My RX3, one of the very first bikes in the US. Numerous Baja trips, a ride through the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest, and more. That little 250 is always good for an attitude adjustment.
Not a lot of writing today, my friends. I fired up the old RX3 and rode into the mountains to clear my mind and create my own reality. It was long past time to shed the shackles of a world gone mad. No left or right wing news media (that’s all there is any more), no Covid 19, no protests, no riots, no police brutality, no defunding police departments, no masks, no shelter in place, no stupid stuff on Facebook (now there’s a redundant expression), no ridiculously bad choices in the next election (damned if you do and damned even more if you don’t), and no one telling me how to think about this, that, or the other thing. No thank you, I can think for myself, and today I thought I would go for a motorcycle ride. Other than captions, I’ll keep the words down and let the pictures do the talking.
That headlight grille and the spotlamps were gifts from Enrique Vargas, AKT Motos General Manager (and a genuine nice guy) in Medellin, Colombia.Steve Seidner, CEO of CSC Motorcycles, created decals for each of our multi-day company rides back in the good old days. I ran out of campaign ribbon real estate on my fuel tank.Glendora Ridge Road, my happy place. That’s Mt. Baldy and Mt. San Antonio dead ahead.Glendora Ridge Road is one of the best wildflower spots in the country. I’ve been up there when there are red, orange, yellow, and purple wildflowers blooming at the same time.I’ve done Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon on my 250. The most beautiful state? That’s easy: Utah, hands down. But they are all pretty if you know where to ride (and I do). The best riding and the best times? That’s another easy call: Baja. I’ve ridden Colombia and I’ve ridden China on RX3 motorcycles. Once, when I was in Turkey, a young Turk let me ride his RX3. This is a bike with long legs, folks.
So there you have it. I’m back, it was a great ride, and I had a good time. You might consider doing the same.
Good buddy Mike, a fellow former trooper who I met on a ride through Baja a few years ago, has been sort of stranded down there until recently. Mike and his good friend Bobbie went whale watching and they had a unique experience. Mike was kind enough to share the adventure with us. Here you go, folks.
So as someone who is always seeking adventure I may have gotten in over my head with this one. Not only am I three years in living fulltime off a motorcycle, currently in Baja due to a global pandemic, but why not throw in a rescue mission at sea just to ensure I have everything covered. Sure, why not?
It was a dark and stormy night and the sea was angry…actually it was just a bit windy around mid-day when we decided to partake in a whale watching trip on pangas (small wooden boats) in Guerrero Negro, Baja, Mexico. It’s a magical encounter with nature as these majestic creatures, which are the size of a school bus. These gray whales come up to your panga and you can actually pet them and experience these animals at such a close range. It is just a magical experience…a life-altering experience.
We begin with a standard safety briefing and get bussed out to the docks, fitted with life vests, and we are all excited to get out and see these beautiful animals up close. Prior to boarding our panga I noticed another boat with 8 senior citizens leaving the same time as us and for a minute thought maybe we should jump in their boat as there were less people then our boat, but we chose to just stay where we were assigned with 12 people aboard.
The tour was going pretty well, not great as there was a lot of chop in the bay, so the whales don’t get as close as we’d like since the boat was bumping up and down. As the tour seemed to be ending I noticed we were heading not towards shore but in a direction we hadn’t been. I first thought they had spotted more whales and soon saw a giant gray object in the distance. Once we got a bit closer I realized it was not a whale at all but a capsized panga with three people clinging to the upside-down vessel by the propeller. The reality set in as we saw others floating in the water along with backpacks, camera bags, and purses. I put everything I had into a waterproof compartment in my rain jacket and handed it to my girlfriend as I saw it was the panga with the eight seniors and I said “I guess I am going for a swim.”
As we moved in to begin rescuing people from the water I performed a headcount of those in the water. Knowing it was the panga with the seniors I had all nine (eight and the captain) accounted for and saw they all looked to be relatively well. Although it was windy, it wasn’t too cold. I also remembered from the safety briefing that there were no sharks in this part of the bay. We quickly realized no one was in immediate danger.
This is where it gets fun, sorta. As with all “disasters” there’s “that guy.” The guy that has to be a hero no matter how little they know. We were “fortunate” enough to have one on our panga (damnit). The captain of our boat spoke little English but was very competent and was trying to give directions that seemed to drown out by the time they reached us since the newly unelected hero was shouting his own directions on how to handle the situation best.
Knowing the people in the water were not in great danger I sat back on the far side of the boat as a ballast, shook my head, and let the hero begin to rescue people clumsily and haphazardly pulling them into our vessel incorrectly. While this was going on I kept contemplating the consequences of throwing him overboard and rescuing the remaining seniors myself. Would saving eight people but leaving one to swim back result in any criminal charges against me in Mexico? Luckily for everyone that was a fleeting thought.
One haunting moment that really still stands out is when the captain had to re-angle the panga to rescue the last three people clinging to the propeller. Those people thought we were leaving them and began shouting “Don’t leave us, please don’t leave us.” You could hear the fear and panic in their voices. Once we were angled our “hero” had realized his uselessness and backed off allowing us to properly load the remaining three people safely into the panga without issue.
The boat ride back to the docks was a quiet and bumpy ride. Everyone was soaked, including myself (and I never even left the boat). There were three ambulances at the docks by the time we had reached it. It was a great feeling that no one required them other than for warm blankets.
Feeling great being back on dry land (not as great as the nine that were in the water) we returned to the office where we met the owner of the whale tour company and began explaining our adventure in great detail, telling the story over tequila and tacos. He brought out his guitar and played requests for us for several hours.
Mike, that’s a hell of a story. I’m glad everyone got through it without injury. We actually read about that happening in Baja not too long ago. In all the times I’ve been whale watching, I’ve never seen that happen.
Hey, the rest of our readers: If you’d like to see more Baja whale watching, here’s the page you want!
We’re up to Day 5 in Colombia from my December 2015 circumnavigation of the Andes Mountains. The riding was incredible, the scenery even more so. Juan and Carlos were amazing riders, as was every person I saw on a motorcycle in Colombia. Ah, enough of a prelude…here’s what I posted for CSC Motorcycles on December 19, 2015.
Actually, it’s pronounced “Via Da Layba.” I’m learning how to be a Colombian and how to speak like one. Colombian Spanish is different than Mexican Spanish. Much to my regret, I don’t speak either one. Someday.
Juan Carlos and Carlos told me they’re making me an honorary C0lombian because my riding has progressed significantly in the last few days. Folks, these two guys are the best riders I’ve ever ridden with, and for them to tell me that was quite a compliment. Every rider I know in the U.S. would be subpar compared to your typical Colombian motorcyclist. The way they carve corners and carve through heavy traffic on these mountain roads is a thing a beauty. They are the best riders I’ve ever seen, and the two guys I’m riding with are beyond incredible. But I digress…more on that later. The focus of this blog entry is Day 5, which was yesterday for me.
As you know from reading the blog, we stayed in Barichara. It’s an awesome little town and we stayed in an awesome little hotel. Getting there was an experience. We passed through a bunch of small towns up here in the Andes Mountains. In these small towns, everything is either uphill or downhill. The roads are either cobblestone or dirt. And when I say cobblestone, I’m not talking about little rocks. These are 6 to 12 inch boulders that are basically mashed together to form a street. The cobblestones (actually, cobbleboulders) throw the bike left and right and up and down, and this is all going on while riding up or down extremely steep hills. The RX3 is the perfect bike for this. I couldn’t imagine doing it on anything bigger or heavier.
We stayed at the Artepolis Hotel, and it was an experience. The guy in the room next to me was an Austrian photographer who came here just to photograph the place. It’s that stunning. Here’s the hotel the next morning (it was dark when we arrived the preceding evening, and we had to ride up a rough dirt road to get to the hotel).
The next morning Juan and Carlos wanted to ride a bit and get some photos. They took me to the edge of a cliff and we got some great shots…here’s one of Carlos I especially like:
And here are a couple more:
We continued on a paved road to a little town called Guane, and along the way I spotted a couple of Colombian vultures perched in a tree not far from the road. I always wanted to get a decent shot of a vulture during my Baja travels, but my results have always been mediocre. I’m carrying my 70-300 Nikon lens on this trip, and I thought I would try for that vulture photo I’ve been wanting for years. The lighting was perfect and I think I did okay…
After photographing the vultures, I grabbed a couple of shots from the saddle on our way to Guane.
Guane is a beautiful little town with a magnificent church…I was working the little Nikon D3300 and its 18-55 lens as best I could. That camera is really doing a great job on this trip. I bought it because I wanted something light and small. You folks who are planning to ride to Baja with us in March might want to give the D3300 a look if you don’t already have a camera. It really adds a lot to the adventure if you can capture stuff like this.
In many Colombian towns, the taxi services use tuk-tuks. Tuk-tuks are little three wheel things that have two wheels in the back and one wheel up front. I’d seen them in Thailand, but encountering them again in Colombia was something I had not expected. The ones in Colombia are made by Bajaj, an Indian manufacturer (as in India, not Indian motorcycles). They’re powered by a little 200cc single, and I was surprised at it’s ability to haul Carlos, Juan, and me up and down the hills in Barichara (we took one to go to dinner in Barichara). Juan told me he tested one at Bajaj’s request a year or so ago and he was impressed with it.
The tuk-tuks are often customized with really cool paintwork, and so are some of the other commercial vehicles. Here’s the artwork on one such vehicle in Guane that caught my eye:
After our brief exploration of Guane, we rode back to Barichara. The guys had been telling me I had to see the cemetery, and they were right. It seemed weird to visit a cemetery for the artistry, but it was impressive…
After that we were back on the road, headed for Villa de Leyva. I had mentioned to Juan that I wanted to get photos of the police motorcycles in Colombia, and when he spotted a few motor officers in one of the many small towns we rode through, I checked another photo op off the list.
This first photo shows one of the more common Colombian police bikes, the Suzuki 200 single.
Here’s another bike the Colombian police use…the Suzuki V-Strom 650…
There’s a lot more to tell you about the Colombian police motorcycles, but that will come later. I’m seeing and learning so much I just can’t get it all into the blog. I’m thinking maybe another book is in order. We’ll see.
Juan found our hotel just outside of Villa de Leyva, we checked in, and then we rode into town. This is the town square…it’s the largest in all of Colombia.
If you’re really impressed with that last shot, so am I. I wish I could take credit for it. It was a photo for sale in one of the Villa de Leyva stores, and I shot a photo of that photo before they told me I couldn’t.
It was a good day. The next one would be even better.
And one last thing, folks. On that day in Barichara before we left, I did a video in their beautiful cemetery. This wasn’t in the original blog, but I thought I’d add it here.
One more thing…if you’d like to read the first several blogs from Colombia, you can do so here.
A favorite load that seems to work well in any .357 Magnum revolver, including my stainless steel Ruger Blackhawk, is 15.7 grains of Winchester’s 296 propellant and the Hornady 158-grain jacketed hollow point bullet. I use standard rather than magnum primers. This was a 25-yard target.
The .357 Ruger Blackhawk
Ruger’s Blackhawk is an iconic firearm, one that’s been in production since the 1950s in one form or another. I bought my first one in a department store in Texas for under a hundred bucks back in the mid-1970s, and I’ve bought and sold several since. I wish I had not sold any of the Blackhawks.
I’ve owned a few .357 Magnums over the years…Rugers, a couple of Model 27 Smiths, a Model 28 Smith (remember that one?), a Model 19 Smith, and a Model 65 Smith. I’ve owned a couple of Colt Pythons, too. The Pythons were nice, but not nice enough to command the premium prices they pulled in the 1970s, and certainly not nice enough to pull the exorbitant amounts they sell for today. The Smiths were accurate, but they didn’t hold up under constant use with magnum loads. I had a new Model 27 that I wore out in a couple of seasons in the metallic silhouette game; it suffered from extreme gas cutting under the top strap and a cylinder that sashayed around like an exotic dancer in a room full of big tippers. The Ruger Blackhawks seem to last forever.
Every Ruger firearm manufactured in 1976 carries the 200th year bicentennial stamp, just like the one on my 200th year Blackhawk. On my gun, the liberty scrollmark is on top of the barrel.
I’m down to one .357 Magnum now and it’s a 200th year stainless steel Blackhawk with a 6 1/2-inch barrel. It’s one of my favorite revolvers and it’s not for sale (it never will be; I learned my lesson about letting good guns get away). I have a few favorite .357 Magnum loads I’ve used over the last 50 years. I thought it might be a good idea to document how they did in the Blackhawk, try a few more to see how they do, and share it all with you here on the ExNotes blog. I guess this is the appropriate place for the disclaimer: These are loads that work well in my Blackhawk. You should never just take these loads (or any others from the Internet) and simply run with them. Always consult a reputable reloading manual (I like the Hornady and Lyman manuals best). Always start with lower charges and work your way up, looking for any signs of excess pressure, and go no higher if you see signs of excess pressure. Okay, so that’s out of the way. Let’s get to the good stuff.
Last week’s .357 Magnum testing at the West End Gun Club.
.357 Magnum Accuracy Loads
I’ve played with a lot of different .357 Magnum loads over the years. I have a few favorite .357 Mag loads that have been superbly accurate in any of the .357 sixguns I’ve owned. That’s a bit unusual because frequently a load that is accurate in one gun won’t be accurate in another, but that rule doesn’t seem to apply here. The loads I like have worked well for me in any .357 I’ve ever shot. I verified these loads in my Blackhawk with this latest round of testing, and like I said above, I explored a few more loads.
A few of the loads tested for this blog. From left to right, the first five are .357 Magnum cartridges and the last three are .38 Special cartridges (you can fire .38 Special rounds in a .357 Magnum handgun). The bullets (from left to right) are the 110-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point, the 158-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point, the 158-grain Hornady jacketed flat point, the Xtreme 158-grain plated flatpoint, a cast 158-grain flatpoint, a cast 158-grain flatpoint in a .38 Special case, a powder-coated 158-grain semi-wadcutter in a .38 Special case, and the Missouri 148-grain double-ended wadcutter in a .38 Special case.
So, with the above as background info, let’s get into the loads. I’ll start with one of the standard “go to” .357 Magnum loads. That’s the 158-grain cast semi-wadcutter bullet (the Keith-style) over 7.0 grains of Unique. This is not the hottest .357 load (it’s a mild-recoiling .357 Magnum load), but it’s hot enough, it’s very accurate, and it’s relatively flat shooting. I have a guy who casts 158-grain flatpoint bullets for me and I like those with 7.0 grains of Unique even better than the semi-wadcutter bullets. The load is very consistent, and with the same zero and six o’clock hold I use at 50 feet (seen in the target below), I pretty much hit right on target at 25 yards, 50 yards, and yep, even at 100 yards. I was hitting a steel gonger last week at 100 yards consistently with this load. My shooting buddies were impressed, and after all, that’s what a lot of this is all about. This is a good load.
A 50-ft target with the .357 Blackhawk using 158-grain cast flatpoints with 7.0 grains of Unique. Like they say, this is close enough for government work.
For hotter .357 Magnum loads, any of the Hornady 158-grain jacketed bullets (hollow points, flat points, and full metal jacket flat points) work superbly well with 15.7 grains of Winchester’s 296 propellant. These loads have a distinctive bark, high velocities, snappy recoil, and they are superbly accurate.
15.7 grains of WW 296 and the 158-grain Hornady jacketed flat point resulted in the best group fired in this test series. Two shots went through the hole in the lower right.
Another long time favorite load is a bit unusual but it’s accurate as hell. That’s the 110-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point and a max Unique load (10.0 grains of Unique, as listed in a Hornady reloading manual from the 1970s). I first tried this one 40 years ago when I had a Colt Python and I was impressed with its accuracy. I tried it again in this test series and the results were similarly impressive. It’s probably the fastest load I tested because of the max load and the light bullets. My old Hornady manual indicates the 110 grain Hornady bullet with 10.0 grains of Unique exits the muzzle at 1450 feet per second. That’s fast.
If light bullets and high velocity float your boat, try this one (but work your way up to it): 10.0 grains of Unique with Hornady’s 110-grain jacketed hollow point.
Plated Bullets: Are They Any Good?
Surprisingly, the 158-grain plated flatpoint bullets I tested didn’t do well with any charge of Unique, and in the past, they have performed very poorly with 296 (the bullets frequently shed their plating in the bore). These plated bullets are offered by Berry and Xtreme. These are not jacketed bullets; the copper plating is chemically applied and the coating is very thin. I did get one decent showing with a lower-end charge of IMR 4227 propellant, but given the choice, I’d go for a plain cast bullet rather than plated bullets. You may feel differently. Please leave a comment here on the blog if your experience is different than mine.
Powder Coating and Paint Fumes
I tried powder-coated bullets last week, too, to see how they would perform. Powder coating is a concept that’s been around for a few years as an alternative to lubing cast bullets. I found that accuracy was more or less on par with lubed bullets, but not really any better. The powder-coated bullets look cool (the cartridges kind of look like lipstick). When I fired several powder-coated bullets fairly quickly, I could smell the paint. Some folks swear by these bullets and love them for IDPA and similar competitive pistol events. For me, performance was the same as conventional cast bullets. Your mileage may vary. Leave us a comment if you feel differently.
Powder-coated 158-grain semi-wadcutter bullets. I found their accuracy to be comparable to conventional cast and lubed bullets.
A Metallic Silhouette Load
When I shot metallic silhouette competition I used a 200-grain cast roundnose bullet in my .357 Magnum Model 27 Smith and Wesson. That bullet worked extremely well, and because of its heavy-for-caliber nature and high length/diameter ratio, it carried a lot of energy downrange. It was superbly accurate with 12.4 grains of 296. But finding those bullets is next-to-impossible today. It used to be a standard .38 Special bullet for police duty, but very few (if any) departments carry .38s today, and nobody seems to stock the 200-grain bullets. Maybe I need to get back into casting. I sure loved that 200-grain bullet in the .357 Magnum. They actually made the .357 Magnum work better on the 200-meter rams than a 240-grain .44 Magnum. The .44 Magnum wouldn’t consistently take down the rams; the 200-grain .357 Magnum did so every time.
.38 Special Loads
One of the great things about a .357 Magnum handgun is you can also shoot .38 Special loads in it. I guess that’s a good thing, as the .38 Special cartridges have lighter recoil. I tried three .38 Special loads with three different bullets. The accuracy load in .38 Special is a 148-grain wadcutter bullet seated flush with the cartridge mouth over 2.7 grains of Bullseye propellant. That load is super accurate in my Model 52 Smith and Wesson target pistol, and it did okay in the Ruger, too. I’ve always believed that a .38 Special cartridge would never be quite as accurate in a .357 Magnum handgun because the bullet has to make a longer jump to reach the rifling, and my testing last week did nothing to change my mind on that count. The .38 Special does okay in a .357 Magnum handgun, but I believe the best accuracy resides in a .357 case.
.357 and .38 Accuracy Testing Results
Here’s a chart summarizing my accuracy results:
Ruger Blackhawk accuracy testing results. All testing was with a two-hand hold at 50 feet. All groups are five shots. All loads (except the plated bullet loads) were crimped. All cast bullets were sized to 0.358. Note 1: Two shots went off paper. Notes 2 and 3: One shot went off paper.
There you have it. If you have a load that works well, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you.
Continuing the Colombia adventure, this was my post for the CSC blog on the 18th of December in 2016. We were having a hell of a time and very nearly everywhere we went good buddies Juan and Carlos explained to me that we could not have ridden these roads just a few years ago due to the narcos and FARC instability in Colombia. It was an amazing trip and I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
More riding, another Andean crossing, a bit of rain, and we arrived in Barichara!
Barichara is an artist’s town, and it’s one of the most exclusive places in all of Colombia. It was another glorious day of mountain riding. I did not take too many photos on the ride to Barichara, mostly because of the rain, our late arrival, and I was enjoying our dinner too much that evening in Barichara to break out the Nikon. But I did get a few photos.
My lunch at a restaurant along the Chicamocha River…
One of my “from the saddle” shots of a hydroelectric dam on the Chicamocha River…
A couple of shots chasing Juan Carlos through a massive tunnel in the Andes Mountains…
A fine feathered friend at a fuel stop…
And finally, a shot after the rain ended of the Chicamocha valley…
I’m enjoying the AKT Moto RX3. It’s different in a few minor ways than the CSC bike, and they are both fantastic motorcycles. I’ll do a blog after I return home describing the differences.
I’m calling it a night, folks. More to follow…as always, stay tuned!
I’ll post a few more photos and another video or two from Barichara in the next installment of our Colombian trip travelogue. I wrote this blog before we went out that night, and I grabbed a lot more with my Nikon on our night out in Barichara. It was an impressive town. I’ve got to get back there one of these days.
More of the Colombia adventure and other epic rides are here!
I had my RX3 out this Memorial Day weekend. It’s an iconic motorcycle, and it’s one I’ve ridden on three continents. I hadn’t ridden the RX3 in a few months, and it felt good to be on it again. Light, responsive, fully equipped, and five years old, my RX3 can and has gone the distance.
I’m thinking about a motorcycle ride up the Pacific Coast Highway to Hearst Castle, and Hearst Castle is a bucket list destination on a bucket list road. I’d like to do it on my RX3. Trust me on this: It doesn’t get much better than the Pacific Coast Highway and Hearst Castle.
The Pacific Coast Highway. Life doesn’t get much better than this, folks. Any motorcycle ride on the PCH is magnificent, and a stop at Hearst Castle makes it even better.
What’s Hearst Castle all about? Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: William Randolph Hearst is a dude who had more money than God. His dad came to California during the Gold Rush and somehow managed not to find any gold, but he went a few hills over and hit it big with silver. Ever hear of the Comstock Lode? Well, that was George Hearst back in the 1800s. Father George was a mining guy, and he sort of fell into the newspaper business when he accepted the San Francisco Examiner as payment for a gambling debt. While all this was going on, young William Randolph Hearst (George’s son) got himself expelled from Harvard, and somehow after that landed a job on the Examiner (ah, nepotism in action). And while all that was occurring, George bought 40,000 acres in the Santa Lucia Mountains (on the central California coast) so the family had a place to go camping.
I guess some folks run out of things to do when they’re rich, but not young William. He decided to he needed a castle. So he built one. On the family property (which he inherited in 1919) in San Simeon. It’s one hell of story, and there’s more to it than I can cover here in the blog, but it will soon be in a major motorcycle magazine (and when that happens, I’ll give you the link here). In advance of that, though, I’ll share a few Hearst Castle photos with you.
The front door to Casa Grande. Bill Hearst liked big doors.Art, tapestries, ceilings, and more…all this stuff is the result of Hearst’s agents scouring the castles and churches of Europe, and returning the good stuff to California. It’s good to be the king.One of two Olympic-sized pools at Hearst Castle. This is the first one Hearst built, but guests complained they could hear the staff working upstairs. Undaunted, Old Bill designated this pool for staff only, and built an even larger one outdoors for his guests. The indoor pool makes for a stunning photo op, I think. The blue tiles are custom crafted. It really is amazing.Dinner was a big deal when Bill held the Hearst Corporation reins. The word “impressive” just isn’t adequate here.The view from La Cuesta Encantada (the Enchanted Hill) looking west to the Pacific Ocean.
So there you have it. But there’s more…lots more. You have to see Hearst Castle to believe it, and it is a stellar thing to see. Hearst Castle and the Pacific Coast Highway make for a great motorcycle ride.
I don’t like barbers, and for good reason: When I was a little kid, I was traumatized by one. I didn’t know that’s what you call what happened to me at first (more on that in a bit), but I sure was. Traumatized, that is.
The story kind of goes like this…I grew up in a rural part of New Jersey. Yeah, we were only 40 miles outside of New York City, but in the 1950s central Jersey was farmland, most folks built their own houses (like my Dad did), doctors made house calls (ours did), you could shoot a gun in your backyard (we did), and several towns shared one barber. We did, and he was Charlie the Barber. He probably had a last name, but to us he was simply Charlie the Barber. Usually my Dad took me to Charlie’s when he needed a haircut, but on this one day that task fell to Mom.
I was only about 4 years old, but this business of going to Charlie the Barber with Mom (instead of Dad) represented change, something I knew I didn’t like even at that tender young age, and I was already feeling a little uneasy when it was my turn in the big chair. Charlie was a little guy who was a flurry of motion, and to be blunt, he made me nervous. He was one of those barbers who was constantly snipping mostly air. Snip snip snip snip snip, and maybe on the fifth or sixth snip the scissors would zoom in and get a little hair. Scared me, Charlie did. He wore a white jacket and had slicked-back jet black curly hair (he used way more than just a little dab of Brylcreem), he had this pencil thin mustache, and he had a voice kind of like Dudley Do-Right (you know, Bullwinkle’s buddy, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police). The voice, the mustache, the flashing and slashing scissors, the slick hair…the words didn’t match the music. I didn’t know what it was, but something was off and it made me nervous.
So I’m sitting in this elevated barber chair, the scissors were swimming in front of my face and all around my head snipping furiously at nothing, and I’m thinking in my four-year-old mind this is not a good situation. Then, what happened next was really bad. Remember I mentioned the country doctors who made house calls? Well, ours was Doc Bristol, who weirdly enough looked exactly like Doc on Gunsmoke (i.e., Milburn Stone). Doc Bristol, I suppose, was a nice enough guy, but he’s another dude who made me nervous. When Doc Bristol came around, it usually meant things like hypodermic needles weren’t far behind, and to this day, I don’t like needles.
“Ah, I see you got little Berky on the hot seat,” Doc Bristol said.
“Snip, snip, snip, snip, snip” went the silver scissors millimeters in front of my face. Charlie was on fire. He was in the zone. Zip codes hadn’t been invented yet, but I didn’t like the one he was in.
“Cut one of his ears off,” Doc Bristol said, “I need the business.”
That’s all it took. I went nuts. All fours year of my existence went absolutely dogshit nuts. I screamed. I wiggled. I slid out of the chair with a lopsided, unfinished haircut. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, and you don’t tease a four year old. I ran out, screaming all the way home.
The bottom line? There was no way in hell I was going back to Charlie the Barber. My Dad bought a set of hair clippers and he cut my hair until I went in the Army 18 years later. In the Army, I did a lot of crazy things. I jumped out of airplanes. I fired 106mm recoilless rifles (a weapon so loud you shake hands with God every time one lets go). I tromped around in rice paddies and on missile sites in faraway places. Nothing scared me worse than getting into a barber’s chair. And I still feel that way. I tense up every time I get in a barber’s chair. A very attractive young lady (a hair stylist, not just a barber) once asked me if I was okay (probably because my knuckles were turning white from the death grip I had on her barber’s chair). I get that wired when it’s time for a haircut.
Most guys worry about going bald. Not me. I’d be fine being completely bald, because then I wouldn’t need to see a barber. But there’s still enough fuzzy gray stuff on my noggin that I need to get a haircut occasionally.
One time a few years ago we had a couple over for dinner, and she was a clinical psychologist. For whatever reason, the conversation turned to haircuts, and I told the above story. “Aw, little Joey was traumatized by his barber.” Ah, so that was it. That’s exactly what happened. The word fit perfectly. I had been traumatized by a barber.
So we’re into this shelter in place thing, you know, what with Covid 19 and all, and I needed a haircut. Evidently, so did a lot of people, because when I tried to order a set of hair clippers online, everyone was sold out. But last week supply caught up with demand, and thanks to Amazon.com and Fedex, I now have my very own hair clippers.
I bought Hoford hair clippers and they work great. They are battery powered and the kit has all kinds of accessories. There are three or four standoff combs/spacer things that are for folks with longer hair, but I didn’t need any of them. I set the clippers at the lowest setting (a set of hair clippers is like a lawn mower…you set the blade as low as possible and you don’t have to mow the lawn very often). I hit the ON button and the clippers came alive! Buzzzzzzz! I love it! I gave myself a haircut, both my ears are still in place, and I think I look good. I used to pay $8 for a haircut, so in four more haircuts, these new clippers will have paid for themselves. Life is good!
Our Colombian adventure continues…this is the blog from the third day on the road in beautiful Colombia. It was a ride sponsored by CSC Motorcycles and AKT Motos (one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers in Colombia). Our destination was La Playa de Belem and it was awesome. Juan and Carlos were taking good care of me, proudly guiding me through their beautiful country, and I was loving every minute of it.
They tell me la playa means beach in Spanish, and Belem means Bethlehem. There was no beach, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
La Playa de Belem was our destination on the third day of our Colombian moto adventure, and it was indeed awesome. We did a cool 260 miles to get to the evening’s destination, and I have to tell you that 260 miles in Colombia is a long day. What I didn’t realize when we started in the morning is that a good 40 miles of it would be on dirt. And sand. And mud. And I’d even get a chance to play cowboy, except I was mounted on an RX3 instead of a horse.
No kidding, folks, those are cows, and they were on the road. This was something new to me. I mean, when you’re on a 250cc motorcycle, how do you make cows get out of the way? Even if you’re on a big bike, what’s the protocol? These questions were on my mind, when like always, Juan Carlos took the lead. Our bovine buddies just kind of moved aside to let him move through the herd. I wasn’t too sure about that, and then a guy on a little 100cc something-or-other did the same. In for a penny, in for a pound. As I got closer, the sea of cows parted, and I was through. Amazing stuff.
As was the case the day before, it was sweltering, so we stopped to get a juice drink. They have a lot of juices in Colombia, and I’ve been trying them all. I haven’t found one I didn’t like yet.
This little gal was fascinated by us. She let me take her picture.
What I missed getting a photo of were the dinosaurs. No kidding. I looked over at a tree and there were three or four iguanas that were huge. As in 2 1/2 or 3 feet long. They startled me. We ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. I jumped up and fumbled around putting the 70-300 lens on the D3300, but by the time I was ready the lizards were gone. Maybe I’ll see more of them again on this trip. Who knows? Things like that are incredible. I’m enjoying the hell out of this trip.
Ah, a few more “watching the world go by in Colombia” photos…all the gear, all the time.
After dodging and dicing through traffic (and there’s lots of traffic in these Colombian towns, and it’s mostly motorcycles), we finally hit a highway that ran straight. Yippee! We accelerated up to about 70 mph and cruised, and then Juan pulled over. What he pointed out to me was amazing. Ant hills. Not the little kind we are used to, but big monsters that are as hard as concrete. Check this stuff out, folks.
And then, much to my surprise, the animal signs started popping up.
Okay, that one was easy. Fox. I get it. I never saw a sign before warning about a fox crossing, but I can wrap my mind around that one.
What came next…well, that wasn’t so easy to surround with the old gray matter.
Anteaters. Wow. The image quality isn’t so great, but hey, we were zooming along and that one crept up on me. And how about this next one?
Okay, enough monkeying around. Back to the journey.
We entered the eastern arm of the Andes Mountains and started to climb. It was a two-lane road, and we rode it for a good 150 miles. It’s like the Angeles Crest Highway, but it goes on forever, and there were construction stops every 10 miles or so. These next few shots were taken at one of the construction stops. Juan Carlos told me we were very close to the Venezuelan border at this point.
A shot of Juan Carlos.
A Colombian taxi driver.
I’m seeing medium-sized trucks that are 60 years old nearly every day on these roads. The ’56 Ford seems to be especially popular.
Our next stop was in another Andean town at a cool little restaurant. This was our waiter.
I had chicken and mushrooms. It was awesome. I ate maybe half of it.
Carlos and Juan Carlos both ordered something in Spanish (naturally), and they were excited to get it. I thought it was beef, or maybe pork. Nope. It was pig stomach lining. Very tasty, according to them. They offered a taste, but I declined.
A word or two on the riding is in order, I guess, at this point. It is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. In the cities and towns, it’s a free for all. It’s like one of the YouTube videos you see of city intersections with tons of scooters in Asia. Here, it’s scooters, motorcycles, cars, and trucks. There are few traffic lights, and Juan told me nobody pays attention to the stop signs or speed limits. “They are like suggestions,” he said.
I’m a big fan of the twisties, but in Colombia, they take on a new meaning. The national sport seems to be passing everyone you can everywhere you can. It’s tense. Juan Carlos and Carlos are totally used to it. I’m getting there, but it is unnerving. It’s also weird just how good every rider seems to be. I’m riding at my limits (not the bike’s limits, but mine) too often, and while I’m doing this taking a corner way faster than I ever would in the US, some Colombian will pass me on a 125cc Suzuki cruiser or something with his girlfriend on the back, leaned way over, like it was the most natural thing in the world. They look totally at ease doing it, too. These folks are natural riders, and they’re good.
We arrived in La Playa de Belem about an hour before sunset, and immediately split for a one of many Colombian national parks. It was kind of like Bryce. I grabbed a few shots there, including one of my AKT RX3.
Getting in was interesting. We had to ride a pretty rough dirt road that had a stream running down it because it had been raining. The RX3 took it in stride.
So, back to the Bethlehem thing (as I said at the start of this blog, Belem means Bethlehem in Spanish). La Playa de Belem is a beautiful little town dominated by the town square and a magnificent church (like many little towns in Colombia), and it turns out we arrived at a special time. The Colombians start celebrating Christmas nine days before Christmas, and this was that day. The town was buzzing. We hung out and watched kids singing at an outdoor service, we saw fireworks, we watched the service in the church, and then we got to see the vaca loca. I recorded it, so I won’t tell you the vaca loca story now, but if this Internet connection holds I’ll upload the video and tell you about it later.
Two more quick photos in La Playa de Belem, a video, and that’s all for now.
There’s lots more coming, folks. You probably already know this, but I’ll say it anyway: I’m having fun.
If you want to catch up on the Colombia ride, or explore any of the other exotic rides we’ve had, click on over to our Epic Rides page!
The Model 625 with a box of my reloaded ammunition. The ammo in this photo had Xtreme 230-grain roundnose bullets. I found the Missouri cast roundnose bullets to be more accurate in my revolver.
Good buddy Rick C., one of the world’s great philosophers, once told me that every time he reloads he learns something new. I think he was right. This story focuses on reloading .45 ACP ammo for the Model 625 Smith and Wesson revolver, and what I learned during a recent reloading session.
The Model 625 is a beautiful revolver. It’s a direct descendant of the Model 1917 that Smith made for the US Army in World War I. The only thing I sometimes find annoying about the 625 is that sometimes reloaded 45 ACP that chambers easily in a 1911 auto won’t chamber in the revolver. This blog focuses on that issue.
The 625 and a box of ammo. This is a sweet-shooting and accurate handgun.A typical 6-shot, 50-ft Model 625 group with my favorite load. That ain’t bad from a 4-inch revolver.
There are two kinds of ammo for these revolvers. The first is standard .45 ACP, firing the same cartridge as the 1911. The other is .45 AutoRim. Firing .45 ACP ammo in a revolver like the Smith and Wesson 625 requires the use of either star or moon clips (the star clips hold six rounds; each moon clip holds three rounds). Individual cartridges clip into these. The clips provide proper headspace by holding the cartridges in place in the cylinder, and they allow the extractor to push the rounds out of the cylinder. They also work as speed clips because you can insert six rounds into the cylinder simultaneously. Theoretically, you could fire .45 ACP ammo in a Smith and Wesson revolver without the clips, but then you would need a probe to knock each case out of the cylinder. The .45 AutoRim cartridge is very similar to the .45 ACP round, but it has a rim. That eliminates the need for the clips.
.45 ACP ammo in 6-round star clips. The clips allow chambering .45 ACP ammunition in 1917-type revolvers. They are necessary because the .45 ACP cartridges don’t have a protruding rim to allow extraction.
Over the years, I’ve found that .45 AutoRim always chambers easily in a .45 ACP revolver. With .45 ACP reloads, however, that’s not always the case. That’s not good, as it sometimes prevents closing the cylinder. Even if you can close the cylinder with difficult-to-chamber .45 ACP reloads, the loaded cylinder will often drag on the frame, making cocking or double action fire difficult.
I recently loaded a batch of .45 ACP ammo that I intended to fire in my Model 625, and as is my normal practice when loading for the 1911, I put just enough of a flare on the empty cases to allow the bullet base to start into the case. After priming the cases, charging with propellant, and seating the bullets, I adjusted the seating die such that the brass just kissed the crimping ring in the seating die. At this point, I thought it would be a good idea to check the first 10 rounds in the 625 to see if they chambered fully, and you can probably guess where this story is going. A couple of rounds only went about two-thirds of the way into the chamber. I put a little more crimp on the cartridge; of the two that would not chamber, now one would and the other wouldn’t.
In examining the loaded rounds, I could see where the case had expanded circumferentially slightly after the bullet had been seated (it had a slight bulge at the base of the bullet. I wondered if perhaps the Missouri 230-grain roundnose bullets I was loading were just too big, so I measured them. The box told me the bullets had been sized to 0.452 inches, and that’s exactly where they were. Then I measured the case outside diameter for the loaded rounds just below the case mouth. They measured 0.475 to 0.476 inch. Then I went online to see what that dimension should be. Here’s what I found:
The drawing above is misleadingly dimensioned. The dimension we’re interested in is the 0.473 case outside diameter at the case mouth (it looks like an inside diameter on the drawing, but it’s the outside diameter. My reloaded ammo was 0.002 to 0.003 inch above this. I played around with the crimp a bit, but I couldn’t get that number to come down via crimping with my RCBS bullet seating die.
Then I had an idea. I removed the decapping pin and threaded shaft from the resizing die, and adjusted it to just kiss the loaded round a little to square up the bullet in the case and decrease the diameter at the case mouth a bit. I adjusted the depth of the seating die in the press such that I obtained a 0.473 outside case diameter result at the case mouth. The first case chambered. I then repeated the partial resize on 10 cartridges; all but one sucked right into the chamber with no circumferential play. I still had that one, though, so I played with the resizing die adjustment again until the dimension was right at 0.472, and that did the trick. It removed the flare completely, and every subsequent cartridge I loaded using this technique chambered perfectly. Basically, I was using the resizing die as a crimping tool.
It bothered me that I had to go .001 below the 0.473 inch spec to get the ammo to chamber 100% of the time in my revolver, and I was a little worried about what this might be doing to the bullet diameter. I wondered what factory ammo measures, and then I realized I had some. So I pulled it out of the ammo locker and measured it. The factory ammo measured 0.470 inch at that dimension (0.003 under the 0.473 specification), which explains why factory .45 ACP ammo always chambers so easily in this revolver. I also checked the drawing for the .45 AutoRim cartridge. It shows the case outside diameter at the business end to be 0.472, which is coincidentally exactly what I found to work perfectly for my reloaded .45 ACP ammo in the revolver.
I was a little bit worried that in running the cartridges part way into the resizing die I might be swaging the bullets to something below .451 inch (the minimum bullet diameter for this cartridge). To check on this, I measured the case wall thickness. On my Winchester .45 ACP brass (which has a wall thickness perceptibly greater than other brass I sometimes use) the wall thickness is exactly 0.010. Since my ammo measured 0.472 at the mouth after my post-load resizing/crimping operation, that should leave the bullet at exactly 0.452 inch (or 0.472 – 2*0.010). That’s exactly where it should be. The cases hold that wall thickness for some distance into the case, too. I think what the operation is doing is aligning and straightening the bullet in the case.
I’m not using any lube for my secondary resizing operation. I have carbide dies, and they do not require it.
The proof on all of this was how the rounds grouped, and folks, they grouped well. It was a little windy when I fired these groups at the West End Gun Club, but the gun and the ammo did what they are supposed to do.
Four groups of 6 shots each with the Model 625. 5.6 grains of Unique with a 230 cast roundnose bullet has always performed well for me in both revolvers and 1911 semi-automatics.
I like this modified approach (resize/decap, clean, prime, bellmouth, charge, seat, remove the FLRS decapper, and then crimp the ammo to 0.472 with the resizing die). It works well, it produces an accurate load, and every round chambers easily in the Model 625.
My shooting buddies Rick and Robby tell me that the Lee factory crimp die does the same thing as what I’ve described above. I ordered one for the .45 ACP and I’ll reload ammo using it, but that’s a topic for a subsequent blog.
Like what you read above? More Tales of the Gun stories are here.
The Colombia adventure continues. For those of you just joining us, this is a series of blogs I wrote four years ago for CSC Motorcycles when I was rode an AKT Moto RS3 (the carbureted Colombian version of the RX3) through the Andes Mountains. Day 2 of that ride was absolutely awesome, ending with a visit to an enchanted town after a ferry ride down the Magdalena River.
Our second day on the road in Colombia started in Coveñas, and the humidity was oppressive. It was going to get worse as the day went on. We’re in the tropics, not too far from the equator, and hot and humid is the normal way of things here. On the plus side, you don’t care if it rains because you’re already drenched. It actually helps because it’s cooling.
Anyway, back to the morning in Coveñas. We ate in the hotel, and while we were waiting for breakfast, this dude was selling some kind of yams or roots, and Juan Carlos pointed out the scale he was using. It’s about as crude a scale as I’ve ever seen, but it’s sound technically, and it sure makes for an interesting photo.
Here’s a typical Colombian breakfast: Scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, bread, and a corn or flour tortilla with cheese (that’s called arrepo). The Colombians are big on cheeses, with different regions producing unique cheeses. It’s quite good.
The guys pointed out this car as we packed the bikes. This probably didn’t end well for the passenger, who most likely was not wearing a seat belt. The riding in Colombia is glorious, but it is stressful. Juan and Carlos said when they ride anywhere else (other than Colombia), it makes them sleepy because there’s only scenery. In Colombia, there’s scenery, but you have to watch out for everyone else. It’s intense. In a country full of twisties, people pass on blind corners routinely. I guess the theory is you pray a lot. People think nothing of passing if the oncoming traffic has room to move over, or if the oncoming traffic is a motorcycle. It’s weird, but you kind of get used to it. But it is intense (just like the heat and the humidity).
When we got on the road after breakfast, we only went maybe a mile when Carlos had a flat tire. Watching the guy repair it was interesting, and so was hanging out watching the world go by in Colombia.
And here are some of those watching the world go by in Colombia photos.
Here’s a photo of our RX3s somewhere on the road, headed to the ferry that would take us to Mompos, a remote town 45 minutes down the Magdalena River.
This church was across the street and just down the road from the ferry loading spot.
I only grabbed a few photos while we were boarding the ferry. The heat and humidity were getting to me at this point. It was about 4:00 in the in the afternoon, and it was sweltering.
Once we were underway, it got a little cooler on the river. You probably saw my video of that ride.
We arrived in Mompos and it was impressive. It’s the oldest town in Colombia, and to say it is off the beaten path would be an understatement. We had dinner in a restaurant run by an Austrian, where I had the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life.
After dinner, we chatted with the owner for a bit, and then we walked along the river front…I grabbed a bunch of photos there.
Folks, that’s about it for now. I’m a day behind in keeping you up to date on this trip, but Internet connectivity is dicey in these remote locations. As always, more to follow, if not today, then in a day or two (or three). Stay tuned.
If you’d like to see our earlier blogs in Colombia, please click here.
Good buddy Mike, a fellow former trooper who I met on a ride through Baja a few years ago, has been sort of stranded down there until recently. Mike and his good friend Bobbie went whale watching and they had a unique experience. Mike was kind enough to share the adventure with us. Here you go, folks.
here!
