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.
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!Scuba Southeast Asia with Mike Huber!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.”
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.
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.
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.
The might M1 Garand.
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.
Fresh .30 06 reloads for the Garand.
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.
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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.
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.
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.The Tex Shoemaker logo.
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.
Well….we’ve been having a little heat wave here in SoCal and I have been hanging around the house too much, so it was time to take the Harley Low Rider out for a little run.
My Low Rider when it was at the dealership in Minneapolis. I bought it about 4 years ago with 4,000 miles on the odometer.
I couldn’t do my usual run around the Palos Verdes peninsula due to the highway being closed to two-wheeled traffic. So I instead went the short way across the peninsula and then through the beach cities where it was nice and cool compared to the rest of Los Angeles.
I got through them all and was coming out of El Segundo and towards the airport and Westchester. On Sepulveda there’s a tunnel that goes under a runway at LAX and we call it, of course, the airport tunnel.
Some guys on bikes think of it as a tunnel and some think of it as a concert hall. Well, I kinda go both ways on that. But every time I get near it, I harken back to a memory of New Year’s Eve in 1972. I was a teenager at the time and my best bud Dave Reimer called me at home and told me he was at a great party in El Segundo. He offered to come by and pick me up (I had no wheels at that time). Dave showed up at my pad on a BSA 650 motorcycle he had borrowed from a friend. I jumped on and we headed out.
As we approached the tunnel from the Westchester side going to El Segundo Dave yelled back to me to hang on. He kicked it down a gear into 3rd and hit the throttle hard. We entered the tunnel going about 60mph and he banged 4th and hit the throttle hard and we were flying. The support columns just turned into a blur. There was a lot of great engine noise too. We came out the other end doing about 110mph!
What a kick! The things you do and get away with when you are young can be amazing. It was a great party and it is a favorite memory.
Today, in honor of my buddy Dave who left us about 15 years ago, I entered the tunnel in 3rd and laid down a little sweet Harley music with lots of throttle. It was about as much as I could get away with considering traffic.
So, Dave, wherever you are just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you.
Thanks, Bob. That’s a great story and we enjoyed reading it. Remind me never to lend my motorcycle to any of your friends!
I grew up up in the Evel Knievel era. It was a glorious time, the 1960s, and if you were a motorcycle freak (as I was and still am), there was no way you could not have heard of Evel Knievel, a man who jumped cars and buses (and ultimately, the Snake River Canyon) on a motorcycle. He was one hell of a showman.
In the summer of 1966 I was a skinny little 15-year-old kid, my Dad owned a new Triumph Bonneville, and I was in hog heaven for that reason. Then and now, there was and is nothing cooler than a Triumph Bonneville. We were going to the motorcycle races. A big night out in those days was the East Windsor Speedway, a half-mile dirt track oval where they raced everything. Stock cars, two-strokes, and the big bikes. Not just locals, either. Harley’s Bart Markel (National No. 1), Triumph’s Gary Nixon (National No. 9), and more. It was the 4th of July weekend and it was 58 years ago. I remember it like it was last week.
East Windsor Speedway is no more. It’s now tract homes. My loss; New Jersey’s property tax gain.
East Windsor Speedway put on quite a show. Dad and I rode there on the Bonneville. I fancied myself a motorcycle guy and it just didn’t get any better than the half-mile dirt oval at East Windsor. The fun started right in the parking lot with hundreds of fans’ motorcycles. Fins and twins (everything was an air-cooled twin in those days), carbs, chrome, custom paint, custom seats, and more. It was all England and America and a little bit of Japan: Triumph, BSA, Honda, Harley, Suzuki, Yamaha…you get the idea. Italy and Ducati were yet to be discovered, only weirdos rode BMWs (remember those strange sideways kick starters?), and weirdos definitely didn’t go to the races. A new Bonneville was $1320 and a Honda Super Hawk (electric start, no less) was only about $600. It all seemed so attainable.
The East Windsor Speedway is long gone now, shut down by noise complaints from the encroaching ‘burbs and then plowed over for more cookie cutter homes. It’s a pity, really.
East Windsor always put on quite a show, but that 4th of July evening was a six sigma outlier on the right side of the bell curve. Stock car racing was first, then the 250cc class (love that smell!), then the big boys (including Nixon and Markel), then the main event (Evel Knievel!)…and it was all washed down with a 4th of July fireworks display that was as good as I had ever seen. That warm New Jersey night out started before the sun went down and finished around midnight. I think the cost to get in was something like $2.50.
Evel Knievel was the highlight for me and I think for everyone else, too. Evel was just starting to get famous, and here he was in person. White leathers and a cape trimmed in red and blue on the 4th of July. (Gresh and I always wanted capes, but we had to wait 50 years and go to China to get ours.) A Harley V-twin, with monstrous ramps set up on the infield (one for liftoff and one for landing), with a couple of Greyhounds in between (buses, that is…not the dogs).
Airborne Evel back in the day.
The crowd fell silent as Evel revved the 750 Harley and then accelerated. But it wasn’t up the ramp. Nope, Evel (ever the showman) accelerated alongside the ramps and the buses when we all expected him to jump. Faked us out, he did. Then he looped around to start again. Ah, I get it, we all thought. That was just to gage his acceleration before hitting the ramps for real. The anticipation built. Thousands held their breath as Evel accelerated again, but he faked us out with another run alongside the ramps. Okay, all part of the show. A third time….maybe this would be it…but no, it was yet another tease. Back to the start point, more revving, and by now we were wise to the ways of Evel. We all thought it would be another feint. But nope, this was the real deal…up the ramp rapidly and suddenly there he was: Airborne Evel, sailing up and over the buses, suspended high in the evening air, and then back down on the landing ramp. He hit the brakes hard, struggling to stop before running out of room, the Harley’s rear end sashaying around like an exotic dancer in a room full of big tippers. The crowd went nuts. A seismic cheer drowned out the mighty Milwaukee sound machine. We had seen Evel, the man and the motorcycle, airborne and in person, flying over the buses that would have you leave the driving to them. It was awesome.
It all happened 58 years ago. Evel, my Dad, and the East Windsor Speedway have gone on to their reward and I’m officially a geezer drawing Social Security. But that evening will live in my memory forever, which sort of brings us to the present. Sue and I were on a content safari in Idaho (you’ve seen several blogs from that trip, and I still have a few to go). When we visited Twin Falls, we were on the edge of the Snake River Canyon. That name stuck in my mind because it was where Evel went when the US Government said “no dice” when he asked for permission to jump the Grand Canyon.
Good buddies Velma and Orlando on the south Rim of the Grand Canyon. Evel asked, and the Feds said no.
The entire concept was preposterous on so many levels I can’t list them. But that was Evel Knievel. Before he did it, the idea of jumping over a car was preposterous, as was the idea of jumping over several cars, as was the idea of jumping over a bus, as was the idea of jumping over several buses, and…well, you get the idea. Evel had bumped up against the limits of preposterousness, and that’s when he floated the Grand Canyon idea. The Feds nixed that, but Evel wasn’t a man stopped by obstacles. He went for the next best thing, and that was the Snake River Canyon. It’s over a mile wide, and it’s a big drop to the bottom.
To get back to Idaho connection and this story, I looked on the map to see if it denoted where Evel did his thing and to my surprise, it did. And it wasn’t very far from Shoshone Falls. Sue and I did our thing at Shoshone Falls and as soon as we were back in the car, I plugged in “Evel Knievel Snake River Canyon Jump.” Waze didn’t know from Evel Knievel, but the regular iPhone mapping app did. We were only a few miles away, we were off to the races (so to speak).
On the way in, as we approached the road’s end (it ended at the Snake River Canyon), we saw no signs initially marking the spot where Evel made history. We did see a lot of tract homes, and a sign selling more.
Not bad for an entire acre by California standards, but that’s Idaho. Someday every square inch of America will be covered by tract homes or high-density housing, and our politicians will wonder why there’s so little water and so much traffic.
As we reached the end of the road, the Canyon came into view, as did the ramp you see in the photo at the top of this blog. Whoa! Can it be?
The Snake River Canyon, where Evel attempted his jump. It’s wider and deeper than it looks.
It was. On the other side of that dirt ramp, we saw our first indication that we were where we wanted to be. It was a good summary of Evel and the attempted jump that occurred decades ago.
Evel: The Man, the myth, and the motorcycle.
The deal on the Evel Knievel Snake River Canyon jump is this: Evel didn’t attempt it on a regular or even a modified motorcycle. He instead used a steam rocket-propelled aircraft of sorts that was mounted on a launch ramp. The dirt ramp you see in the photo at the top of this blog was not one that you would attempt to roll up and hit at high speed with a motorcycle to become airborne. The idea instead was that the rocket ship would launch off a launch rail, carry Evel across the Snake River canyon, and then Evel would deploy a parachute and he (and the rocket ship) would float back to Earth on the other side. That was the theory.
An excerpt from the above sign. Evel Knievel, motorcycle astronaut.
It didn’t work out that way, though. Evel and his rocket ship made it about halfway across the Snake River, the parachute deployed inadvertently and prematurely, and man and machine descended into the canyon and onto the Snake River’s banks. Miraculously, Evel walked away, never to attempt a canyon (any canyon) jump again.
Another excerpt from the photo above. There was no V-Twin hidden in the bowels of Evel’s rocket ship.
We climbed to the top of the ramp and gazed across the Snake River Canyon. I wondered: Will we ever see another man like Evel Knievel? I think it’s less likely, given our predilection with biological males competing in women’s sports, our insistence on listing our pronouns (you can just refer to me as “hey, you”), and everything else our society has degenerated into. But that borders on being political, and as you know, we don’t do that. That said, though, I think it’s a safe bet that Evel never worried about anyone using his preferred pronouns.
After our climb down, we wandered around the area a bit. Other than that sign above (which isn’t visible until you walked to the other side of the ramp) and a marker on the trail fence, you’d never know this was an historic spot.
Peering at the Evel Knievel sign on the canyon side of the historic launch site.A tiny fencepost marker on the trail that runs along the Snake River Canyon.A macro shot of the Evel fencepost marker. History happened here.
We had a marvelous trip through Idaho, and like I said above, I still have another two or three blogs to wrap up our Idaho expedition. I’ll tell you before I get there, though, that visiting this obscure (and rapidly fading into further obscurity) spot was the highlight of the trip for me.
