Author: Joe Berk

Making Scents of things..

I started writing this bit thinking that I had a good idea for a series of men’s colognes.  Then I realized:  In my entire 68+ years on this planet, I’ve never used cologne, and I can’t remember hanging around any guys who ever did.  So I started thinking…my thoughts for this blog hovered around aromas I enjoy, so maybe these should be women’s colognes.   Whatever.  There’s a request at the end:  We’d like to know your thoughts, too.  Got any suggestions?

In-N-Out.  I can’t drive by an In-N-Out Burger during business hours without inhaling that delightfully inviting aroma of grilled onions, beef, French fries, and the other good things the In-N-Out folks have assembled into what is unquestionably the best meal in town.  And every time I do, I have to fight the temptation to pull in and get an Animal Style burger.  A perfume capturing this fragrance might be the best advertising for In-N-Out ever.   It would drive me nuts.  Here’s my vote for the name:  Oil of In-N-Out.  Or maybe Eau de In-N-Out. Whaddaya think?

WD-40.  Ah, another great fragrance.   It actually stands for Water Displacement No. 40, and that’s because it’s the 40th formulation the WD-40 company tried before they arrived at the perfect compound for displacing water, acting as a lubricant (no emails, please; I know it’s not a replacement for gun oil), a cleaner, and Lord only knows what else.  WD-40 is the kiss of death around any kind of epoxy bonding, soldering, or welding operation (in fact, many of my failure analysis activities centered on getting WD-40 out of high-tech cleanroom environments), but it’s perfect for just about anything else.  And, as is the point of this blog, it smells good. It would make a great perfume, I think.  WD-40 is a silicone-based lubricant, so somehow silicone has to figure into the name.  Help me out here, folks!

Sausage and Peppers.   This has got to be another classic aroma.  Who has ever smelled sausage and peppers (maybe with a little onion thrown in) on the grill without getting hungry?  I love that smell and I find it inviting.   As a cologne?   Yeah, it would work.  I don’t know that I could get Sue to use it, but ladies, take my word on this….that aroma works.  The only problem might be finding the right name.  Maybe we could go Italian and call it Salcicci y Peperoni, you know, to give it a Continental flair.  Yeah, that could work.  Salcicci y Peperoni, sold in fine stores everywhere.

Hoppes No. 9.  I love that smell.  I would probably have become a gun nut even if I wasn’t fascinated by guns just to have a reason to use Hoppes No. 9.  It hints of good times past and present, and it’s an aroma that reaches back decades.   If there are any perfume or cologne companies out there reading this, pay attention to this one, folks.   You don’t need to spend big bucks on market studies or focus groups…I’m telling you, this is the one.  All I ask is that if you bring a Hoppes cologne to market, tell me about it a few weeks before you do.  I’ll buy as many shares of your stock as I can.   Eau de Hoppes.   That’s great.   Oh, yeah, I’ve used the Eau de thing already for In-N-Out.  Here’s one that’s even better:  Love Potion No. 9.  I can hear the advertising jingle already.

Fresh Cut Grass and Gasoline.   This is a weird one, but it works.  I’m remembering east coast summer evenings when I had to mow the grass back on the ranch.  The smell of gasoline and fresh cut grass somehow just works.  Maybe it’s because of the memories I have of those pleasant New Jersey summer evenings, fireflies, and mowing the lawn.   The trick was to wait until well after dinner when things cooled off, and to start early enough to get the whole thing done before it got too dark.   To twist a phrase from Robert Duvall, I love the smell of gasoline and fresh cut grass in the evening.   I’m having a bit of a problem coming up with a catchy name, though.  Any suggestions?

Two Stroke Exhaust.   I already have the perfect name for this one:  Blue Smoke.  I think it’s perfect.  Admittedly, it would have to be an acquired taste; folks either love that smell or they hate it.  I’m in the former camp.  I’ve only ever had one ring-dinger my entire life, but I remember going to the half-mile dirt track races when the 250s were running, and in those days, the 250s were all ring-dingers.  You could smell the exhaust as soon as you entered the parking lot outside the stadium back then, and it was exciting.   It promised good things to come. Yeah, this could work.

Bacon.  Hey, who doesn’t like bacon?   The challenge here is a name that doesn’t make the person wearing it sound like a porker.  Hmmm.  The Italian word for bacon is, well, bacon.  And the Italian word for lard is lardo.  Nope, neither one of those will work.  Ah, but the Spanish.  Bacon becomes tocino.   I can hear it now.  Adorn yourself with the gentle yet intoxicating and inviting fragrance of Tocino.  Indeed, that works well.

Chili.  This one is a maybe.   Personally, I love the aroma of a well-seasoned chili, especially if it’s done in a slow cooker and the flavor fills the house.  It could be beef, venison, a decent cut of wild boar, elk, whatever.  The meat is almost secondary to making a great chili.  Red chili flakes, tomatoes, onions, Anaheim chili peppers, and cumin.  Cumin’s the thing that makes a good chili great.   Maybe that could be the name.  Cumin.   Yeah, I like it.   Cumin.  Put a little spice in your life.  What do you think?

Coffee.  The best coffee in the world comes from Puerto Rico.  If you don’t believe me on this, I don’t care.  I know.  Two Popes ago, Pope John (that’s right, the guy in the Vatican) used to send his jet to Puerto Rico regularly to pick up coffee.  I’ve been in Colombia, and while their coffee is good, it’s not Puerto Rican coffee (no offense, Juan Valdez).   But any coffee will do first thing in the morning (even Gresh’s powdered Nescafe), and I think everyone can agree (regardless of where you fall on the political or geographic spectrum) that a strong coffee fragrance early in the morning has to be one of the best aromas on the planet.  They wouldn’t make coffee-flavored ice cream if coffee wasn’t a good idea.  And (get this) if you came out with a coffee perfume, the distribution network is already in place. It’s called Starbucks.

So there you have it.  Did I miss any?  Hey, let me know in the comments section below.  Operators are standing by…

Dropped bikes…

This is a blog I wrote maybe 15 years ago for a  friend who dropped a very expensive motorcycle while putting it on the sidestand. He was really upset with himself and I thought he might enjoy hearing about the times I dropped my bikes. I stopped writing after the fifth or sixth memory because I was laughing so hard I thought I might hurt myself.  This particular blog has made the rounds…it’s been on my original photosite (motofoto.cc, which went by the wayside a long time ago), and the CSC Motorcycles blog, and now this one.

So, here goes….

Drop Number 1 – Impromptu Stargazing

My friend Louie and I were wrapping up a hard 500-mile day through Arizona back in the 1990s. I know what you are thinking….500 miles is not that much for a solid day’s riding, but it was brutally hot in the way that only Arizona can be in the summertime. I was on my vintage Honda CBX and Lou was on his Gold Wing. We stopped for gas and Louis filled up first. While I was filling up the CBX, Lou rode over to the air hose to top off his tires. I filled my tank, fired up the CBX, and rode over to Lou, paralleling the sidewalk.  I put my kickstand down and started to lean the CBX over.

The next thing I knew I was staring at the stars. I had no idea what happened for a few seconds, and then I realized:  I had fallen off my motorcycle, and I was laying on my back looking up at the evening sky!

The first thought that went through my mind was: “Did anyone see me do this?”

I hadn’t even been drinking! How could that have happened?

Well, what happened was this: When I extended the sidestand, the sidestand hit the curb before it fully extended and it didn’t go all the way forward. And then, when I leaned the CBX over, it just kept on going.

Total damage? One turn signal lens cover, one scratched fairing, and lots of lost pride.

Drop Number 2 – Lock-to-Lock Has Meaning

This time, I was easing into my own driveway on my 2-week-old Suzuki TL1000S. Gorgeous bike. Bright red. A real rocketship. As I made the sharp turn into the driveway, I turned the forks to keep my balance. Lock-to-lock turning (you know, how far you can push the bars from one side to the other) on the Suzuki is waaaay less than any motorcycle I had ever ridden.   And as it turns out (pardon the pun), that really makes a difference when you’re trying to balance a bike at low speeds.

The bottom line? I couldn’t turn the bars far enough to keep my balance at low speed.

The results? BAM! Suddenly, the TL and I were both on our sides in my own driveway!

The first thought that went through my mind was “Did anyone see me do this?”

Total damage? One scratched fairing and lots of lost pride. Lots and lots of lost pride.

Drop Number 3 – Them Darn Sidestands Again

A couple of weeks after Drop Number 2, I was letting my now 4-week-old, slightly-scratched TL1000S warm up in the driveway. The bike was on its sidestand, facing south. Just past my garage door, the driveway slopes down ever so slightly. Really slightly. I mean, hardly any slope at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the Suzuki move forward a bit. Nah, I thought, it’s gotta be an optical illusion.

Two seconds later: BAM! The Suzuki was on its side!

Wow, I thought, this thing sure likes laying down in my driveway.

My next thought: “Did anyone see me do this?”

The results? I couldn’t tell. The fairing was scratched, but maybe it was the same scratch from 2 weeks ago. No lost pride this time, but lots of cussing about Suzuki engineering and lousy sidestands.

Drop Number 4 – Dismounting As An Olympic Event

This time I was winding out my 4-month old TL1000S on the road from my brother-in-law’s place. Wowee, I thought, this thing is fast. I must have hit 80 miles an hour when I realized I gotta slow down. That Suzuki slipper clutch works great, I thought…. just keep downshifting and it’s almost like an ABS system on the rear wheel. Hmmh, that curve is coming up awful fast. Maybe I’ll just give it a touch of front brake.

Uh oh, I thought as I unloaded the rear wheel when I got on the front brake. That corner is really coming up fast now, and the back end is fishtailing all over the place. I almost had that sucker stopped when the front wheel just touched the curb. Down we both went, again. I executed a precision somersault as I departed controlled flight and rolled up into a sitting position.

The first thought that went through my mind was “Did anyone see me?”

This time, the answer was yes. There was a lady in a station wagon, who stopped and asked “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, lady, I did that on purpose.” I didn’t know what else to say.

The results? I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was just the same scratched fairing. Again, lots and lots of lost pride. No injuries, though. My lucky day.

Drop Number 5 – The Prize Winner

This time I was changing the front tire on the CBX in my garage. I put the bike on the center stand and removed the front wheel. Bikes with center stands are great, I thought. Once I had the front wheel off I started thinking about the replacement tire. I used Bridgestone Spitfires on that bike and they were great. I decided I would get the raised white letter Spitfire tires this time. That would really look cool.

Well, I thought, if I do that I have to get the back tire to match. So, I thought, I might as well take the back wheel off, too. I’ll just get them both changed at the same time.

This is the point at which things took a decided turn for the worse. And, I’ll admit to having already had a few beers. What could I have possibly been thinking?

Well, I guess I was still thinking about how cool raised white letter tires would look on my pearl white CBX, and I started to remove the rear wheel. The rear axle bolt was on really tight. I decided I needed to get a bigger wrench, you know, more leverage, that sort of thing. I thought I might as well get another beer while I was up, too. I grabbed another beer, got the longer wrench, found the leverage I was looking for…and…..and…

Uh, oh, the CBX started to roll forward off the center stand, and, whoa, there was no front wheel there….funny how everything seemed to be happening in slow motion at that point.

The moral of this one? If you’re gonna screw up, screw up big time. Why just drop a bike when can find a way to drop it so that it falls over into your wife’s brand new car?  Yep, that’s what it did.  Creased it nicely.   “That won’t polish out,” I remember thinking.

The bottom line? One dinged-up sports sedan, one thoroughly upset wife, one busted and cracked CBX oil pan (an item no longer made by Honda), oil all over the garage floor, and the certain knowledge that while center stands are good, they are not that good….

So, if you’ve ever dropped your bike, don’t feel too bad. It happens to all of us.  Sometimes more than once.

If you’ve got a story about dropping your bike, please add it to the comments section.  We’d love to hear from you!

The Three Flags Classic: The Run Home

So there we were in Calgary.  Wow.  And we’d ridden there on our motorcycles through all three countries (Mexico, the United States, and Canada).  It had been a grand ride, but it was only half the trip.   Now, it was time after a fun two days in Calgary for the ride home.

Before diving into our ride home, though, you might want to catch up on the ride to Calgary.   Here are the first seven installments of our story on the 2005 Three Flags Classic…

The 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally:  the Intro!
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 1
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 2
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 3
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 4
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 5
The Three Flags Classic:  Calgary

And now, on to the run home!

The plan after the events in Calgary was to select our own route home and ride it at our own pace.  The official portion of the 2005 Three Flags Classic was over.  It had been a blast.  On the run home we would decide where to go, how to get there, and how long to take doing it.   Our plan was to head west across Canada from Calgary toward British Columbia, turn left somewhere above Washington, meander over to the coast somewhere after Portland, and follow the Pacific coast home.   It was to be another grand adventure, and wow, we were having fun!

On the first morning out of Calgary, we stopped in Banff and had a great breakfast. Smoked salmon and eggs, as I recall.  It was delicious.

The road through Banff. It was a crisp morning and the riding was great.
We walked around in Banff a bit after breakfast. This bear skull was for sale in a store window.
Good buddy Marty posing with the 1200 Daytona in Banff.

The ride that morning was beyond glorious.  Crisp, clean air, cool temperatures, and all was well with the world.   The big 1200 Daytona was running superbly well and the scenery was magnificent.  Every scene was a picture postcard, and I caught a lot of them.  Incidentally, all of the photos you see in this story were shot with film.  I had my Nikon N70 with me and just two lenses (the 24-120 Nikon, and a 17-35 Sigma).  Great scenery, great photo gear, a great motorcycle, and great photo ops.  Life was good.  It still is.

After that great breakfast in Banff and a bit of walking around, were back on the road headed west across Canada.  Our next stop was Lake Louise.

The Lake Louise Hotel.
The Lake Louise Hotel lobby, courtesy of the 17-35 Sigma lens. This place looked very expensive. In our dead-bug-encrusted road gear, we looked out of place.
A statue near Lake Louise, erected by the Canadian Pacific Railway, honoring the Swiss Mountain guides.  When building the railroad through the Rockies, the Canadian Pacific Railroad needed guys who knew how to find their way around in this kind of terrain. They bought mountain guides in from Switzerland.
Lake Louise. It gets its greenish hue from glacial silt.
The road crew in front of Lake Louise.
There were signs around Lake Louise advising us to be on the lookout for grizzlies. Wow!

We continued heading west and then south through Canada, and we spent the night in Penticton, about an hour north of the border. Penticton is an interesting resort town, complete with a large lake and a casino. I had a smoked salmon pizza for dinner. Love that smoked salmon.

We crossed the border early and re-entered the U.S. into Washington. We were honking along pretty good, not 30 minutes into the U.S., when a Washington State Patrol officer pulled us over for speeding.  It was early, maybe 6:30 in the morning, and the officer was heading north when we were heading south.  He lit us up as he passed by, I saw him do a “Smokey and the Bandit” u turn in my rear view mirror, and we pulled over immediately.  The officer pulled up behind us.  When we took our helmets off, he looked at us and said, “Ah, old guys,” while shaking his head.  He told us to slow down.  The trooper was an old guy, too.  I think he felt a connection.  No citation.  We chatted a bit.  We were lucky.  Yeah, I’m an old guy, but riding that Triumph always made me feel like I was 18 years old.  “I don’t know why you boys aren’t getting tickets today,” the trooper said and then he told us to ride safely.  His strategy worked. We rode across Washington at a sedate 60 mph for the rest of the day. It took forever.

Somewhere north of Yakima, Washington.

We stopped in Goldendale, Washington, for a cup of coffee in a local bar, chatted with the locals for a while, and then we had one of the most scenic rides I’ve ever taken.  It was to be one of the best parts of the ride, and it was through the Columbia River Gorge.  The roads and the scenery were incredible.  It was the first time I’d ever seen it, and I’ve been back there several times since.  It was an area I knew I had to include when we hosted the Chinese for the ride through the American West, and I wrote a piece about the region for Motorcycle Classics magazine.  The Colombia River Gorge is one of my favorite places in the world.

Marty, headed into the Columbia River Gorge.

We rode along the north side of the Columbia River for about half the length of Washington, and then we crossed into Oregon on the Bridge of the Gods. It was probably 300 feet above the river, and it was one of those iron mesh bridges that you can look down and see all the way to the river.  It looked and felt like I was flying, and it was unnerving.  I looked down once and that was enough for me.  We then found our way into Portland, and checked into a hotel I knew from a previous business trip.

Portland, looking out over the Willamette River.

Portland is a very cool town.  Marty and I had fun exploring it, and in particular, stopping for lunch at the Olympian.  I later did a story on the Olympian, too, for Motorcycle Classics.  The Olympian has a fantastic vintage motorcycle collection.

Kelly’s Olympian Bar. This is a cool place to have a drink.
Inside the Olympian. It’s a “must see” spot on any ride through Portland.

We left Portland before sunrise early the next morning and headed southeast toward the coast.  Oregon is a wet state. We had a lot of mist in the morning riding through the rain forest, and it was eerie.  I half expected to see Sasquatch jump out and grab me every time I wiped my face shield.  Then, we arrived at the Oregon Coast Highway, and yep, that ultimately became a story gracing the pages of Motorcycle Classics, too.

Sasquatch is down there somewhere.
Hippy Bob, who we met on Oregon’s Pacific Coast Highway.

The people you meet are the best part of any motorcycle ride, and on the Oregon Coast Highway, we met a guy who introduced himself as Hippy Bob.  Hippy Bob had hit the Oregon lottery for $5,000 and he immediately bought a Harley basket case for $4,500.  Bob was taking his time working his way down the coast from Portland on that motorcycle (Bob had been on the road for two days when we met him, and he had only traveled about 200 miles south of Portland in that time).  I was really interested in Hippy Bob’s motorcycle, as I hadn’t seen a Shovelhead Harley on the road in years.  His was a 1981 model. I used to own a 1979 Electra-Glide (with the Shovelhead motor), and I called it an optical illusion because it only looked like a motorcycle.  Things were constantly breaking on my Harley.  I asked Bob if he had any problems with his Shovelhead, and that opened the floodgates.  Bob just went on and on about the nonstop challenges he had faced keeping his Harley running.  He was still talking about it when we left.

We rode the Coast Highway all the way south to Highway 138, and someone told us to watch for the elk further east.  We did, and wow, were we ever impressed.

Wow.
Wow again!
A bambino.

We spent the next night in Roseburg. The hotel was literally next door to the Roseburg Harley-Davidson dealer. We looked at the new 2006 Harleys (it was the first time I had seen them, and they looked good). I bought a Roseburg Harley T-shirt.  There’s that old joke…you know, for a T-shirt company, they make a pretty good motorcycle…

Our destination the next morning was Crater Lake. Was it ever cold that morning!  We rode through more beautiful scenery, but the temperatures were damn near debilitating.  I need to tell you that we had been seeing signs warning of elk crossings for much of our time through Washington in Oregon, but the only elk was had seen so far were the ones off Highway 138.  I had mentally dismissed the elk warning signs until what happened that morning.  We saw another elk warning sign, I was trying to stay warm with my electric vest cranked up all the way, and then all of a sudden about 300 yards further up the road, the largest elk I ever saw stepped in front of us.  I stopped, Marty stopped, and the elk stood broadside, just staring at us.  He was daring us to proceed.  That bull owned the road.  He knew it, and he wanted to make sure we knew it, too.

Now, you have to picture this scene.  We were the only ones out there, having a staring contest with this elk that was the size of a house, on a bright sunny freezing morning.  Steam was coming out of the elk’s nostrils, and mine, too.   I flipped my visor up because it was fogging over.  The elk stared at me.  I stared at it, wondering if I could get the bike turned around if the elk charged.  I could see the headlines:  Motorcyclist Gored to Death By Enraged Elk.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the elk looked away from us, crossed the highway, and disappeared into the forest on the other side.   I started to let my clutch out, and then a female bounded out of the forest on the right and followed the bull into the forest on the left.  I stopped and waited a second, and then started to roll forward.  Then another female elk appeared.  We stopped again.   They just kept coming. Big ones, little ones, more big ones, more little ones, and well, you get the idea. I realized: Those elk crossing signs are for real.

Then it was on up to Crater Lake.  It was beautiful, and it would become yet another Motorcycle Classics article.

My Daytona parked along the road circling Crater Lake.
Yep, that’s snow.  It was cold up there!

The area around Crater Lake was downright scary. There are steep drops on the side of the road, no shoulder to speak of, and no guard rails. There are lots of signs warning that you could get seriously hurt or killed up here.  On the way down, we encountered ice on the road.  I love riding; I hate riding on ice.  I was concentrating intensely when out of the corner of my eye I saw a yellow motorcycle closing in on my right rear and I remember wondering who else would be nutty enough to be up here riding on the ice, and who in the world would try passing under these conditions?  Then I realized: It wasn’t another motorcycle.  It was my motorcycle, and the ass end was sliding around.   The back end of my Triumph wasn’t going in the same direction as the front end.  That was a close one.

After Crater Lake, we buzzed down to the California border, almost got stopped for speeding again (the CHP cruiser going the other way hit us with the lights but didn’t come after us), and we made it to Davis, California. We had dinner with Marty’s son, and then headed home the next day.

A trip like this is one of life’s grand events. It’s hard to say what part of it I liked best: The camaraderie, the people we met along the way, the scenery, the riding, the wildlife, the memories, the photo opportunities, the sense of adventure, or just the sheer pleasure of being alive and out in the world.

Here’s a summary of the miles that Marty assembled:

• 9/1/05 Upland, CA to Tijuana, BC: 139
• 9/2/05 Tijuana, BC to Gallup, NM: 657
• 9/3/05 Gallup, NM to Grand Junction, CO: 419
• 9/4/05 Grand Junction, CO to Driggs, ID: 569
• 9/5/05 Driggs, ID to Whitefish, MT: 526
• 9/6/05 Whitefish, MT to Calgary, AB: 366
• Total for Three Flags: 2,676
• Miles ridden within Calgary, AB: 6
• 9/8/05 Calgary, AB to Penticton, BC: 430
• 9/9/05 Penticton, BC to Portland, OR: 468
• 9/10/05 Portland, OR to Roseburg, OR: 288
• 9/11/05 Roseburg, OR to Davis, CA: 469
• 9/12/05 Davis, CA to Upland, CA: 427
• Total for return trip: 2,082
• Total for round trip: 4,764

The Three Flags Classic Rally is one of the world’s great motorcycle rides, and if you’ve never experienced it, you might consider signing up for one of these rides.  You can get more information on the Three Flags Classic on the Southern California Motorcycle Association website.   I’ve done some great rides in my life; the Three Flags Classic was one of the best.

The 375 H&H at 100 yards…

Here’s a quick update on the .375 H&H that I promised a few posts ago.  In that post, I mentioned that I had been shooting the Remington Model 700 Safari Grade at 50 yards for my load development work, and I mentioned that I wanted to try it at 100 yards.

The Remington Safari Grade Model 700, chambered in .375 H&H Magnum.

I did, and the bottom line is that I shot the tightest groups I’ve ever shot at 100 yards using iron sights (i.e., not a scope).   Take a look.

Two 3-shot groups fired at 100 yards, with iron sights, off the bench. The first round fired through a cold and lubricated barrel hit almost exactly to point of aim (it’s a little hard to see in the photo). Once the bore was fouled, the rifle grouped very tightly a couple of inches to the right.

My point of aim was at 6:00 on the bullseye, and the groups I shot were worthy of a scoped rifle.   I may need to adjust the rear sight to bring the group over to the left a couple of inches or so (which is a bit funny, because at 50 yards the windage seemed perfect).  The elevation is perfect; the point of impact is even with the point of aim for elevation.  When I shot those groups it was overcast, and that could account for the rifle printing a bit to the right.  Our range is aligned such that in the morning the sun is to the left, and that makes the left side of the front site a bit brighter than the right side.   Because it was overcast the day I shot the target you see above, the sunlight-induced bias wasn’t present.  That could account for the groups offset to the right.  I’ll wait and shoot it again when the sun’s out to see where the rifle hits.

I am enjoying this rifle more and more.  It’s got it all…good looks, power, and it groups like a target grade rifle.

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Reloading and Shooting Cast Bullets in the Mosin-Nagant Rifle

The Mosin-Nagant 91/30. These rifles are extremely accurate.  This one is 84 years old.

I’m a Mosin-Nagant fan, as you know from reading our prior posts on these fine old Russian warhorses.  I’ve got two, one I use with jacketed bullets and one I use exclusively with cast bullets.  Today’s blog focuses on reloading and using cast bullets in a Mosin.

So what’s the deal on cast bullets?   If you reload, you can use either factory-produced, copper-jacketed bullets, or you can use cast bullets.  Cast bullets are cast of lead, lubricated with an appropriate grease, and sometimes fitted with a gas check (a small copper cap on the back of the bullet).

The cast bullets I’ve settled on as best for my Mosin.  These are 200-grain, gas-checked bullets made by a local caster. The gas check is the little copper cap at the base of the bullet. It prevents the propellant gases from melting the bullet’s base and minimizes barrel leading.

Folks who shoot cast bullets either buy the bullets or they cast them themselves.  I used to cast bullets 40 years ago, but I found it easier just to buy them from folks who know what they are doing and avoid the hassles of melting lead, breathing the fumes, etc.

Cast bullets are a lot easier on both the rifle and the shooter.  The softer metal (lead versus a copper jacket) is easier on the rifling and the lower velocities reduce recoil.   The downsides are that the trajectory is more pronounced due to the lower velocities associated with cast bullets, and generally speaking, cast bullets are not as accurate as jacketed bullets.  But that last bit sure isn’t the case here.   My cast loads in the Mosin are every bit as accurate as jacketed loads, and the Mosin I use for cast bullets is another one of my all-time favorite rifles.  It’s the rifle you see in the first photo of this blog, and in the photos below.

My Mosin-Nagant has been worked on a bit.  I stripped and refinished the stock, I glass bedded the action, and I did a trigger job to lighten the pull and eliminate trigger creep.   It’s a great shooter.
The desirable hex receiver Mosin.   The Mosin-Nagant is an extremely accurate milsurp rifle.

My cast bullet Mosin is just flat amazing.  It regularly cloverleafs at 50 yards, and when I do my part, I’ll get groups under 2 inches at 100 yards.  Yeah, I know, other folks talk about sub-minute-of-angle shooting at that distance, but we’re talking about iron sights and cast bullets here, folks, and it’s all being done with a rifle manufactured in 1935.   And wow, can that 84-year-old puppy shoot…

Open sights, 50 yards, shooting from a benchrest at the West End Gun Club.

This kind of accuracy doesn’t just happen and it’s usually not attainable with factory ammunition.  This is what you can get when you tailor the load to a particular rifle, and you can only do that if you reload.  I developed the load used to shoot the targets you see above trying different propellants and propellant charges, different cartridge cases, and different cast bullets.  The secret sauce?  It’s this recipe right here…

My Mosin load. SR4759 is a powder that works well for reduced velocity and cast bullet loads. It’s no longer in production, but I have a stash.  When I run out of SR4759, I’ll turn to a current production powder and start the development process all over again.

Good buddy Gresh suggested I do a piece on reloading, and I actually had done that already in the form of a video some time ago.   What you’ll see in the video below is the reloading process.   When you reload a cartridge, you lube the brass, resize it to its original dimensions, prime it, flare the case mouth (to accept the cast bullet), add the propellant, and seat the bullet.  With a little bit of music taken directly from Enemy at the Gates (a movie in which the Mosin-Nagant rifle was the real star), take a look at what’s involved in reloading 7.62x54R ammo with cast bullets…

Shooting cast bullets in a rifle is a lot of fun.  A good reference if you want to try loading with cast bullets is the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook (it’s the one I use).  If you never tried reloading you might think about getting into it, and if you’re already reloading, you might think about giving cast bullets a go.

Check out our other Tales of the Gun stories!  And, don’t forget to sign up for our automatic email updates.  You might win our next quarterly adventure book giveaway!

Empire of the Summer Moon

When I’m on a road trip, I sometimes know the history of the area I’m riding through, and I sometimes do not.  I’m always wondering about it, though.  I recently finished reading Empire of the Summer Moon, and it was so good it makes me want to plan another road trip through Texas.  The cover tells what the book is about; what it doesn’t do is tell just how good this book is…

Several things amazed me as I read Empire of the Summer Moon, the first being how it could have not known of it previously.   The only reason I learned of it is that I saw Empire in an airport bookstore a couple of trips ago.

They say you can’t tell a book by its cover, but the cover on Empire appealed to me greatly.  The book was even better.  Much of the action described in it occurred in Texas (and in areas where I used to live in Texas); now I want to return, ride those roads again, and pay more attention this time.  And I will.  Just how good was this book?  Hey, when I finished it, I turned back to the beginning and started reading it again.  That’s good.

Riding China

A couple of years ago I gave a presentation on our ride across China to one of the Horizons Unlimited gatherings.    It was a 56-slide PowerPoint deal and I thought I might share it with you here.  It’s big bandwidth, so bear with me as the images load, and enjoy…

The riding was great, the friendship was even better, and the photo ops were off the charts.   Both Joe Gresh and I published stories on that adventure, too.  And don’t forget the book, Riding China.   You can buy it here!

An Aussie Salsbury

In the post-War years of the late 1940s and early 1950s, a number of scooter manufacturers emerged in the United States.   Cushman was probably the biggest one.  Mustang was the exotic one, and it was arguably the coolest bike of the bunch.   Salsbury was yet another.  Salsbury scooters were made right here in California (as was Mustang), but Salsbury production numbers were much smaller.  I’ve only ever seen three…one was at the Motor Scooter International Land Speed Trials about 10 years ago, another was at the Peterson Museum, and much to my great surprise, the third was just last month at the Motor Museum of Western Australia…

It was cool seeing a Salsbury, and doubly-cool seeing it in Australia.  Imagine that…a product made in my own back yard, and seeing it on the other side of the world in Australia.

Back in the USA

Another day, another 14-hour flight, and another week, another time zone reversal.  I love traveling to Asia; I don’t relish the thought of taking a month to get back on US time.   That’s what happens every time I travel to Asia.  When I visit China, Singapore, Thailand, or any of the places I go to in Asia, I get adjusted to Asia time in one day.  Then it takes a month when I get home to adjust to US time.  It doesn’t matter if I’m in Asia for 2 days, 40 days, or 13 months (I’ve done all three); it always takes forever to get back on our time.   I don’t think it has anything to do with direction; it has everything to do with what’s home.  My Asian friends tell me they experience the same thing…when they come to America, they’re on our time in a day or two, and then it takes them weeks to get back on their home time once they’ve returned.

This adventure was two weeks for Susie and me.  It started with 4 days in Singapore, where I taught a class to folks working in the Singaporean defense industry.  I get invited to Singapore to do that a couple of times a year; the topic this time was Failure Mode and Effects Analysis.

Singapore defense industry engineers in an FMEA course. Good times!

It’s a 17-hour flight from Los Angeles to Singapore.   You’d be surprised; it goes by quickly.  The courses are fun to do, we always do them in 5-star hotels, and Singapore is a good place to have a good time.   I watched Crazy Rich Asians on the way over during that 17-hour flight (it’s the first time I’d ever seen the movie).  I was surprised at how many of the Singapore locations I recognized in the film.  I like Singapore.

Next, it was a 5-hour flight to Perth, Australia.   You’ve read the blogs about it and the reason we went (Susie met her pen pal Adrienne for the first time).  We had a hoot.   Gresh and Baja John both told me Australia was a lot like the US, and they were right.  Still, they do have a few things we don’t…

Freemantle Prison in Western Australia.   It’s a tourist attraction today.  Back in the day, it was where the UK sent its convicts.
Pouring a gold bar in the Perth Mint. The Nikon showing off its low light level abilities here, in this case at ISO 2000.
G’day, Mate…a python in a Western Australia wildlife preserve…more low-light-level Nikon chicanery.
Tie me kangaroo down, Mate. At one of the restaurants in Sydney, I could have ordered a kangaroo burger, but I took a pass.
Kookaburra, sitting in an old gum tree. We finally met. He wasn’t laughing.

The morning we left Perth, there was a big hub-bub going on outside our hotel as we got into our Uber car, and to my astonishment, the fellow getting into the car in front of us was Scott Morrison, Australia’s Prime Minister.  He had been staying in our hotel.  There were a few security folks around him, but nothing like you’d see in the US.  He looked right at Sue and me from just a few feet away as he passed.   Nope, I didn’t get a photo.  Maybe right now he’s telling people he met one of the two guys running the ExNotes blog.  His friends are probably telling him it didn’t happen if he didn’t get a photo.

From there it was on to Sydney (a 4-hour flight), and we had another fabulous visit.  We didn’t know anybody there yet, but we made new friends and we had a great time walking around in one of the world’s great cities.   Sydney is a beautiful city and it should be on your list of places to visit.

An iconic Sydney photo…the Sydney Opera House.
I spotted this scooter, a new Lambretta, in downtown Sydney and I struck up a conversation with Barry, the guy you see here. This modern Lambretta is manufactured in Taiwan. Now I know two guys named Barry who ride Lambrettas.  You see bikes and scooters in Australia at about the same frequency as you do in the US.
Our new friend Colin in Sydney’s Rocks shopping area.

And there you have it.  It was another 14-hour flight to get from Sydney to Los Angeles and we landed at about 6:00 a.m. today.  It’s good to be home again.