speed from going any higher. At that point, the engine was running “balls out.”

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Product Review: Razor Electronic Muffs

By Joe Berk

I’ve never been one to fall for fancy newfangled gear (unless it involved fancy walnut), so for most of my life I’ve used cheap Harbor Freight earmuffs when shooting. That’s okay for most shooting, I thought, but I recently noticed that my earmuffs were interfering with getting a good cheek weld on a rifle stock when shooting from the bench. And there was another issue: Good buddy Daniel (one of the rangemasters) always has a good joke or two, and I couldn’t hear him through my earmuffs.

I noticed other guys using electronic earmuffs. You know, the kind that lets you hear normal conversation, but chops out the loud report from a handgun or rifle. They appeared in a recent ad to be slightly narrower than my el cheapo Harbor Freight muffs, too, so I thought maybe they wouldn’t interfere with the rifle’s stock. So I pulled the trigger, figuratively speaking, and ordered a pair of Razor Slim Electronic Earmuffs from Amazon.

They take two AA batteries (which are provided), and they turn on or off via a dial on back of the left earmuff. That dial also controls the volume. Turn them off, and they are like a regular set of earmuffs. Turn them on, and you can hear conversation but rifle and handgun shots are attenuated. You can control the volume, so I imagine they are pretty much like wearing hearing aids. In fact, they work almost too well in that regard. I could hear conversations a dozen benches down on the firing line, and I had to reduce the volume because I found it distracting.

I like these Razor earmuffs. I can carry on a conversation when wearing them, and that makes it nice because those with whom I’ve conversing don’t need to shout (nor do it).

The knob on the left eafmuff controls the volume and is also the on-off switch. If you forget to turn that knob off, it will run down the batteries.

There are three things I don’t like about the Razor earmuffs, but none are showstoppers and they wouldn’t prevent me from buying them. The first is that the original reason I bought them (to eliminate interference with the rifle stock), well, that isn’t what I found. The name notwithstanding (“Razors”), they interfere as much or more than a plain old set of the Harbor Freight earmuffs. The second is that it’s easy to forget to turn down the volume all the way and switch the earmuffs off, with the result being that on the next trip to the range, the batteries are dead. That one’s on me, I guess. The third reason is they are warm. The Razor earmuffs form a better seal around your ears, and on a hot day, that can be a bit of a drag. But like I said above, none of these are showstoppers for me, and they shouldn’t be for you, either.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Inbound!

By Joe Berk

We’ve got a bunch of good stuff coming your way, my friends. I just finished a whirlwind week in New Jersey, we hit some of the Sopranos film locations, I grabbed a bunch of very cool Norton P11 photos, we saw where Bruce Springsteen was setting up for a concert in Asbury Park, I have a review on the new Garmin chronograph about to go live, Mike Huber (aka Mike Nelson) is down there in Indonesia and Thailand becoming one with the sea turtles, I’ve got a review on Ruger Customer Service and my revamped .357 Bisley, Joe Gresh has his Z1 Kawi all dressed up with lots of new places to go, and lots, lots more.

Andrew Capone, Isle of Man impresario and British Motocycle Gear CEO, with an unknown paparazzi reflected in a Norton Scrambler fender at an undisclosed location in New Jersey.

All dressed up with lots of places to go…Joe Gresh and the Z1…the gift that keeps on giving!

How fast is fast? Stay tuned, and we’ll tell you!

Bisley mania! Plinking at 100 yards with a handgun? You bet!

Andrew, Harry (aka “the Norton Whisperer”), and what is unquestionably one of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made!

There’s ink, and then there’s Sopranos ink. Oh, do we have a story for you!

You know, we blew right by 1500 blogs some time ago, and I started to wonder if we were going to run out of things to write about. Nope. Not gonna happen. It’s like when one of my geezer buddies told me he didn’t know what to say at a lunch gathering, and another of my geezer friends told him, “Don’t worry…you’ll keep talking until you think of something.”

Stay tuned, my Amigos…

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Tony Soprano’s Home

By Joe Berk

The scenes and the locations are iconic, and I take pride in recognizing every one of them in The Sopranos opening credits. The music, the New Jersey Turnpike toll booth, the aged industrial locations, Pizzaland, and motoring up that long driveway at 14 Aspen Drive in North Caldwell, New Jersey. Today’s topic is the home you see at the beginning of every episode in what is unquestionably the best television series that ever aired.

I had originally seen the series sometime after it first ran on HBO. I didn’t at first recognize how wonderful the show was and how it would come to be known throughout the world. It was so good that many people think Tony Soprano is real. I was in Scotland for a consulting gig when my driver, an elderly gentleman, recognized my American accent but told me I didn’t sound “like California.”

“I’m originally from New Jersey,” I explained.

My driver grew silent. He was thinking. Finally, the Question: “Do you know Tony Soprano?” He was dead serious. We were in Glasgow on a motorway taking me to my destination, and here was this Scot asking me about a fictional character. One who obviously seemed all too real to anyone who watched the show.

“I never actually met the man,” I truthfully answered, “But I know people who knew him.”

What I told the driver was true, sort of. James Gandolfini, one of Tony’s many aliases, was a Jersey boy like me. He graduated from my alma mater, Rutgers University. I could identify with The Sopranos and its New Jersey setting. I knew people who spoke with the same accent and who most likely knew the DeCavalcante crime family (the real-world gangsters The Sopranos modeled). Hell, I speak with the same accent, and that old Scot picked up on it in Glasgow. Did I know Tony? Hey, I could name names, but I don’t want to sleep with the fish. I’m no rat.

On a recent trip, I thought it might be fun to Waze my way to a few of The Sopranos locations. The list was long, as the show was mostly shot in New Jersey (as were most of the guys and a couple of gals who fell from Tony’s favor). The first location I would visit, of course, had to be Tony and Carmela’s mansion. Waze knew the way. The Garden State Parkway took me there, and that seemed fitting.

When we arrived, the cul-de-sac was way smaller than it had appeared each morning when a bathrobe-clad Tony waddled down the driveway to pick up his Newark Star Ledger (a paper I used to read, by the way). I couldn’t see too much of the mansion, the result of 25 years of landscaping doing what landscaping does. The trees and bushes had grown to obscure the view from the street. It’s what Tony (or any organized crime figure) would have wanted. Best to keep a low profile, free from Agent Harris’s probing eyes.

When a guy like Tony Soprano posts a sign like this, I pay attention. Nah, not really. What’s he gonna do? Coincidentally, we had that same mailbox in front of our house for years. It leaked and we grew tired of wet mail.

There it was, tucked away behind the vegetation, most definitely the mansion featured in so many episodes and, as mentioned above, in the opening at the start of every episode. Even though the current occupants obviously discouraged visitors, we still took our chances. As I was snapping photos midmorning on this New Jersey weekday, others appeared and did the same. Some of them might have been FBI agents. The fans of fame kept the flame burning bright, almost three decades after the music and the scenes first appeared. Note to self: Make the next visit in the dead of winter when the trees are bare, and do so late in the afternoon when the sun is in a better position. The lighting was not good when I gathered this evidence; a good lawyer could get the photos thrown out in court (a junior G-Man I’m not).

14 Aspen Drive. If you listen carefully, you can hear Carmela bitching.

The sign’s admonitions notwithstanding, I looked around and started working the Nikon’s shutter (I’m not gonna lay down for some mailbox sign). The neighborhood was befitting a kingpin like Tony Soprano. The home on the other side of the cul-de-sac was better lit by the sun’s mid-morning rays, so I had to shoot it, too. Collateral damage; couldn’t be helped. An impressive zip code, to be sure.

A home across the street from Tony’s place. This is an exclusive neighborhood.

I liked The Sopranos television series then and I like it now. I watch The Sopranos episodes on my cellphone (it’s running on Max) when I’m working out. I get through an episode or so each time I visit the gym. I’ve been through the entire series four times (and I’m into Season 5 for the fifth time now). I started binge watching The Sopranos 18 pounds ago. The Sopranos have been very good to me, my waistline, my cholesterol, and my A1C. I need to buy a new belt, and Tony is the guy who made that happen.

So what’s next? Paterson Falls, my friend. It’s where Mikey Palmici threw a drug dealer off the bridge. Stay tuned if you know what’s good for you.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

A Tale of Two Old Warhorses

By Joe Berk

Today’s story is on two old assault rifles. Not the AR15s and other Rambo stuff that’s in the news all the time, but two really old rifles, with designs reaching back more than a century. I’ve spent many enjoyable days on the range with these rifles, and they are two of my favorites.

The one on the top is a Mosin-Nagant 91/30, which is a Russian rifle originally designed in 1891 and then modified in 1930. These old Mosin Nagant rifles were Russia’s primary infantry weapon in World War II. They were plentiful for a while, and then they all but dried up and the prices have increased significantly.

Before I bought my Mosin, I marveled at all the excitement over what I thought was a junk rifle. I had to find out for myself what these were all about, so I bought one labeled as “excellent” (it was anything but). That old Russian rifle is about as crude as it gets, but boy oh boy, can it shoot! It is very accurate, as you can see in the photo below.

The other rifle in the photo above is an Argentine 1909 Mauser. Here’s another photo of it.

The Mauser uses a cartridge (7.65 x 53 Argentine Mauser) that is just about impossible to find today, so for that one I bought the tools that let me make cartridges from .30 06 brass. Doing so was fun. You run the 30 06 case into a special die that reforms it into the 7.65 Argentine cartridge, you trim the newly-formed case to the correct length, and then you reload the new case using the right dies for that cartridge. The photo below sort of shows the forming steps and the finished ammo…that’s a 30 06 round on top and two of my newly-minted 7.65 Argentine rounds on the bottom…

I was surprised at how well it all turned out, and I was really pleased with how well the old Mauser shot. It shoots 1-inch groups with iron sights, but with the rear sight at the lowest setting it shoots a foot too high. After researching this issue on the Internet, I found out that’s what those old German engineers intended. It’s zeroed for 300 yards at the lowest setting! The theory is that you aim at the center of your target for any distance up to 300 yards and you’ll hit it (as long as your target is about the size of an enemy soldier).

Looking at those two rifles, the Mauser has vastly finer machining, fit, and finish, and the Germans really got carried away serializing things. Even the cleaning rod has a serial number.

That got me to thinking about the Mosin Nagant and how rough it was compared to the Mauser. Even with its crude build quality, though, that old Russian rifle shot just as well as the Mauser.

You know, they say there’s nothing new under the sun, and to a great extent, that’s true. Paul Mauser invented the bolt action rifle, and it’s said he got the idea from a gate latch. The theme became the cover of my book on Unleashing Engineering Creativity, and it became the cover shot (featuring the very same rifle you see here). You can buy Unleashing Engineering Creativity by clicking on the title or the photo below.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

A Garand Day At The Range

By Joe Berk

I had the Garand out a couple of weeks ago and I had a blast. I was on the range by 7:00 a.m., I had the place to myself, and the sun was at my back. In those early morning sessions with the sun directly behind me and low in the sky, the front sight is sharp and at just the right distance from my aging eyes. I can focus on it, and when you’re shooting any firearm with iron sights, that’s the only place you want to be focused.

My Garand is nothing fancy; in fact, it’s sort of a mutt. I bought it several years ago from a small shop in Corona, and it’s a kluge of parts. The receiver is from CAI (which is supposed to be one that’s not very good, but my rifle doesn’t know that), the trigger group is from Beretta (they made a Garand-based rifle years ago), and the rest of the parts are a “who knows?” collection. My Garand wouldn’t cycle reliably when I bought it, so I bought a new gas cylinder (new to me; it was a well used part but it met spec) from SARCO in Philadelphia and that fixed the problem.

I ran into another issue, and that was the first shot always going significantly low left (about 10 inches at 100 yards). I couldn’t find what was causing that problem, and then one day I took the rear sight apart when it felt a little loose. I greased everything, adjusted it to where I wanted it to be, and then tightened the elevation adjustment screw to remove any play. That did it: The low left first round issue went away.

I’ve experimented with a few different loads, and I found what everyone else has found: The secret sauce is 47.0 grains of IMR 4064 and either the Sierra 168-grain jacketed hollowpoint boattail Matchking bullet, or its clone from Speer. My rifle is more accurate with the Sierra bullets, but their price is nearly twice what Speer gets for their bullets. The ammo you see here used the last of my Speer bullets; my next loads will be with Sierra Matchkings.

Reloaded Garand ammo on the bench at the range.

I’m not scaring any National Match competitors, but for an old dude with weak eyesight, I can still do okay. “Okay” is a relative term, I know. Here’s what 20 shots at 100 yards look like from that day on the range.

20 shots at 100 yards. Speer 168 gr FMJBT, 47.0 gr IMR 4064, a cartridge overall length of 3.295 inches, and Winchester primers at 100 yards. Close enough for government work, as our soldiers found out in World War II and Korea. I used mixed brass from PMC and PPU; the group would have been better had I used only one brand.

Here’s the Garmin chronograph data for the above 20 shots:

The Garmin is well worth the money. I am enjoying mine.

I love military rifles, and I love shooting the Garand. I shoot mine regularly. My daughter once got a shot of me on the range and she caught the brass case in midair (it’s the photo you see at the top of this blog). We have other stories on the Garand as well as other military surplus rifles (see our Tales of the Gun page). If you have a Garand (or any military surplus rifle you enjoy shooting), we’d love to hear about it. Please leave a comment below.

Help us keep the content coming…please click on the popup ads!

Three Movie Reviews

By Joe Berk

Man, as a blogger on a site that sometimes offers movie reviews, I am flat on my butt. No excuses, folks. I’ve been having too much fun doing other things. This is a catchup blog on three shows I’ve watched recently. Two were excellent; the third was a unmitigated flop. With that an as intro, here we go.

First Man

The story here is about Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. I really enjoyed this one. In a word, it’s outstanding. Maybe outstanding is too weak an adjective. I was a teenager during the Apollo program years, and this movie hit home for me.

First Man is running on Netflix, and I’m giving it two thumbs up only because I don’t have three thumbs. If you have a Netflix subscription, this is one you might consider viewing.

As an aside, I almost got to meet Neil Armstrong. He was a regular at the former Nieuport 17 restaurant in Tustin, California (I wrote about it in our blog about Admiral Gordon Smith). I knew the owners there, who would have introduced me if the real First Man had been in the restaurant. It just never worked out that we were both there at the same time, much to my regret.

Horizon

I was hoping this Max film would be an epic work, but it was a real bust. I want anticipating something like another Lonesome Dove, but Mr. Costner appears to have lost his touch.

Costner’s presence notwithstanding, it’s not Dances with Wolves. If you want to urinate away three hours of your life you’ll never get back, this wandering, mumbling, constantly moving back and forth in time, difficult to follow, and plot-free show is for you. My advice is to take a pass. I wish I did. But having said that, I noticed in the photo above that this is to be a “two-part theatrical event.” For me, Part II will be like driving past a bad motor vehicle accident. You know you don’t want to look, but you do. I’ll give Part II 15 minutes, and if it’s a snoozefest like Part I, I’m outta there.

Bad Education

Bad Education is an outstanding movie. It’s about a school system superintendent and his administrator convincing a Long Island, New York, community that their school system was outstanding in every regard while simultaneously embezzling something north of $10 million over a multi-year period. It’s a true story, which makes what happens on screen even harder to believe.

I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I won’t tell you too much more other than what I’ve written above. You can tell a movie is good when it seems like it’s over in 20 minutes. I enjoyed it and I think you will, too. Bad Education can be seen on Netflix.

More Reviews are here!

Three .243 Ruger No. 1 Loads

By Joe Berk

This story is about finding a decent load for my .243 200th Year Ruger No. 1 rifle. The rifle is 48 years old now, but the old girl can still get it on. I didn’t think my Ruger was particularly accurate at first, but wow, it’s a shooter.

Good wood, a good looking 200th Year Ruger No.1A, and a day on the range. Life is good.

I’ve tried a lot of loads in this rifle and I probably would have given up except for what I saw happen with another shooter. He had a .243 No. 1 in the 1B configuration (that’s the one with no iron sights, a 26-inch barrel, and a beavertail forearm), and he didn’t like it at all. To me, not liking a Ruger No. 1 is a crime against nature, but that guy was frustrated with his .243 and he had given up on it. He spent good money (Ruger No. 1 rifles sell for around $2,000 today) and it just seemed like a shame. When I first tried my .243 No. 1 it wasn’t very accurate, but I decided I wasn’t going to be that other guy. I was confident I could find a good load. Actually, I found three, and they are listed below by bullet weight. They are all of comparable accuracy in my rifle.

Accuracy Load No. 1

Nosler 55-grain .243 bullets. It’s the lightest bullet available for the .243.

Bullets, loaded ammo, and XBR 8208 propellant.

My first accuracy load for this rifle is the 55-grain Nosler Varmegeddon flat base bullet with 40.0 grains of XBR 8208 propellant. I seated the bullets to a cartridge overall length of 2.606 inches without a crimp, but I haven’t experimented with bullet seating depth or crimping. I used Fiocchi large rifle primers because at the time, primers were scarce and I bought 1500 of the Fiocchis when I could.

Accuracy Load No. 2

Hornady 58-grain VMax bullets. Hornady makes a good-looking bullet.

I shot all the rounds I loaded with this bullet, so this picture will have to do.

Another excellent load is the 58-grain Hornady VMax bullet with 42.0 grains of IMR 3031 propellant. I ordinarily wouldn’t use IMR 3031 in the .243, but I had a tiny bit of it left from some development work on another cartridge and good buddy Kevin told me IMR 3031 was his powder of choice for the .243. It was a good recommendation. I set these rounds up with a cartridge overall length of 2.620 inches. Like the load above, I have not tried different seating depths or crimping.

Accuracy Load No. 3

Cavernous hollowpoints in the 75-grain Speer varmint bullets. These shoot exceptionally well.

I found IMR 4895 works well with the Speer 75-grain bullets.

My third accuracy load is the 75-grain Speer Varmint hollowpoint bullet with 39.0 grains of IMR 4895 propellant. I loaded this round to an overall length of 2.620 inches, and like the others above, I have not experimented with overall length or crimping.

What I Haven’t Tried and What Didn’t Work (for me)

I have a couple of boxes of 65-grain Hornady V-Max bullets and I’ve only tried them with a few powders. So far, nothing gave me acceptable accuracy with these bullets.

.243 ammo loaded with PRVI 100-grain bullets. I couldn’t find the secret sauce to make this bullet accurate. Hornady 100-grain bullets weren’t any better.

I also have a bunch of 100-grain bullets (from Hornady and PRVI). Neither of these 100-grain bullets grouped well. They stabilized (no target key holing), but the groups just weren’t very good. That’s okay; I’m not going to use the .243 on pigs or deer. But if I ever took it varmint hunting, the accuracy loads listed above would get the job done.

The Bottom Line

Typical results with the accuracy loads listed above.

Any of the above loads will shoot a three-shot group at or below 0.75 inches at 100 yards. The groups would be tighter with a more skilled rifleman. For me, getting the old .243 to group into three quarters of an inch is good enough. I’ll call it a day with load development on this rifle and stick with the loads above. On to the next rifle. Stay tuned.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Shoemaker Holsters

By Joe Berk

Back in the 1970s I was a falling plate competitor. That competition involved knocking over a set of steel plates at a relatively short distance, usually with something in .38 Special or .45 ACP. In those days, nobody competed with a 9mm; the 9mm pistols had not made the inroads they enjoy today. A lot of guys competed with 1911s or modified K-frame S&Ws; I was a bit of an oddball and I used an N-frame Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum (with light .44 Specials, as the shot-to-shot recovery was faster and the .44 Special easily knocked the plates down). We shot from the ready position, with the gun held at an angle to the ground. The video below gives you an idea what the falling plate game looks like:

There were variations of this competition. The most exciting one was a bowling pin competition, which involved clearing a half dozen bowling pins from a table. In that one, you needed a .44 or a .45; the .38 Special didn’t have the energy to clear a bowling pin off the table. Both competitions were all about speed; whoever knocked all the plates over (or blew away all of the bowling pins) in the shortest time won.

Other similar competitions involved drawing the gun from a holster, and I wanted to shoot my AMT Long Slide Hardballer, a really cool 7-inch-barreled 1911. It’s the one Arnold Schwarzenegger used in Terminator.

An AMT (Arcadia Machine and Tool) Long Slide Hardballer. The story on it is here.

I needed a holster long enough to hold the Long Slide AMT 1911, and at that time there were none on the market. Other holsters could hold either 5-inch or 4 ¼-inch 1911s, but nobody had anything for the 7-inch AMT. Hold that thought. I’ll come back to it shortly.

I’ve written about good buddy Mike here on the blog before. Mike and I have been buddies since junior high school. He went on to become Chief of the New Brunswick Police Department. We still talk every week. Mike deputized me a couple of times when he attended the International Association of Chiefs of Police conventions. I’d always ask for a gun, and the answer was always no. But we had a lot of fun at those conventions.

The Director at the International Association of Chiefs of Police 2023 convention. I was his administrative assistant on that adventure. That story is here.

Mike called me last week. He was pumped up. He found his old New Brunswick Police Department duty holster from the days when they carried Heckler & Koch P7M8 9mm squeeze cocker semi-autos. That was the gun the New Jersey State Troopers adopted back in the ‘80s.

A New Jersey State Trooper Heckler & Koch P7M8 and its Tex Shoemaker holster.

The NJSP emblem embossed on the Tex Shoemaker holster.

The New Jersey State Police had custom holsters crafted for their handguns by the Tex Shoemaker company, a legend in the holster business. They also had Shoemaker emboss the NJSP emblem in the leather. Not to be outdone, the New Brunswick Police Department also adopted the Heckler & Koch P7M8 9mm semi-auto, and they, too went to Tex Shoemaker for holsters embossed with the NBPD emblem. Mike had one when he served, and it was this holster he recently found. The Tex Shoemaker H&K police duty holsters have become collectible items, with this particular model appearing on Ebay for $300. Mike is going to donate his to the New Brunswick Police Department Headquarters display case. I think that’s pretty cool.

Good buddy Mike’s Heckler & Koch P7M8 Tex Shoemaker holster.

The Heckler & Koch P7M8 holster with an embossed New Brunswick Police department emblem.

So I was thinking about this story and Mike’s holster and then I remembered: Hey, I have a Tex Shoemaker holster, and mine is brand new. The Tex Shoemaker company was located in San Dimas, which is not very far from my home. They closed up shop in 2019 (I’m assuming it fell victim to the pandemic, the move toward plastic holsters, and competition from the plastic holster manufacturers). Whatever the reason, it’s a pity. Shoemaker’s was an old line holster manufacturer started by Tex Shoemaker, a former lawman who started out making holsters in his garage. Their quality was unsurpassed.

When I needed a quick draw holster for my anticipated pistol competition (as described at the beginning of this blog), I couldn’t find anyone in the ‘80s who was making a holster for the AMT Long Slide Hardballer. I searched the yellow pages for holster companies (this was all pre-Internet), and that’s when I learned that the Tex Shoemaker company was nearby. I called them and explained what I wanted. I spoke with a nice guy who told me he didn’t know of anybody making a holster for the Long Slide 1911, but Shoemaker was experimenting with a new break-front holster that would handle all 1911 barrel lengths. He explained that it wasn’t on the market yet, but I could swing by and take a look at it.

My AMT Long Slide in it’s Tex Shoemaker experimental holster.

Sue and I rode over to Shoemaker’s that day. It was a factory and they didn’t have a retail facility, so I walked up to the loading dock, looked up at a guy standing above me, and explained why I was there. A minute later that same nice guy I had spoken with on the phone appeared with the holster he told me about on the phone. I had my Long Slide with me and we tried the big 1911 in it; the fit was perfect. He also had two magazine holders (together they could hold four magazines). The holster was just what the doctor ordered, and I told him that even though it wasn’t commercially available yet, I’d like to buy it. He smiled, gave all three items to me, and told me there was no charge.

The Tex Shoemaker holster is adjustable for draw angle. It’s a cool feature.

For normal carry, the pistol is secured with a cross strap.

For quick draw work, the cross strap is removed. The holster has a strong clamp spring inside the leather that secures the pistol. When drawn, the pistol can be snapped forward without withdrawing upward from the holster.

The Long Slide Hardballer, the Tex Shoemaker holster, and two Tex Shoemaker magazine holders.

The Tex Shoemaker logo on the back of a magazine holder.

I was shocked when that nice man told me there was no charge, and then I realized I didn’t even know who he was. I introduced myself, and as we shook hands, he told me his name: Randy Shoemaker. Randy Shoemaker was Tex Shoemaker’s son.

I never pursued quick draw competition. I had visions of shooting myself in the foot, and it just wasn’t something I wanted to do. But I sure enjoy owning my Tex Shoemaker leather. Maybe someday, I’ll enter the Quick Draw McGraw games. In the meantime, here’s an unashamedly doctored video of me playing around a few years ago at the West End Gun Club.