Men of a certain age, like me, grew up in the ’50s and ’60s. Our values were formed in a era when honor, courage, integrity, and self-reliance were important, and I think a big part of those values were formed by what we watched on TV. Today, television shows are mostly mindless drivel centered on pop culture (an oxymoron if ever there was one) and the so-called reality genre. We were way luckier:
Good times and good TV shows. The ’50s and’60s were a good time to be a kid.
The stars of those ’50s and ’60s shows were folks who knew the difference between right and wrong, and we received a steady stream of 30-minute morality injections several times every week as a consequence of watching them. It seemed to work. It was a good time to be a kid.
The other stars in those early Westerns were the horses and guns. I never had any interest in owning a horse, but the steady emphasis on six-shooters and leverguns instilled a lasting fascination with firearms in many of us. A Colt .45 Single Action Army figured in nearly every episode (in fact, you can see this iconic firearm in several of the photos above). It’s no small wonder that sixguns still sell well in the US.
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Today, the prices of Colt Single Action Army revolvers are through the roof, but there are a number of companies that offer exact replicas built in Italy at far more reasonable prices. A few years ago, when I saw this Taylor and Company “tuned” Single Action Army at my local gun shop, I was a goner. To borrow a phrase, I pulled the trigger.
My Taylor .45 Single Action Army. This is a sweet-shooting sixgun.
The Taylor is an exact copy of the Colt Single Action Army, it’s chambered in .45 Colt, and Taylor’s “tuned” descriptor means the revolver has a trigger and action job to slick up the internals. The trigger is under two pounds, it’s crisp, and the gun feels perfect in every way. There’s just something about a single action sixgun that feels right. This one is beautiful and it has everything that floats my boat: A brass grip frame, a color case hardened receiver, and high polish bluing everywhere else. The .45 Colt chambering is perfect, too. It’s a fun cartridge to reload and shoot, and it’s accurate.
The first day I went to the range with my new Single Action Army sixgun, I knew it was going to be a good morning. On the dirt road leading to the range, I saw a bobcat. We were both surprised. He looked at me and I looked at him, and then the cat leisurely walked across the road and disappeared into the brush. It was a good sign. I’ve seen bobcats here in California three or four times in the last 30 years and seeing one on my way to the range that morning was a special treat.
Targets at 25 yards. The Taylor is an accurate handgun. Surprisingly, the sights shoot exactly to point of aim, which is unusual for a fixed-sight revolver.
My .45 Single Action Army groups well with every load I tested. It particularly likes Trail Boss propellant and cast bullets (the two groups with arrows were with this powder). The gun shoots exactly to point of aim (I used a 6:00 o’clock hold on the targets above), and the spread you see in the groups is almost certainly more the result of my old hands and eyes than the gun or the load. If you’ve ever wondered how good the Italian replica Single Action Army handguns are, my results indicate they are fine firearms.
You might remember I told you we had a couple of watches from Gear’d Hardware. This is the one I showed on the blog last week:
The first of two Gear’d watches. This puppy is headed to the Tinfiny Ranch in New Mexico!
This morning I took the second Gear’d watch out of its shipper. It’s a stunner. Take a look:
Here’s a photo of the watch, which Gear’d calls its ZX2-1116 model:
The Gear’d watch I’m wearing. It’s a good-looking wristwatch. It makes me wish I’d kept the Corvette; the colors are an exact match to the Z06’s interior.
I’ve got a few things in mind for these watches. The top one is getting mailed to Joe Gresh today, and he’ll be providing his impressions. I’m going to read the instructions on mine, set it, and then my fun will begin. I’m not just going to be a male model here (although folks in the waiting room at the optometrist’s office tell me I’ve got the looks for it). Nope, what I have in mind are a few tests, like how well the watch keeps time, how it stands up to vibration (that means a motorcycle ride), and how well it stands up to shock. That may be a bit more than the Gear’d folks banked on when they sent the watches to us, but hey, it is what it is.
The games begin today. This afternoon I’m headed out to the range with my new Gear’d watch, my bright stainless 1911 .45 Colt, and a couple of boxes of hardball ammo. I’m going to send 100 rounds of 230-grain roundnose ammo (the heavy, hard-recoiling stuff) downrange and we’ll see how the Gear’d watch stands up to it. Y0u’ll be able to read about it tomorrow, right here on the ExNotes blog.
Horological test equipment. “Horological” means it’s related to time-keeping gear (that may not be what you thought it meant).
My stainless .357 Blackhawk, with a 25-yard target. It’s one of my favorite handguns. The loads you see here use WW 296 propellant and Hornady’s 158-grain jacketed h0llow point bullet.
One of my good buddies wrote to me over the weekend asking about the Ruger Blackhawk in .357 Magnum. He wanted to know if I felt they were good guns. In a word: Yes. My friend was specifically considering the .357 Blackhawk with the extra cylinder for 9mm ammo; I’m not a big fan of the combo Blackhawks (I think they’re a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist). But the basic .357 Blackhawk? It’s a winner, and I think it’s one of the world’s great handguns.
I’ve owned several .357 Blackhawks over the last 50 years, starting with a plain vanilla blue steel New Model I bought at a K-Mart when I lived in El Paso (yep, they used to sell handguns). I traded that one away, and then I bought an Old Model Blackhawk with the convertible 9mm cylinder. It was a pristine used gun, still in the original box, with the shorter 4 5/8-inch barrel. I never fired that gun and I only owned it for about a week. I paid something like $75 for it, and then I sold it to my boss at Fort Bliss a few days later because he wanted it. That Old Model with its convertible 9mm cylinder would be collectible today. Eh, live and learn, I guess.
There were two convertible Blackhawks back in the 1970s, and I guess there are still two available new today. One is the 9mm/.357 combo I described above; the other is the .45 ACP/.45 Colt deal. I had a New Model Blackhawk .45 ACP/.45 Colt around the same time as I bought that Old Model 9mm/.357. I only shot .45 ACP in it because I had a ready supply of .45 ACP ammo. Mine wasn’t very accurate. It might have been because the .45 ACP bullet had to make a big jump to the rifling (it’s a shorter cartridge), or it might have been that I just had the wrong .45 ACP load for that revolver. I think the same accuracy detractors exist with the 9mm/.357 arrangement. The accuracy challenge is perhaps even more significant for the 9mm Blackhawk because of the slight difference in bore diameters between the 9mm and the .357 (the barrel diameter is .357 inches; the 9mm bullets are .355 or .356 inches in diameter). If you have the .357 Blackhawk with the extra 9mm cylinder, you can actually shoot three cartridges in it (9mm from the one cylinder, and 38 Special and 357 Magnum from the other). But I don’t have an interest in any of that. I only shoot .357 Magnum in mine.
My .357 Blackhawk is the stainless model you see in the photo above. It’s accurate (I can usually hold all my shots in the 10-ring of a silhouette target at 25 yards). They are super strong and I think they are more rugged than a Smith and Wesson. I sold all my S&W 357s years ago. And on that subject, I owned a couple of Colt Pythons back in the 1970s and I sold them, too. I never understand all the excitement over the Pythons; their fit and finish was great, but they didn’t shoot any better than the Blackhawk (at least in my hands).
No targets? No problem. My Blackhawk is a shooter.
There are several variants of the Blackhawk; I have the full-sized Blackhawk with the 6½-inch barrel. I like the feel of it, I like the grip, and as a kid who grew up watching Westerns, I like the idea of a single-action sixgun. Today, Ruger makes several variants of their .357 Blackhawk. There are fixed-sight versions they call the Vaquero, smaller frame versions they call the flat top, different barrel lengths, stainless models, blue steel models, and more. I like the stainless version because the grip is made of steel; in the blue version it’s anodized aluminum. The stainless grip is a little heavier and the gun feels better to me. But there’s nothing wrong with the blued-steel Blackhawk. They are great guns.
My Blackhawk was manufactured in 1976, and like all Rugers built that year, it carries the “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” rollmark.
I like loading the .357 ammo, too, and I loaded a bunch this weekend. It’s a cool cartridge to reload. WW 296 is my preferred propellant. Unique does okay, too, but 296 is the cat’s meow for the .357 Magnum cartridge. It’s a flat-shooting cartridge, and I can hit consistently with it all the way out to 200 yards. I may set up a target or two at that distance the next time I’m on the range just to back up that statement.
Snacks at an engineering seminar in Singapore. Those are hard-boiled quail eggs and they were good!
I’m back after a 3-day hop over to Singapore, and it’s good to be home. I thought I’d do sort of a catchall blog to mention a bunch of things. For starters, Singapore was fun (it always is), but that 15-hour time change is a bear. I was over there to teach a class, something I do two or three times a year. They treat me well in Singapore and I love traveling to Asia. I think I’m back on California time already, thanks to keeping an altered sleep schedule while I was in Asia and a good sleeping pill that let me sleep through the night last night. If you’ve never been to Singapore, you might want to add it to your bucket list. It’s one of the world’s great places.
I kept up (as many of you did) with Joe Gresh’s Endurofest fun in Flagstaff, and it looks like the only downside to that adventure was his good buddy Hunter crashed and cracked a bunch of ribs. Hunter, we’re thinking of you. Get well soon.
At the spot where Joe’s buddy Hunter crashed. He got through it with six broken ribs. Ouch!
And speaking of cracking things, you’ll remember the story on my .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 cracking its Circassian walnut stock and me shipping it back to the factory. I called Ruger, but I still don’t have an update on the fix. They were supposed to get back to me later today, but it’s already later today so I expect I won’t hear anything until tomorrow or Monday. I’ve got a bunch of .257 Weatherby brass polished and primed, and I’ve got the Barnes monolithic copper bullets my good buddy Mississippi Dave recommended. I’m eager to get that rifle back and continue the load development for it.
A 200th year Ruger 77 in 7×57. You’d think with all those 7s I’d get lucky, but I haven’t found a way to get tight groups yet. I’m working the problem.
In the meantime, I’ve been playing with a beautiful 43-year-old Ruger Model 77. It’s a 200th year Ruger in a very classy chambering, the 7×57, which is the old Spanish Mauser cartridge. I bought it used in 1977 and it is in pristine condition, and I think I know why the previous owner sold it. It doesn’t group worth a damn. But that makes it more fun (half the fun with these things is searching for a good load). Stay tuned, because if I ever find a decent load, you can be sure there will be a blog on this one.
The carb on my TT250 is gummed up and it won’t idle. That’s not the bike’s fault. It’s mine. I sometimes go months between rides on that bike, and that’s what happened here. I’ll take the carb apart to clean out the passageways, and when I do, I’ll photodocument the approach so you can see how I go about it. I’ll have to re-read the tutorial I did for CSC Motorcycles on the TT250 carb first. These bikes are super easy to maintain, and they have to be one of the best deals ever on a new motorcycle.
Hey, another cool motorcycle deal…my good buddy Ben recently published a book titled 21 Tips For Your First Ride South Of The Border (and it’s free). You can download it here.
Let’s see…what else? Oh yeah, we have a bunch of stuff in the blog pipeline for you. There’s the Yoo-Hoo product review (we haven’t forgotten about that one). There’s a very cool watch company (Gear’d Hardware) that follows the ExNotes blog, and they recently sent two watches to us for review. The review will appear here in the near future. That’s good; we’ve been meaning to start a watch review series and this will get the ball rolling.
A Gear’d Hardware watch, one of two Gresh and I will review for you here on the ExhaustNotes blog.
More good stuff: I’ve been playing with another Ruger No. 1 chambered in yet another Weatherby cartridge (the mighty .300 Weatherby), and I’ll be posting a blog about that soon. Another product review that’s coming up is one on turmeric, the dietary supplement that’s supposed to work wonders for arthritis. I don’t have arthritis, but that crash I had on my Speed Triple 10 years ago has bothered me mightily for the last decade, and taking turmeric is getting it done for me. I don’t normally believe in these supplement wonder pills, but folks, it’s working. Watch for the blog on this stuff. And we haven’t forgotten about a near-term ride up the Pacific Coast Highway (good buddy TK and I have been talking about that one).
California’s Pacific Coast Highway: It doesn’t get any better than this.
Stay tuned; there’s always good stuff coming your way here on the ExNotes blog!
We were in Oklahoma last week and it was awesome. It was an opportunity to visit with a wonderful friend and see the sights. And folks, Oklahoma has them. One of our stops was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. It’s an amazing place with a collection of Native American artifacts, rodeo trophies, art, sculpture, firearms, and more. The guns on display were impressive, and one of the firearms that caught my attention was John Wayne’s Weatherby.
John Wayne’s Weatherby, chambered in the mighty .300 Weatherby Magnum cartridge, on display in Oklahoma City’s National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
I’ve always admired John Wayne, and I love Weatherby rifles. This particular rifle was of interest for several reasons, not the least of which was John Wayne’s connection to Weatherby. I remembered seeing John Wayne in Weatherby ads decades ago, and I knew he appeared in at least one of the magnificent Weatherby full color catalogs. I found the photo I remembered in my vintage Weatherby catalogs, but it didn’t show Mr. Wayne with this rifle. Then I did a search on “John Wayne’s Weatherby” hoping to find a photo showing him holding the rifle you see in the photo above, but I did not find it. Wayne appeared in several photos and advertisements, though, like the one you see here:
An early ad showing John Wayne with a Weatherby rifle. It’s not the rifle I saw in Oklahoma City.
The Weatherby in the Oklahoma City National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum was interesting from several perspectives beyond the fact that it belonged to John Wayne. Take a look:
This is very early Weatherby, built on a Mauser action. Weatherby used Mauser and other actions before he designed his proprietary Mark V action. Note the dark finish on this rifle.Optional extrended checkering with a fleur de lis, skip line pattern. Note the scratches and dings; this rifle was not a safe queen. John Wayne rode this one hard!Extra-cost fancier-than-stock checkering on the fore end. Some of the dark finish is worn away near the rosewood fore end tip. Did Wayne pay Weatherby to have a darker finish applied, did the rifle darken from too much oil over the years, or ???A shot of the Mauser action and an early proprietary Weatherby four-power telescopic sight. Note that the windage and elevation turrets are in line on top of the scope, rather than today’s practice of placing elevation on the top and windage on the right of the scope barrel.An ivory or maple stock inlay, darkened along with the rest of the stock. The inlay was almost certainly done in Weatherby’s custom rifle shop.
So there you have it: John Wayne’s Weatherby at the Oklahoma City National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. We enjoyed our time there, and I’ll add more photos from the Museum in subsequent blogs. If you’re in the area, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is a spot you won’t want to miss.
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Good groups with cup-and-core copper jacketed bullets, but I had to slow things down to get the groups to shrink. What I need for this rifle to get the velocities up are solids.
Wow, I was absolutely elated with the groups I fired with the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 and when I was cleaning my rifle, I was thinking about how much I was enjoying the rifle now that I had it shooting well. I knew it wasn’t living up to its potential yet because of the excellent inputs I had received from my new good buddy David from Mississippi, who I think is maybe the most knowledgeable guy out there about the .257 Weatherby cartridge and the Ruger No. 1. David explained that I really needed monolithic (solid copper) bullets to reach the kinds of velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and I ordered a couple of boxes of Barnes solids based on his advice.
I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new Barnes copper bullets when I started cleaning my No. 1, thinking about them and admiring the grain in the rifle’s Circassian walnut stock. Then something caught my eye. Whoa, what’s this?
The stock had cracked. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but there it was. No, I didn’t get a photo. But I had two small cracks, just behind the receiver, one on the top and one on the bottom of the rifle. When you inlet and fit a stock to a rifle, you’re supposed to provide a bit of relief between the back of the tang (the rifle receiver’s rearmost structure) and the wood. What you don’t want is the tang bearing directly on the walnut, as it can act as a wedge and crack the stock. That’s what happened on mine.
Beautiful Circassian walnut; the best I had seen after looking at dozens of .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 rifles. But it was all for naught.
I felt sick about the stock cracking. I had selected my .257 Weatherby No. 1 (after looking at a bunch of them) specifically based on its Circassian walnut stock and matching fore end. Well, it is what it is, and bitching and moaning won’t make it better. So I called Ruger’s Customer Service, they emailed a shipping label to me while we were on the phone, and I returned the rifle to Ruger. I’m hoping they’ll find a stock that’s as nice (or nicer) than the one I had, but I’m not worried about it. Ruger’s Customer Service is legendary, and I’m sure they’ll do good by me. You’ll know about it as soon as I do. And I’m eager to try the loads and new bullets my good buddy David recommended. Stay tuned, my friends. I’m going to explore the terrain above 3,500 feet per second with this rifle, and I’m going to produce tiny little groups doing so. We’ll see what happens!
My RIA Compact 1911. Ported, polished, and breathed on internally to feed any kind of ammo, it’s 100% reliable and superbly accurate. Its plain Parkerizing and simple walnut grips remind me of the 1911s I carried in the Army, and I like that. This 1911 is smaller, easier to carry, more accurate, and thanks to TJ, it works every time.
When you meet someone who is a master in their field, that’s a good thing. There’s an old saying that only 10% of the people in any profession are really good at what they do, and in my experience, I think that 10% figure is too high. It doesn’t seem to matter what the field is…motorcycles, medicine, and everything in between. I commented on this one time to a really good medical doctor, and she asked if I knew what you call the medical student who graduates at the bottom of the class (the answer, of course, is “Doctor”). It’s everywhere. You don’t often find the truly greats in any profession, and when you do, you stick with them.
So, to the point of this blog, I know a gunsmith who is one of the greats. This is a story about my good buddy TJ. TJ is gunsmith like no other. He is more of a perfectionist than I am, and let me tell you, I am one picky guy. I’ve been going to TJ for years and he’s worked his magic on several of my handguns. He has never disappointed me.
I first met TJ more than 30 years ago when I hung out with the falling plate crowd at the Ontario indoor pistol range. Those were good times. A bunch of us would get together on Tuesday nights, I think, and try to knock down six steel plates as quickly as we could pull the trigger. I never won, but I didn’t care. I had a lot of fun and I met some interesting people. The guns were usually highly customized race guns built specifically for the falling plate game. Custom 1911s and heavy-barreled S&W revolvers were the order of the day (I shot a revolver). The go to guy for these kinds of guns back then was TJ, and that’s were I first met him. TJ was just starting out back then, but word of his talent spread quickly, and it wasn’t long before TJ had a loyal following. The big names, Special Forces guys, federal law enforcement officers, and others for whom handguns were critical to their profession and their survival started turning to TJ as word of his talent spread. TJ’s guns were soon featured in several gun magazines. The guy is in the big leagues, and appropriately so. TJ’s work is both functional and gunsmithing art, and everything is focused on supreme reliability. It’s as good as it gets, in my opinion, and way better than you’d get from anyone else.
My first custom gun by TJ was my bright stainless .45 1911. TJ put in a Les Baer match barrel, polished and ported the receiver and the barrel to feed anything, and he installed custom fixed Millet sights. That .45 became a 100% reliable, tack driving thing of great beauty. I don’t say that lightly; in the 10 years since TJ customized my Colt 1911, it has never failed to feed, fire, or eject, and it groups supremely well. Usually, when you prioritize reliability in a handgun accuracy suffers, but that doesn’t happen with a handgun TJ has touched.
So when my Model 59 started acting up a month ago after 45 years of faithful service, I knew there’s only one guy I’d trust with it. I called TJ, and I asked him to fix the extraction issues. While he had the gun, I also asked him to add the custom jeweling he does so well on the chamber and other bits and pieces. TJ went beyond that with a custom polish and porting job on the feed ramp and chamber, and my Model 59 is ready for the next 45 years.
A lightly customized S&W Model 59. Zebrawood grips, lots of engine turning, and this 9mm auto is good to go.
TJ also spun up my Rock Island Compact 1911. The drill there was similar: Custom engine turning on the chamber, and polishing the feed ramp, the chamber mouth, the barrel exterior, and the guide rod. TJ told me the gun’s extractor was junk and he fitted a new one (and now, the occasional extraction and ejection failures I experienced with that 1911 are gone). I love shooting that Compact .45, and I send a couple hundred rounds downrange with it every week. It feeds everything now, from 185 grain cast wadcutters to 230 grain hardball, and it does so flawlessly. Every time.
Engine turning on the Compact 1911’s chamber. Engine turning has a pearlescent effect. As you turn the gun, the chamber appears to come alive. It’s very cool.The barrel and guide rod are polished (along with the feed ramp and chamber entrance) to enhance the 1911’s reliability. This pistol is one super reliable 1911.
And hey, I thought why not spin up my Mini 14 a bit, too? So I asked TJ to polish and jewel the bolt. He did, and that rifle has never looked better. It’s a little dirty in the photo below, but that’s okay. I sent a whole bunch of full metal jacket 62 grain bullets downrange with it yesterday.
An unusual touch for a Mini 14: A jeweled bolt. It really adds to the rifle’s appearance. Yeah, I like engine turning.
The bottom line: You won’t find another gunsmith as good as TJ. The guy does work that is superior in every aspect. He communicates well, too. While my guns were with TJ, I had a steady stream of photographs and emails from him clarifying the work and reporting progress. Where else can you get that? I’ve already sent several of my friends to TJ, and now I’m telling you about him. You can get to his site here, and you might want to do that even if you don’t have any immediate gunsmithing needs. You can spend hours just looking at TJ’s custom guns, and that would be time well spent.
The Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. It was a glorious weekend.
I have good news and I have bad news, like my old platoon sergeant used to say. The good news is that the .257 Weatherby chambering issue that I wrote about in the last blog is in the rear view mirror. I learned the secret handshake from RCBS tech support, as I wrote in a previous blog. More good news is that I loaded several more combinations of propellant and charge weights (all with the Sierra 100-grain jacketed soft point bullet) and I saw a few loads that show promise. Nothing really great yet, but better than I’d seen before I solved the chambering issue problem. I’ll show you the results in a second or two.
Reloading .257 Weatherby Magnum Ammo
Beautiful ammo, but getting it to perform in the Ruger No. 1 has been a challenge. I’m not there yet. These are 100-grain Sierra bullets. Phil at Sierra told me they have driven these up to 3500 fps without bullet failure. That’s smoking, folks!
The bad news? Well, it goes like this. Some of the bullets broke up in flight, and I’ve got the evidence on target that proves it. You may recall that I wrote about that in the first blog on the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1, and at that time, I attributed it to the varmint 87-grain bullets I used for those loads. My thought then is that they were thin-skinned varmint bullets designed to explode on impact, and pushing them at .257 Weatherby velocities (with the consequent aero heating and centrifugal forces) induced the failures. It’s what made me step up to the 100-grain Sierra bullets, as I thought the heavier bullets might drop the muzzle velocity enough that this would not occur again.
Like I said, beautiful. But will she shoot?
.257 Weatherby Accuracy Testing
My results on the range with my new loads were a bit disappointing. The rounds chambered okay, but the groups were nothing special and in most cases, downright discouraging. And like I said, I could see that some of the bullets were tumbling and disintegrating in flight. Here are my results from the latest accuracy tests:
So far, IMR 4064 and H1000 propellants show promise at the lower end of the charge range. Several of these combos had bullets break up in flight. I’m searching for cause and corrective action now.
This is what it looked like on target for the best groups that experienced no inflight disintegration:
The load on the left was with 66.0 grains of H1000 propellant; the load on the right was with 52.0 grains of IMR 4064. Both these combinations grouped about the same and experienced no bullet inflight anomalies. That’s the good news, although tighter groups would have made it better news.
And here’s what bullet breakup/disintegration looks like on target:
Whoa, check out what’s going on here! The bullet in the photo on the left came apart in flight just as it was passing through the target. You can see a gray misting at the lower right edge of that jagged hole; that’s lead being sprayed out due to centrifugal action. Two of the five bullets in the target on the right similarly broke up as they passed through the target.
Sierra’s Inputs on Bullet Disintegration
I had such good luck calling RCBS tech support on the chambering issue that I thought I would call Sierra and talk to their engineer, and that’s what I did. I found their number easily on the Sierra website, and a minute later I was chatting with Phil, the Sierra tech guru. Phil listened patiently as I explained what I was seeing on my targets and then he gave me his take on the situation. He agreed that what I was seeing was clear evidence that the bullets were failing in flight. My first concern was that the extra long Ruger barrel might be causing the breakups (it’s 28 inches, as opposed to other .257 Weatherby Magnum rifles that have 24 or 26 inch barrels). Phil said the Ruger’s extra 2 inches would make the muzzle velocity higher, but it wasn’t enough to cause this problem.
Phil pointed me in two or three directions. His first thought was that the barrel might have an imperfection induced either by a machining anomaly or being too dirty. He advised me to thoroughly scrub out the barrel and then inspect it carefully. I felt a bit uneasy (maybe guilty is a better word). I clean my guns after every range session, but I’m not a fanatic about it. Another thing that made this hit home for me is that in both recent range visits, I shot some of my best groups early in the sessions (while the barrel was cleaner). That made me wonder: Maybe there’s enough crud left in there from the prior session that after the first or second group it attracts more copper and combustion fouling and that’s what is killing accuracy. I poked around a bit on the Internet and other folks have commented that these rifles require cleaning every 15 or 20 rounds. Hmmm. I typically test 50 in a single range session. I have the barrel soaking with Butch’s bore shine as I write this blog, and there is a lot of copper fouling coming out. I hope that’s enough to solve the problem. If it’s an errant machining artifact, that means the rifle has to go back to Ruger, and I really don’t want to go that way.
Phil also advised me to take a look at my resizing die. He directed me to carefully check the expander button. It’s the part that opens the case mouth just enough to assure an interference fit with the bullet. If the expander has a scratch or burr on it, Phil said, that will transfer to the case mouth inner diameter, and that could damage the base of the bullet. That, too, could account for the bullets breaking up in flight. Along these same lines, Phil recommended lightly deburring the case mouth’s inner edge. I had done that on these loads, so I’m thinking that may not be the issue. But I’ll do it again on the next reload.
The .257 Weatherby Mag resizing die. That thing sticking out of the bottom (on the right) is the decapper, which knocks the old primer out of the fired case.The expander and decapping pin subassembly removed from the resizing die.This is the expander button. It passes into the brass case on the up stroke (as the case is being returned to spec dimensions), and then expands the inside of the case mouth on the press retraction stroke. If this part had any burrs on it, it could be inducing a scratch on the inside of the case mouth. That, in turn, could damage the bullet when it is seated into the case. I didn’t see any burrs, but who knows? I figured I’d polish it, anyway. There’s a lot going on in the reloading process. I used to be an engineer in the munitions industry, and I love working these kinds of challenges.The expander button after polishing. I chucked this piece in a drill and polished it first with 600-grit sandpaper, and then with polishing compound. I could comb my hair (if I had any) in the now-mirrored surface.
So I’ve got the bore soaking with bore solvent and I’ve been working on it for about a day now. There was a lot of copper in there, and it’s still coming out a few atoms at a time (I figure the bore will be copper free by Christmas at the rate I’ve been able to remove it). I’ve polished the expander button as you can see above. And, I’ve resized 20 cases that I’ll reload this afternoon at the lower end of the spectrum to see if I can get tighter groups out of my .257 (those cases are in the tumbler/polisher now). If all goes well, I’ll be back on the range in another day or two, and I’ll let you know what happens right here on the ExhaustNotes blog. I’ve been drinking my Yoo-Hoo, so things should go better.
I’m a big time Weatherby fan, and I make no apologies for that. I met Roy Weatherby in person and I shoot and hunt with Weatherby rifles. I believe in the company and their cartridges. Your mileage may vary, but that won’t change my opinion. One Weatherby chambering I always wanted but didn’t own yet was the .257 Weatherby. It’s the fastest .25-caliber cartridge there is. The heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wanted a rifle chambered for the .257 Roy.
A .257 Roy Ruger No. 1
I’m also a big Ruger fan, and in particular, I’m an admirer of their No. 1 single-shot rifles. When Ruger offered a limited run of No. 1s chambered in .257 Weatherby Magnum, for me it was a no-brainer: I had to get one. I found the one I wanted, it had great wood, and I pulled the trigger.
A Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. Circassian walnut, a 28-inch barrel, and a classy falling block action. What’s not to like?
Chambering Challenges
The only problem? This was not a marriage made in Heaven. My Ruger did not want to chamber the ammo I had loaded for it. I first purchased a box of .257 Weatherby brass manufactured by Hornady and loaded it in several different flavors. Wow, was that ever disappointing. The rounds just wouldn’t chamber easily and closing the action was difficult. And on the ones that would allow the action to close, accuracy was dismal. I thought I had screwed up by reloading the brass directly without running the brass through the resizing die first, so when I got home I resized the brass. It was still tough to chamber. I measured the brass and it seemed to me it was right at the max dimensions. I called Hornady to complain. They were nice. They sent me three empty new cases.
Hornady versus Weatherby Brass
On my next trip to the components store, I picked up four boxes of new Weatherby (not Hornady) brass. It chambered in the Ruger easily. I loaded up some ammo and I was off to the range again. Yep, I reasoned, it must have been that Hornady brass. The .25-caliber bullets I used, though, were not designed for the very high velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and they were disintegrating in flight. Accuracy, as you might imagine, was atrocious. Then I got busy on other things and the Ruger sat in the safe for a year. You know how that goes…sometimes life gets in the way of having fun.
Earlier this week, I decided to load up a bunch of .257 Weatherby Magnum ammo and work on finding the secret sauce for an accurate load. I resized all my brass (both the Weatherby and the Hornady brass), tumbled it until the stuff glistened, and then tried to chamber it. Son of a gun, the Hornady brass still wouldn’t allow the action to close. Damn, I thought. I probably spent $50 for that box of brass. I made a mental note to call Hornady and get my money back.
Then I tried the Weatherby brass that had chambered easily in the rifle when the brass was new (but was now once-fired and resized). To my great surprise, the Weatherby brass wouldn’t chamber, either. Just like with the Hornady brass, the Ruger’s action wouldn’t close on any of the resized and polished brass (Hornady or Weatherby).
Hmmm. What could be causing this? I wondered if the Ruger had an undersized chamber. That would account for both brands of brass not chambering. That would get messy. I’d have to send the rifle back to Ruger to have the chamber recut, and hope they didn’t ding up the stock or anything else in the process. But the Weatherby brass had initially chambered easily in the Ruger. The rifle’s chamber hadn’t shrunk. Maybe it wasn’t the rifle.
Then I thought maybe it was the resizing die. Yeah, that could be it. If the resizing die was cut too deep, the brass would be too long after resizing, and that would result exactly in what I was experiencing: The resized brass wouldn’t chamber. Hmmm. Yeah, that could be it.
RCBS Tech Support to the Rescue
My next step was to call RCBS, the reloading die manufacturer. I found the number on their website, I called and waited on the customer service line and in a few minutes I was speaking with a guy named Bill. I explained my problem to him and my belief that the resizing die might have been cut too deep.
“We get two or three calls a day on the .257 Weatherby Magnum cartridge,” Bill said. “Tell me how you set up your dies.”
So I did. I explained that I ran the press ram all the way up, screwed the resizing die all the way in until it touched the shell holder, turned the resizing die just a little bit more to assure intimate contact between the die and the shell holder, and then locked everything down.
“That’s where it’s happening,” Bill said. “For the .257 Weatherby, when the die contacts the shell holder, withdraw the ram and turn the die in another 90 degrees. Then lock it down.”
“Geez,” I said. “Won’t that break the press?”
“What kind of a press are you using?” Bill asked.
“One of yours,” I answered. “A Rockchucker. I’ve been reloading ammo on that press for 50 years.”
“You’d have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wheaties to break that press,” Bill said. “Trust me on this. We hear this a lot on all the Weatherby cartridges, especially the .257 Weatherby. And the 6.5 Creedmoor, too. Go another 90 degrees in on the resizing die. Call me if that doesn’t work, but I know it will. You can’t break that press.”
So I did as Bill advised: Intimate contact between the shell holder and the resizing die, another 90 degrees in on the resizing die, and then lock everything down. I resized a single .257 Hornady brass case and then tried the empty case in the Ruger No. 1. Son of a gun (to use an apt metaphor), the Ruger’s action closed effortlessly. I tried several more cases with the same result. Wow, now that’s real expertise and great customer service. The boys at RCBS know their business. As it turns out, so do the folks at Hornady. There was nothing wrong with their brass; I just didn’t know the secret handshake to resize it properly.
It’s beautiful ammo, isn’t it? With help from the RCBS customer service folks, I solved my chambering issue. I loaded 70 rounds immediately after talking to Bill at RCBS. If I were to purchase new ammo, it would cost something north of $220 for those 70 cartridges; by my reckoning, I spent about $50 on the reloading components. Reloading provides more accurate and much less expensive ammo.
That night, I loaded 70 rounds of .257 Weatherby Magnum, all with the 100-grain Sierra jacketed softpoint bullet, and I’m headed to the range later this week to test for accuracy. I’ve got rounds loaded with IMR 4320, IMR 4064, IMR 7828SSC, and H-1000 propellant at both the low and higher ends (but not the max) of the charge spectrum. I’ll report on what works best in a subsequent blog.
An 1886 rifle chambered in .45 70. Octagonal barrel. Color case hardened receiver and other bits. Finely-figured walnut. It was a good day.
It was one of Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite rifles, and it was a rifle I’ve wanted for a long time: The 1886 Winchester, except mine isn’t a Winchester. Mine is a Chiappa, and it’s a faithful reproduction of the original 1886 Winchester. After a diligent search, I purchased mine through Gunbroker.com from an outfit in Pennsylvania called Elk County Ammo and Arms and I had it shipped to my favorite local gun shop, Bullet Barn Guns here in southern California.
I picked up my 1886 this week and I was on the rifle range with it the day I did so. It wasn’t my brightest move; it was over a hundred degrees on the firing line and the heat made me woozy by the time I got home. But I wanted to shoot my 1886. Not surprisingly, I was the only nut on the range that afternoon. Also not surprisingly, I enjoyed every second of my 1886 range session. For me, the rifle’s heritage, beauty, performance, accuracy, and general magnificence overcame the heat. Even though old Davy Crockett did his thing a good half century before the Winchester 1886 came on the scene, I kept hearing the music from that old 1950s TV show while I was on the range. You know. Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier and all that. A stunningly-beautiful 1886 and high temperatures will do that do you. King of the Wild Frontier. I liked that. It’s how I felt that afternoon, a feeling fueled by the vintage look and feel of my 1886.
My 1886: Blue Steel and Walnut
Well, not just blue steel and walnut. Blue steel, color case hardened steel, a 26-inch octagonal barrel, and extremely well-figured walnut. It’s a combination that’s tough to beat, especially on a classy lever gun like the 1886.
Left and right views of my 1886. This is a beautiful rifle. But that buttplate!
The folks at Chiappa know what they’re doing. Check out this color case hardening. It’s stunning.
This is a classy rifle. The color case hardening is magnificent.The craftsman in Italy who do this kind of work are underpaid. I have no idea how much they earn, but I think they are underpaid. This kind of work is priceless.The fore end tip is also color case hardened. The checkering is hand cut and beautifully executed.Painfully beautiful, this buttplate is. It captures the era and the feel of an original 1886, but with full power loads, it’s painful.
The 1886 and 45 70 Accuracy
So what’s it like shooting the 1886? Hey, take a look…
The 1886 Chiappa will shoot. The heat not withstanding, I was having a good time out there. The sun was playing hide-and-seek behind the clouds, and when it went behind the clouds, the difference in accuracy was immediately apparent. I saw firsthand what happens when you have glare on the front sight. When the sun ducked behind the clouds, the front sight stood out clearly. When the clouds moved away and the sun bore down on the 1886 directly, the front sight caught a fair bit of glare. It made getting a clear sight picture difficult, and you can see the results on the target below.
Five 5-shot groups at 50 yards with the Chiappa 1886. The first three groups were shot with the sun behind the clouds. The Chiappa 1886 is accurate! The sun emerged for the last two groups, and the accuracy difference was startling. Glare from the front sight made the groups open significantly. My 1886 had not been zeroed yet. The purpose of this range session was just to see how the 1886 would group, and it did not disappoint.
I had my Marlin 45 70 accuracy load (a 405 grain cast bullet with 35.0 grains of IMR 4198 powder) and I used it on the target above. I fired the first three groups with the sun behind the clouds and no front sight glare. Then the clouds shifted, the sun was out in the open, and the front sight started winking at me. Glare kills accuracy when shooting open sights. I proved it. With no front sight glare, the groups were impressive.
The 1886 was shooting to the right, and when I examined the sights, sure enough, the front sight was slightly biased to the left. On a rifle or handgun rear sight, you move the sight in the direction you want the bullets to go (if you want your shots to move to the left, you move the rear sight to the left). On the front sight, it’s just the opposite. You move the front sight in the opposite direction you want the bullets to move.
Look very closely, and you can see the front sight is a bit to the left. That octagonal barrel is beautiful.
The front sight on my 1886 needed to move to the right because I wanted to move the shots to the left. I had a gunsmith screwdriver kit with me at the range, but between the heat and my sweating like a stuck pig I didn’t want to fool around trying to move the sights out there. I thought it would be best to wait until I returned home and do it in my shop. That’s what I did, and I’m eager to get back out on the range and try it again.
45 70 Recoil
In the video above, the 1886’s recoil looks to be pretty mild, and it was for the three shots you see me firing in the YouTube (I was shooting a light Trail Boss load). I brought two different loads with me to the range. One was the aforementioned light Trail Boss load; the other was the more serious IMR 4198 load that I also mentioned earlier. Trail Boss and IMR 4198 are two different propellants; Trail Boss loads generally give low bullet velocity and low recoil (you know, it’s the old f = ma thing). IMR 4198 makes the bullet step out more earnestly and that load used a heavier bullet. Both resulted in a sharp step up in recoil.
With the light Trail Boss load and a 300-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point bullet, the recoil was tolerable (as you can see in the video). With my accuracy load (the one I developed for my 45 70 Marlin, a 405-grain cast bullet and 35 grains of 4198), the steel 1886 buttplate hurts big time. I had to use a wadded up T-shirt as a half-assed recoil pad for a field expedient. But the rifle will shoot. It’s accurate, as the above groups show.
The Gunstores
As I mentioned above, I bought my Chiappa 1886 from Elk County Ammo and Arms in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of shops selling the 1886 Chiappa, but Elk County Ammo and Arms was the only one willing to take photos of my rifle and email them to me so I could see what I was getting. That was a big plus for me, and it cinched the deal once I saw the actual rifle. I had Elk County Ammo and Arms ship the rifle to my local gun store, Bullet Barn Guns, here in southern California. Bullet Barn Guns is a family-run operation and they are absolutely top notch in every regard. Like me, they appreciate blue steel and fine walnut, and they were blown away by my 1886 when it arrived (so much so that they shot photos of it and emailed them to me, too). The folks at Bullet Barn are enthusiasts, just like me.
The 1886 Chiappa: The Bottom Line
I’m a happy camper. I wanted an 1886 with good wood and this one answered the mail. The walnut is stunning. The checkering is hand cut and sharp (it’s not laser cut or pressed, as is the case on many rifles today). The walnut is oil finished, which makes it easily repairable when the inevitable hunting, range, and general use scratches occur. The metal work is superior (you can see that in the above photos). The trigger is good (there is no creep). And the rifle is accurate. It groups well. After I shot the above target, I used up the remainder of the box of ammo I brought to the range shooting at a rock out at about 150 yards, and I connected every time. That was cool.
About the only thing I don’t care for is that the lever does not lay flush against the receiver; it’s angled out a degree or two. I don’t think that’s a big deal, but I had to find something to bitch about (I’m told it’s part of my charm). That’s it.
The bottom line is that the Chiappa 1886 is a beautiful and accurate rifle. I had wanted an 1886 with nice wood and color case hardening for a long time, and now I have one. Keep an eye on the ExNotes blog, folks. This is a rifle that will be back on these pages.
Like stuff on blue steel and walnut, or maybe the 45 70 cartridge? Hey, check out our Tales of the Gun page!
