You’ve got to give The Motor Company credit. They are throwing tons of new models against the wall hoping something sticks. The Milwaukee Wrecking Crew is producing a slew of modern products, only one of them called the 975 Bronx.
To my admittedly untrained eye the engine looks similar to the new liquid-cooled V-twin used in Harley’s (also new) Pan American ADV bike. The Bronx will have less displacement but I’m sure it will still have enough power to unravel a man-bun at full throttle.
The Bronx styling is ok, kind of a standard-ish, street fighter thing. It looks good to me. The big pulley on the back wheel is probably for a belt drive. I guess I could do some Internet research and find out more hard facts about the Bronx but facts don’t matter, performance numbers don’t matter, and styling doesn’t matter with this effort.
What matters is Harley-Davison’s maybe-too-late arrival and the amount of money they are spending to play catch up in the broad, non-cruiser categories. There are so many market segments now: ADV-big, ADV-small, Scrambler, Streetfighter, Sport bike, Sport Tourer, Race replica and the list goes on.
I get that Harley is trying to outlast their dying customer base. It’s a smart thing to do but exactly how much cash do these guys have to burn? The Bronx is not available for a few years yet they have to have the equipment to build the thing, right?
I’m worried about H-D. I like to poke fun at them but I cheer on their to-date-futile attempt to make a competitive flat tracker out of the long and portly Street 750 engine. I don’t want to see Harley fail. Yet they keep cranking out new models nilly-willy, seemingly without asking anyone if it’s a good idea or waiting to see if any of them are going to be popular. At the rate they are going Harley will have their promised 100 new models done by next June.
Will Harley dealerships will be able to adapt to the flood of new technology being shipped to them from the factory? The customers for these new, modern bikes will be nothing like the old guys wanting a big Hog because they can finally afford it. Harley will be competing on price, performance and quality, three areas that they never had to concern themselves with in the past.
Throughout its history Harley-Davidson has always moved forward slowly, fearfully even. Innovations like disc brakes or fuel injection take decades to become part of their story. It was almost comically conservative: The first liquid-cooled Hogs were only half liquid-cooled! This conservative approach has served them well: They sell a lot of motorcycles to guys who think like me. Any one of these new models would be a shock to H-D’s system: The Livewire, The V-Rod, the Streets both 500 and 750. When is the last time you’ve heard anything about the Street 500? Does H-D even make it anymore? It’s like they don’t have time to promote each new model and let it find some kind of stability in the marketplace.
I love that somebody at Harley is shoving stacks of chips onto the ever-contracting motorcycle industry crap table. It means that the humans are still in charge. I hope they have the money to sustain this betting strategy because H-D needs to win. They need to succeed. The motorcycle landscape would be a much duller place without those clumsy bastards barging around America’s roadways.
I like Singapore and I fly there a couple of times a year on business. I know, I’m supposed to be retired, but I’m finding I’m not very good at it. And I don’t need much of an excuse to fly to Singapore. The flight is a bruiser (it’s 16 1/2 hours from LAX to Singapore on a nonstop, and it usually goes over 24 hours if you can’t get a nonstop), but I don’t mind doing it. Singapore is worth the trek. I say I go there on business, but my visits are more like vacations than work. I like the place.
Orchard Road: Singapore’s Rodeo Drive
Orchard Road is Singapore’s upscale shopping area, and the architecture, the night scenes, and feel of the place is amazing. These are scenes from a walk along Orchard Road with an 8mm fisheye lens on my Nikon. It had just rained the evening I took these, and it made for dramatic photography.
You see two kinds of buildings in this area, and I captured both in the photos above. Old Singapore consists primarily of shop houses…two-story structures where folks have a business on the first floor and live on the second floor. And there are the modern skyscrapers. The mix of both makes for interesting scenes.
See those trees along the sidewalks? They’re quiet during the day, but at night, the zillions of birds roosting in those trees are deafening. You literally have to shout to carry on a conversation because the birds drown everything out. It gets interesting when there’s a thunderstorm (very common in this part of the world). When the skies thunder, the birds all fall silent for a second. Then, after a brief pause, they start chirping again. It’s all very cool.
Little India in Singapore
On another visit, I poked around Singapore’s Little India section. There are four major ethnic groups in Singapore, and folks from India comprise one of them.
Singapore Industries
Singapore has a rich maritime heritage (the four major industries in Singapore are shipping, oil refining, finance, and tourism). The shipping industry came about as a result of Singapore’s central location between India and China (the Chinese are another major ethnic group here). There are all kinds of interesting things to see in Singapore, and it’s a walker’s paradise if you like to explore on foot.
You can see all kinds of things in Singapore you won’t see anywhere else in the world. Check this out:
The structure you see above is a shopping, apartment, office, and entertainment complex comprised of three huge buildings capped by a roof styled like a ship (complete with gardens and a swimming pool). The buildings are supposed to be waves, with the ship riding along top. I’ve never seen anything like this. You might have seen it on television when President Trump was in Singapore meeting with the North Korean guy. But that’s Singapore. It has a lot of things you won’t see anywhere else.
Singapore Museums
To me, all of Singapore is a museum with architecture, dining, street sculpture, automobiles, and more that makes getting out and walking around a hell of an experience. There are many museums, including one focused on Singapore’s World War II history I found particularly interesting. Here are a few photos I grabbed in it.
Exploring Singapore on a Motorcycle?
Nope, I haven’t done that (not yet, anyway). But I’m tempted to spend an extra day or two over there on the next trip and see if I can find somebody to rent me a motorcycle. I’ve seen RX3s in Singapore. That would be fun, and I think the RX3 would be a perfect bike to poke around on in this tropical urban paradise. The entire country is only about 24 miles long, and most (maybe all) of it is city. It seems to be very safe, too, so I don’t think I could find myself in any dangerous areas. The only problem is they drive on the wrong side of the road over there, and that would take some getting used to.
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To me, the three most terrifying words in the English language are “Where’s the party?” I’m a homebody. I like it at Tinfiny Ranch amongst the trees, rocks and dirt. It’s a safe place. I’ve got my junk cars and junk motorcycles. I’ve got my tractor and shed full of tools. No one can see what I’m doing and I can’t see anyone else. It’s pretty much heaven.
Unfortunately the world has a way of forcing itself on you and my cool nephew Anthony is getting married. I can’t miss that scene, man. I like the kid. That means leaving the serenity of Tinfiny and taking trip to the neon gates of hell: Lost Wages, Nevada.
Chief amongst my pet peeves of this modern world is air travel. I used to enjoy flying but now it’s a trial to be endured. Every time I get on a passenger airplane it seems they have managed to make the restroom smaller. I had to use the toilet on the flight to Vegas and my head was bumping into the curvature of the fuselage while my butt was resting against the bi-fold doors. I’m not a large person yet I still had to remove my billfold, watch, and think of baseball to turn around in the confined area.
Mooing and kicking at the fences, we disembarked into the Las Vegas airport where we attempted to rent a mini van because our wilding days are over. Dollar was out of minivans so we ended up with a Ford Flex. The Flex is like a mini van with a snout. It’s easier to find the squared off profile in a parking lot. So that’s a plus.
It’s always the turbo-charged 1970’s in Las Vegas. The clothes, the hair, the Hugh Heffner value system. There’s a dusty, aged-vibe sucking the life force from fresh-faced youth that is creepy if you pay attention to it. Everybody has to make a living but I’m uncomfortable with the place, you know?
Our hotel is also a huge casino and between visits to CT’s rowdy family I’ve been busy working the electronic slot machines. In only two days I’ve made $4.05 doing nothing more than repeatedly pushing buttons. It’s like taking candy from a really stingy baby. I never bet large amounts. Every expenditure breaks down into bags of concrete. Do I take another spin on the machine or should that 50 cents be used to buy 10 pounds of mud? Maybe I’ll take just one more try.
Marty and his 145,000-mile BMW K1200RS. That’s my RX3 in the background.
I’ve been riding with good buddy Marty since the early 2000s (it’s been close to 20 years now), and we’ve covered miles all over the US, Mexico, and Canada. Marty has owned the BMW K1200RS you see in the above photo since it was new. He owns and has owned a bunch of exotic bikes (Ducatis, Aprilias, Triumphs, other BMWs, and more), but he prefers the K1200RS and he told me he’s keeping it forever.
I’ve got a bunch of good friends I ride and socialize with, and I know all of them through Marty. We all get together for coffee at the Brown’s BMW dealership on Saturday morning. That’s followed by lunch, and maybe we’ll talk about the next big ride. We frequently talk about rides we’ve done in the past. Sometimes the conversation turns to politics, and we all have strong opinions. Some of the guys are right (the ones who agree with me), and some of them are wrong (the ones who don’t), but it doesn’t matter. Every once in a while I inject the thought that the problem in America is that the guys who really know how to run the country are screwing around drinking coffee at Brown’s and riding their motorcycles. It usually gets a laugh, even though the guys have heard that line about 800 times.
I like the get-togethers at Brown’s, although sometimes I’ll go months without getting over there. I don’t know why, because I always enjoy it when I go. And I like riding my RX3 to our Saturday morning meetings. It’s an excuse to get out on my favorite motorcycle (not that anyone needs an excuse to go for a motorcycle ride). Sometimes folks ask about my motorcycle; more than a few motorcycle riders have never seen an RX3. Some folks think it’s a BMW, even though BMW has their own competitor in the small adventure touring motorcycle category (that’s the BMW G 310 GS and you can read our road test of it here). Whatever. My RX3 is slathered with decals denoting some of the big rides I’ve done, and I guess that gets it some credibility in a crowd known for high mileage.
While I’m at the Brown BMW dealership, I like to check out the vintage and new motorcycles. The old bikes are beautiful, and some of the new ones are, too…
A mid-’60s 600cc BMW. Those old bikes are drop dead gorgeous.A new old stock (that is to say, a leftover) 2017 Boxer café bike. It’s stunning. It’s a hell of a deal, but there’s no package deal for a chiropractor, and I’d need one if I rode this bike. I can dream, though. The styling on this bike really makes it for me.I tried to show the difference in size between a brand new GS 1250 and the mid-’60s BMW, and I failed. The photo doesn’t do the bikes justice. Side-by-side, the difference in size is shocking. The GS is outrageously huge. The older BMW seems to be the perfect size for me.
So that’s it for today, folks, except to ask a quick question: Do you have a riding buddy like Marty in your life? Hey, we’d love to hear about it, so drop us a comment or two and let us know!
The Kubota tractor is a little too large for Tinfiny’s expansive back yard. Long and narrow, the yard requires a multi point turn to get the tractor aimed in the correct direction for filling the side yard. Once there, it’s another 20-point turn to get the bucket dumped where I need it.
I was using the flat point shovel to load droppings into the wheel-buggy. It’s not hard digging and it’s actually faster than maneuvering the machine. I lean the shovel on the tractor between loads.
After the buggy is full I can wheel it to the side yard and place the dirt right where it needs to go. It’s a slow process but I’m at that stage in life, the hobbling stage, where I just enjoy being able to move.
The pile at the end of the yard was getting low and I needed to scrape another few inches off the back yard. I’m trying to slope the yard away from the house.
The Kubota runs great (thanks Hunter!) and as I pulled forward I heard a gunshot. The shovel. The thing was and busted in two pieces. Heavy equipment is called that for a reason. I never felt a thing.
Internet searches turned up shovel handles for $13 to $15 dollars. The big rivet that holds the shovel head in was another couple bucks. I went to the local Home Depot and they had a new shovel for $10. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out the situation and I’d have to be really attached to a particular shovel head to pay more for the honor of fixing it. Maybe a shovel handed down for generations or something.
They wear out, you know. Shovel heads get ground away in use. The center part eats away leaving the sides protruding. I guess what I’m trying to say is, in life, don’t lean your shovel on the tractor.
Well, not quite, but maybe a little like the famous magazine, Consumer Reports: We’ve added a Product Reviews page to the ExhaustNotes.us website. You can get to it from the link here or by clicking the Product Reviews link at the top of any of our site pages. Motorcycles, motorcycle accessories, cameras and related equipment, watches, apparel, and more. Take a look and let us know how do you think.
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Gear’d Hardware sent ExhaustNotes.us a couple of their watches to review. Like guns, I’m not really into watches. I mean, if they keep time and have old-fashioned hour/minute hands I’m good. I told Berk that I’d review the watch and send it back to him since I already have two watches and didn’t need another one cluttering up my junk drawer.
Now that I’ve opened the Gear’d Hardware box, though, Berk is not getting this thing back. The ZX1 is huge and heavy. The numbers are gigantic. I can see the damn thing without having to hold my arm inches from my face. It’s a really nice piece of gear.
The watchband is a metal link type and it comes adjusted for George Foreman’s wrist size. I have skinny little wrists; I’m surprised I haven’t managed to break one or both of them yet so I’ll have to adjust the thing. There are two options that I can see: Reset the pins on the flip-close buckle or remove one link from the band. I’m going to take the thing up to the shed and sort it out today. I prefer a leather, belt, buckle-type watchband but the link band looks nice so I’ll keep it on there unless it starts grabbing my arm hair.
The ZX1 is easy to tell time on. The time is set by pulling out the big red, knurled aluminum knob. I love the hell out of that friggin’ knob. There’s no mincing around with tiny crap on this monster. There are four, small, blackish LCD displays for day-date, stopwatch function, 24-hour clock and alarm. Those are visible from some angles and just black dots from other angles. As you tilt the watch the reflection angle changes and the numbers will pop out making them easy to see. There is another button that energizes a cold, blue light on the LCDs. The four LCDs are actually easier to see at night than in the daytime. I’ll need to read the manual to learn how to reset all the digital stuff. Or maybe I’ll just ignore it.
There are four buttons besides that red knob, one for the light, a couple for the stopwatch and I don’t know what the other is for. The back side of the watch has more information: 3 atmosphere water resistant which is about 100 feet deep by my math, movement made in Japan, stainless steel case and sapphire glass. It’s all good stuff. Battery access is via a snap-type cover, there are a couple slits for inserting a pry bar to open the thing. I have a watch with a screw back that jewelers cannot open for some reason so I bought a watch vise and the adjustable watch wrench to do it myself. The snap off back will be a new experience for me.
The corporate attitude of Gear’d Hardware seems to be, “We are not messing around. We make a big ass watch that’s built like a tank.” I’m going to be testing the ZX1’s tank-like abilities in the next few weeks. There’s concrete that needs pouring and I’m not stopping to baby this watch.
Photography is a big part of a motorcycle trip for me. I’ve been riding motorcycles on long rides for a long time, and capturing the memories adds immensely to the enjoyment. I relive and remember each of my adventures though the photos. The photo quality standards for online stuff are not that high (it’s all 72 dpi and small photos); the requirements for print publication are significantly more stringent (that’s all 300 dpi and big picture stuff). The gear I carry meets both standards well. From time to time people ask me about the camera gear I use on my motorcycle adventures, so I thought I would take a few minutes to describe the toys I bring along.
Motorcycle Travel Photography Gear
Here’s the photo gear I bring on a motorcycle trip:
Nikon D3300 digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera.
Nikon 18-55mm VR general duty lens.
Nikon 70-300mm VR telephoto lens.
Tokina 12-24mm wide angle lens.
Circular polarizers for all of the above lenses.
Extra camera battery.
Battery charger.
Extra SD card.
Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag.
I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s really not that much, it gives great capability on the road, and it all fits into my CSC RX3 motorcycle’s topcase.
My camera gear, including the Nikon D3300 DSLR, the 18-55mm lens (mounted on the camera in this photo), the 12-24mm Tokina wide-angle lens, the 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens, and polarizers for all three lenses. It all fits in the Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag.
I’m a Nikon guy, but any of the current crop of DSLR cameras has capabilities way beyond the abilities of most photographers (including me). Gresh prefers Canon. Here’s your shovel, take you pick. Six to one, half a dozen to the other. All the manufacturers offer good cameras. My D3300 is a 24-megapixel camera, which means I can crop the photo significantly and still have sufficient resolution. It’s a good size for a digital image.
DSLR Advantages
I use a DSLR camera because when I press the shutter button, I want the shutter to trip instantly. The point-and-shoot cameras usually have ½-second or so lag after depressing the shutter button, and that’s unnerving if you’re shooting anything other than landscapes. Maybe the technology has advanced to where that’s no longer a point-and-shoot issue, but I’ll still stick with my DSLR because a DSLR gives me creative control. I usually shoot in the Program Mode, but if I’m not happy with that, or I want greater depth of field, I can make the camera do pretty much anything I want it to.
One of the things that is so appealing to me about the D3300 is its light weight. I often ride with the camera hanging from my neck so I can snap shots from the saddle while on the move, and the D3300’s light weight makes this easy. Several of the photographs I’ve had published were taken while I was riding the motorcycle. It’s way better than the standard motorcycle-parked-by-the-side-of-the-road stuff you see most of the time. I think shots from the saddle bring readers into the ride. One thought I want to interject about this shooting-from-the-saddle business: When I take photos while riding my motorcycle, I never use the camera’s viewfinder or rear LCD screen. Trying to look at the camera (or worse, trying to look through the viewfinder) while riding is dangerous and I don’t do it. I use the camera’s 18-55mm lens and I leave it at about the 24mm mark. I’ll point the camera in the general direction of what I want to photograph, and I take a lot of photos knowing that one or more of them will be good. Digital film is cheap.
The last thing I’ll mention is the histogram. It’s the display you can see on the camera back that tells you instantly if the exposure is correct. All DSLRs have a histogram capability. This x-y plot lets you know if the photo is under or over exposed, allowing you to dial in exposure compensation to adjust for it.
The D3300’s histogram. The histogram, to me, is one of digital photography’s major advantages.
DSLR Cost
The D3300 used to be Nikon’s lowest-cost DSLR camera. I think they’re up to the D3500 now. I like the D3300 for the motorcycle and overseas trips because it’s light, it’s small, it’s capabilities are amazing, and it’s inexpensive. I think I paid $499 for my D3300 a few years ago; I’ve recently seen the current D3500 on sale for something like $399, including the 18-55mm lens. Sometimes Costco has a package deal on the camera, two lenses, a carrying case, the SD card, and more. It’s a phenomenal deal.
Making Movies
The D3300 also has a video mode. I thought that was kind of silly at first, but I changed my mind the first time I used the video feature. The video is superb, and Nikon’s vibration reduction (VR) feature makes the video rock steady. On our second day in Mexico on the first CSC Baja ride, I rode ahead of the group and filmed all of the riders as they came around a bend. When I viewed the video on my laptop later that night, I was blown away by how good it was. The video looked as if the camera had been tripod mounted. When I saw the video, I knew I had purchased the right camera.
Moto Photography Travel Lenses
Moving on to the lenses for the D3300, I travel with three. I use the camera’s 18-55mm lens for the majority of my photos, I use the Tokina 12-24mm lens for the wide-angle panoramic shots, and I use the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto for the long-distance stuff. The 18-55mm is my default lens, and it stays on the camera most of the time. It used to be that the standard low-cost zoom lenses that camera manufacturers provided with their low-end cameras were mediocre. That’s not the case with Nikon’s 18-55mm lens. It does an excellent job, returning high contrast and sharp images. The other thing I like about the 18-55mm Nikon lens is that it has Nikon’s VR feature. It works and I like it. It delivers significantly sharper hand-held photos.
Sometimes you see something that screams out for a wide angle lens, and on the Colombia trip I brought my Tokina 12-24mm lens with me for those occasions. I like that lens a lot because of its sharpness, high contrast, and overall construction quality. The photo magazines rated the Tokina 12-24mm as sharper than Nikon’s 12-24mm lens, which costs more than twice the Tokina lens. I’ve had a lot of photos published using this lens in the “Destinations” pieces I write for Motorcycle Classics.
Two RS3 motorcycles (the carbureted version of the CSC RX3) at the edge of a Colombian cliff. I used a manually-focused Tokina 12-24 lens, a circular polarizer, and the Nikon D3300 camera.
I shot the photo on the cover of Moto Colombia with the Tokina wide angle lens at the edge of a cliff in Barichara. It was great place and a great moment, and I preserved it with a great photo.
I brought my 70-300mm Nikon lens with me on the Colombia trip, too. It’s a big, heavy, and clunky lens and it goes against what I always tell people, and that is to travel light. I only used the 70-300mm on the camera twice while I was in Colombia, and on one of those two occasions, my subject got away before I could get a good photo. That was when I tried to photograph an iguana while having lunch in Magangué. On the other occasion, though, I was quicker (actually, my subjects were slower). That’s when I photographed the vultures outside of Guane. I captured some amazing shots of those big old Colombian vultures.
Hey, you talking to me? A shot of a Colombian vulture with the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto lens, handheld, showcasing Nikon’s vibration reduction technology.
I had circular polarizers with me for all three lenses. A circular polarizer filters out the white light and that makes the colors much more vibrant in outdoor shots. I left the polarizers on the lens, and I would remove them when I shot indoors, or at night, or when I used flash. They don’t take up much room, and they make a real difference on outdoor shots.
A Good Camera Bag
I carried all of the above in a Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag. The Tamrac bag has a sling that makes it easy to carry, but I didn’t carry the bag much. I’d just throw the whole enchilada (the Tamrac bag with the camera, the lenses, a spare battery, and the battery charger) in the topcase.
And folks, that’s it. If you have any thoughts on moto photography travel gear, we’d love to hear them. Just leave a comment below and share your thoughts with us.
A No. 1 in .300 Weatherby: The Best of Both Worlds
I’m a big fan of the .300 Weatherby cartridge, and an even bigger fan of the Ruger No. 1 rifle. You’ve seen several blogs about these fine single-shot firearms here on ExhaustNotes, and I thought I’d add another combining the best of both worlds: A Ruger No. 1 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum.
Ruger didn’t make too many No. 1 rifles in .300 Weatherby.
Finding a Rifle with Fancy Walnut
When Ruger announced the .300 Weatherby No. 1 nearly 30 years ago, I wanted one, but I couldn’t find one with fancy wood. Then my interest waned and I was on to other things. I remember seeing one at a gun store in Oregon (it was the first one I’d seen in person), but the wood was plain and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of buying one and having it shipped FFL-to-FFL back to California. Then I saw one with better-than-average wood on Gunbroker and I had it shipped to a dealer here in California, but that rifle was a disappointment. It had an aftermarket recoil pad that didn’t appear in the photos on Gunbroker, so back it went. Then a few years later I saw one that had even better wood (exhibition grade, actually) and I pulled the trigger. When it arrived, I was blown away by the wood.
The wood looks good from the right, but it looks even better from the left.See what I mean? Those are my .300 Weatherby Magnum reloads, and they shot very well in this rifle.
Ruger No. 1 Accuracy
My .300 Weatherby No. 1 is essentially a new gun, and it may have been unfired when I bought it. Sometimes guys buy these big bore magnums, keep them for several years, and then sell them without ever taking them to the range. Even when folks do shoot their .300 magnum rifles, it’s more often than not the case that very few rounds are fired. Sometimes the folks who buy these things don’t realize just how severe the recoil is, and after one or two shots, they conclude the rifle is not for them.
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I held off firing this rifle for a long time. It wasn’t because I was afraid of the recoil (although it is significant). I guess on some level what I feared was that the rifle would be inaccurate. I didn’t want to not like it, so I didn’t shoot it. I owned this rifle a good 10 years before I got around to mounting a scope on it and to see how it performed. That happened just a couple of weeks ago.
In a word, the rifle performed magnificently. I put a Redfield variable scope on it and did my normal sighting-in routine at the range. That consisted of loosely mounting the scope, taking it to the range to move it back and forth to get the eye relief where I want it to be, and then setting up the rifle on a rest. The drill there is to look through the bore at a target at 50 yards (centering the target in the bore) and then, without disturbing the rifle, dialing in the windage and elevation turrets so that the scope’s crosshairs are centered on the target. I did that, and my first shot went exactly where it was supposed to go.
The next step was to move the target out to 100 yards and adjust the scope at that range. It took only three groups to get the rifle zeroed.
The target on the left is the first one fired at 100 yards (the bullets were hitting high and to the left). I dropped the elevation about 12 clicks (each click is a quarter inch at 100 yards) for the second group, and then 8 clicks on the windage to move the point of impact to the right for the third target. I’m there.
The load I used was one that performs well in my bolt action .300 Weatherby bolt action rifles, and that’s an upper-range dose of IMR 7828 SSC propellant with the 180-grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet and CCI magnum rifle primers. What’s satisfying is that this is a minute-of-angle load (it shoots into an inch at 100 yards), and I haven’t really done any load development with this rifle yet. It’s almost kind of disappointing when they shoot this well immediately (half the fun is experimenting to find the right load), but hey, it is what it is.
I’ve found that the .300 Weatherby Magnum is an inherently accurate cartridge when loaded with heavier bullets and maximum or near-maximum propellant charges. I have a few boxes left of the 180-grain Remington bullets, and that’s what I’ll be using for a bit. I can’t hunt with those bullets in California (we have to use copper solids here in the Peoples’ Republik), but the Remington pills are legal on the rifle range in our gloriously-progressive state, and they’re good for hunting in other states with more normal hunting rules.
Finding a Ruger’s Age
Ruger has a spot on their website where you can punch in the serial number to find out when the rifle shipped. I did, and mine left the factory in 1993. Yep, it’s 26 years old, and it’s in as-new condition.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line: I like this rifle. It’s chambered for a great cartridge, it has outstanding wood, it’s accurate, and it’s a single shot. There’s just something cool about single-shot rifles, especially when they have wood like this one.
Gearheads Road Trip stopped by Tinfiny Ranch to say hello. The poor guy ran right into a concrete pour as is likely to happen any time you visit our mountain lair. Nothing stops mud, least of all visitors, so we trundled off to the Big Box store to pick up some concrete.
Lowes has a price break if you buy 70 bags of concrete or more. That ends up being 3500 pounds and the Bomber, my 1990 1/2-ton Suburban groans under the weight. The rear leaf springs invert to frowns and the truck sways down the highway alarmingly. You want to keep it around 45mph.
3500 pounds was a bit nerve wracking on the twisty mountain roads so I’ve since developed a new plan: I order two pallet loads of concrete which gets me to the 70 bag discount but I take the pallets home one at a time. 2800 pounds is a lot easier to haul, and the Bomber totes it nicely with no sway issues. You still don’t want to make any drastic maneuvers, though.
The 1990 Suburban was an oddball, the last year of the straight front axle 4×4. That axle, kind of like a Dana 44, was upgraded a bit for 1990 making it a one-year deal. It’s got the manual locking hubs, 6-bolt wheels and leaf springs. For a 1/2-ton ride it’s a real Dream Axle if you’re into that sort of stuff.
