Gangsters!

My Harley Softail stories seem to be hitting the spot (how’s that for alliteration?), and I mentioned in an earlier blog that I’d tell you about my gangster whitewalls. I keep my promises.

I need to provide some context here, and that entails telling you about two other vehicles. One is what might well be the most beautiful motorcycle Harley-Davidson ever made, and that’s the 1993 Heritage Nostalgia. Quickly dubbed the Moo Glide by whoever did the dubbing in those days, it was a stunning motorcycle. It was essentially a Heritage Softail, but what the Milwaukee maestros did was they painted the thing white with black panels, they dropped the windshield, they made the leather saddlebags smaller, and they left off the windshield.

Harley-Davidson didn’t stop there. The next steps were cowskin inserts on both the saddlebags and the seat, but it just wasn’t a brown leather insert. Nope, it was from whatever breed of cows have that black and white fur, and Harley left the fur on. It worked nicely with the bike’s black and white paint treatment.  The motorcycle was stunning.

The 1993 Harley FLSTN, also known as the Moo Glide.

But wait. There’s more. The V-twin virtuosos had Dunlop add a new part number to their catalog, and that made the motorcycle a home run. The Dunlop dudes took the stock Harley blackwalls and added luxurious wide whitewalls. They (whoever “they” was) called them gangster whitewalls. You know, like Al Capone in a V-16 Cadillac or a Duesenberg.  The effect was visually arresting. Literally.  It stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw a Moo Glide. But I’ll get to that in a second.

The second vehicle (remember, I said I needed to provide some context here) was my 1989 Geo Tracker. Well, actually, it was made by Suzuki, but GM did their badge engineering schtick and they sold it under the GEO Tracker label.

A 1989 Geo Tracker. Mine looked just like this. It was a great little truck.

I saw the very first one of these to arrive in So Cal at our local Chevy dealer, when I stopped to pick up a radiator hose for another Chevy I owned that needed, well, a radiator hose.  I liked the Tracker immediately. It was small (a big plus), it was a 4×4 (that appealed to me), and it was a good-looking little truck. My stop for a radiator hose turned into a new car purchase.

As it turned out, I bought the very first Geo Tracker in southern California, and that got me on an early adopter marketing list.  I’ve probably been paid to look at new concept cars from a half a dozen manufacturers maybe ten times over the years, but that’s a story for another time.

To get back to this story, I loved that Tracker and I really racked up the miles on it.  That’s sort of the point where I’m going with this story. I got more miles out of a set of tires on that Tracker than any vehicle I’ve ever owned. I was at 78,000 miles on the Tracker’s original tires (Bridgestones, as I recall) and they were still going strong. My wife wanted me to get new tires just because of the miles. The Tracker was a small car, and in 1993, a set of tires just like the ones from the factory were $275. Nah, I told her, I can get another 10,000 miles out of these tires. I wasn’t going to spend $275 for tires if I didn’t need to.  Money doesn’t grow on trees, I said, and $275 was a lot of money.

So, let’s get back to the point of this story, and that’s my Harley. I had my ’92 Softail in at Laidlaw’s for a scheduled service, and as I recall, I only had about 2,000 miles on its second set of tires. They were blackwalls, just like the bike came with from the factory. They had plenty of life left in them. But at Laidlaw’s I saw my first Moo Glide and my reaction was Wow!

Jerry Laidlaw saw me eyeing the Moo. He knew I wasn’t going to buy a new motorcycle so soon, but he also smelled blood in the water. “We have those gangster whitewalls in stock,” he said.

“How much?” I asked.

“$350 for the pair,” Jerry said.

I didn’t blink an eye. “Let’s do it!”

Yours truly, somewhere in Baja in the mid-’90s, proving that helmet hair is a real hazard if you have any hair at all. And yeah, with my gangster whitewalls.

Mini Motor Madness: 6

I managed to get all the cables routed and connected. The electrical wiring is concealed inside the large diameter front down tube along with the clutch and throttle. Mini Motor Madness was looking sharp but there were still a few more details to attend.

The cute little gas tank has studs spot-welded onto the underside of the tank. Thin brackets fit onto these studs and clamp the tank to the top frame tube. Except that the brackets are so thin they distort when tightened. The studs needed a few spacers to give the nuts something to tighten against.

From there it was a simple matter to connect the supplied fuel line and filter. The fuel line feels like silicone, it’s very soft and flexible, I don’t think it will need clamps. The kit came with a rubber gasket for the fuel petcock but it looked like the gasket would squirt out the side when the petcock was tightened. I used Teflon tape instead. It hasn’t leaked so far. So many little pieces came with this kit. It really is complete.

The Wal-Mart fender supports were made from ultra thin sheet metal. Just by looking at them I created a fracture. I cut some scrap L angle aluminum into braces and made a backing plate to spread the load a bit. Hopefully the fender won’t tangle in the wheel.

Long time Mini Moto Madness readers will recall the chain alignment issue I was having in an earlier episode. I meant to get back to the problem but the bike was nearly complete. I had to hear it run, man. I turned on the gas, pedaled down Tinfiny’s steep, rutted driveway, popped the clutch and the little motor fired right up. For about a second.

There was a loud grinding noise from aft and the rear wheel locked up. The chain, never really happy with the set up, was tangled in the rear wheel. It was so bad a 3-link section was missing! Luckily, the kit chain was extra long to suit many different bicycles and I was able to splice in a section, making sure to peen the pins after fitting.

To ride this puppy I’d have to bite the bullet and take that damn rear sprocket off (again!) and fit spacers. Like I said earlier, this kit is complete. It had everything needed to shim the sprocket, although the shims were a little harder to access.

After butchering the sprocket for shim stock I reinstalled the rear sprocket. Now on their 3rd round trip the elastic stop nuts were losing elasticity but I was all in, I had to ride the beast. The sprocket was a tad wobblier than I remember but my patented sprocket-tuning tool allowed me to true up the mess to a reasonable level.

And it worked! The little beast fired up and settled into a retro idle, the smoke poured from the recommended 16:1 fuel mix ratio. I live in a steep, hilly area and the bike is geared too tall. I don’t know how fast it goes (that will have to wait for the full exhaustnotes.us road test) but it’s faster than any coaster brake bicycle should be going. The gearing would be ok in Florida but at 6000 feet elevation with 1st gear hills all around it’s Light Pedal Assist all the way.

I’ve ordered a 48-tooth sprocket to replace the stock 44 and my front brake should be here any day now. I’m calling this a win! The kit project is complete in my mind. So there! I finished one. The next phase will be modifications to make the rig suitable for my situation.

A Harley wake-up call…

So I had my new Harley, a gorgeous blue ’92 Heritage Softail, and it was a shockingly beautiful motorcycle.  Yeah, some of the styling touches were a little hokey, but in a good way.  I never even knew what a concho was before I bought the Softail, but I knew after I owned it.  I became a Harley-riding cowboy.  The conchos made the bike complete. How I ever made it to 40 without conchos I’ll never know. I had them now, though, and they just looked right. My Softail was a fashion statement. It made me look good and it made me feel good.   I loved that bike.

My ’92 Softail on a Baja ride to San Felipe. Good buddies Baja John and Marty rode with me on that one.   Those gangster whitewalls?   That’s a story for another blog.

There was only one problem, and it was a big one:  The Softail was a dawg. It was a 700-lb lump that couldn’t get out of its own way. I’ve already spoken about how unreliable my ’79 Electra-Glide was, but that old clunker would get up and choogy, and it would have walked away from my new ’92 Softail in a drag race.  I mean, the thing was slow. When I gave it more throttle going up a hill, it seemed like the only result was a deeper moan. It sure didn’t go any faster.

I worked in El Monte in those days and the nearby dealer was a famous one in southern California, Laidlaw’s, and I felt comfortable with them.  I knew Bob Laidlaw, their founder, and I knew his son Jerry, and I knew both to be straight shooters. When it was time for the Softail’s first service at 500 miles, that’s where I went. Laidlaw’s has since moved to a larger, more modern facility in a better neighborhood, I’m guessing at Harley-Davidson’s insistence, and it’s still a great place. But I liked the old location better. Like I described for Dale’s in the last blog about buying my ’92, the old Laidlaw’s facility had that crusty old motorcycle shop schtick, and I liked that.  You know, grease on the floor, a funky shop area, and guys who looked like their lives revolved around motorcycles and tattoos. Guys with calibrated arms who knew how much torque to apply to a 9/16 by feel alone.

I went to Laidlaw’s on an overcast Saturday morning for that first service, and Jerry wrote the service order. After completing it, he looked at me and asked: Anything else?

“Yeah,” I said. “The thing’s a dog.”

Jerry smiled. He knew. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

“They lean them out pretty good from the factory,” he said.

“So what do guys do?” I asked.

Another Jerry smile. “Well, most guys get a new cam, punch out the pipes, rejet the carb, and put the Screaming Eagle air filter in.”

“How much is that?” I asked. I could see this smoking past another $1500 without stopping to look back.

“It’s about $500,” Jerry answered. Hmmm, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

“So how much would everything be,” I said. “You know, the 500-mile service and the cam and carb and pipes and all the rest?”

“It’s $500 for everything,” Jerry answered, “including the 500-mile service.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

“Let’s do it,” I said. I mean, I know a good deal when I see one. I hung around, as Jerry told me the whole thing would be a couple of hours. In the meantime, it had started raining, and I had no raingear. I walked across the street to some sort of an Army-Navy-99-cent store and bought a $3 rain suit.

In those days, it was no big deal to hang around in the service area and watch the techs work on your bike. The guy who was working on mine was a long-haired dude with lots of tattoos and a friendly smile. He held this giant steel toothpick-looking sort of tool that was essentially a ¾-inch-diameter rod sharpened to a point in one hand, and in his other hand he had a sledge hammer. He stuck the persuader into the end of one of my fishtail mufflers and whacked it with the sledge hammer. Then he repeated the process on the other fishtail.  With a big grin, he said, “Adios, baffles!”

Then it was the carb work and the air cleaner replacement. And then it was the Screaming Eagle cam, which actually was pretty easy to install in the chrome cone on the right side of the engine. Then he buttoned it all up.

I finished my cup of coffee, donned my el cheapo raingear, paid my bill, and fired up the Harley.

Good Lord!

It was a completely different motorcycle. It sounded way better than it had before the Screaming Eagle cam work and exhaustectomy. It had been transformed from a smothered, anemic, pathetic, wheezing sort of thing into living, breathing, fire-snorting, spirited motorcycle. It reeked raw power and it had attitude. The idle was lopey and assertive, like a small block Chevy with an Isky cam and Hooker headers. My Harley rocked back and forth on its axles with each engine rotation. It was telling me:  Let’s go!  I think I’m pretty good at turning a phrase and I’m doing my best here, folks, but trust me on this: It’s hard to put into words how complete and total my Harley’s transformation was. It kind of reminded me of the first time I ever threw a leg over a Triumph Bonneville (I was 14 when that happened, and when Laidlaw’s tuned my Softail I was 14 all over again).

So I rolled out into the rain for my 30-mile ride home and I was afraid to whack the throttle open. I thought the rear wheel would break loose on the wet pavement; it felt that powerful.  The rain and the clouds, I think, made the Harley’s Exhaust Notes (love that phrase) sound way mo better. I was there, man.

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Such a deal!

The year was 1991, and the last thing in the world I was thinking about was buying another motorcycle, and within the confines of that thought, the very, very last thought I would have ever had was buying a Harley-Davidson. I had previously owned a ’79 Electra-Glide I bought new in Texas, and that bike was a beautiful disaster. I called it my optical illusion (it looked like a motorcycle).  I wrote about the bad taste it left in an earlier blog. Nope, I’d never own another Harley, or so I thought when I sold it in 1981.

My ’79 Electra-Glide Classic, as shown in the 1979 Harley catalog. It was the most unreliable and most beautiful motorcycle I ever owned. I wish I still had it.

But like the title of that James Bond movie, you should never say never again. I was a big wheel at an aerospace company in 1991 and I was interviewing engineers when good buddy Dick Scott waltzed in as one of the applicants. I had worked with Dick in another aerospace company (in those days in the So Cal aerospace industry, everybody worked everywhere at one time or another). Dick had the job as soon as he I saw he was applying, but I went through the motions interviewing him and I learned he had a Harley. DIck said they were a lot better than they used to be and he gave me the keys to his ’89 Electra-Glide. I rode it and he was right. It felt solid and handled way better than my old Shovelhead.

Dick Scott on his ’89 Electra-Glide. The day after I took this photo in Baja, Dick died when he crashed his motorcycle.

That set me on a quest. I started looking, and after considering the current slate of Harleys in 1991, I decided that what I needed was a Heritage Softail. I liked the look and I thought I wanted the two-tone turquoise-and-white version. The problem, though, was that none of the Harley dealers had motorcycles. They were all sold before they arrived at the dealers, and the dealers were doing their gouging in those days with a “market adjustment” uptick ranging from $2000 to sometimes $4000 (today, most non-Harley dealers sort of do the same thing with freight and setup). There was no way in hell I was going to pay over list price, but even had I wanted to, it would have been a long wait to get a new Harley.

One day while driving to work, a guy passed me on the freeway riding a sapphire blue Heritage softail, and I was smitten. Those colors worked even better for me than did the turquoise-and-white color combo. The turquoise-and-white had a nice ‘50s nostalgia buzz (it reminded me of a ’55 Chevy Bel Air), but that sapphire blue number was slick. Even early in the morning on Interstate 10, I could see the orange and gray factory pinstriping, and man, it just worked for me. It had kind of a blue jeans look to it (you know, denim with orange stitching).  That was my new want and I wanted the thing bad. But it didn’t make any difference. Nobody had any new Harleys, and nobody had them at list price. I might as well have wanted a date with Michelle Pfeiffer. In those days, a new Harley at list price or less in the colors I wanted (or in any colors, actually) was pure unobtanium.

The Harley Softail I bought at Dale’s Modern Harley. I negotiated a hell of a deal. I kept that Harley for 12 years and rode the wheels off the thing.  I’ve since learned how to pack a little better.

So one Saturday morning about a month later, I took a drive out to the Harley dealer in San Bernardino. In those days, that dealer was Dale’s Modern Harley (an oxymoronic name for a Harley dealer if ever there was one). Dale’s is no more, but when it was there, it was the last of the real motorcycle shops. You know the drill…it was in a bad part of town, it was small, everything had grease and oil stains, and the only thing “modern” was the name on the sign. That’s what motorcycle dealers were like when I was growing up. I liked it that way, and truth be told, I miss it.  Dealerships are too clean today.

Anyway, a surprise awaited. I walked in the front door (which was at the rear of the building because the door facing the street was chained shut because, you know, it was a bad part of town).  And wow, there it was: A brand new 1992 Heritage Softail in sapphire blue.  Just like I wanted.

Dale’s had a sales guy who came out of Central Casting for old Harley guys. His name was Bob (I never met Dale and I have no idea who he was).  Bob.  You know the type and if you’re old enough you know the look. Old, a beer belly, a dirty white t-shirt, jeans, engineer boots, a blue denim vest, and one of those boat captain hats motorcycle riders wore in the ‘40s and ‘50s. An unlit cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth. His belt was a chromed motorcycle chain. I’d been to Dale’s several times before, and I’d never seen Bob attired in anything but what I just described. And I’d never seen him without that unlit cigarette.  Straight out of Central Casting, like I said.

“What’s this?” I asked Bob, pointing at the blue Softail.

“Deal fell through,” Bob answered. “Guy ordered it, we couldn’t get him financing, and he couldn’t get a loan anywhere else.”

“So it’s available?” I asked.

“Yep.”

Hmmm. This was interesting.

“How much?” I asked.

“$12,995, plus tax and doc fees,” Bob answered, walking back to his desk at the edge of Dale’s very small showroom floor.

$12,995 was MSRP for a new Heritage Softail back in 1992. That would be a hell of a deal. Nobody else in So Cal was selling Harleys at list price.

I followed Bob to his desk and sat down.  I was facing Bob and the Harley was behind me. Bob was screwing around with some papers on his desk and not paying any particular attention to me.

“I’ll go $11,500 for it,” I said.

Bob looked up from his paperwork and smiled.

“Son,” he said (and yeah, he actually called me “son,” even though I was 40 years old at the time) “I’m going to sell that motorsickle this morning.  Not this afternoon, not next week, but this morning.  The only question is: Am I going to sell it to you or am I going to sell it to him?”

Bob actually said “motorsickle,” I thought, and then I wondered who “him” was. Bob sensed my befuddlement.  He pointed behind me and I looked. Somebody was already sitting on what I had started regarding as my motorsickle.  That guy was thinking the same thing I was.

“Bob,” I began, “you gotta help me out here. I never paid retail for anything in my life.”

“That’s because you never bought a new ’92 Harley, son, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll throw in a free Harley T-shirt.”  I couldn’t tell if he was joking or if he was trying to insult me, but I didn’t care.

I looked at the Harley again and that other dude was still sitting on it.   On my motorcycle.   And that’s when I made up my mind. $12,995 later (plus another thousand dollars in taxes and doc fees) I rolled out of Dale’s with a brand-new sapphire blue Harley Heritage Softail. And one new Harley T-shirt.

Mini Moto Madness: 5

Not only do I rarely finish projects, it takes forever for me not to finish them. I’m a slow worker. I get bogged down in details and miss the big picture. Details like the front engine mount on Mini Moto Madness. The front down tube on the Huffy is a large diameter pipe and the smaller, cast in semi-circle on the engine crankcase will not fit. The engine kit comes with a steel adapter plate and a U-bolt that fits the fat tube but the thing looks like hell.

I got to thinking and planning, figuring on a chunk of aluminum to fit the two different pipe diameters, holes drilled, cuts made, longer bolts, it was getting out of hand, man. This time I was able to catch myself. What the hell am I doing? Every other mini motor I looked at used the stock mounting plates so I said, “Screw it.” and went with the popular choice. Right there is a two-day labor saving decision.

With the motor firmly in place I spent some time on the chain drive. The rear fender came in contact with the chain so I had to trim it and roll the sharp edge. It’ll need a paint job and stronger brackets but I’m going to wait until the mechanical is done before tackling cosmetics.

It’s almost impossible to get two chains to agree on length so the mini motor kit comes with an idle roller for tension adjustment. The idler also turns the chain angle upwards before the lower frame tubes get narrow, keeping the chain from rubbing. I don’t like the thing but I’m not sure what to do about it. My rear sprocket is slightly misaligned; the chain doesn’t jump off the sprocket but it sure favors the hub side. To center the chain the rear sprocket needs to go outboard 1/16” so that means making a spacer and reassembling the sprocket onto the wheel. I’m also considering adjusting the countershaft sprocket instead. I’ve decided to deal with this situation later.

The pretty chrome exhaust pipe didn’t quite clear the Huffy’s crank arms. I didn’t want to mess up the chrome by cutting and welding the pipe so instead clamped the exhaust flange in the vise and twisted the pipe a few degrees. The pipe twisted beautifully with no wrinkles or kinks. The crank arms clear with room to spare. Sadly, the chrome plating did not go along with the program and delaminated. Pro Tip: Buy the kit with the black painted exhaust. It’s easier to modify for your particular bike.

The ignition coil was a straightforward install. I’ve upped the difficulty rating by routing the wiring through the frame. Most of these bike builds look cluttered with wires and cables. I’ll run the controls inside the frame as much as possible.

The rotor output wiring will also run internally. I’m sure this will end in tears but I saved a lot of time not fabricating a front engine mount so I’m using that time credit to tidy up the job.

The other sloppy area on these builds is the handlebar. Unlike a motorcycle, there is no speedometers or bodywork to hide the throttle/clutch/kill wiring. I’ve drilled holes and snaked the stuff through the bars. It looks cleaner to me. Yes, I’ve weakened the handlebars. I’m willing to risk a crash from structural failure in support of aesthetics. We are all artists and it’s about time we started living like it.

Mini Moto Madness: 4

Assembling the Wal-Mart Huffy bicycle was fairly straightforward. When I was a kid, USA-built Huffy bikes were pretty crappy. They were ok if you rode them like a normal bicycle but jumping or rough scrambling would break the frames. Huffys are made in China now and the frame welds look attractive and strong. From the wheels to the handlebars the whole bike looks better than the Huffys of yesteryear. Which is a good thing because I’m strapping a 2 horsepower motor into the frame of the Huffy to see what she’ll do.

As per the Bicycle Motor Builders Facebook page I packed heavy-duty wheel bearing grease into both wheels. This is a pretty simple job as you only need to loosen the bearing cones a bit to push grease into the gap.

Once the bearings were greased I fitted the rear sprocket onto the wheel. This is the cheesiest part of the install as the sprocket sandwiches the spokes between 2 rubber spacers. Keeping the sprocket centered on the wheel is critical so I used a hole saw blade wrapped in duct tape as a mandrel.

The job went well but when I went to spin the wheel to check the sprocket for square the wheel wouldn’t rotate on the axle. As it turns out a small metal dust cap got squeezed between the sprocket center and the hub, locking the wheel.

I dismantled the mess and removed the dust cap. After reinstalling and truing the sprocket I trimmed the dust cap to fit inside the center hole of the sprocket. The bolts for the sprocket are long but you’ll need that length to get the nuts started. One of the 9 bolts in my kit was a bit too short, or I lost the right one so I used a bolt from the junk drawer after cutting it to length. The sprocket to hub deal looks like poo-poo but the sprocket seems like it is attached well and no one complains about it online. We will see.

The sprocket holes are elongated to allow for different wheel hubs but I didn’t like the bit of hole showing so I put ¼” washers on the bolts to conceal the gap. This looks great except that the rear brake stay arm now came in contact with the bolt heads. It’s that tight! A quick realignment in the vise and the arm cleared the bolt heads.

Of course when you alter one item it causes a chain reaction down stream. The re-bent brake stay arm no longer fit between the axle side-plates so I had to make a new clamp to stop the brake stay from rotating under braking. The stock clamp was super thin steel. I figured with 2hp pushing the Huffy to high speeds the clamp needed to be a bit heavier.

The bolt on the stock arm was a tiny #10. That didn’t look so hot to me so I bumped it up to a ¼” size. And since I couldn’t wait for the paint to dry the clamp got a little scratched up.

With the rear wheel fitted back into the frame I started test fitting parts. The rear motor mount clamps securely to the seat post but this frame has a large diameter front tube that is too wide for the bolt centers of the front mount. The motor kit comes with a U-bolt and clamp setup for wide front tubes. I could make it work but it looks horrible and most likely will rattle apart. I’ll have to rethink the front mount. The carb is a little close to the top tube. I will probably run the throttle cable inside the top tube to give it a larger radius bend. The chain run will determine final motor placement.

That’s the progress I’ve made to date. The white frame with black trim looks sharp. The bike feels balanced and not heavy in the least.

Rabbits to Rhinos…

It was a day on the range with three classic and regal rifles:  A .22 Hornet Winchester Model 43, a Winchester Model 70 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum, and a .416 Rigby Ruger Model 77 RSM Express.  These are rifles that can handle everything from rabbits to rhinos, although my only intent was to punch holes in paper, preferably with the holes as close to each other as possible.   It’s always fun doing so, and it’s even more fun when the rifles have  an elegance rooted in fine walnut, hand-cut checkering, and deeply polished blue steel.  To me, these things are art. Art you can take to the range and enjoy.  I’m going to tell you more about the load data for each of these rifles in subsequent blogs; today, it’s a bit of history about the guns and their cartridges, and how I came to own each of these fine rifles.

A study in extremes: From top to bottom, it’s the .416 Rigby, the .300 Weatherby Magnum, and the diminutive .22 Hornet.  All three are reloaded cartridges.

The rifles?  I’ve mentioned at least two of these in ExNotes blogs before, but for those of you who haven’t read those posts, let me bring you up to speed.  The first is a Winchester Model 43 Deluxe manufactured in 1949.

The Winchester Model 43 Deluxe, a .22 Hornet rifle that looks like it shipped from the factory last week.

The next is an early 1980s Winchester Model 70 XTR.  It’s one of a very small number of rifles Winchester chambered in .300 Weatherby that year.

Another magnificent Winchester, this time a Model 70 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum. Check out the walnut!

And the last is a Ruger Model 77 RSM Express.  It’s a monstrous rifle, chambered for a cartridge designed to slay monsters.   Rhinos, elephants, and more.  It’s a beautiful firearm.

The .416 Rigby Ruger RSM Express, a rifle so costly to produce Ruger had to stop making it.

As I wrote this blog, I realized that I purchased all three rifles from the same store:  Turner’s in West Covina, California.  Turner’s is the major hunting and fishing sporting goods chain here in California.  I’m usually not a fan of big chain stores, but I’ve found some good deals at Turner’s and I’ll give credit where credit is due:  Turner’s did good by me.  All three of these rifles were fantastic deals.

People ask how I find guns with great wood.  Part of it is I’m picky and I’m patient.  Another factor is that today’s firearms market is dominated by folks who want black plastic rifles and pistols.  That’s the market Turner’s serves and that’s good for me, because when collectible firearms with blue steel and walnut come into Turner’s they tend to sit for awhile.  Most guys who focus on ARs tend to ignore what, to me, is the good stuff.

The Winchester Model 43 was on the consignment rack at Turner’s several years ago.  It was the first Model 43 I had ever seen and I liked the look and feel.  I like the cartridge, too.  Turner’s had the rifle priced at $1000 and after doing my research, I thought that was fair.  But I’m not interested in a fair deal.  I want an exceptional deal.   I visited that store every week or so for a good month and a half, and that little Model 43 had not moved.   You see, in that neighborhood, there isn’t much of a market for a collectible Winchester.   Like I said above, it’s just not what sells around here.

Winchester only made the Model 43 from May 1948 through 1953, and as mentioned above, mine was manufactured in 1949.   When I bring my Model 43 to the range, folks who know what they’re seeing are all “ooohs” and “ahhhs,” as the crowd I run with consists mostly of guys who started driving when Eisenhower was in the White House.  These guys get it.

Name one modern rifle that includes a checkered steel butt plate. You can’t. They don’t exist. You have to turn back the clock 50 years or more to fnd this.
Hand checkering, too! Not laser cut, not pressed in, not machine cut, and not a rubber insert…but real hand-cut checkering. Somebody at the Winchester factory probably took the better part of a day 70 years ago to do this, and it was all done with hand tools. Checkering is one of the things that makes this Model 43 a Deluxe model.
Nobody has better rollmarks than Winchester, and these say it all: America, Model 43, Winchester, and .22 Hornet!
I pointed this out in an earlier blog, but it’s so cool I’ll mention it again. That front sight is not a separate part grafted on to the Model 43’s barrel; it and the barrel are machined from one piece of steel. Think lots of machine time and big production expense. Check out the stippling on the sight ramp (it cuts the sun’s glare). That would have all been done by hand.

So, back to my pining over the Model 43.  I stopped in at Turner’s for maybe the sixth time to look at the Hornet again.  I mean, the thing was on my mind.  I was thinking about it at night when I went to sleep, it kept me up, and then when I finally dozed off, I was still thinking about it the next morning.   To be a complete human being, I realized, I needed that Model 43.  I suspect that if you’re reading this blog, you understand.

If the Hornet was still on the rack at Turner’s, I reasoned, the guy who had it on consignment might be willing to negotiate.  I was going to offer $950.  The rifle was easily worth the $1000 they were asking for it; $950 would be a killer deal.   So I stopped in on the way home one day and asked to look at the Hornet again.  I sensed that the guy behind the counter (the Turner’s gun department manager) was a little hesitant to show it to me, but he handed it over after opening the bolt.

I looked at the attached tag. The price had been reduced to $850.

I’ll take it, I said.   The gunstore guy sighed.  He told me he had wanted to buy the rifle (he was an older guy, like me), but that wasn’t my problem.  I filled out all the paperwork, and 10 days later, I took my 1949 Hornet home.  I was a complete human being. I could sleep now.  All was well with the world.

I have no idea why Winchester stopped making these rifles, but I suspect it was because they were expensive to manufacture and the Winchester Model 70 was selling better.  Whatever.  And the cartridge itself?  The .22 Hornet was first fielded in the early 1930s and when it hit the market, it was a sensation.  It was a wildcat cartridge designed at the Springfield Arsenal and its focus was high speed (in those days, the 2400 fps Hornet was fast).   The Hornet’s low recoil, relatively flat (for the day) trajectory, and accuracy made it the hot ticket for sending critters to the Great Beyond. I’ve been with Hornet-armed guys chasing jackrabbits and coyotes in west Texas; there is no better  cartridge for this kind of hunting in the desert surrounding El Paso.  There are more powerful .22 centerfires available today, but the Hornet is the one that started it all.  It’s one of the world’s all-time great designs.

Winchester offered the Model 43 in two flavors – the Standard and the Deluxe.  My 1951 Stoeger catalog shows that a new Deluxe sold for $66.95 that year; the Standard was $12 less expensive.  Mine is a Deluxe, with checkering and a deep blue highly polished finish.  And wow, it does its job well.  It has iron sights, and I shot some amazing groups with it at 50 yards.  I’ll share the load data with you in a subsequent blog.

50 yards, the right load, open sights, and a well-mannered Model 43 all came together on this fine day. Any time I can get under an inch at 50 yards with open sights, I’m calling it a good day.
But wait, there’s more! This old Model 43 gets the job done!

I bought the Model 70 .300 Weatherby rifle in the 1980s.  I was an aerospace engineer working at Honeywell in Covina (we did naval gunfire control systems for one of the first cannon-launched laser-guided munitions), I met my wife Sue when I worked at Honewell, and I hung out with my good buddy Ralph.  Ralph, as it turns out, had the same affliction as me:  He was a gun nut.   Ralph told me about Turner’s.  I was new to California, and I had never heard of Turner’s.

You can guess where this story is going.  I went to Turner’s on my lunch break and I saw the Model 70.  I knew enough back then to know that a factory Model 70 chambered for a Weatherby round was an unusual rifle, and I also had a taste for fancy walnut (my Dad made custom gunstocks, so I guess the walnut thing is genetic).  The rifle was marked for something like $429 or $439 if I recall correctly (I might be off a little, but it was somewhere in the just-north-of-$400 range).  I knew that it was tough to lose money on a gun (not that I had any plans to sell it), but it was the wood on that Model 70 that cinched the deal for me.   I paid what they were asking because I wasn’t much of a negotiator back then.  Today, I know that gun shops always put the rifles with the most beautiful wood on display.   By definition, that’s the one I want and I’ll work hard to get it.   But now I always ask for a discount no matter how stunning the stock is, because, you know, it’s the display model.  Don’t laugh.  It almost always works.

Sweet. The Model 70 in .300 Weatherby Magnum. The time to buy a gun like this is when you see it. They don’t come along too often, and I’ve never seen another one like it.

Winchester introduced the Model 70 in 1936.  They value engineered the Model 70 in 1964 (that’s a nice way of saying they cheapened its looks and feel), and the pre-64s used to be far more desirable.  But that’s all changed.  I’ve owned pre-64s and modern Model 70 Winchesters, and I can tell you from personal experience the current production Model 70s are better guns.  You can argue the point, but like I’ve said, I’ve owned both, and you won’t convince me.  I’ve got the targets to prove it.

The funny thing about this particular Model 70 is that after I bought it, I didn’t shoot it but once or twice over the next 35 years.   I was happy just knowing I owned it, and truth be told, I was a little intimidated by the .300 Weatherby cartridge.   Yeah, I know, real men don’t flinch, but let me tell you, those .300 Weatherby rifles kick.   I started getting serious about mastering this cartridge recently, though, and that’s what led to my Three 300s blog a couple of weeks ago.  I guess I’m getting used to the recoil (a .300 Weatherby will rattle your fillings), because on this most recent range visit, the Model 70 graced me with a couple of 100-yard groups I found astonishing.  I can’t do this with a .300 Weatherby all the time, but when I do, I’ll brag a bit.   And I did.  And I’m bragging a bit.

100 yards, a Weaver T-10 scope, and flinch-free trigger time all came together for a half-minute-of-angle 100-yard group.  I shoot 3-shot groups when developing a hunting load. I’ve never been a fan of 5-shot groups, as I’ve found it’s very hard to get an animal to stand still for five shots.
Maybe that 0.519-inch group isn’t good enough? Hey, the very next one measured 0.371. This is from a .300 Weatherby, mind you, at 100 yards. I’m good to go!

The Model 70 Winchester has been called the Rifleman’s Rifle, and for good reason.  Model 70s have the right look and they are just flat accurate.  I guess you could go wrong with a Model 70, but I never have, and I’ve owned a few over the years.   And the .300 Weatherby cartridge?  There’s no question:  It’s a bruiser.   Developed by Roy Weatherby in 1944, it’s still one of the fastest 30-caliber rounds ever and as you can see above, it can be very accurate.

All right, on to the last one, and that’s the .416 Rigby.  Wow, what a cartridge that monster is.   It was the third rifle I brought to the range with me.   I was about five bays away from the rangemaster when I fired the first round.   He immediately came over to ask what I was shooting.   I thought he was intrigued by the thump (something that might have registered on a Richter scale somewhere), and I guess in a way he was.  I proudly answered that it was a .416 Rigby.  Then he asked me to move further away from his observation post.   The further the better, he said.

The rhino thumper. Big bullets, big bore, big rifle, big muzzle blast, and big recoil!  One box of unprimed brass (that’s just 20 pieces) costs $43!
It just looks cool, doesn’t it?

The .416 Rigby is a cartridge with an interesting pedigree.  It was first developed in 1911 by John Rigby and Company, the folks in England who made safari rifles for folks who liked to throw money around.  The cartridge was designed for dangerous game…big things that can bite you, stomp you, gore you, and maybe even eat you.  Over the years, Rigby built approximately 500 rifles chambered for its mighty .416 cartridge, and then it fell out of favor after the .458 Winchester Magnum entered the market.  The .416 Rigby probably would have died a graceful death had Ruger not stepped in with their .416 Rigby Model 77 RSM (the rifle you see here) nearly 30 years ago.   All told, Ruger built about a thousand of these rifles from 1991 to 2001.   Then, presumably because of the manufacturing expense and fewer guys going to Africa to chase the things that bite back, Ruger discontinued the rifle.

I bought the Ruger at Turner’s, and it was a repeat of the Hornet story.  The Rigby was on consignment (at the very same Turner’s in West Covina), and it was marked $1400.  That was not a bad price, and these Ruger Express Magnums are an investment (you see them now for numbers approaching $2000, sometimes even more).  I keep telling my wife that (you know, the line about collectible guns being investments and all).  She keeps asking me when I’m going to sell.

Like the Model 43, the barrel and sight are machined from one blank (it’s the rear sight on the Ruger rifle).  That means Ruger had to hog the whole mess out of a single piece of steel.  Think excessive machine time, and think high manufacturing cost.

The rear sight ramp is the same piece of steel as the barrel, similar to the approach Winchester used for the Model 43’s front sight ramp.  The three leaves are for close, mid-range, and long-range game.  This is an expensive way to go, but it makes for fast adjustments for someone pursuing dangerous game.   It was a common approach on high-dollar safari rifles back in the day. It’s elegant.

This .416 Rigby Ruger had an exceptionally well-figured Circassian walnut stock.  All of the Ruger RSM Express rifles had Circassian walnut, but I’ve only seen a few as fancy as this one, and when I saw this one, I knew I had to own it (it’s a disease, I know).   And this is another rifle in as-new condition. I can guess what happened…somebody bought it dreaming of Africa, the trip never materialized, the prior owner found out what .416 Rigby ammo costs (north of $200 for 20 rounds of factory ammo), the guy fired one or two rounds and felt the wrath of Rigby recoil, and shortly thereafter the rifle found its way to the consignment rack.  It happens more often than you might imagine.

Stunning Circassian Walnut. As supplied by Ruger, Circassian has an almost orange hue to it. This one is beautiful.

I offered the Turner’s dude $1200, and he said he couldn’t do that without talking to the person who had the rifle on consignment.   I looked at him and he looked back at me for several seconds.  I guess it was a standoff. Finally, I spoke:  Give the guy a call, I said.

He did, and yep, 10 days later the big Ruger came home with me.  It’s a monster.  It weighs more than any rifle I own, and a big part of what drives the weight is that monstrous hogged out .416 barrel.  But when you light one off, that weight is your friend.  It soaks up the recoil, of which there is plenty.

The Ruger was not nearly as accurate as the other two rifles I had on the range that day, but it still wasn’t too bad.  I was shooting at 50 yards initially, and this is the best group I could get…

.416-inch holes at 50 yards. This rifle will do better. I just didn’t have it in me that day.

After shooting five 3-shot groups at 50 yards, I had five rounds left in the box of 20.  I wanted to see where the bullets would hit at 100 yards, and I used a pistol silhouette target to make that assessment.

Meh, I could do better. With other rifles, I have on occasion shot groups under an inch at 100 yards with open sights, but it wasn’t going to happen that day (for me or the .416 Rigby).

I held at 6:00 on the target’s orange center, and I used that larger target because I didn’t know where the rounds would land at that distance (I wanted lots of paper around the point of aim so I could see what was going on).   I put all five shots on paper, but the group size was a disappointing 6.6 inches.   Oddly enough, the rifle was printing very slightly to the left at 50 yards, but it clearly grouped to the right at 100 yards.   I need to think about that a little bit.  Maybe it was the way the sun was hitting the front sight (that can make a significant difference), as I shot the 100-yard group later in the day.  I found the v-notch on the Rigby’s rear sight to be a bit difficult to use (I could not form a consistent sight picture).  I guess it’s okay for a charging rhino, but it’s not conducive to the accuracy I sought.  I’m not done with the Ruger Express rifle yet, and truth be told, I ‘m kind of glad the results weren’t stellar.   Half the fun with these things is searching for the perfect load.  Once you find it, for me at least, a lot of the excitement goes away.   I figure there’s still plenty of excitement left in the Rigby.

Do you enjoy our gun stories and photos?   Check out our other Tales of the Gun.  And don’t be bashful about adding your name to our blog update list.  You can do so here:

Bonneville Speed Week

Berk and I have a busy ExhaustNotes.us August planned. You’ve already read about his Three Flags tour on the new, untested RX4 Zongshen and I’m finalizing plans for an assault on the Bonneville speed trials. No, I won’t be racing Mini Moto Madness but seeing as how I’ve never been to the salt for Speed Week and I’m not getting any younger I figured this is the year.

It wasn’t really my idea. It was Mike’s. Mike lives on a ranch in Carrizozo, New Mexico. I met Mike a hundred miles north at a little restaurant in Willard. I wanted shredded beef tacos but the restaurant was out of beef. I didn’t want to use up my private stash so I went back to the menu. That’s when Mike piped up and told me to try the pork tacos. I had three pork tacos with beans and rice. I recommend them highly.

Willard is kind of a slow place. The intersection of Highways 60 and 42 is the main topic of conversation in town. Mike and I got to shooting the breeze like all motorcyclists do and it turns out Mike likes to ride dirt trails on his BMW thumper 650. I mean you had me at dirt, you know? We started doing a few rides and then the Bonneville thing came up. We’re going to try and hit a few dirt roads on our way north.

We need to make pretty good time on this trip so Godzilla, while reliable, is too stressed out at 70 mph leaving The Wedge, my Husqvarna 510. The Husky’s fork seals are leaking badly. I’ve bought new seals to install. That should be interesting as I’ve never worked on upside down forks. The clutch lever is broken from a spill I took in Big Bend Park. I’m going to cut the end off a donor lever and weld it to the stub remaining from the original lever. It should make a nice, Frankenstein looking part when I’m through. I know I can buy a new lever. I just feel more at home doing things the hard way. The drive chain is still in fair shape but with 11,000 miles on the thing I’m going to change it as a prophylactic measure.

The tires are new-ish on the Husky but slanted towards street riding and not so good for dirt. Mike’s heavy BMW 650 has decent dirt tires. I’m hoping my bike being 200 pounds lighter will even us up on the trails. I’ll also bring along a leaking plastic jug of fuel so that all my camping gear and clothing will be soaked with gas after 15 miles.

Motorcycle camping is not my idea of fun. Either you carry no gear and enjoy the motorcycle ride only to suffer as you roll around in the dirt trying to sleep at night or you bring enough equipment to camp comfortably and have a miserable ride on your overloaded bike stopping every few miles to repack.

Mike and I will be at the KOA in West Wendover from August 12th to the 14th. If you’re around town stop by and visit us. Bring beer if you want us to be happy to see you. Our campsite is good for up to six people. I’ll have coffee. There will be fire.  It’ll be fun. You’ll see.

5K@8K

As Gomer Pyle would say:   Golllleeeee!

That was my reaction when the photos you see below popped up on my Facebook feed, telling me it had been four years since I posted them.  Yep, it was in July of 2015 that yours truly, Joe Gresh, and riders from China and Colombia descended on CSC Motorcycles to christen the RX3 with a ride through the great American West.  So Cal to Sturgis, due west to Washington and Oregon, and then a run down the coast home, hitting every National Park and site worth seeing along the way. It was an amazing adventure, and truth be told, I was shocked that it has been four years already.  That meant it was about four years ago that CSC brought the RX3 to America, it was four years ago that I first met Joe Gresh in person (a living legend, in my mind), and it was four years ago that we took a ride that made the entire motorcycle world sit up and take notice.   A dozen guys, a dozen 250cc motorcycles fresh off the boat from China, 5000 miles, and not a single breakdown.  Tell me again about Chinese motorcycles are no good?  Nah, don’t waste your breath.  I know better.

It was a hell of a ride, and good buddy John Welker did a hell of a job as our very own Ferdinand Magellan, defining the route, making all of the hotel reservations, keeping us entertained with great stories, and more.  These are the same photos (I took them all) that popped up on Facebook.  They represent only a small portion of the ride, but they give you an idea of what it was like.  It was grand.

Somewhere along Highway 89 in Arizona. The guy in the foreground is our very own Baja John Welker.   That’s Joe Gresh way at the other end of this row of motorcycles.
Same location, with Hugo out front. Hugo is the Zongshen factory rep. He’s a great guy who kept us constantly entertained.
Mr. Tso, posing for me in Zion National Park. This guy makes for a great photograph. He rode with us in China, too!
We stayed in Panguitch, Utah, the night before we visited Bryce Canyon National Park. Dinner that evening was at the Cowboy’s Smoke House. I liked it so much I later returned with my wife just to have dinner there.
Tony and his mascot inside Cowboy’s. Great times.
Bryce Canyon National Park. Everyone was captivated by this place. It was awesome.
Kyle, one of the Chinese riders, and Big John, our chase vehicle driver. Good guys both.
Tony and Kyle, posing at Bryce.
The crew when we returned to So Cal. From left to right, it’s Juan from Colombia, Joe Gresh, Tony from China, Mr. Tso from China, John Welker, Lester from China, Kong from China, Big John Gallardo, Hugo Liu, Gabriel from Colombia, and Kyle from China.
The obligatory photo at Roy’s in Amboy, somewhere in the Mojave Desert. God Almighty it was hot that day.
The guys at the Grand Canyon…Lester, Kong, Tso, and Hugo.
In Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, at an impromptu photo stop.
I grabbed this photo of Joe Gresh along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It looks like he’s Photoshopped into the picture, but he’s not.
Same spot, different guys: Gabriel and Juan from Colombia. Juan later invited me to ride with him in Colombia, and I went. That, too, was an incredible ride.

So there you have it, or at least snippets of what was one of the greatest rides I’ve ever done.  I’m hoping Facebook has more of these anniversary photos pop up for me, as the ride lasted 19 days and I know I posted more on that ride.   Good times.  Great riders.  Superior camaraderie.

As always, there’s more good stuff coming your way.   Stay tuned!

Hey, the whole story of that ride is here.   You can get the whole nine yards by buying your own copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM.   There’s a lot more good information in there, too, like CSC’s no-dealer approach to market, how we dealt with the Internet trolls who tried to hurt the company, the first CSC Baja trip, the RX3’s strengths and weaknesses, and much, much more!

Mini Motor Madness: 3

It’s sort of futile hopping up a 2-horsepower bicycle engine because the rear sprocket-to-spoke connection is so weak. Spindly running gear has never stopped a hot-rodder before and bicycle motor aficionados are hot-rodders to the bone. While Mini Motor Madness is on hold awaiting parts I wandered into the wonderfully inexpensive world of high performance engine goodies.

The bog standard bicycle motor is not heavily finned. Overheating doesn’t seem to be a problem but with an aluminum bore and a recommended 16:1 oil/gas ratio it is clearly something to watch out for. Like all parts for these little motors there are a zillion sellers insuring fierce competition and low prices for the thrifty Rodder. The increase in the quantity of cylinder head metal alone would be helpful in keeping things square and dampening noise. The large, deep fins must do a great job of lowering cylinder temperatures. A cooler cylinder means you’ll be able to run a leaner mixture without melting internal parts. Less oil means more room for fuel going through those tiny orifices in your carb. It’s like changing jet size by playing with the fuel ratio. Any compression increases would probably be nullified by the low-grade gasoline cheap mini motor fans cannot help but use.

There is even more selection when it comes to exhaust systems. Two-piece, welded seam expansion chambers are the most numerous and various finishes are on offer to suit anyone’s budget. Expansion chambers are like free horsepower in that most times you won’t need to do much carburetor work to get the things in tune. Using a combination of black magic and sonic waves, expansion chambers most often move the powerband higher into the rev range and will allow the motor to spin up another few thousand RPM. Those extra RPM’s are a good thing for drafting Indian FTR750s on the long straightaways at The Sacramento Mile but a chambered motor may not get you over that last vertical shelf of a long, rocky hill climb.  It’s the one where you don’t dare downshift for fear of losing momentum.

No matter how well designed, reed valves are an obstruction in the intake tract of a mini motor. They make up for this by stopping the constant re-carburation of the fuel mixture due to the reverse air pulses created by a sloppy piston port intake. Reeds also allow huge holes in the piston skirt to extend the degrees of rotation a crankcase can draw in the fuel/air mixture. Since nothing can blow back out the carburetor, an extra transfer port can be carved into the intake side of the cylinder wall. Combined with an expansion chamber, reed valves can more than make up for blocking the intake tract. Even without all the piston/transfer port butchery low speed running is improved by the cleaner intake signal.

With all the excitement focused on pumping more air through your mini motor you’ll find the stock carb wanting. Large carburetors are really cheap online so why not go all the way? For less than $200 you can convert your mild-mannered, reliable mini motor into an atomic bomb ready to explode between your legs at any moment. Sure it’s stupid. Sure you will burn more fuel and annoy all you neighbors, but when have those things mattered to a Rodder?