Joe Berk

Craters of the Moon National Monument

By Joe Berk

As mentioned in our introductory Idaho blog, I had briefly visited the Craters of the Moon National Monument on the 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride with the Chinese and other folks who owned RX3 motorcycles. Good buddy Baja John did all the navigating and planning on that ride; I just rode at the front of the pack and took all the credit.

Baja John posing at the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserved entrance exactly 10 years ago. Tempus fugit, my friends.

We planned those early CSC trips as if it was just Baja John and me riding, and I figured on way too many miles each day. John and I can do 600-mile days easily. When we planned the larger Western America Adventure Ride, even 400-mile days were a huge challenge. A good rule of thumb on such larger group rides is to stick to a maximum of 200 to 250 miles each day. I didn’t know that then.

Anyway, on that first Craters of the Moon stop, we were on a big mileage day and we didn’t have too much time to spare. We pulled into the Craters entrance, grabbed a few photos, and continued our trek to Twin Falls. I recently wanted to do a Destinations piece on Craters for Motorcycle Classics magazine, and when I looked through my files, I found I only had a couple of Craters photos. That dearth of useable photos became part of the reason Susie and I visited Craters again.

The ride from Boise (where Susie and I started that morning) to Craters takes you east on I-84 and then east on US Highway 20. As an aside, Highway 20 runs across the entire United States, from Newport, Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts. Part of Highway 20 in Idaho was designated as the Medal of Honor Highway by Governor Brad Little in 2019, and Susie and I took it to Craters.

US Highway 20, Idaho’s Medal of Honor Highway. The photo ops through this part of the world are impressive. Bring a polarizer.

Idaho is justifiably proud of its Medal of Honor winners. That’s an M1 Abrams tank in the background, a turbine-powered, 70-ton beast that can hit 60 mph and fire on the move with great accuracy. Three Medal of Honor recipients currently live in Idaho; as many as 48 people awarded the Medal of Honor have an Idaho connection.

After Highway 20, it’s a left turn onto Highway 26 to get to Craters of the Moon. It’s more scenic riding, including the towns of Carey and Picabo. Carey is where we had a comical encounter on the Western America Adventure Tour when riding with our Chinese compañeros across Idaho. On that day 10 years ago, it happened to be Pioneer Day. We didn’t know that, nor did we know that there was a parade in Carey. I was in my usual spot (in front of the pack), Gresh was riding alongside me, and our group of a dozen RX3 riders were right behind us. As we approached Carey, local residents lined the streets. Many were holding American flags. They waved and cheered us as we rode into town. We had no idea what was going on. Gresh flipped his faceshield up and said, “Wow, a lot of people are following the blog” (I had been blogging our trip across the western US every day). We didn’t know it at the time, but we were only a few minutes ahead of the parade Carey was expecting, and those good Idahoans thought we were the advance guard. It was fun and it made for a great story (which I have told about a thousand times by now).

On US Highway 26 heading east into the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. Note the volcanic rock on either side of the road.

The good folks in Carey were not waiting for Susie and me on this trip, but we had a good time anyway. When we rolled into Picabo a little further down the road, we had an even better time when we topped off the Jeep and had lunch (which was excellent). I told you a bit about that (and the Ernest Hemingway connection) yesterday.

The volcanic flow in the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. That’s Echo Cone in the distance.

The National Park Service describes the landscape in and around Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve as “weird and scenic” and that’s an apt description. The landscape is almost lunar-like. Its alien features consist of mostly dark brown solidified lava surrounded and sometimes punctuated by patches of green vegetation. It makes for a dramatic landscape and awesome photo ops.

A walkway above the pahoehoe lave field.

Sue reading about the pahoehoe lava. The National Park Service does a great job making these kinds of places accessible and providing explanations telling the story at each location.

You can ride a designated, one-way, circular tarmac road through the Preserve, with paved offshoots for specific sights. One of the first stops is a pahoehoe lava field. The name is a particular type of lava, and it comes from the lava volcanoes and their flows in Hawaii. Pahoehoe lava is characterized by a rough and darkened surface. What made it even more interesting is the walkway above the lava. You can walk a loop of about a quarter of a mile and see what the hardened lava looks like. The walkway is a good thing; I don’t think it would be possible to navigate this terrain on foot.

Monolithic cinder cone fragments in one of the lava fields.

Another lava structure is called cinder cone. Sometimes these structures break apart and leave monolithic forms like those in the photograph above. One of the more dramatic areas in Craters of the Moon is the Inferno Cone. There’s a place to park near the base and you can climb to the peak.

The climb to the Inferno Cone peak. Sue did it. I watched.

Completing the circular ride through Craters of the Moon. The lava formations to the left are called cinder bombs.

There are several lava tubes (caves formed by lava flow) in Craters of the Moon, and if you wish, you can hike into them. We didn’t do that. There are also longer hikes throughout the Preserve if you want to explore more.

There’s much to see and do at Craters of the Moon. How long you stay and how much you see is up to you. We were there for about three hours and we had a great visit.

The next stop on our Idaho expedition would be Twin Falls. That’s coming up, so stay tuned.

If you would like to read about the Western America Adventure Ride and how CSC rewrote the motorcycle adventure touring book, the story is here:

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Ernest Hemingway In Idaho

By Joe Berk

1500: Keep that number in mind. I’ll tell you what it means at the end of this post.

As I mentioned in the introductory blog on our ExNotes Idaho expedition, I was surprised to learn of the apparently well-known strong connection between Idaho and Ernest Hemingway. My previous ignorance of this connection made me feel kind of illiterate when I read about it at the Basque Museum, and then again in Picabo while we were driving to Craters of the Moon National Monument. I wouldn’t want any of our readers to feel my pain, so I thought I would offer a brief Hemingway biography and explain how the Idaho/Hemingway connection developed.

I previously wrote about the Basque Museum a blog or two back. Our next adventure was Craters of the Moon, and on our way there as we passed through the small town of Picabo I thought I would top off the Jeep and grab a cup of coffee. The gas station had a small general store and a restaurant, so Susie and I grabbed lunch. The place had an interesting corner devoted to Ernest Hemingway and his Idaho adventures.

Firearms Hemingway gave to local rancher Bud Purdy in a Picabo restaurant display case.

Hemingway loved hunting and fishing in the Silver Creek area near Picabo with Bud Purdy, a local rancher and Idaho legend. Purdy was an interesting man, too. You can read about him here.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois (a small town near Chicago) on July 21, 1899. He was wounded in World War I, he went on to become one of the world’s great novelists, he married four times, and he died at age 61 in Ketchum, Idaho. But there’s a lot more to the Hemingway story than just those two short sentences.

As a young man growing up in what was then a predominately rural area, Hemingway’s father introduced him to hunting and fishing. He graduated from the Oak Park public school system in 1917 and went to work as a reporter at the Kansas City Star. It’s been said that’s where he developed his writing style, based on the newspaper’s guidelines emphasizing short sentences and paragraphs, writing in the active style, shortness, and clarity. Hemingway carried the style to his fiction, later explaining “Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing. I’ve never forgotten them.”

When World War I started, Hemingway wanted to serve but poor eyesight prevented his enlisting. He instead volunteered to be a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy. Hemingway was wounded only a month into this adventure by a mortar round, and then wounded again immediately after that by machine gun fire. All this occurred while carrying a wounded soldier to safety. The Italian government awarded Hemingway their Silver Medal for Valor.

Hemingway returned home and went to work for the Toronto Star Weekly, where he married his first of four wives in 1921. The Hemingways moved to Paris, where he met several of the great authors of the era while still working as a reporter covering such things as the Geneva Conference, bullfighting, and fishing. It was while Hemingway was in Paris that his first works of fiction were published, including Indian Camp and Cross Country Snow.

From 1925 to 1929, Hemingway wrote some of the world’s great literary masterpieces, including Our Time in 1925. It contained The Big Two-Hearted River, The Sun Also Rises, and Men Without Women. A Farewell to Arms followed in 1929, which was quickly recognized as a defining World War I masterpiece and earned Hemingway a reputation as a literary giant. Hemingway became a world traveler, visiting Key West for fishing, Africa for hunting, and Spain for bullfighting. He continued writing, creating For Whom the Bell Tolls, Death in the Afternoon, and The Green Hills of Africa.

For a time in the pre-Castro days, Hemingway lived in Cuba. Hemingway lost his home when Fidel Castro confiscated private property in 1958. He and his fourth wife bought a home in Ketchum, Idaho, where he would live out the rest of his life.

Hemingway had spent time in Idaho prior to purchasing his Ketchum home. Averill Harriman (an American entrepreneur who owned the Union Pacific Railroad and other businesses) was promoting a new resort in Sun Valley, Idaho. In 1939 Harriman invited Hemingway to visit the Sun Valley Lodge and that set the hook. Hemingway hunted and fished Idaho, and he fell in love with the area. Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls in Room 206 of the Sun Valley Lodge (known today as the Hemingway Suite). While a guest at the Sun Valley Lodge, Hemingway also wrote Islands in the Stream, The Garden of Eden, and A Moveable Feast.

Later in life, Hemingway struggled with poor health and depression. Some say he was an alcoholic. He had experienced numerous concussions, a couple of car accidents, and two airplane crashes. Hemingway committed suicide by shooting himself in his Ketchum home in July of 1961 at the age of 61.

Ernest Hemingway was an outdoorsman, a shooter, and a hunter. In other words, he was my kind of guy, so it’s surprising that the only Hemingway novel I ever read was The Old Man and the Sea. That’s a character defect I aim to correct in the near future.

It’s probably appropriate that this post is about Ernest Hemingway, as this is our 1500th literary endeavor on the ExhaustNotes blog. Yep, 1500 posts! We appreciate you reading our blog, we appreciate your comments, and we especially appreciate you clicking on those pesky popup ads!

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Quality Ain’t Job One At Winchester These Days

By Joe Berk

Notice anything flaky about the bullets above? At first, I didn’t. But it’s there. Read on, my friends.

I confirmed a couple of good loads for the .30 06 Weatherby this morning and several months of trying different bullet weights, powders, powder charges, seating depths, and more. In the past, one of my favorite bullets for both the .30 06 and .300 H&H cartridges has been the Winchester 150-grain jacketed softpoint so I wanted to try these again, but they have been unavailable for a long time.

When the Winchester bullets finally came back on the market again a few months ago, I bought 1000. Sometimes they grouped well in my Weatherby, at other times they did not. I got to where I worked up a load with 51.0 grains of IMR 4064 (a max load for this bullet) and that had shown promise, but I’d get a good group and then a bad one. I was pretty sure it wasn’t me being flaky behind the gun; things looked good through the scope when I pulled the trigger.

My 40-year-old Weatherby Mk V, chambered in .30 06 Springfield. It’s a beautiful rifle.

That’s a 1980s-ish 12X Leupold Silhouette scope on the Weatherby.

I found that how I positioned the rifle in the Caldwell rest made a difference. If I had the rifle positioned so that the rest was just forward of the rifle’s floorplate, it grouped well; if I had the rifle positioned further back, it did not group as well. Even while taking care to appropriately position the rifle, though, the Winchester bullets grouped erratically. I’d get good groups and then I’d get bad groups.

Then one day after another frustratingly inconsistent range session, I returned home, cleaned the rifle, resized the brass, threw the brass in the tumbler, and was reloading it with the above load when I noticed that the bullet cannelures were not at consistent heights above the case mouth after seating the bullets. Hmmmm.

Winchester 150-gr JSP bullets. Note the cannelure location inconsistences.

So I lined up some bullets on the bench, and son of a gun, the cannelures were all over the place on the bullets (with regard to height above the bullet base). I bitched to Winchester about this through their website and they agreed to refund what I had paid for the bullets. They even had a UPS guy stop by and give me a prepaid shipper to return them. I didn’t want to, though, because the bullets had done well in the past, and I still wasn’t certain that the cannelure location issue was affecting accuracy.

So I reloaded another 12 rounds and before I did so, I sorted the Winchester bullets by cannelure height. I loaded 6 cartridges with bullets that had cannelures at what appeared to be approximately the same location, and I took the bullets I had screened with what were obvious cannelure location differences and loaded 6 more rounds. The next morning I got out early to beat the heat and set up a 100 yard target at the West End Gun Club. I proved my hypothesis: The cannelure height variability was degrading accuracy significantly.

The top two groups had bullets with inconsistent cannelure heights. The bottom two groups had bullets with cannelure heights that were located in approximately the same spot, and the groups with those bullets were much smaller.

The group sizes for bullets with the same cannelure locations returned minute-of-angle groups; the group sizes for bullets with random cannelure height locations were more than twice the size of the consistent-cannelure-location bullets. Duh. I proved (at least to myself) that this cannelure height location issue is making a difference. I can hypothesize that cannelure location can affect the bullet’s center of gravity, center of pressure, drag, and perhaps other aerodynamic and mass properties characteristics. The bottom line to me is that cannelure location variability plays a big role. Winchester screwed the pooch when they made these bullets, which is a shame. I should also mention that these bullets were not sold as seconds. They were supposed to be good bullets. An old line company with a name like Winchester ought to be making a quality product, but they clearly are not. That notwithstanding, I think I’ll keep the bullets and sort them. I’ll use what I cull out for open sight rifles, or maybe I’ll sell them to a gas station and they can melt them down for wheel weights.

Yeah, I could just send the bullets back. To Winchester’s credit, they were willing to refund what I had paid for the bullets. But they disappointed me, and I have to tell you, I spent a lot of time and money in wasted components trying to shoot good groups with lousy bullets. What I’d really like is a note from Winchester telling me they’ve fixed the problem, and then I’d buy another thousand bullets.

You might wonder: Why not just use Hornady’s comparable 150-grain jacketed soft point bullet? It’s a logical question. I tried that with the same load, and it wasn’t as accurate as the screened Winchester bullets (even though the cannelure location was consistent on the Hornady bullets).

I did find a Hornady bullet and a load that worked well in this rifle, though, and that’s the 130-grain Hornady jacketed soft point bullet with 53.0 grains of IMR 4320 (a max load, so work up to it). It shoots slightly high and to the right compared to the load above. IMR 4320 is no longer in production, but I have a stash and I’ll continue to use it. This load is also extremely accurate in my Ruger No. 1A.

Wondering about the chrono results for the loads described above? Here they are, as shot from my 26-inch barreled Weatherby Mark V:

150-grain Winchester Loads

- 150-grain Winchester jacketed soft point bullet, 51.0 grains of IMR 4064, no crimp, cartridge overall length 3.250 inches, Fiocchi large rifle primer, inconsistent bullet height cannelure
- Min velocity: 2861.7 fps
- Avg velocity: 2891.8 fps
- Max velocity: 2909.8 fps
- Extreme spread: 48.1 fps
- Standard deviation: 15.9 fps

- 150-grain Winchester jacketed soft point bullet, 51.0 grains of IMR 4064, no crimp, cartridge overall length 3.250 inches, Fiocchi large rifle primer, screened for consistent bullet height cannelure
- Min velocity: 2902.9 fps
- Avg velocity: 2912.5 fps
- Max velocity: 2933.1 fps
- Extreme spread: 30.2 fps
- Standard deviation: 10.0 fps

130-grain Hornady Load

- Load: 130-grain Hornady jacketed soft point bullet, 53.0 grains of IMR 4320, no crimp, cartridge overall length 3.095 inches, Fiocchi large rifle primer
- Min velocity: 3022.8 fps
- Avg velocity: 3037.2 fps
- Max velocity: 3063.8 fps
- Extreme spread: 40.9 fps
- Standard deviation: 10.9 fps

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The Warhawk Air Museum

By Joe Berk

Sue and John Paul started the Warhawk Air Museum in 1989. It contains aircraft, automobiles, aircraft engines, automobiles, guns, and other things from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. For us, it was our eighth Idaho stop and only our third day in Idaho. We were covering a lot of ground.

The entrance to the Warhawk Air Museum hangar and display area.

Aircraft

The Warhawk Museum had a bunch of aircraft both inside the hangar and parked outside on the tarmac. I love these kinds of places and I love these vintage airplanes, partly because they photograph so well but mostly because of what they represent. We were taking in military history and I was loving it.

“Parrot Head,” a Curtiss P-40N Warhawk dominating the Warhawk Museum display area.

“The Boise Bee,” a North American P-51C Mustang.

The Warhawk has a beautiful, jet black, Vietnam-era Huey helicopter. I spent some time when I was in the Army flying around on Hueys (not in Vietnam, though). My time in the service was fun. I enjoyed the Huey rides, especially when the doors were open and the pilots flew low level. Cue in Ride of the Valkyries.

A Bell UH-1C “Mike” gunship helicopter. The “Mike” had an upgraded 1400 shp turbine.

Nose art on the “Mike” Huey: The 68th Assault Helicopter Company (the “Mustangs”). This is cool stuff.

Engines

The Warhawk Museum displays an impressive collection of piston and jet engines. The old radials, in particular, were amazing. As an engineer and as a motorcycle guy, the radials spoke to me. But they were all nice to take in. Mechanical stuff is just so much more intuitive and easy to understand than electronics or software. I can look at mechanical things and comprehend how they work; I could never do that with electronics or software.

A Curtiss OX–5 airplane engine. It’s a 90-horsepower V8 made in 1917.

A macro shot of the Curtiss OX–5 engine’s rockers. These parts were cast and machined more than a century ago.

A Pratt and Whitney R-985-AN 14B air-cooled radial engine. It made 450 horsepower and was used in three aircraft, including the C-45.

A second R-985-AN14B display engine. As the designator implies, these 9-cylinder engines displaced 985 cubic inches.

An Allison V-1710-81 water-cooled engine. It was a V-12 that generated 1,425 horsepower. During World War II, these powered the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, the Bell P-39 Airacobra and the twin-engined Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

A Ranger engine. These powered the Fairchild PT-19 aircraft.

Perhaps the most impressive radial engine in the world: The Pratt & Whitney 4360 radial engine.

Another view of the It’s a 28-cylinder four-row radial piston engine that powered the C-124 Globemaster, the KC-97 tanker, and the B-36 Peacemaker. The B-36 had six of these engines. That’s 168 cylinders! How’d you like to adjust the valves on a B-36?

Automobiles

Who doesn’t enjoy vintage automobiles? I’ve probably done a dozen or more blogs on vintage automobiles in various museums around the country and I never get tired of seeing them. The Warhawk Museum had several vintage cars, and several more military vehicles.

A little 1960 Nash Metropolitan. These were made in England. They had a 120cc engine and sold for $1,672. Beep beep!

A 1940 DeSoto Deluxe with a beautiful two-tone tan and cream paint theme. This car retailed for $905 when it was new.

The DeSoto’s hood ornament. Those were the days!

A 1930 Packard 8. It was powered by a torquey inline 8-cylinder engine, and sold for a princely $2,385 in 1930.

A 1927 Studebaker couple. These had 6-cylinder engines and sold for $1,575 (big bucks in 1927).

The Studebaker’s radiator-cover-mounted brand emblem.

A US Army halftrack with a quad .50 mount. These are interesting vehicles. Note the armor on the radiator. I’ve always wondered why car or accessory companies making big tough guy trucks never copied this design; I think it would look cool.

A 1955 Buick Century. This was the golden era of GM auto design. This car had a 236-horsepower V8 and it sold for $2,590 in 1955. These were fast cars in 1955. The California Highway Patrol used them.

Other Interesting Stuff

In between all the exhibits mentioned above (as well as many more Warhawk Museum exhibits that space precludes including), there wasn’t any wasted real estate. I’m only showing a couple of representative exhibits here on the blog, but there were many, many more.

Flight suits, a uniform, and other militaria make for a colorful photo.

An M1903 .32 ACP Colt. I had one of these years ago.

The Warhawk Museum is located at 201 Municipal Drive in Nampa, Idaho, about 15 minutes from downtown Boise. It costs $15 to get in (and it may well be the best $15 you’ll ever spend). Vets, Seniors, and active duty military get a discount.

You can rent the indoor Museum display area for weddings and other events. My youngest daughter had her wedding at the Chino Planes of Fame Museum (a vintage aircraft museum) and it was an awesome event. These places make for cool venues; if I was a young guy getting married I’d consider it.

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Boise’s Basque Museum

By Joe Berk

The Basque Museum is a small museum in downtown Boise. It covers the history of the Basque people in Idaho as well as other parts of the United States. We enjoyed our visit.

When I first moved to southern California in 1979, the Inland Empire (the area that stretches from Pomona to San Bernardino and maybe a little beyond) still had large wide open areas. You could still see shepherds with their multicolored coats, shepherd crooks, and sheep out in the fields that are now covered by cookie-cutter tract homes and shopping malls. Who are these people, I asked. Oh, those are the Basque shepherds, my coworkers at General Dynamics told me. You have to go with us to lunch at the Basque restaurant in Chino, they told me. I still had no idea or sense of who the Basque really were.

What I’ve since learned (amplified greatly by our visit to the Basque Museum in Boise) is that the Basque region includes several provinces in northern Spain and southwest France. The Basque have their own language (known as Euskera or Basque), and for a number of reasons (primarily related to economics, persecution, and politics), a large Basque diaspora created Basque communities in other parts of the world. One such community is here in southern California, another is in the Boise area. In fact, the Boise area has the largest concentration of Basque people in the United States. The Basque country in Europe has a coastline, fertile areas for farming, and good grazing lands for sheep. This led to a unique Basque food culture.

The Basque in Idaho also enjoyed a connection to Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway became aware of the Basque in 1923 while he was a Toronto Star reporter writing about the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona (that’s the famed running of the bulls). In his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway also wrote about the festival. It was one of Hemingway’s earliest writings showing an appreciation for the Basque culture, which emerged in his later writings in Cuba and Idaho.

The Basque Museum is a worthwhile stop. It’s located at 611 West Grove Street in Boise, and it’s open Tuesday through Saturday.

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Product Review: Caldwell Shooting Accessories

By Joe Berk

This blog includes four Caldwell shooting accessory reviews:

Caldwell Rock Deluxe Shooting Rest

Caldwell makes several different models of forward rifle rests. The one that makes the most sense to me is the Caldwell Rock Deluxe Shooting Rest. It has what I want in a rifle rest and at $102 it is reasonably priced (as much as anything can be considered reasonably priced in our inflationary times). It includes the forward rifle pad and it is adjustable for height, tilt, and squeeze on the pad. The features are explained in the photos below.

Rifle height off the bench is adjustable by the large black adjusting collar on the center shaft.

The top right arrow points to the height adjustment. Once the height is set, it should be locked in place with the locking screw denoted by the arrow on the lower right. The arrow on the center right points to one of three height and tilt adjustments on each leg of the rifle rest tripod mount. These are also capable of being locked in place. The arrow on the left points to one of two knobs that adjust squeeze on the padded forearm rest.

Another view of the Caldwell Rock Deluxe Shooting Rest. The upper arrow points to one of the two rest cushion squeeze knobs; the lower arrow points to the height adjustment lock.

About the only thing I don’t like about the Caldwell Rock Deluxe Shooting Rest is that the cushion lining will peel off with continuous use. It’s not a big deal and Caldwell sells replacement cushions. Or, you could just cover the worn area with duct tape, which is what I will probably do at some point. The amount of wear you see on mine (in the photos above) has remained relatively stable for a couple of years now, so maybe it won’t wear anymore.

The Mini 14 resting on the Caldwell Rock Deluxe Shooting Rest. This photo also shows the Garmin chronograph, which I’ll review in a future blog.

If you purchase the Caldwell Rock Deluxe Shooting Rest on Amazon, be careful to make sure that you order what you see here. When writing this blog, I noticed that Amazon has an error in their ad for The Rock Junior, which is a smaller and less expensive model. In the Amazon ad, they show the Caldwell Rock Deluxe Shooting Rest, but what they describe (and what they have for the price) is actually the lower tier Rock Junior.

Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag

I’ll write about two Caldwell rear rifle rests here. The first is the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag, which is the lower of the two rear rests I’ll describe here. I’ve mostly used this one until recently, when I bought the other model (and I’ll get to that in a second).

The problem with this version of the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag is that it is too low. One option is to lower the Caldwell Rock Deluxe to bring the rifle back on target, but that means you have to get all scrunched up leaning down on the bench (something that adversely affects accuracy for my shooting). The other approach is to put a block under the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag (I use an empty 100-round MTM .45 ACP ammo container). That gets the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag to just the right height for me and it makes for a more comfortable bench rest shooting position.

The Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag and the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag side by side. The C is taller than the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag.

The other rear rest I’ll describe is the Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag.

The Ruger GSR resting on the Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag.

Same shot, different rifle. This is the Mini 14.

The Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag gets the rifle up to a comfortable level for bench rest shooting. In fact, the height is about the same as the Caldwll with a block beneath it, as I described above. I ordered it because I saw some of my bench rest buddies using it at the West End Club and I thought it would be more stable than the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag with an empty ammo container underneath. But the jury is still out.

The Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag and the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag with an empty ammo container beneath it. Both elevate the rear of the rifle to about the same height. I think the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag with the empty ammo box is more stable.

So far, I found I can shoot tighter groups using the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag with an empty ammo box than I can using the Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag. I think there’s two reasons for that. The first is that the Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag, as delivered, is (in my opinion) overstuffed with filler beads. Its bottom is not flat, and I found my rifle wants to roll either left or right, requiring me to hold it where I want it (which induces a bit of unsteadiness. I suppose I could let some of the Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag filler material out to get it sit flat on the bench, but I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet. The other thing I don’t like is that the Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag has a larger footprint than the Caldwell. When I shoot off the bench, I wrap my left arm around the base of the rear rest. I find that it’s easier to to that with the Caldwell Rear Shooting Bag and an empty ammo box than it is with the Caldwell Rear Medium High Bag. That’s just me; your mileage may vary.

Caldwell Brass Trap

If you own a Mini 14 (or any semi-automatic rifle) and you go to the range, you need a Caldwell Brass Trap. Especially with a Mini 14; they throw brass far enough and hard enough to dent cars. Don’t ask me how I know.

You’ll need to have some kind of a clamp to secure the Caldwell Brass Trap to the shooting bench. I bought the one you see here on Amazon. They were three to a pack. I’ve only ever used one.

A couple of mags’ worth of .223 in the Caldwell Brass Trap.

There are two things I don’t like about the Caldwell Brass Trap. Sometimes the brass being ejected bounces off the heat resistant netting and gets flung forward of the firing line. This happens maybe 5 percent of the time. It’s not a big deal; I just wait for the next line break to retrieve my spent brass. The other thing I didn’t like is those clamps make it easy to store the Caldwell Brass Trap out of sight and out of mind. I clamped my first Caldwell Brass Trap to one of the 2x8s that run across the ceiling of my ammo factory (i.e., my garage). One day when I was going to the range with my Mini 14, I looked all over for the Brass Trap and couldn’t find it. Now I have two. Wouldn’t you know it? The day the second Caldwell Brass Trap arrived from Amazon, I looked up in my little ammo factory and saw the first one.

So how did I do with the GSR and the Mini 14 the day before I wrote this blog? Just so so. Some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you. But I still had fun. Every day on the range is a good day for me, and if you’re reading this, it probably is for you, too.

100 yards with the GSR and its open sights. The load is one that was tailored for the M1A; it shoots a scosh low in the GSR. I could adjust for it, but the GSR shoots better with a different load, and my GSR sights are adjusted for it.

A 100-yard Mini 14 group with 62-grain Hornady bullets and ARComp powder. I’ve done better and I’ve done worse. Even though it’s not a great group, it’s good enough for minute-of-bad-guy.

Do you have a copy yet?

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The Idaho Military Museum

By Joe Berk

Our Idaho exploration continued with a visit to the Idaho Military Museum, which near Boise’s airport. The Museum is small but intense, with a single large room containing many exhibits, and an outdoor area containing armored vehicles and aircraft. I think the best way to present this story is with captioned photos. Have fun reviewing them; I sure had fun taking them.

The view inside the Idaho Military Museum.

A GAU-8/A, which is a 7-barreled, 30mm A-10 cannon. These guns fire 30mm at either 4200 or 2100 shots per minute. I used to be an engineer with Aerojet Ordnance, where we manufactured ammo for this beast.

Both Honeywell and Aerojet manufactured A-10 ammunition. This round was manufactured by Aerojet. Aerojet’s cartridges featured two nylon rotating bands on the projectile.

A water-cooled M1917 .30 06 machine gun. The thick jacket around the barrel contained water that kept the gun cool.

One of several military rifle displays. The Idaho Military Museum has a great military surplus small arms collection. If you enjoy seeing vintage Mosins, Mausers, Springfields, and more, this is where you want to be. I sure had a good time here.

A Nagant revolver. These guns featured a complex approach to sealing the barrel-to-cylinder gap. It’s a brilliant solution to a problem that doesn’t exist..

More military rifles on display. See the round silver disk in the Mauser’s stock? It’s a feature for disassembling the bolt.

The Idaho Military Museum has two large military ship models. This is the USS Ronald Reagan.

The USS New Jersey. The actual New Jersey battleship was recently refurbished at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. If you ever get a chance to tour a US battleship, don’t pass it by. These behemoths are awesome.

A Soviet machine gun. These fire the same 7.62x54R cartridges used in my Mosin-Nagant rifles.

A US M-60 machine gun. These are heavy, but I used to love lugging these around when I was in the Army. Firing them is an experience.

The M-72 Light Anti-Tank Weapon, or LAW. It was our version of a rocket propelled grenade. The Army had to take these out of service, When the telescopic launch tube was extended, it sometimes pulled the warhead off the rocket motor, with the result being an explosion in the tube when the thing was fired.

Yours truly, reflected in one of the Idaho Military Museum exhibits. That’s the M1911 .45 ACP pistol and a Claymore mine. Front Toward Enemy says it all. The bad guys sometimes turned these around, which turned the ambushers into ambushees.

An M1A Abrams Main Battle Tank outside the Idaho Military Museum. These are still in service. They are powered by a turbine engine. The prior US Army tank, the M60 that was in service when I was in the Army, had a 12-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine.

Two military jets on the Idaho Military Museum tarmac: A Soviet MIG-21 and a Korean War vintage F-86. When I was based at Kunsan AFB in the mid-1970s, the ROK Air Force was still flying the F-86.

The Idaho Military Museum is located at 4692 West Harvard Street in Boise. Admission is free. Plan on spending an hour or two there; it’s a great stop on any Idaho excursion.

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A Mecum Vintage Moto Auction!

By Joe Berk

This just in:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mecum’s Monterey Auction to Feature Exceptional Classic Motorcycles
Estimated 100 Classic, Collector and Racing Motorcycles to be Offered August 15-17.

Walworth, Wis. – July 30, 2024 – Bikers, history buffs and lovers of two-wheeled machines will want to make the trip to Monterey, California, for Mecum’s annual auction in the famed peninsula region during this year’s celebrated Car Week. In addition to the high-end selection of 600 classic and collector vehicles set to cross the Mecum auction block at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course Aug. 15-17, Mecum will also present a wide-ranging assemblage of approximately 100 historically significant motorcycles led by a very rare and unique 1957 Triumph Model Twenty-One.

As the nation’s leading seller of vintage, antique and collectible motorcycles and the host of the world’s largest vintage and antique motorcycle auction held annually in Las Vegas each January, Mecum presents motorcycle selections at every one of its many annual auctions held at locations around the country and is proud to bring the best selection of bikes to the Monterey region during Car Week year after year. Notably for motorcycle enthusiasts and collectors, the 2024 auction will boast one of the most impressive Monterey motorcycle lineups to date.

The 1957 Triumph Model Twenty-One (Lot T45), which leads this year’s motorcycle selection, boasts status as the very first unit-construction Triumph twin ever delivered and wears serial identifier H1. It was unveiled to the public in Amsterdam at the 1957 RAI exhibition—an event that dates back to 1893 when it was started as an association for the bicycle industry—as the first motorcycle to wear the “bathtub” rear body covering, meant to protect the bike/rider from the elements and modernize its appearance. Today, the historic machine features a restoration completed by marque specialist Kevin Giles of Pearland, Texas, which was completed in 2022, and it is being offered with its original Dutch registration dated April 5, 1957.

Several motorcycles will also be offered from the personal collection of Brad Lackey, winner of the 1982 500cc World Motocross Championship and American Motorcycle Association (AMA) Hall of Fame Inductee. After retirement from the race track, Lackey excelled in the collecting and restoration of historically significant and race-winning machines, and he’ll be presenting five of his finest at the Monterey auction. The selection ranges from a trio of Bultaco singles to a 1982 Kawasaki SR250 (Lot S145) that is one of only three true factory works motorcycles hand built by Kawasaki in Japan for the U.S. factory race team, and it today boasts a restoration by factory Kawasaki mechanics.

No motorcycle auction would be complete without a Harley-Davidson in the mix, and Monterey has an exceptional one in store: Jimmy “Daredevil” Washburn’s 1932 Harley-Davidson VL Stuntbike (Lot F10.) The famed performer and Evel Knievel of his day purchased this bike new and employed its use throughout his 28-year career.

Consignments are still being accepted for the Mecum Monterey 2024 auction, and bidder registration will remain open through the duration of the event. For more information on Mecum Monterey 2024 and all other scheduled Mecum auctions, visit Mecum.com or call (262) 275-5050.

# # #
Mecum Auctions
Communications Department
Breeann Poland
bpoland@mecum.com

More info on the cars and motorcycles up for auction is available here. It’s worth a click just to see the photos!

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The Yanke Motor Museum

By Joe Berk

Talk about a hidden gem and a great destination: The Yanke Motor Museum in Boise, Idaho is about as good as it gets. There’s precious little information on the Internet about it, but trust me, it’s worth seeing. It’s not widely publicized and you can’t just roll up and visit its treasures; admission is by appointment only. My advice is to make the run to Boise and make the effort to get an appointment. The Yanke Motor Museum contains a world class automobile, motorcycle, tractor, and musical instrument collection.

A 1924 Packard convertible is one of the first vintage cars you encounter upon entering the Yanke Motor Museum.

As you know from reading this blog, I’m a big fan of car and motorcycle museums, and I never heard of the Yanke Motor Museum. It’s the only automotive museum in Idaho, and it never appeared on my radar before. I only came across it because I Googled “motorcycle museums in Boise.” Some of the Internet services won’t tell you that it’s by appointment only, but that’s the deal. Further complicating things, some of the GPS programs get the directions wrong. We used Waze to find the address and it worked.

There is a lot to see at the Yanke Motor Museum. We were lucky: Sue and I had the place to ourselves. We made an appointment and new good buddy Tyler (one of the curators) pulled up just as we entered the parking lot. Tyler was in a silver Subaru WRX, so I liked him right away. He opened the place just for us, and then he had to walk around turning all the lights on (and he flipped a lot of switches to do that). The place is huge.

A 1957 Cadillac. This is a beautiful car. I was 6 years old when it rolled off the assembly line.

I didn’t quite know what to expect because when we entered the main display area (after walking through a collection of musical instruments), I at first saw mostly automobiles. They were impressive and they were plentiful (see the Packard and drop-dead-gorgeous pink Cadillac above), with the odd motorcycle parked here and there. There was a Ural and a couple of Harley dressers, so I asked Tyler if there were more motorcycles. He smiled and pointed me toward another hall. Wow, were there ever! In fact, my back started bothering me lugging my boat-anchor Nikon D810 and 24-120 lens around to get the photos you see here, but it was worth it.

A Ural with a sidecar. Good buddy Dan owns one of these.

Before we got to the main motorcycle hall, we saw several more interesting motorcycles and the odd trike or two. There was a ’37 SS Jag replicar. It was flanked by a stunning cherry red Harley Servi-Car and a custom flathead Ford trike with Offenhauser heads.

A flathead Ford trike. Check out the front brake.

A custom in every sense of the word. The workmanship is stunning.

Offenhauser heads. Offy also made complete 4-cylinder engines. Think decades of Indy 500 dominance.

One last view of the flattie trike. Even the tires are beautiful.

Susie and I were blown away by the classic cars and the multiple motorcycles we encountered at the Yanke Motor Museum, and we hadn’t even made it to the motorcycle room yet. In the main hall, classic motocross and other bikes were scattered among the cars and other vehicles.

I once had a friend who thought a Bultaco was a Mexican food item. No kidding.

There was a flatbed truck with a Harley XLCR Cafe Racer, a vintage Indian Chief, and a vintage Harley.

I could have bought a new ’77 XLCR just like this one for $3,000, but I couldn’t justify spending $3,000 for a motorcycle back then. I don’t know who I thought I had to justify it to.

When we entered the motorcycle room, it was like being a kid in a candy shop. No, wait, I take that back. I used to be a kid in a candy shop six or seven decades ago. This was better. Just about everything imaginable was there if you are looking for cool motorcycles. Desert racers, WW II military Harley 45s, modern bikes, custom bikes, vintage Harleys, vintage Indians, scooters, Whizzers, vintage flat track and flathead Harley race bikes, and more. The Nikon was giving me fits weighing heavily on my lower back, and leaning over to get macro engine shots was getting downright painful, but I didn’t care. Susie had an Advil, I swallowed it, and the photo safari continued. I was on a mission. Anything and everything for our ExNotes readers…that’s our mantra.

In the motorcycle room…check out the Army 45s.

A 1934 74-cubic-inch Harley VLD flathead, another stunning motorcycle.

Harley-Davidson flathead flat track racing motorcycles.

Ah, the patina! Check out the steel shoe!

An Army 45 in decidedly non-Army colors.

The Yanke Motor Museum also contained some cool military stuff, including Jeeps and a few cannons. Cannons!

The same action as a Ruger No. 1. A classic falling block concept.

A custom scope mount for direct fire. This thing must be a hoot to shoot. Folks at the Museum reload for it.

I thought it couldn’t possibly get any better, but when I peeked into an adjoining room I spotted several 37mm and 25mm projectiles in various stages of the reloading process. Imagine that: Reloading for your own cannons! There’s no doubt about it: The folks who own and run the Yanke Motor Museum are our kind people.

Ron and Linda Yanke started the Museum. An extremely successful entrepreneur, Ron is unfortunately no longer with us. The Yanke family started the business empire with a machine shop. Ron Yanke expanded the business holdings to sawmills, an air charter service, a firefighting equipment manufacturer, extensive timberland holdings, several real estate companies, a mechanical contracting firm, a manufactured housing company, and a couple of banks. He was one of three original investors in Micron Technology, the world’s second-largest memory chip manufacturer.

The Yanke Motor Museum is located at 1090 Boeing Street in Boise, Idaho. If you want to get in, here’s the web address that will get you started.

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Old Idaho State Penitentiary

By Joe Berk

I don’t know what it is about prisons that fascinates us. Susie and I have been on three prison tours (the Old Idaho State Penitentiary, the topic of this blog, is our third; the earlier two were Alcatraz and the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville). It’s not just us; abandoned prison tours are a hot ticket and Hollywood loves to do prison movies. The Shawshank Redemption was a hugely successful film (I watch it every time it’s on the tube), and Netflix is currently running Orange is the New Black (don’t waste your time on that one). Google the topic “Why we love prison shows” and the Internet will light up with underlying psychological reasons: The ultimate loss of control, the inherent brutality of man, surviving after losing everything, etc. But that’s enough armchair psychology…let’s get on to the topic of this blog: The Old Idaho State Penitentiary.

The entrance to the Old Idaho State Prison. The warden’s office was immediately on the left as you entered.

Idaho (actually, Idaho convicts) built the Old Idaho State Penitentiary in 1870. The construction was sandstone mined from the hills surrounding Boise. It held prisoners for 101 years, and during that time, this old prison had its share of escapes, executions, and experiences that make for an interesting tour. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Old Idaho State Penitentiary is that the grounds are so beautiful. It’s more like a botanical garden than a prison.

The landscaping is magnificent. Wandering the grounds, it almost feels like a college campus (with, of course, solitary confinement and Death Row).

Another scene from inside the prison grounds.

One of our fellow tourists asked our guide, Eric Overzet, if the grounds were as nice when prisoners were housed there as they are today. Eric told us they were.

The first structure we entered was the prison’s multi-purpose building. It served a number of functions, including being a shirt factory, a shoe shop and then a shoe factory, a bakery, a license plate shop, the laundry, a hobby room, and a loafing room. It also housed the prison showers.

Inside the prison’s multi-purpose building. The prison showed movies here, too.

The prison’s shoe and bakery outputs were particularly successful after they started selling to the public, and to hear Eric tell it, they made a hell of a product for a very low price. The Idaho State Penitentiary manufactured shoes that cost a fraction of what store-bought shoes cost, and they lasted much longer. The shoes were so good the prison worked itself out of the market. They saturated the Boise shoe market and the business folded. Other ventures were more successful. When the prison bakery started selling donuts to the public, word quickly spread that they were the best donuts in town. The prison produced 4,000 donuts a day. People lined up outside the prison to buy them. A lot of donut sales were to police officers (some of whom probably put the guys who made the donuts in prison).

Next we toured the cell blocks. Things looked bleak. You wouldn’t want to live in a place like this.

Eric Overzet sharing stories of prison operation and famous prisoners.

The different halls had different kinds of cells. This cell housed four people.

We saw the levers that opened and closed the cell doors. Seeing them was like seeing a scene out of a movie. As a retired mechanical engineer and all-around gearhead, I enjoyed seeing the mechanism. Everything operated mechanically; there was no software or any of the other intangible things we would use today.

The locking devices were patented in 1897. The Pauly Jail Building Company is still in business today.

Levers for opening selected cell doors or all cell doors at the same time.

There are five prison halls in the Idaho State Penitentiary, and several different forms of “special housing” (i.e., solitary confinement). I couldn’t remember all the ones Eric described, but one stuck in my mind: A set of underground 4 ft by 4 ft by 4 ft cubes for solitary confinement. There were hatches at ground level through which a prisoner entered. It was hot when we were there. I can’t imagine what it must have been like in those little boxes in Idaho in the summer, nor can I imagine what it must have been like in the freezing winter months. In 1909, inspectors from the State of Idaho decided these 4 ft cubes were too cruel for human confinement and directed the prison to stop using them. The prison told the inspectors they agreed, and then they continued to use the little punishment boxes until well into the 1950s.

Another set of solitary confinement cells were known as “Siberia.”

No shoes, no shirt, no service, and most definitely, no loafing.

As one might expect, the execution chamber and Death Row are areas that get the most attention. When the Old Idaho State Prison was in operation, hanging was the only execution method. Idaho uses lethal injection today, but when good old-fashioned hanging was in vogue the execution chamber was designed around it. The noose hung from a mount in the ceiling, with the trap directly below it. I shot these photos from the witness gallery window.

Idaho uses lethal injection today; there are currently 8 men and 1 woman on Idaho’s Death Row. The modern Idaho State Penitentiary is just south of Boise; the women’s prison is in Pocatello, Idaho. When the Old Idaho State Penitentiary was in business, both men and women were imprisoned there (separately, of course).

The trap that dropped the condemned to their death.

You may want to go back up to the featured photo at the top of this blog. Old Tony Grooms (featured in that picture) was a real bad boy. There were several placards explaining the crimes of occupants in different cells and what they did while in prison. Old Tony had acid splashed in his eyes and convinced the prison guards he was blind. The guards figured it out when nurses were in the prison for a medical emergency and they saw Tony following them with his eyes. I can’t tell that story as well as our guide Eric can; that’s a good reason for you to visit the Old Idaho State Penitentiary.

We enjoyed the Old Idaho State Prison tour. You can also do a self-guided tour, but we were lucky. We arrived just as Eric’s tour was about to start. My advice is to go for the guided tour. Eric was a magnificent guide and entertaining storyteller, and he knows a lot about the place. We would not have gotten as much out of the tour just wandering around by ourselves.

The Old Idaho State Penitentiary is in Boise’s Historical District at 2445 Old Penitentiary Road. Admission is only $8. The guided tour is another $2, and that’s a hell of a deal.

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