My new-to-me Savage 340 in .222. It’s got a scope and the whole shebang set me back $180. Such a deal!
I’m a rifle enthusiast, I can’t pass on an interesting experience, and I’m cheap. So when I was in a local gunshop a year or so ago, I was surprised and intrigued to see a consignment rifle go on the rack at a ridiculously low price. It was a 50-year-old Savage 340 bolt action rifle in .222 Remington (complete with a period-correct 3×9 telescopic sight) for only $180.
A Bushnell 3×9 scope was included with the deal!Rollmarks on the Savage.
This is a rifle that probably sold new for around $35 or $40, but like I said, that was 50 years ago. These days, any kind of a shooter for $180 is a steal. I was immediately attracted to the Savage by the price and the thought that it might make for a nice gunstock refinishing project. What really got my attention, though, was the cartridge for which it was chambered: The .222 Remington.
I’ve never owned a gun chambered in .222 Remington. The Triple Deuce is a cartridge that has a cult following because it is one of those special numbers known to be inherently accurate. It’s very similar to the .223 Remington (the 5.56 NATO round), but the .222 is a little bit shorter with a longer case neck. It’s proportions are said to be ideal for phenomenal accuracy. Like I said, I’ve never had a .222, but for $180, I could afford to find out if the stories were true.
Okay, on to Step 2 of this saga, and that’s the reloading aspect. Accuracy can be greatly enhanced by reloading. You know, that’s the deal where you save the fired brass, resize it in a reloading press, punch out the old primer, insert a new primer, load a precisely-controlled amount of new gunpowder, and seat a new bullet. Oilà…you have a reloaded round ready for firing. The deal with reloading is that you can experiment with different powders, different powder weights, different primers, different brass manufacturers, different bullet makers, different bullet weights, different bullet seating depths, and more. The concept is that you can tune the ammunition to precisely match a rifle’s preferences and achieve improved accuracy. I’ve been reloading ammo for close to 50 years and I’m here to tell you it works.
Now, back to that Savage rifle. I waited my obligatory 10 days (the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia’s “kooling off” period) and in Governor Gavin’s eyes I guess had cooled off sufficiently. I picked up my new-to-me, 50-year-old Savage and loaded several different combos to see how the old 340 would work. In a word, it was awesome…
Impressive results for the first time out with a 50-year-old rifle. These groups were fired at 50 yards; the next steps will involve experimenting around the best load and testing for accuracy at 100 yards. The recipe for the tiniest loads was a 55-grain Hornady full metal jacket boat tail bullet, a cartridge overall length of 2.176 inches, and 22.6 grains of IMR 4064 propellant.
You can see that different loads do indeed result in different accuracy levels. This is encouraging stuff, and what makes it even more promising is it shows the results of just one reloading session. The load that printed a 0.538-inch group is clearly pointing toward what the Savage likes, and my next set of loads will refine that combination. Good stuff and great fun, and all with a rifle that only cost $180!
This post will wrap up our Tecate visit, and the focus of today’s blog is the road south out of Tecate. The Ruta del Vino is a magnificent road that runs through the northern Baja countryside to Ensenada, passing directly through one of Baja’s wine growing regions.
If you missed the earlier Tecate posts, here are the links:
Getting to the Ruta del Vino is easy. After entering Baja through Tecate, just continue south. You’ll pass under the Tecate sign shown in yesterday’s blog, hang a left on Avenida Revolución, and then turn right on Boulevard Universidad (which becomes the Ruta del Vino and Mexico Highway 3).
Welcome to Tecate!
You’ll pass through the center of Tecate and climb a hill as you leave Tecate. You’ll see a bunch of pottery stories selling clay bowls of all kinds. A little further south is a monastery on your left, and a little beyond that is a sign over the road welcoming you to the Ruta del Vino.
The Ruta del Vino has several things to offer. The first is magnificent scenery through Mexican countryside. Then there are the vineyards. They are on both sides of the road. The third are the restaurants and hotels. And I guess the fourth is the destination, as the Ruta del Vino runs all the way to El Sauzal, a tiny community on Ensenada’s northern edge. That’s where the Ruta del Vino intersects with Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway. Turn left and the Transpeninsular Highway will take you through Ensenada and all the way to Cabo San Lucas. Turn north and you’re on your way to Tijuana and San Diego.
Along the Ruta del Vino, which is Mexico’s Highway 3.Another view along the Ruta del Vino.
Northern Baja wines are surprisingly good. I’m not a wine connoisseur; I just think they are good and they are certainly reasonably priced. My favorite vineyard is the L.A. Cetto vineyard, which is roughly 45 miles or so south of Tecate. As you’re traveling south on the Ruta del Vino, the L.A. Cetto vineyard is on your left. The road to it used to be dirt, but it was recently paved and it’s an easy ride now. The L.A. Cetto vineyard usually has a fair crowd and on our last visit, there was a general feeling of excitement in anticipation of a visit by senior members of the Catholic clergy. As we were leaving, an entourage of several priests and the region’s Cardinal were arriving.
The now-paved road leading to the L.A. Cetto Vineyard. That’s my Subie Outback, which is a grand automobile for these kinds of tours.A Mexican motorcyclist on the road to the L.A. Cetto vineyard. All the gear, all the time. The motorcycle is a Zongshen, marketed in Mexico under the Italika name.The L.A. Cetto grapes. This is a composite photo showing a 180-degree view from the south (on the left) to the north (on the right). It’s stitched together from three photos. Photoshop does a great job at these kinds of things.
The L.A. Cetto vineyard offers wine tasting, and they sell wines, vinegars, olive oil, olives, cheeses, nuts, and more. When I’m on the motorcycle, my friends and I will usually stop to buy some cheese and olives for a snack. The vineyard has outdoor tables in front of the wine tasting areas. The vineyard also offers factory tours, but they were only in Spanish on the day of my most recent visit. You can buy and get back across the border with any amount of olives and olive oil you wish to take, but there’s a one bottle limit on wine. I picked up an L.A. Cetto Malbec on this visit, which I’ll try later this month. If you’d like to read more about the L.A. Cetto vineyard, here’s an excellent article in the BajaBound.com newsletter.
The L.A. Cetto tasting room and store.
We had a great lunch at Los Naranjos, which is just a short jaunt further south on the Ruta del Vino. It’s about a half mile down the road on the right. The cuisine there is impressive, and nothing wraps up a great meal at Los Naranjos better than their apple pie. Make sure you try a glass of their namesake orange juice, too. They grow their own oranges and squeeze their own juice. It’s superb. One more thing: The salsas at Los Naranjos are the best I’ve ever had. One in particular was a darker salsa with crushed almonds. I asked if I could buy a bottle of it, but Los Naranjos doesn’t sell this one other than as a serving with each meal. They saw how much I liked this particular salsa, though, and the chef made up a couple of plastic containers for me to take home.
Inside Los Naranjos. It’s rare to see it this empty. On Sundays, it’s a favored destination for Mexican riders and it’s packed.Susie and I split a shrimp omelet for lunch. This was just half of the normal serving.
Los Naranjos is part of a larger country estate. You can walk around the grounds and take in the interesting sculptures, birds, tilework, and more. I also found out that there’s a 30-room hotel on the premises, something I did not know before this trip. I think a stay there will find its way into a future Baja itinerary.
The grounds around Los Naranjos.A Los Naranjos turkey.Los Naranjos wall sculpture.
To put all this in perspective, all the recent blog posts about Tecate and the Ruta del Vino described what Susie and I did in less than 24 hours. We rode down from the Los Angeles area in the afternoon on a Thursday, crossed the border into Tecate around 4:00 p.m, had our great dinner at Amores that night, we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos the next morning, we explored downtown Tecate later that morning, and did our trip along the Ruta del Vino in the afternoon. Then it was back up to the border to get back into the US that afternoon.
Waiting in line to cross the border. The Wall already exists. That’s the US on the other side. It would have been a lot quicker getting through on the motorcycles.Wall art as we waited to cross the border. Photo by Susie.
Getting back to the border is not too hard to do, and the lines to get back into the US are generally better than they would be in Tijuana. Just follow the Ruta del Vino back into Tecate, and as you near the center of town, watch for the Garita (border) signs. You have to turn off to the right and parallel the US border for a mile or so, and then make a U-turn to get in line. On this last visit, because we were in the Subie, we had to get in the car line, and our wait was about an hour (you’ll want to take a restroom break before you get in line). If you’re on a motorcycle, though, you can get through a lot easier. Just find your way through Tecate to the point where the line of cars approaches the US border crossing, squirt through an opening in the K-barriers, and cut the line. We do this all the time on the bikes.
And folks, that was our whirlwind one-day Tecate junket. I liked this approach where instead of zooming up and down the peninsula, we selected a particular place and explored it in some detail. I’d like to do that in the San Quintin area on a future trip…there are some cool things down there. Anyway, Joe G and I are headed to Baja later this month on the motorcycles. Stay tuned; it’s going to be another grand trip!
We’re proud to announce that our newest ExNotes advertiser is the San Francisco Scooter Centre, and I thought I might take a moment to tell you how we came to know Barry Gwin and his fine shop.
Barry Gwin, San Francisco Scooter Centre proprietor and scooter maestro extraordinaire, with his private collection of vintage Lambrettas.
About 10 years ago when I was a consultant to CSC, the company was manufacturing the Mustang scooters. I was one of the guys responsible for talking to potential CSC dealers, and one of the dealers I contacted was the San Francisco Scooter Centre. My research indicated that these guys were the “go to” spot for all things scooter-related and that they were the heart of the scooter scene in San Francisco.
CSC ultimately decided not to sell through dealers (you can read all about that in 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM), but when I spoke to Barry Gwin at the San Francisco Scooter Centre, I was impressed for several reasons. I didn’t know Barry from Adam at the time (and he didn’t know me), but he took my cold call and spent an hour on the phone with me. I learned more in that one hour about how a dealer approaches the question of taking on a new line than I had in all of my time with the other prospective dealers. The other dealers I spoke with were condescending and cynical; Barry was polite, patient, and informative.
A year or two later, Sue and I were watching an episode of American Pickers (one of our favorite TV shows) in which Mike and Frank had purchased a very rare Vespa Ape (it’s pronounced “Op Ay” and it’s a Vespa three-wheeled cargo vehicle). On the show, Mike and Frank took the Ape to an expert to get it appraised, and that expert was none other than Barry Gwin at the San Francisco Scooter Centre. “Hey,” I told Sue, “I know that guy!”
The Holy Land for San Francisco scooteristas…the San Francisco Scooter Centre!
Sue and I are in Nor Cal on a fairly regular basis, and I knew I wanted to get into San Francisco and meet Barry in person some day. Well, that some day was back in May of 2018. I sent Barry a note, he said sure, come on in, and we did. It was a hell of a day.
We drove into the city early in the morning and we got lucky (we found a parking spot directly in front of Barry’s dealership). We entered to find a big guy staging scooters for the day’s service activities. That guy was the world-famous Diego, Barry’s premier scooter tech (if you don’t believe me on that, do a search on Google and see what shows up). I asked if Barry was in, Diego told me Barry would be in a little bit later, and when I asked about finding a good coffee shop nearby, he pointed us in the right direction. The coffee in downtown San Francisco was great, and Sue and I shared a WBE chocolate-covered coconut macaroon (as in “world’s best ever”).
A WBE macaroon!
After enjoying our macaroon, we crossed the street to go back to Barry’s shop. We met Barry, and he immediately introduced us to Lunchbox (his 11-week-old bulldog pup). Barry gave us the grand tour…the showroom, the service area, the parts and accessories area, and his private collection of Lambrettas and other vintage scooters upstairs. It was really cool stuff.
Meet Lunchbox when he was a youngster back in May 2018, a very cute and friendly pup!Lunchbox in a more recent photo.
While Barry was busy helping a new scooter rider select a helmet, Sue and I chatted with a guy named Steve and his wife, Debbie, who had just flown in from England. Debbie told us that she had always wanted to visit San Francisco, but Steve did not want to make the 11-hour flight from London until she told him about the San Francisco Scooter Centre (it seems Steve is a vintage scooter enthusiast, too). That sealed the deal for a trek to America. It was a funny story told with a delightful British accent. Imagine that…flying across an ocean and a continent to see a scooter dealer!
New bikes on the showroom floor…that’s Steve and Debbie on the right, who flew in from England!New Genuine Buddy scooters. We sold these a few years ago. They’re great scooters.
We spent a lot of time with Barry on the second floor, where he keeps the vintage stuff. It was an amazing collection, and it was obvious Barry loves his bikes and all that goes with finding, restoring, and in some cases, hot rodding vintage machines.
A hopped up Lambretta.Vintage scooters in Barry’s personal collection. When buying from any dealer, it’s always better if the owner is a rider and an enthusiast. Barry fits that description.
It was a great day for us, and spending it with Barry at the San Francisco Scooter Centre made it even better. This is a guy who knows his stuff, and it’s obvious why Barry’s dealership has become the epicenter of the San Francisco scooter scene. I was impressed before I met Barry; I’m even more so now.
Yours truly and Sue in the San Franscisco Scooter Centre
But wait, as they say…there’s more. As a Genuine dealer, Barry also sells the new Genuine G400C motorcycle. That’s an interesting bike to me on many levels. I first saw it when I rode across China a couple of years ago and the bike was intriguing. The one I saw was customized to look like a 1960s Triumph, and I think the Chinese manufacturer (Shineray, pronounced Shin-you-way) out-Triumphed Triumph. To me it was more evocative of the earlier Triumphs I knew as a teenager than are the current Bonneville reproductions, although I’ll tell you I sure like the modern Triumphs (and I’ve been thinking real hard about a new Bonneville).
A Shineray 400 single, with good buddy Lin on board in Qingdao, China.Another photo of the Shineray in China. It’s a bike that really looks and feels like a Triumph Bonneville. I like the idea and the size makes sense.
So it was that bike you see above that Genuine rebadged and imported with modifications to become their G400C model, and I like the idea of it. I’m going to be in San Francisco in the near future, and if Barry still has any G400C motorcycles in stock I’ll grab some photos and post them here on the ExNotes blog.
The Genuine G400C motorcycle. I like it.
So there you have it. If you’re in San Francisco, drop by Barry’s shop and say hi. Tell him the ExNotes crew sent you and maybe he’ll let you pose for a photo with Lunchbox. The San Francisco Scooter Center is a fascinating place with great people and I think it’s well worth a visit. Tell Barry Joe sent you.
Getting into Mexico through Tecate is about as easy as it gets. All you need to do is find your way to California Highway 94, which twistiliciously parallels the border below Interstate 8 (the mind-numbingly boring slab that runs from San Diego into Arizona). Roughly 25 miles east of where 94 originates near San Diego, you’ll see Highway 188. Highway 188 is only a mile long, it turns due south off 94, and it runs right into Tecate.
On the US side, Tecate is little more than the US Customs and Immigration station with a couple of buildings scattered along the road. Just keep riding south. You’ll see the signs warning you not to bring guns into Mexico (duh), and suddenly, you’ve entered Mexico. There is no Mexican border control officer. You just ride right in. You can do that going south. Don’t try it in the other direction, though.
I guess I should mention, too, that you’ll need your US passport. You can get into Mexico without showing your passport, but if you want to get back into the Estados Unidos, well, you get the idea.
The place to get your Mexican tourist visa is a bit complicated to get to. Well, sort of. It’s right there as you enter Mexico, the first building on the right, once you’ve crossed the border. You’ll bounce over a couple rows of Bots Dots (those annoying grapefruit-sized metal domes). The drill is to park (but there’s no place to park), walk across the road you just rode in on, hoof it back to the Mexican customs building (but there’s no sign on it), walk around the road through a gate as if you were walking out of Mexico, cross back again, and, if you’re like me, wonder what you’re supposed to do next. Look for the steps, go up a half a flight, and then enter the Mexican immigration area. There are no signs. Just wander around looking like you’re lost (you won’t have to act, because you will be), and ultimately, somebody will ask if you need help. I get the feeling not too many people actually get a visa when they enter Mexico. But you’re supposed to. There. I’ve said what I’m supposed to.
When you get back on your bike (or in your car), continue south on the street you came in on, and you’ll immediately see the sign telling you yep, you’re here…
A better view of the sign welcoming you to Tecate. Note the sign below…the wine country is straight ahead. Baja wines are quite good. We’re pointed due south in this photo.
Tecate is laid out kind of like a T, with the top of the T following the border to the east and the west, and the long part of the T heading south toward the Ruta del Vino wine country. The drill here is to go a block or so past the Tecate welcoming banner you see in the photos above until you T into Avenida Revolución, and then turn right. If you go about a mile or so, you’ll see one of the two places I stay when I’m Tecate. It’s the Hotel El Dorado. It’s okay and it’s not expensive. My preferred place to stay, though, is the Hotel Hacienda, which is another mile east on the same Avenida Revolución. The Hacienda has that amazing Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant I wrote about in the ExNotes blog yesterday in a connected building. The Hacienda also has more secure parking (they lock up the parking lot at night). I think the rooms at the Hacienda are a wee bit nicer, too. The price at both places is about the same, and they are both on the right side of the road as you continue west.
Hey, one thing I ought to mention is that Mexico has stop signs that look exactly like ours, but somehow they are way harder to see. If you’re approaching an intersection, start looking for a stop sign. They won’t jump out at you.
You’ll see plenty of gas stations, and in Tecate the gas stations take credit cards (that’s not always the case further into Baja). Until recently, Pemex was the only gas you could buy in Mexico. Being a government company, though, Pemex ran out of money for exploration (and then they started to run out of gas), so the Mexican government now allows other oil companies. We saw BP, Chevron, and ARCO stations in Tecate.
Tecate is dominated by the Tecate Brewery, which is the tallest thing in town. The brewery is smack dab in the center of town, and you literally can see it from just about anywhere. They used to offer brewery tours, but alas, I was unable to book one. Maybe they still do, but neither the phone number nor the email address on the Tecate website worked for me. I wandered onto the Tecate factory grounds to try to get a tour, but I struck out. A worker told me the Tecate Beer Garden is still open, but there were no tours. He said the Beer Garden was well hidden between two iron-grated doors. He was right. We couldn’t find it.
The Tecate brewery dominates the Tecate skyline. You can see the plant from anywhere in town.Mexico’s post office uses motorcycles for delivery. The bikes we saw were CG clones offered by Italika. It looks like a cool job.
So, imagine you’ve just crossed the border into Mexico and you are at the apex of that T described earlier (the T that is Tecate). If you turn right and head west on Mexico Highway 2, you’ll eventually run into Tijuana (although why anyone would ever want to do that is beyond me). If you turn left and head east on Mexico Highway 2, you’ll eventually run into the Rumarosa Grade (a very scenic place described earlier in our blogs about the Janus trip) and then Mexicali. If you go straight and head south on Mexico Highway 3, you’ll leave Tecate and dive deeper into Baja. Highway 3 becomes the Ruta del Vino and it is a fabulous ride through the northern Baja wine country. Highway 3 ultimately intersects Mexico Highway 1 (Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway) and the Pacific Ocean at the northern edge of Ensenada.
We’ll pick up with the Ruta del Vino in tomorrow’s blog, so stay tuned!
The Ruta del Vino…a fabulous ride through northern Baja from Tecate to Ensenada.
Folks, it seems that the WordPress people improved the automatic email update feature. In fact, they improved it to the point it no longer works. That’s why you haven’t received an automatic email update for the last two blogs we posted.
It is frustrating dealing with (and depending on) these software weenies. We checked the WP help boards and the problem seems to be universal…the boards are inundated with comments from upset blogmeisters. Things are hopping in Mumbai, we suppose; that’s where the automatic email blog update software design is done. They are probably working the problem now.
Our apologies. Bear with us, and hopefully the wizards will sort this one out soon.
Jonathan and Pablo at Amores in Tecate. You can read about our dinner there in yesterday’s blog. When we asked Jonathan for a Tecate breakfast recommendation, his answer was immediate and unequivocal: Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos!
I wanted a quick overnight trip to Tecate to grab a few photos of the roads into and around the city, and some photos inside the city, for a story I’m writing about the place as a superb moto destination. Sometimes you just have to go with what awaits, though, and what awaited Susie and me on this trip was an unexpected discovery: Tecate is a foodie’s paradise!
So here’s the deal…at the end of our completely world-class dinner at Amores on Friday, I asked Jonathan (the head chef) for a breakfast recommendation. He smiled and said the best place in town, and his personal favorite, was Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos. Jonathan explained that this restaurant not only prepared regional specialties, but they had researched historical specialties from all over Mexico and their breakfasts were superb. I asked how to get there, but I was feeling the effects of the huge glass of Cabernet and my five-course Amores dinner, and I was only half-listening to Jonathan’s directions. They were complex, and he was giving me street names and directions I couldn’t follow. All of sudden, Susie jumped in because she heard something I missed. “The Hacienda Hotel?” she asked. “That’s where we’re staying!”
Talk about a small world…I had stayed at the Hacienda Hotel several times before, and I never noticed the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant. I think that’s because I usually check in at night, and I’m on the road early the next morning. Sometimes you need to slow down and smell the roses, I guess. The next morning (yesterday morning), Sue and I enjoyed one of the best breakfasts ever in our new good buddy Alicia’s Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos. It was wonderful. They opened at 8:00 a.m. We were waiting at the door when they did so.
The Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant. It shares a driveway and parking lot with the Hacienda Hotel, my favorite in Tecate.
Alicia’s restaurant specializes in authentic dishes as mentioned above, and in using varieties of corn for their tortillas, empanadas, and other dishes from different regions of Mexico. The restaurant also emphasizes the culture of the Kumiai Native Americans, a tribe from the Tecate area (something I was not aware of prior to our breakfast yesterday).
A Kumiai doll on display inside the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant.
Artwork abounds in the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant. We saw this young lady as soon as we entered.
The buffet line awaits. The aromas were inspiring. I thought I was hungry when we entered; the feeling intensified when we encountered the selections. The coffee was extra special (more about that in a bit).
Maria, one of the friendly folks who took care of us yesterday morning. The steam and flavors were intoxicating.
So, about that buffet…allow me to share with you just a few photos of the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos selections…
A beef dish. It looked (and tasted) wonderful. I could do a photo essay just on the buffet line.
Eggs, prepared the way I like. Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos also offers omelettes prepared to your tastes with a variety of authentic ingredients, but the buffet line was so overwhelming we decided it alone was enough. It was more than enough, actually.
A pork selection. I had pork the night before and I didn’t sample this, but it smelled delicious.
Cheese empanadas, with a pastry shell that provided flavors that were out of this world. A few minutes later, Maria brought out more…and they were chicken empanadas. They were delicious.
Coffee, Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos style. There were clay cups in from of this pot, and you ladled the coffee into your cup as if it were soup. The coffee has cinnamon and brown sugar already mixed in. It was unquestionably the most exotic and most delicious coffee I’ve ever tasted. Wow, was it ever good!
Sue and I were lost in the grandness of our morning meal, and we both commented on our surprise that Tecate had such incredible restaurants. While we enjoying our buffet selection, Maria brought a plate with their specialty corn tortilla shells and eggs. It was yet another delicious and unexpected treat…
Thick, fluffy, regional corn tortillas caressing fried eggs. What a treat!
We met and spoke with Alicia, the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos owner, after our fabulous breakfast. Alicia told us the story of her restaurant. Her pride in what she was doing was evident. It was a grand experience.
You might be wondering…what did this magnificent morning meal set us back? For both of us, it was $11.13. That’s US dollars. Not only was Tecate proving to be foodie paradise, but the prices were stunningly low. $11. Wow!
Folks, trust me on this…time in Tecate has to be on your bucket list!
Hey, on another topic…here are a few updates from our advertisers. For starters, you can bet I wore one of my R Heroes USA shirts on this trip, as I knew we might hit some cold weather. Here’s a photo Susie snapped of yours truly as we went deeper into Mexico later that day at one of the Ruta del Vino wineries…
Do I have a career as a male model? I think not, but this photo in the L.A. Cetto Winery shows my R Heroes USA workshirt well. I’ve been wearing this shirt for 10 years!
I wanted to mention that if you’d like to purchase one of these grand shirts, here’s the link to see. It will take you to a page that finds your closest R Heroes retail outlet. Trust me on this, folks…if you ride, you need one of these shirts in your life!
A Mexican police officer in a truck just like this one came over and directed me to get into another line. If he had wanted to see my insurance papers, BajaBound had me covered.
Next topic…I was sure glad I had my BajaBound insurance on this trip. It’s what I use on every trip across the border. Bajabound is inexpensive, it’s good (I know guys who needed to submit claims and they pay promptly), it’s easy to get online, and it’s required. You have to have Mexican insurance when you visit Baja. We had a Mexican police officer direct us into a different line as we waited to cross back into the US yesterday. I felt secure in the knowledge that if he wanted to see my insurance paperwork, I was covered!
And hey, more good stuff…our good buddies at RoadRUNNER magazine are hooked up with Blue Rim Tours, and they are offering an amazing Four Corners Tour later this year. Having visited the places this tour touches on, I know this is going to be a good one.
And folks, that’s a wrap. The rains have returned to So Cal. We had a nice window of good weather, and the Tecate trip was a blast. Stay tuned…there’s more good stuff coming your way!
The sunrise part will actually be a bit later this morning. Last night, in Tecate, was stellar.
Gresh and I are heading into Baja later this month, but life is what happens while you’re making plans and Joe and I both felt it was best to push the trip out for a couple of weeks. I’ve got a wedding to get to, Joe Gee is busy pouring concrete and getting his new tractor online, and before we knew it, our current activities and those of the next few days ganged up on us. We ran out of time for our planned 2019 10-day Baja expedition. It’s gonna happen, but not this weekend. Give us a couple more weeks.
Still, I had the urge to cross the border, and specifically, to visit Tecate. I have a story due for one of the magazines, and Susie and I decided to drive the 147 miles and spend the evening in this fine northern Baja town. Yep, it’s dateline Tecate. It’s where we are now.
Getting here and getting the trip together was a snap. Throw a few things in an overnight bag, grab the Nikon and a couple of fast lenses I like, get my BajaBound insurance for one night in Mexico (it was ridiculously inexpensive and it’s the only one I use when I’m in Baja), and we were off. Three hours later, we crossed the border into Mexico.
Susie and I felt like a fancy dinner last night. You might be wondering…in Tecate? Oh, yeah. Amores is definitely the place for fine dining in Tecate. Dinner there is a world class gourmet event. Amores is tucked away in a hidden corner of this border town, and it is, to borrow a phrase, an Epicurean delight (I love that word, but I confess I don’t know what it means…if there’s a place called Epicurea, tell me about it and Gresh and I will ride our motorcycles there).
Our Tecate dinner was exquisite. We opted for five-courses (Amores has options that go up to seven courses). Each course was better than the previous one, and the first course was awesome. Yep, it just kept getting better and better.
Here you go, folks…enjoy!
Susie in Amores, in Tecate, Baja, Mexico. We could tell right away…this was going to be good! Amores is a bit tough to find, and the exterior offers no clues as to what awaits inside. But find it, enter, and an amazing experience unfolds.
Adriana pouring our wine. Sue opted for the Merlot; I had the a Cabernet. Everything served in Amores is local; these wines are from northern Baja vineyards.
Bread baked in Tecate. Jonathan, the Amores Master Chef, told us that Tecate is known throughout Mexico for its breads. Who knew? The bread was exquisite, as was the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, the onion jelly (it had incredible flavor), and the locally-prepared kimchi. Kimchi! In Tecate! Go figure! Again, who knew?
Course No. 1: Our salad. But not just any salad. Hydroponic lettuce (grown in water), hot and cold vegetables with thin pear slices, and an amazing blend of tastes. Just exquisite!
During our dinner, I snuck over to the kitchen. That’s Jonathan, the Master Chef. He visited with us several times during our meal, which made it even more enjoyable.
Another photo of the kitchen crew hard at work. We were having a great time.
Course No. 2. We weren’t sure what it was, until Pablo, one of the two chefs, came over to explain it to us when I asked for a fork. They brought a soup spoon, and I learned that I was looking at baby octopus. Still, why a soup spoon?
Ah, yes…the tomato-based soup, poured over the octopus at our table. Again, it was delicious.
Soup time!
Course No. 3. Susie and I both opted for freshly-caught Baja corvina. It was delicious.
But wait…there’s more! This was my Course No. 4: Pork, and it was even better than the last course! There are two cuts of pork here and both were wonderful.
Susie’s Course No. 4: Chicken. I tried a little bit and it was yet another wonderful dish. These guys are world class!
And finally, our last course: Dessert. That’s a homemade cake adorned with assorted fruits and a blackberry sorbet nestled in brown sugar. It was as good as I’ve ever had anywhere in the world, and it made for a fitting finale to our grand Tecate evening.
You know, Tecate is a gritty, industrial border town that anchors the northern end of the Ruta del Vino and is home to the Tecate Brewery. I would have never imagined this kind of dining was available here. Los Angeles, sure. New York City, you bet. But Tecate? Who knew?
We’re going to try to get a tour of the Tecate Brewery today, and then it’s on for a quick run south on the Ruta del Vino to the L.A. Cetto vineyard for olive oil, olives, a bit of wine tasting, and of course, a bottle or two of wine to take home. Good times, folks!
Some days you just have to pick up your marbles and go home.
We’ve had a lot of rain out here this winter, and I’ve been suffering from cabin fever. Big time. I’m headed to Baja next week and it’s supposed to start raining again, but hey, it is what it is. What I really wanted to do this morning was get to the range to shoot my .45. The range I belong to (the West End Gun Club) is private, it’s tucked behind the hills in the San Gabriel Mountains, and getting there literally involves driving across a stream. Usually there’s only a couple of inches of water in the stream and getting across is no problem. But all that changed with the recent rains. The little stream became a torrent, it’s still a torrent, and it’s moved huge boulders downstream. It’s been that way for a couple of weeks now. I was hoping the water level had gone down and I would be able to get across this morning, so I loaded up the Subie and headed up in the mountains.
When I got to the stream, I could see there was no way I was going to get across short of renting a helicopter. Our little stream was deep and fast a couple of weeks ago when I made the video above, and it’s stayed that way, with the addition now of the aforementioned boulders.
Okay, there’s a commercial range open to the public deeper into the mountains. I’d have to pay to shoot there, and I hadn’t done that in years, but like I said, I had cabin fever and I wanted to shoot. So I rolled another 15 miles or so deeper into the mountains.
“It’s $20,” Grizzly Adams (the guy behind the counter) told me (that’s not his real name, and I’m probably insulting folks named Grizzly Adams everywhere by assigning the moniker, but you get the idea). “It’s another 6 bucks for a target stand,” Grizzly continued, “and more if you need targets.”
Nah, I’ve got my own stand, I told him, and I brought my own targets with me.
“Drive through that gate and turn left,” he told me. I did.
As soon as I parked, another Grizzly Adams type came up and asked me, “Do you see what’s different between your car and every other car parked here?”
Hmmm. I didn’t know. I looked. I thought about it briefly. My car had no primer spots and missing body panels?
“I don’t know,” I said, “and I really didn’t drive out here to take a quiz. Make it easy and just tell me.”
“You’re supposed to back in,” Grizzly No. 2 said. Sure enough, I was the only one who had parked like a normal person. Go figure.
“Okay, I’ll turn my car around,” I said. It’s better to just do things sometimes than to try to argue or comprehend the reasons why. But we were on a line break, people were downrange changing their targets, and I asked if I could set up my target stand first, and then turn my car around.
Just then one of the shooters ran up. “Hey, my gun’s still loaded,” he said to Grizzly No. 2, who as it turns out was also the rangemaster. Wow, I thought. This is a big deal. The rangemaster (and I’m using the term very loosely; the only thing this guy had evidently mastered was controlling which way parked cars faced) had failed to do his most important job: Making sure all weapons were clear before he allowed folks to go out in front of the firing line. I mean, wow, there were folks downrange with a loaded rifle on one of the shooting benches. Pointing downrange. In the Army, best case, that would get you a lifetime of KP duty and maybe a couple thousand punitive pushups.
Then he compounded the felony.
He didn’t tell the people downrange to move aside and return to safety behind the firing line. “Just leave it alone,” the rangemaster quietly told the guy who owned the loaded rifle, which was pointed downrange, while people were out in front of said loaded rifle changing their targets. He allowed the folks who were downrange, in front of the loaded weapon, to continue their activities. I’d never seen anything like this on any range, and I’ve been doing this a long time. I was shocked.
“You know,” I said, “I think I’ve seen enough,” and with that I got back in my car and headed back to the little building at the entrance. I went inside and told Grizzly No. 1 what had just happened. “You’re running an unsafe range,” I told him, and I explained I didn’t feel safe being there. “I’d like my $20 back,” I added. All of this (from the time I drove in, paid my $20, went to the line, and returned to this guy’s counter) happened in the space of maybe 3 minutes.
“Can’t do that,” Grizzly No. 1 said. And with that, he smiled a gap-toothed, maybe-my-parents-were-related-before-they-got-married smile, and pointed to a small sign on the wall.
No refunds.
I looked at him. Then I looked at the sign again. Then I looked at him. He was still smiling. I smiled too. Sometimes I wonder what I’m going to put on the blog the next day, and I had been wondering about that as I drove out to the range. Problem solved, I thought. I still had a touch of cabin fever, but I had no new bullet holes in me and I knew what the 28 February ExNotes blog would be all about.
About six years ago I had an urge to build a custom rifle. Some folks consider a custom rifle to be one you build from the ground up. For others, a custom rifle is one you buy off-the-shelf and then modify. My idea of a custom rifle starts with a barreled action (the metal parts) and an unfinished, semi-inletted stock (I’ll explain that “semi-inletted” descriptor a few paragraphs down). I had built rifles like this a couple of times in the distant past and I had the urge to do it again.
A tray full of .375 Ruger cartridges. I included a .223 Remington in the foreground (it’s the one on the left) for comparison. The .375 Ruger is a powerful round!
My objective was to build a rifle chambered for the .375 Ruger cartridge. The .375 Ruger was a joint project between Hornady and Ruger. The idea was a cartridge faster than the .375 Holland and Holland (a classic African big game cartridge), but shorter so it could cycle through a standard-length rifle action. When the .375 Ruger came out 10 years ago, everyone who tested it said it hit both marks. That was enough for me; I needed a .375 Ruger rifle in my life.
It had been a long time since I tackled a project like this, and I was surprised when I looked for a stock. Three or four decades ago several outfits offered semi-inletted stocks. Most of them were in Missouri (I guess that’s where all the good walnut is). The stock companies I knew decades ago (Fajen, Bishop, and others) are gone. The demand isn’t there. Millenials don’t shoot much, gun laws are more restrictive, and shooters today go for black plastic (there’s no accounting for some folks’ taste, I guess).
A semi-inletted stock is one that 95% inletted (that’s what the stock companies say); what is euphemistically implied is that you need to do just a bit more to fit your barreled action to the stock. That 95% inletting claim always brings a laugh, because final fitting of the action to the stock takes a ton of work…something way more than the implied final 5%.
The English walnut blank I selected and the barreled action that would go into it.
Richard’s Microfit is an old-line gunstock company right here in So Cal. I called Richard’s to ask if I could visit and personally select the piece of walnut I wanted, the answer was yes, and it was time for a ride out to the Valley.
Stock blanks at Richard’s Microfit. There were these and many, many more. Visiting the factory and selecting the one I wanted was a lot of fun.
Richard’s had a lot of lumber and I selected a piece of English walnut with lots of figure and grain that ran lengthwise (what you want in a magnum rifle, as it makes the stock stronger). The contrasty grain was a difficult to see in the blank, but the Richard’s people knew how to mist it with water and that made the walnut come alive. I specified a solid black rubber recoil pad, an ebony pistol grip cap, and a matching ebony fore end tip. The price went up, but I don’t do this sort of thing very often and the heart wants what the heart wants. My heart wanted ebony accents.
Few rifle manufacturers sell barreled actions today (they all used to), but Howa still does and they had one in .375 Ruger. It is a stout thing with a stubby 20-inch heavy barrel. Howa makes complete rifles under their own name and they also sell to other manufacturers (the Weatherby Vanguard, one of the world’s great rifles, is made by Howa). A custom rifle I built 40 years ago (a .30 06) had a Howa barreled action and I knew from that project they were good.
I took a good 80 hours to fit the barreled action to the stock, but I was in no hurry (it’s easy to take wood away; it’s a lot harder to add it back on), and I glass bedded the action with AcraGlas for added accuracy. That involved coating the barreled action with a release agent, mixing epoxy and glass fibers and slathering the mix in the stock, placing the barreled action in the wet epoxy, and then clamping it all together while the epoxy cured. A day later, I pried the barreled action out of the stock and oila, the action now had an exact fit to its glass bed.
Glass bedding the .375 Howa barreled action in the stock.
The next steps involved shaping the stock exterior and the ebony accents to my tastes, and then sanding everything with 100, 200, 400, and then 600 grit sandpaper. That required another 60 hours. Then it was on to applying the finish. I like TruOil. The drill is to apply the first coat of TruOil heavily (to allow it to fill the wood pores and soak into the walnut), wait a week, and then use 0000 steel wool to remove the excess. Then came TruOil Coat No. 2, a 24-hour cure, and more steel wool. Then another coat and another 24-hour cure. It would be 10 coats total in this manner. With each coat of TruOil the inner beauty of the walnut emerged further. This is one of the best parts of building a custom rifle…finishing the stock and watching the walnut wake up. It becomes a living thing, changing colors and character as the light hits it from different angles.
My workbench could be a little neater.
Somewhere around Coat No. 8 or 9. It’s starting to come together. This was way too glossy for a hunting rifle, but a final steel wool scrub would knock it down to a more subdued and refined appearance.
The feeling of satisfaction that comes from fitting, bedding, shaping, and then finishing a custom gun stock is profound and difficult to describe. Applying an oil finish is the best part. You get a high gloss finish, which can be left that way, or you can knock it down with the steel wool again for a sublime satin low gloss finish. That’s what I did. Shiny looks good but it is reflective and that’s bad for a hunting rifle. And that’s what this .375 is: A hunting rifle. For pigs, to be specific.
On the range with my custom Howa rifle and its 4X Weatherby scope.
While all of the above was going on, I found a used 4X Weatherby scope in a local gun shop’s parts bin. Old Weatherby scopes are stunningly clear and they generally go for something north of $200 when you find them (which isn’t often because they stopped making them more than 30 years ago). I prefer a simple 4X scope even though few manufacturers offer them (it’s mostly variable-powered contraptions today, something I view as a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist). The gunshop guy told me I could have the old Weatherby scope for $25. I couldn’t pay him quickly enough. I mounted the scope that night.
How does the rifle shoot? I’m happy to tell you that the answer is very, very well, and it does so with nearly every load.
The Howa and my cast bullet loads. These are accurate and hard hitting. The jacketed bullets are even more accurate, but the cast bullets are close enough for government work.
Not too shabby for cast bullets. Everything came together on this one…the English walnut stock, the glass bedding, the Weatherby scope, and the load development effort. These groups were shot at 50 yards.
I built the .375 rifle to shoot cast bullets. They’re less expensive, they’re cool, and I have a local caster who makes good ones. For my cast 275-grain bullets, I use 30.0 grains of SR 4759 propellant, a load that consistently delivers tight groups at both 50 and 100 yards. I use the same powder and charge weight with 270-grain jacketed soft point Hornady bullets, a load that is scary accurate (as in one-hole, 5-shot groups at the 50-yard mark).
The plan is to hunt pigs with cast bullets, but the rifle is accurate enough to go after grasshoppers with the jacketed load. I haven’t shot the jacketed bullets at 100 yards yet, but I will the next time I’m at the rifle range. Both loads, according to the reloading manuals, are pushing the bullets at about 1800 feet per second. Recoil at those velocities is just shy of being unbearable (it’s stout, but manageable). This rig is a shooter, it’s a powerhouse, it groups well, and it’s fun!
Hey, check out our other Tales of the Gun stories, and for another take on building a modern sporting custom rifle, take a look at this Tavor X95 project!
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Yep, we’ve added a few new header images at the top of our blog again. Every once in a while we like to add a few more, and on occasion we’ll blog about what they are. Every time you visit the blog, one of a dozen or so images randomly pops up at the top of our blog. If you’ve wondered what they are, today is the day your ship comes in! Here’s a brief explanation of each…
This is the original ExNotes blog header image, which will still pop up from time to time. I love this photo. I took it on the ride through Colombia in Mompox, a mystical town tucked away in a magic land. I’d like to invite you to read the blog I wrote on Mompox a few months ago. If you look real close, you’ll see my good buddy Juan, who I rode with in Colombia and on the CSC Western American Adventure Ride.
Ah, the whales Scammon’s Lagoon, Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur. Gresh and I are going to ride there in March. It’s one of life’s real treats. We’ll be blogging the entire trip, and we’ll be insured with BajaBound Insurance (the best there is).
Wow, another Guerrero Negro photo, this time after the bikes had been put away for the evening at the Don Gus Hotel. I love the hotel and the restaurant (and the bar, too!) at the Don Gus Hotel. This was on one of the CSC Motorcycles Baja adventure rides.
One of the best parts of any Baja adventure ride is the cuisine. These are tacos we enjoyed on the recent ride with Janus Motorcycles. The food down there is fantastic!
Janus Motorcycles parked along the Malecon in San Felipe. This was a great Baja ride, and the Janus machines performed perfectly. It was a grand adventure. Hell, they all are!
A photo of Jordan Swartzendruber (on the left, hugging the center line) and Devin Biek (on the right), both on Janus Motorcycles. We did about a thousand miles in 4 days on these 250cc motorcycles. It was one of the coldest rides I’ve ever done, but we had a grand time!
Ah, my old Daytona 1200 on the road near Shiprock, New Mexico. I grabbed this photo during the 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally, in which good buddy Marty and I rode 5,000 miles from Mexico through the US and on into Canada. It was a grand adventure!
This is another photo from the 2005 Three Flags Classic, somewhere on the road in Arizona. There were over 400 motorcycles in the ’05 TFC; I rode the only Triumph in that event!
A lot of folks get their shorts in a knot when they see this photo. It’s Elmer, my good buddy and mature Mexican rattlesnake catching some rays and staying warm. We were on the road to see the Sierra San Francisco cave paintings in Baja. Elmer was very cooperative that morning, and I got some fantastic photos of him.
Good buddy Mike Huber shot this photo of his campsite and he graciously allowed us to use it on the ExNotes blog. Mike wrote a guest blog for us on using hammocks. Mike lives on his motorcycle, camping wherever he finds a good spot. What a life!
At Zongshen plant in Chongqing, China. We were moments away from starting our motorcycle ride across China, and the Zongers had a departure ceremony for us. That was one of the greatest rides I’ve ever been on, and you can read all about it Riding China. Gresh rode that one, too, and you can read his story about the trip here!
The lighthouse in Baja’s Guerrero Negro. It’s where we go to see the whales. This is an interesting photo…it’s a composite stitched together from six photos shot from left to right. I had a polarizer on the camera, which explains why the sky is darker in some portions of this composite.
Good times, to be sure. We’ll be adding more photos in the future, so stay tuned. Keep coming back to the ExNotes blog and you’ll see a different header time each time you visit!
Some days you just have to pick up your marbles and go home.
for added accuracy. That involved coating the barreled action with a release agent, mixing epoxy and glass fibers and slathering the mix in the stock, placing the barreled action in the wet epoxy, and then clamping it all together while the epoxy cured. A day later, I pried the barreled action out of the stock and oila, the action now had an exact fit to its glass bed.
