I was up in Seattle about a month ago, and while we were there, we visited the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum. It’s just below the Seattle Space Needle. I enjoyed it, and if you are in the area and you want to experience something new, this is a place you might consider visiting. I had seen exotic blown glass in Venice (Italy, not California) a few years ago and I guess I was expecting to see more of the same, but trust me on this, the Chihuly Museum is unique. It features the blown glass artistry of Daly Chihuly, and it’s unlike anything I’d ever seen. The shapes, the colors, the size of the sculptures…all of it was amazing. Take a peek…
The Chihuly blown glass sculptures are huge, and it you look carefully at the photos, you can see people in the background and that will give you a sense of scale. The Nikon’s low light level capabilities came through for me here; these photos accurately portray what we saw in the Museum’s darkened interior.
There sure are a lot of interesting things to see here in the US, and I’m constantly amazed at how many of them I had never heard of before. The Chihuly Museum was in that category. There are other exciting destinations out there, and when Gresh and I find them, you’ll read about it here. Gresh is headed out to the Yamaha Endurofest in a couple of weeks (watch for that), and I’m headed overseas again. More good stuff coming up, folks!
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.
We never used re-bar caps back when I was doing construction. I don’t think they had been invented yet. It was a different time: You had to be tough, man and I was. If you tripped and fell onto an exposed re-bar the thing would go clean through you and out the other side. The jobsites I worked on were grisly with dead men impaled on rusting steel. I’ll never forget that smell. In the hot Florida sun the bodies bloated fast, seemingly still alive as they twitched and waved a stiff, blackened hand each time a bubble of gas escaped.
Guys getting skewered on re-bar was so prevalent we didn’t bother to pull them off until it was time to pour the concrete. Why bother, another man will just come along and land on the thing.
I never fell onto a rebar myself. I’ve come close but managed to avoid spearing the bar, because I didn’t run up a bunch of debt going to college or paying exorbitant hospital bills for puncture remedies. Back then people took responsibility for their actions, not like now. Those guys stuck on the rebar? Maybe they should have eaten less fast food or bought a cheaper car. Today you see rebar covers all over construction jobs. It’s all part of the dumbing down of America.
Back to the rebar covers, I’m reinforcing the ground surrounding The Carriage House and there are a bunch of re-bars sticking up from the retaining wall. I’m not so worried about falling onto them (because I made wise life choices) but the damn things are sharp. The bars will eventually be bent down into the formwork and covered with concrete, until then I’m getting cut to ribbons. A good-sized gash to the elbow was the final straw.
At first I was going to use empty beer cans to cap the bars. That visual might be too much for my wife to handle and anyway I’d have to drink like 75 beers to get the job done. I’ve been trying to lose weight by drinking gin and tonics as a calorie saving measure. Processing that many beers through my gastrointestinal system was a non-starter. I found the MY caps online for 50 cents apiece.
The caps fit rebar from 3/8” to ¾”, inside the cap are 4 vanes that conform to the different sizes. It’s a good set up. The bright orange color alerts you to the bar so there’s less tripping and zero cutting on my jobsite.
They’ve been out in the sun for a few weeks and the color hasn’t faded yet. Kind of funny that the packaging says “Does not protect against impalement.” Which is the main reason you buy the damn things. I suspect some cell-phone owning construction worker fell 13 floors onto the MY cap and managed to sue the company.
Go ahead and call me a nanny-state mason. I deserve it. I guess you could say I’m getting soft in my old age. Seeing all those orange caps sitting atop the rebar makes me sad. I miss the old ways. I miss personal responsibility. And, funnily enough, I miss that smell.
I’ve been drinking my stash of Yoo-Hoo (the review is in the works), but wouldn’t you know it, each of those little containers is 100 calories. To a male model like myself, that means more time at the gym, and that’s what I’ve been doing. Usually I roll over there in the Subie, but today was a bit different. I rode to the gym on my old RX3.
It sounds funny to refer to the RX3 as old. Four years ago, it was the hottest thing since sliced bread, and news of an inexpensive, fully-equipped, adventure touring machine was big news indeed. The RX3 price has gone up since then, but the RX3 is still a hot smoking hot deal. Mine came in on the very first shipment from Chongqing, it has about 20,000 miles on it, and it’s still going strong. I don’t ride my RX3 much these days because I’m usually on someone else’s motorcycle for an ExNotes blog (the RX4, the Royal Enfields, the Janus bikes, the Genuine G400c), but every time I get on my bike I still feel the excitement I first felt when I rode an RX3 for the first time. That was in China. You can badmouth small bikes and Chinese bikes all you want, but I know better. The RX3 is one of the world’s great motorcycles.
I’m going to do a trip on my RX3, most likely up the Pacific Coast, in the next couple of months. I’m thinking something leisurely, around 200 miles each day, with stops at the La Purisima Mission, Jocko’s in Nipomo (best barbeque on the planet), a run up the Pacific Coast Highway to Carmel, and then a jaunt east through Hollister to Pinnacles, Highway 25, and the 198 down the center of California. I’ll probably swing further east for a Del Taco burrito in Barstow (it’s the location of the original Del Taco, and if I had to explain why that’s significant, you might not get it). Yeah, that could work. Lots of photos, lots of meeting new people, and lots of fun.
What would be particularly cool on a trip like that is the RX3’s fuel economy. We’re up around $4 per gallon here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia (about a dollar of that is taxes), and being on a bike that sips fuel always makes me feel like I’m getting away with something. I consistently get better than 70 mpg on my RX3. That’s a good thing. Gresh seems to have stumbled on to something on his B0nneville adventure using Lucas fuel treatment in his Husky. His fuel economy improved significantly after adding Lucas. I’ve always used Lucas fuel treatment in my bike, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the reason I’ve always had great fuel economy.
Anyway, lots more coming up, folks. Stay tuned.
Read about some of our other adventures on the ExhaustNotes Epic Rides page!
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CSC 150 Mustang replicas parked in front of Mulege’s Las Casitas Hotel. Yep, we rode down there on 150cc bikes!
I have several places I like to stay in Baja, and one of those is the Las Casitas Hotel in Mulege. (Mulege is pronounced Mool-a-hay, with the accent on the “hay” syllable; it’s not mule-lidge as I sometimes hear gringos say.) I could give you directions and an address for Las Casitas, but it’s really not necessary. Mulege is a small town along Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway and the Las Casitas Hotel is easy to find. Just take a left into town under the arch as you’re traveling south on the Transpeninsular (the main, and in many cases only, road through Baja), head into town, and sort of bear right when you come to a fork entering this interesting little village.
Looking into Mulege from Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway.
My good buddy Javier is the hotelier at Las Casitas. He’s a guy about my age, we became friends as soon as we met, and he’s just a plain old good guy. You know what I’m talking about. Sometimes you meet somebody and you like them immediately, and for me, Javier is a guy like that. That photo you see above with the Heroica Mulege arch? It was erected to commemorate the actions of a small band of Bajaenos who held off a large group of invading seaborne soldiers. I was telling that story at dinner in the Las Casitas one night and I couldn’t remember who the invaders were. “It was you, the Americans,” Javier reminded me, and we all had a good laugh.
Las Casitas has a bar and a restaurant, and if you’re traveling with a group, Javier has no problem setting up a world class meal to keep the gang happy. I’ve had seafood dinners, chile rellenos (my favorite Mexican dish), and more. Javier does a great breakfast, too, and the coffee is superb. The real treat, though, is the fresh-squeezed orange juice. It’s worth riding the 700 miles south just that alone.
A dinner in the Las Casitas on one of the CSC Motorcycles rides.Chile rellenos, as prepped by Javier and his crew. Wow, were they ever great!
Las Casitas has a tropical feel to it, and that’s not surprising as Mulege is damn near in the tropics (the Tropic of Cancer, the northern edge of what officially constitutes the tropics, is just a few miles further down the down from Mulege). The hotel rooms are arranged in two rows with an enclosed courtyard, and Javier’s okay with parking the bikes in the courtyard at night just outside the courtroom. It’s really not necessary as there’s little crime in Baja (and on more than one occasion, infused with sufficient amounts of 100% blue agave Tequila and the inevitable accompany bottles of Negra Modelo, I’ve left my motorcycle parked on the street with no problems). But it’s a nice touch to be able to bring the bikes into the courtyard.
In the Las Casitas courtyard with the bikes. Javier is the second guy in from the left.
The little town of Mulege is an oasis along the Rio Mulege, and it’s one of Baja’s date-farming centers. It would be a crime against nature to not stop at Mulege’s ancient mission, 1700s-era church still in daily use.
The Mulege Mission. It’s one of a small group of 300-year-old missions dotting the Baja peninsula.Inside the Mulege Mission. It’s still on active duty as a working church.A statue in the Mulege Mission.Looking out of the Mulege Mission.Date groves along the Rio Mulege, as viewed from an observation platform at the Mulege Mission.
Writing this blog on this fine Friday morning, I am realizing I need to get my knees in the Baja breeze again. Maybe that feeling will pass, and maybe it won’t. We’ll see.
The weather is turning nice here in southern California, the oppressive heat seems to be behind us, and I’ve got the urge to get on my motorcycle. That would probably be a good thing for the ExhaustNotes blog…you know, to generate some motorcycle-related content. But first, I’ve got to share a bit of shooting success with you (we get so many calls for more stuff on guns and shooting). I was on the range this morning with the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1, shooting the 100-grain Sierra bullets, and I scored a couple of groups that were quite satisfying:
Sub-minute-of-angle shooting with a rifle and cartridge combo that has been challenging. The Ruger No. 1 shot a 0.840-inch group and followed it up with a 0.763-inch group this morning, both with the Sierra 100-grain jacketed softpoint bullets.
I’ll do another blog or two on the .257 Ruger No. 1 in the near future. It’s fun.
An Upcoming RX3 Run!
So back to the motorcycle stuff. Both my motorcycles had dead batteries a couple of days ago, so I hooked up my trusty trickle-me-Elmo charger. I did the RX3 first and it’s showing green on the charger now, and I’ll get out on it a little later today. The TT250 is next, but I know I have to clean the carb again. I go too long between rides on that bike and I’m too lazy to add fuel stabilizer. If I get a few more motorcycles that don’t run, I’ll be just like Joe Gresh.
Anyway, I’ve been corresponding with a couple of my RX3 buddies and we’re in the early stages of talking about a 250cc ride in the next month or so. I’m thinking maybe an easy run up the Pacific Coast Highway. That’s always a fun one. Or maybe Baja. We’ll see, and you’ll hear about it right here on the ExNotes blog.
The China RX3 Ride
Speaking of fun rides, I’ve been seeing a series of Zongshen videos on how their bikes are built, and that got me to thinking about our ride across China two or three years ago. Gresh and I were the only gringos on that ride (is it okay to say that?), and every once in a while I’ll watch the two China ride videos just because I like doing that. The first is the official Zongshen video; the second is the one Joe Gresh put together. They’re both great, but I think I like Gresh’s video better. Your mileage may vary.
The trek across China sure was an amazing ride. So here’s the commercial…if you’d like to get the complete story, treat yourself and buy a copy of Riding China.
What’s that? You’d like a copy of Riding China but you don’t want to spring for the cash? Hey, that sounds like a call for a contest. Link this particular blog entry to your friends and as many different groups as you can on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever social media you use, show us the proof (a set of screen captures or whatever; mail it to info@exhaustnotes.us), and whoever posts the most links within the next 48 hours wins. We’ll send you an autographed free copy of Riding China.
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 have seen it in my crystal ball. What the future holds. When our readers ask, we deliver. Fred, you da man. (ExNotes Disclaimer: I use that word in the non-gender-specific sense, in case any of our readers get their panties in a knot.)
No animals were harmed in crafting this blog. Please use responsibly.
Standby, Fredo. I’m going to get on my motorcycle and get me a bottle of this stuff. Our review is in the planning stages now.
We human beings spend a large percentage of our life-energy altering the Earth to better suit our desires. Take me, for instance. I’m constantly trying to rise up from Tinfiny’s mud-bound arroyo and beat Mother Nature into submission. New Mexico is no country for old men and I know I will lose in the end. We all lose in the end, our best efforts forgotten by the incurious, but that’s no reason to give up.
One of my favorite ways of taming nature is to pave it over with a layer of concrete. If it worked for Chernobyl’s smoldering, radioactive core it can work for Tinfiny Ranch. My latest attempt to delay the inevitable is the side patio. The ground on the north side of Tinfiny’s Carriage House was washing into the arroyo from heavy monsoon rains and, like the calcified bones of a long-dead Tyrannosaurus, the Carriage House’s foundation was laid bare. This is not good.
About 10-feet from the foundation I dug a footer and laid some blocks to serve as a seawall. I’ve been slowly filling it in with dirt, reburying the exposed foundation and compacting the fill in 8-inch lifts. It’s all going about as well as can be expected.
As I bring the north side up to grade I’m pouring a sloped, concrete patio to stop erosion and re-direct rain water away from the Carriage House’s foundation towards the arroyo. I love concrete as much as the next guy but even I know that great slabs of it are not the prettiest things to behold so I’m finishing the slab in smaller sections with each section grooved to resemble the cut blocks used in The Great Wall of China.
For grooving I’m using a Marshalltown trowel that I ordered online. The thing was not impressive right out of the box. It’s a flimsy looking tool that is not quite wide enough and it tends to create a border to your groove. You’ll need to practice a light hand for best results.
I thought the single direction canoe end would be a hassle, what with having to change the tool’s orientation with each stroke, but I was wrong. Grooving is much less labor intensive than edging so the back-and-forth motion used with an edger tool is replaced by a single stroke with the groover. One pass with this tool and the groove looks pretty well done. You’ll need to hit it a couple more times as the mud goes off but it’s easy as pie.
My initial reaction proved wrong: once you get the hang of it this thing really makes a nice groove. I’m free-handing the cuts just because I’m lazy and I don’t want all the lines perfectly square. The non-canoe end lets you get right up against the form. Except for making it a couple inches longer and a bit wider I am happy with how it performs. It has started to rust already but all my concrete finishing tools rust. I should probably oil them after use.
I’m so happy with the Marshalltown trowel I think I’ll keep on going around the side of The Carriage House and on into the back yard using the same method of construction. After all, you can’t let Mother Nature wash your house into the arroyo without putting up a fight.
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.
We never used re-bar caps back when I was doing construction. I don’t think they had been invented yet. It was a different time: You had to be tough, man and I was. If you tripped and fell onto an exposed re-bar the thing would go clean through you and out the other side. The jobsites I worked on were grisly with dead men impaled on rusting steel. I’ll never forget that smell. In the hot Florida sun the bodies bloated fast, seemingly still alive as they twitched and waved a stiff, blackened hand each time a bubble of gas escaped.
