Among the many crazy conspiracy theories masquerading as knowledge today are the Walmart tunnels. These tunnels supposedly crisscross the nation for the usual nefarious reasons: FEMA camps, New World Order population control and extraterrestrial alien smuggling (to steal your jobs and women). When you stop to think about it, this whole insane, Walmart-tunnel thing is no wackier for Datil than the nearby Very Large Array radio-astronomy telescope.
The VLA was used in a movie about the search for alien radio transmissions. Or was it just a movie? If that doesn’t fire up our odd American mix of gullible/skeptical idiocy nothing will. Like all good conspiracy theories there is a grain of truth to the Walmart-tunnel thing that feeds the plot. New Mexico is full of old mining tunnels so if you look hard enough you’ll find one. Just not the ones owned by Walmart. Those ones are top secret.
Naturally with all the weirdness going on near Datil, GRIN chose to hold its Guzzi motorcycle rally directly over a tunnel leading to Lake Como in Italy. I could hear the water rushing through the tunnels if I put my ear to a Quattro valvole rocker cover.
Finding Moto Guzzis in New Mexico is much harder than finding Walmart tunnels. I can’t recall seeing one on the road or parked up at a Starbucks. My buddy Robert rode his 850 Guzzi out to New Mexico one time but that doesn’t count. Guzzis aren’t super popular anywhere so a rally with 25-ish bikes is something to see. I forgot to add that GRIN stands for Guzzi Riders In New Mexico, the club that put on the show and rally.
Datil consists of an expensive gas station, a motel, a campground and a pretty good restaurant. I’m not sure you could call it a town, it’s more of a traveler’s rest. Behind the motel and gas station you’ll find the campground, and this is where the wrong-way, Italian V-Twins were situated.
The gang of Gizzard riders was an easygoing bunch. It took no time at all before I felt like one of the boys and damned if I didn’t start wanting one of these goofy motorcycles. An unusually high number of rally attendees told me that they had once owned a Kawasaki ZRX like the one I rode to the event. I did 410 miles round trip but there were riders from Texas and Colorado who had traveled much further.
I’m a sucker for high pipes on a street bike so this Scrambler was my favorite of the bunch. Later in the day we went to the Datil restaurant and had a good lunch that totally blew my diet. I had the southwest turkey sandwich and it was smothered in Hatch green chili.
GRIN hosted several dinners for the 3-day rally and there was a Guzzi bike show. Attendees judged the bikes in a people’s choice sort of deal. It was kind of hard to see the entry numbers that were on tiny round stickers applied the Guzzi headlight glass. I didn’t get to vote because I wasn’t actually a member of GRIN. I feel this should invalidate the whole election process and make GRIN a dictatorship.
Late in the afternoon I had to head back to the ranch as I don’t like riding at night. My night vision is much improved since I had cataract surgery but an elk running across the road in front of your 70mph motorcycle takes a lot of seeing.
The seasons are slowly changing here in New Mexico, so it wasn’t unbearably hot on the ride home. Cool, dry air on top of the higher passes made me worry less as the sun set behind me. I pulled into the ranch in full darkness with the ZRX running on all four cylinders. It was like riding in a tunnel.
Command Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman died way too young. He was 48 when he passed, and that was just a few years after I knew him. He was a tall, lean man with a salt and pepper crew cut, and like most of the noncommissioned officers I knew, he had a southern accent. I only knew him for a year and that was more than a half century ago, but during that year he taught me something I value to this day. Sergeant Major Hickman taught me how to shoot a handgun.
I first met Sergeant Major Hickman shortly after he was assigned to the Rutgers University Reserve Officers Training Corps detachment. The Army held these kinds of cush assignments out to very senior NCOs as they finished distinguished 30-year careers. Sergeant Major Hickman earned it: He served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and he had the rows of ribbons showing that and much more. As with all Sergeants Major in the US Army, it was always “Sergeant Major,” never “Sergeant” or “Sarge.” Only a very tiny percentage of NCOs make E-9; addressing such men as “Sergeant Major” conveyed the respect they deserved. After I knew him, he was promoted to Command Sergeant Major, and just in case you ever encounter someone with that exalted rank, all three words should be used, as I did at the beginning of this blog.
The last half century has been a contest between my marksmanship skills going north and my vision going south, but thanks to the good Sergeant Major and what he taught me, I’m holding my own. I still sometimes dazzle folks at the range. What I’d like to do in this blog is talk about the fundamentals, tips, and techniques Sergeant Major Hickman taught me. I don’t shoot competitively these days, but I can still keep my shots in the black. If you use the tricks and techniques Sergeant Major Hickman taught me and if you practice a lot, maybe you will be able to do the same.
In 1973 when I picked up my MacManus 1911, my father and I both thought of ourselves as above-average shooters (Dad was a world-class trapshooter, and I did okay with a rifle). We assumed we could do well with a handgun, too. That is, until I came home with my 1911. We tossed a soda can about 20 feet out in our backyard and shot at it (in those days we could do that). I went first and emptied an entire magazine without hitting the can once. Dad had a laugh and then he tried. He didn’t do any better. We concluded that pistols were just not accurate.
I felt that way until I met Sergeant Major Hickman. He had heard about my MacManus award and he asked if I’d like to learn how to shoot the 1911. You know what my answer was. The Sergeant Major and I spent a lot of time on the Rutgers Campus Police pistol range over the next year. What follows is what he taught me.
1. Get A Grip
Forget all the Hollywood silliness. We don’t hold guns sideways like gangbangers, we don’t shoot from the hip, we’re not interested in how fast we can empty a magazine (the video above notwithstanding), and we don’t fire more rounds than the gun holds.
A handgun should nestle in the web of your hand, and it should form a straight line with your forearm. In this photo, the camera focused on the rear sight, which is not the way to do it. Focus instead on the front sight.
Back in the day, it was all about bullseye competition, and that involved shooting with iron sights and one hand only. Sergeant Major Hickman showed me how to stand at about a 30-degree angle to the target, place the pistol firmly in the web of my hand, close my eyes, and bring my arm up to point the pistol at the target. “When you open your eyes,” he said, “the sights should be on the bullseye.” He continued by telling me that if I had to twist my body or move my arm to bring the gun to the bullseye, my stance was wrong. When I could close my eyes, bring the gun up, open my eyes (both eyes), and the sights fell naturally on target, my grip and stance were correct. The grip should be tight, but not so tight that my hand trembled.
Pachmayr grips are my favorite for a 1911. They fit my hand perfectly.
I like fancy grips, but fancy doesn’t put shots in the black. Over the years I’ve found the best grips for a 1911 are Pachmayrs. I have others that are prettier, but the Pachmayrs offer the best control and consistency. You can still get Pachmayr grips on Amazon.
2. Front Sight Focus
When I fire a round at a target, I don’t see the target. It’s a Jedi (read: Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman) mind trick. When my gun fires, all I see is the front sight and the bright orange propellant flash. When I see the front sight outlined by the muzzle flash, I don’t need to see the target. I know the bullet is in the black.
Focus should be on the front sight. The target and the rear sight should be blurred. The sights you see here are Millet sights installed by good buddy TJ.
I start by putting the top of the front sight at 6:00 on the target’s black bullseye, but my focus quickly shifts to the front sight and it stays there until the firearm discharges. The target and the rear sight will be a blur, but the front sight will be sharp as a tack. It’s where all my concentration is, it’s the only thing I’m interested in, and per Sergeant Major Hickman’s instruction, I will have both eyes open. I’m not worried about what my other eye sees. My total focus, my total being, is on that front sight. That’s the biggest secret in handgun shooting. Other things are important, too, but not as important as front sight focus. Front sight only. It’s hard to do, but when you do it, this single thing will improve your shooting more than anything else.
3. Breath Control
When I’m ready to shoot, I take a deep breath, I let it partly out to what feels like a natural pause point, and then I start squeezing the trigger while continuing to focus on the front sight. Sergeant Major Hickman told me that’s what it takes. He went on to tell me that the Soviet marksmanship training unit (the Soviet Army’s pistol team) had researched what made the difference between simply hitting in the 10-ring versus hitting in the x-ring (the x-ring is a smaller circle within the 10-ring used for breaking ties). The Soviets found that their top target shooters, without realizing it, were actually firing between heartbeats. They didn’t realize they were doing this, but they were. That’s info only; we’re interested in holding our breath at a natural exhalation point for the second or two it takes to focus on the front sight and squeeze the trigger. Speaking of which…
4. Trigger Control
Point one on the topic of trigger squeeze: Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
The trigger finger pad should engage the trigger, not the first joint of the trigger finger.
Sergeant Major Hickman taught me that when shooting a single action semi-automatic or a revolver in the single action mode, I should put the pad of my trigger finger (the part of my finger midway between the tip and the first joint) on the trigger. He explained that while I was focused on the front sight, I should start squeezing the trigger, but not think about it. The front sight will be aligned in the blurry rear sight, but it won’t be possible to make everything freeze on the target. The front sight will always have some motion on the target. The Sergeant Major told me not to worry about that. “The only way to make everything motionless is to be dead,” he said, “and you’re not dead.” Sergeant Major Hickman told me to simply hang on to the front sight and steadily increase trigger pressure. Just focus on the fundamentals, he said, and the groups will get smaller. Let the target swim around. Maintain a good grip. Hold the right stance. Focus on the front sight. Breath control. Trigger squeeze.
5. Be Surprised
What you want, the Sergeant Major said, is for the gun to surprise you. What you don’t want to do is anticipate the shot and then jerk the trigger. That will cause you to flinch (to jerk the gun in anticipation of the shot), and the gun will be pointed somewhere other than the target when it discharges. When I did it right, I was (and I still am) surprised when the gun fires. In fact, when I’m really doing it right and concentrating on the front sight, I do not even hear the gun fire. When that happens, you know you are on your way. Sergeant Major Hickman was right: Seeing the orange flash and not hearing your shots means the bullets are in the black, and that is a good feeling.
6. Dry Firing
You can’t do this with most guns chambered for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge, but you can dry fire until the cows come home with any centerfire handgun, and I do. A lot. I have a small black dot hanging in my office that I use for a target, and I spend a bit of time nearly every night dry firing a handgun at it. It is one of several tricks Sergeant Major Hickman taught me. I’m focused on the front sight when I do this, and I’m looking for it to not move when the hammer falls. I want the front sight to remain motionlessly centered in the rear sight groove (and the top of the front sight to remain even with the top of the rear sight) when the hammer falls. Doing this on a daily basis improved my shooting significantly some 50 years ago; doing it today on a regular basis keeps me sharp.
7. A Penny (or more) For My Thoughts
If you can balance a penny on the front sight and it remains in place when the hammer falls, you are making progress.
Here’s another trick the Sergeant Major taught me: Balance a penny on top of the 1911. Or a nickel. Or an empty case. You want it to stay put when the hammer falls. When that happens, it indicates that I didn’t jerk the trigger. When I can do that consistently, I know I’m doing well.
8. The Bic Trick
A Bic wrapped in masking tape. Read on…this gets interesting.
Here’s yet another cool trick Sergeant Major Hickman taught me: Take a Bic pen and wrap tape around it in two places so that the pen fits snugly but with no resistance inside the barrel. Put the rear end of the pen all the way into the barrel. When dry firing, the firing pin smacks the back of the pen and the pen will jump forward.
The tape should be wrapped to a diameter that fits snugly without drag in the barrel.Loaded and ready to shoot.My indoor target. The pen will shoot out with surprising velocity. Don’t point it at anyone and use a pad so the pen doesn’t shoot through the paper target.Look at that…a Bic group!
If you stand like you would when live firing, but with the pen’s tip a couple of inches from a target taped to a wall, the pen’s point will imprint on the target. Do that a few times and you’ll get a group, just like you would if you were firing live ammo. Do it a lot. It will help you to master the fundamentals described above, and your live fire groups will shrink. Trust me on this: They will shrink a lot.
9. Live Firing
I have never been able to shoot a handgun well without substantial time on the range. Let me say that again: I did not get better without substantial live fire practice. I spend a lot of time on the range, and it helps to keep my skills sharp. I fire two to three hundred rounds through a handgun every week. If you don’t have a sponsor or you don’t reload, you better be rich because factory ammo costs are going to roll up pretty quickly. I don’t have a shooting sponsor, so for me, reloading is the way to go. Here’s a good place to get information on how to get into reloading.
10. The Surprise Empty Chamber
Here’s another great training approach Sergeant Major Hickman shared with me: Have a buddy “load” your gun, but without you seeing what he (or she) is doing. What you want your buddy to do is sometimes load a live round, and at other times, to load no round (or an empty case if the gun has a loaded chamber indicator). You want to not know if you are dropping the hammer on a live round or an empty chamber. That’s going to tell you immediately if you are jerking the trigger (or flinching). If it’s not a live round and the gun twitches when I drop the trigger, I know I still have work to do. When I can drop the hammer and the gun remains motionless, I know I’m making progress.
11. Empty Cases at an Empty Head
Empty cases? Yep. They are surprisingly useful training aids for improving concentration, especially when bounced off your noggin.
Sergeant Major Hickman used to stand behind me when I was shooting and throw empty .45 cases at my head. At first I felt the cases hitting my head and I reacted (the Sergeant Major wasn’t being gentle). But after I became one with the front sight (I can’t emphasize the front sight enough), I stopped feeling those .45 ACP empties hitting my head. I’d have little welts afterwards, but I stopped feeling the cases when they whacked me. I realize this is a trick that’s kind of out there, but it sure helped me hone my concentration.
12. The Right Load
The last thing I’ll mention is that having a load optimized for your handgun really does make a difference. If you don’t reload, your options are limited to buying a bunch of different factory offerings and seeing what works. If you reload, though, you can develop a load tuned to your handgun. We’ve done a number of blogs on the optimal loads for different guns, and I’d invite you to peruse our Tales of the Gun page to read what we’ve found works best in our guns. I’ve found that a 230-grain cast roundnose bullet over 5.6 grains of Unique with an overall cartridge length of 1.250 inches is a very accurate load. Another favorite is a 185-grain cast semiwadcutter bullet over 5.0 grains of Bullseye with that same overall cartridge length of 1.250 inches. So does 4.2 grains of Bullseye and a 200-grain cast semiwadcutter bullet (and again, the same overall cartridge length). Be advised, though, that most 1911 handguns won’t feed these last two loads if the gun has not been ramped and polished. If you need your 1911 ramped and polished, look no further than TJ’s Custom Gunworks (he’s the best there is).
A Half Century (and a ton of lead) Later
So here I am, 50 years later, writing about my 1911 mentor, Sergeant Major Emory Hickman. I remember that first range session with him like it was yesterday. After listening to him and practicing what he taught me, my skills improved to the point where I could easily keep all of my shots on paper, with 80 percent of them hitting the black bullseye. When I got to that point, I asked the Sergeant Major if I should have my 1911 accurized. In those days, I wasn’t even sure what “accurizing” entailed, but it sounded like the right question to ask. Sergeant Major Hickman smiled. “Sir,” he said (I was, after all, a Second Lieutenant), “may I put a few shots downrange?”
I handed the 1911 to Sergeant Major Hickman. He loaded a magazine, inserted it in the 1911, released the slide to chamber the first round, and became the visual definition of intense and perfect concentration. Five shots later, there was one ragged hole centered in the bullseye. That one ragged hole wasn’t much larger than the hole a single .45 bullet would have made. “Maybe you could get it accurized somewhere down the road, Sir,” he said. “but for now, I think it’s good enough.”
The 1911 featured in this story is a Rock Island Armory Compact 1911. My Rock Compact 1911 has been extensively upgraded by TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks). This handgun is 100% reliable with any of the loads listed above (and factory hardball ammo).
There’s a new motoflick due for release momentarily, and it promises to be a great one. You can’t watch Speed Is Expensive yet, but you will be able to very soon. Speed Is Expensive is the story of Philip Vincent and the Vincent motorcycle. A Vincent was the first motorcycle ever to break the 150 mph barrier (Rollie Free was the bathing-trunks-only rider, who shed all other clothing and rode stretched out on the saddle to reduce drag), and a Vincent became the most expensive motorcycle ever when one sold at auction in 2018 for 1.2 million dollars. They are mythical motorcycles.
The movie will be on Netflix in the near future, or you can pre-order Speed Is Expensive on Amazon now. I’m going to watch it as soon as it’s available. Watch for a review in the near future.
Vincents have always had an aura of incredible power and exclusivity. I see them at the Hansen Dam Britbike meets in my part of the world (it’s where I grabbed the photo at the top of this blog and the others below). The Hansen Dam events occur once or twice a year at Hansen Dam, about 70 miles from my home. All the photos you see here were from events in the 2004-2008 time frame, which means it’s been about 15 years since I’ve attended. I need to get out there again.
I have a few more Vincent photos from Hansen Dam, and I thought I would share a few of them here.
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On occasion, I’ll post a blog that’s a general update and a peek into what’s coming down the pike. I’ll be on another secret mission to Asia next month, returning to one favorite Far East locale and visiting another for the first time. They each have a vibrant motorcycle and auto culture and I’ll get as many photos as I can. You can bet I’ll have several blogs on both places. It’s going to be fun.
We’re quite happy to welcome British Motorcycle Gear as an ExNotes advertiser. BMG is a New Jersey moto shop with very high quality motorcycle clothing, parts, and more. Good buddy Andrew Capone is the owner and he’s good people. In addition to being a Jersey Boy (as is yours truly), Andrew is a serious rider, a motojournalist, and a world traveler. He’s Motorcycle.com’s “go to” guy on all things related to the Isle of Man, and there’s a chance he may even pen an article or two for us here on ExNotes. Gresh tested and reviewed British Motorcycle Gear products here on ExNotes and it’s good equipment. And here’s even more good news: Andrew is offering an exclusive discount to ExNotes readers. Just punch in the code BMGJOES when checking out, and you’ll get an 11% discount on everything (except gear that’s already on sale, and Halcyon mirrors and goggles). Check out the British Motorcycle Gear website; I know you’ll enjoy it.
Joe Gresh is headed to a New Mexico vintage motorcycle show and the Motorado event in the near future, and you’ll read about that right here. I’m looking forward to reading all about it. Mike Huber, Bobbie Surber, and Rob Morel all have more stories in work for you. Mike is BMWborne on a transcontinental blitz, Bobbie is headed off on another motoexpedition to points south (as in way, way south), and Rob is working a few more projects up in Washington.
One last note: Our request for financial site support (or, as some would call it, my high tech begging) is doing quite well. Thank you to all our supporters. We appreciate it greatly.
I don’t go to the movies very often because it seems like superhero stuff is all that plays at our local cineplex, so it’s unusual that I’ve gone to the talkies twice in the last couple weeks. After seeing the big movie of the summer, Barbie, CT and I decided to go to the second big movie of the summer: Oppenheimer. I’ll be dropping a few spoilers so click out of this blog if you plan on going to Oppenheimer.
I became interested in the United States atomic program about 15 years ago. It may seem gruesome to some, but the mechanics of the Manhattan Project intrigued me. Those old-timey scientists did some amazing stuff way back in the 1940s. Everything they were attempting to do was based on theory and done for the first time.
I went to New Mexico’s Los Alamos to tour that once forbidden city and visited Trinity Site, where the world’s first atomic bomb was exploded. For an insider’s perspective of the super-secret project the book, Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman has a lot of Manhattan Project stuff along with other excitement from the anything-is-possible era. I liked the landforms in New Mexico so much we ended up moving here.
As it turns out I really didn’t know all that much about the dawn of the atomic age. Oppenheimer the movie is mostly about the adversarial relationship between Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss, a man that I never saw name-checked in the information I had read. This kind of smoke-filled-room stuff doesn’t interest me although Strauss caused a lot of trouble for Oppenheimer after the war.
From my limited research I thought Oppenheimer was sort of a figurehead for the Manhattan Project but the movie portrays him as critical to the project’s success. Luckily for New Mexico (or unluckily if you were downwind of the blast) he loved the state and picked a site west of Santa Fe for the new atomic age.
CT and I drove down to El Paso, Texas, to see the movie in large format Imax. An old-style mall, set 25 feet lower in elevation than El Paso’s Montana Avenue, was the closest place we could find. The mall was interesting in that the entire commons area was filled with a flea market. You could find hand-made crucifixes or plastic crucifixes made in China. There were places to get your car key battery replaced and a bar of colorful, homemade soap. We had an hour or so before our show started so we went into a madhouse called Dave and Buster’s. Dave and Buster’s is a huge, chain gaming center with a restaurant attached. The place looked mostly like a Las Vegas casino except it’s ok for kids to go because you can only lose.
The restaurant was not too bad. CT and I split a turkey club sandwich. The racket was so loud I needed a gin and soda to calm my nerves. I can see a parent at the end of their rope taking the kids to Dave and Buster’s and turning them loose while mom or dad get plastered at the bar. Really a great business model if you think about it.
I don’t know if it’s due to the lack of employees or matinees are so sparsely populated that there is no need for employees, but we waltzed past the unmanned snack bar into the Imax theater unmolested. The Imax had very steep steps leading to steep seats with plenty of space for mid-aisle stragglers to wander in front of the punctual people. No need to worry about a lady with a fruit basket on her head sitting in front; you’ll be able to see the screen.
My ears were still smarting from Dave and Buster’s when the movie started with an ear-splitting explosion followed by thousands of random lights racing towards a center point roughly 3 feet in front of my head. The room thundered and shook. I thought the place was coming down but this was just the Imax theater showing us what it was capable of doing and had nothing to do with the Oppenheimer movie. I began to see the reason there were no ticket takers. The usual series of advertisements you see in a theater were not shown, maybe because there are so few Imax theaters it’s not worth shooting the ads in their large format.
Oppenheimer’s story is told out of sequence with scenes jumping forward and backward in time. Maybe this is a nod to quantum physics and the impossibility of knowing the true state of matter at any particular time? The jump scenes are mixed in with fantasy sequences that represent Oppenheimer daydreaming. The film switches between color and black and white. All this jumping to and fro, along with the deafening audio levels and rattling chairs, kept me disoriented. I’m mostly deaf in my left ear and still it was actually painful at times. CT wanted to stick wadded up tissue paper in my ears. I should have done it.
Actors playing famous physicists make cameo appearances throughout the movie. You never know who will pop up at a dinner party. Matt Damon plays a loud General Leslie Groves with a comical Jackie Gleason style. Robert Downey is Oppenheimer’s antagonist. He does a good job for most of the film even if he did fall into a paranoid Captain Queeg riff near the end.
The early, red-scare communists were the beautiful people in the movie and their party meetings were more like cocktail socials. Even though it appears he went to the meetings solely to pick up chicks, this dabbling in communism would prove to be a problem for Oppenheimer later in his career.
I like 40-foot tall ta-tas as much as the next guy, but the nude scenes in Oppenheimer seemed to be there to bump the rating and didn’t really contribute to the story in any meaningful way. Which is exactly what you want from gratuitous sex scenes. I feel the director went a little light in this area. There should have been 15 or 20 more. During the kangaroo court to take away Oppenheimer’s security clearance there was a creepy fantasy sequence with Oppenheimer’s dead lover staring at Oppenheimer’s wife while straddling him naked on the witness chair. She wasn’t decomposing with her nose falling off or anything, but it did seem weird.
The director had a tough job making Oppenheimer exciting enough for our 2-second attention span populace. It’s a story that wants to be told slowly and with great detail. I fear that movie will never be made and if it was would not earn much money for the studio. Instead, we get clip after clip that somehow are supposed to make sense at the end. Those Superhero movies have ruined us.
Oppenheimer was sort of a let down. I was expecting a more nuts and bolts experience, like I would be able to build my own small thermonuclear weapon after seeing the movie. Don’t let that deter you from seeing the film; it’s probably just me. I had a hard time following the story and it took 75% of the run time before I began to connect all the disjointed scenes. I think in a regular theater I would have done better. The Imax experience was too overwhelming for me. The constant shaking of seats and booming audio put me in a fight or flight mode. Picture reading a good book, and every few minutes a guy walks up, shakes your shoulders, and shouts “You’re reading a book!” in your ear. It’s that kind of annoying. Imax never lets you forget that you’re in a movie theater.
Joe Gresh’s “Call to Arms” post had a lot of positive results for us (thank you, everyone who contributed), and we’ve had a lot of folks ask us to make it easier to support the site. So that’s what we’ve done.
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After seeing Joe Berk’s article on the .22 bolt action Springfield rifle, I thought about my recent project Model 69 Winchester. I bought it from my favorite gunstore. It was in pretty bad shape when I bought it and it was obviously well used. The Winchester had a screw for a bolt handle that did not work well, a homemade peep sight, the rifle was rusty, and it had a dinged-up stock with a lot of miles on it. I bought the rifle for $150 knowing it would make for a good project. I wanted to fix and preserve it as a plinker.
The Model 69 Winchester is an old magazine fed rifle made in 1936. It is an interesting vintage .22. I believe it was made around 1935 based on the exposed side magazine release and the exposed screw that holds the barrel to the stock (as shown in the above photo). These two features make it one of the earlier Model 69 rifles Winchester produced.
The finish on the barrel and the receiver had left the building a long time ago. It exhibited what might be called an authentic patina, but to me it was just rust and I wanted to prevent it from heading further down that road. I sanded it very lightly and used Birchwood Casey cold blue to preserve it. That turned out well eonugh, but it was not as good as a hot blue job would have been. Maybe I will clean it better and redo it someday. But my cold blue approach had the rifle looking good (I think for now the steel finish is good enough), so I continued fixing other things.
The rifle’s original peep sights had been “fixed” (read: Bubba’d) by a shade tree gunsmith. The sights worked, but they looked terrible. Bubba had drilled out the original aperture and tapped it to a larger thread. Then he took and sawed off a length of all thread (all thread is threaded rod) after drilling a small hole way off center. Maybe he did that to allow for windage by rotating it in the threads…who knows? Or maybe he was just sloppy.
I machined a nicer-looking knurled retina (see the picture above), but I ended up putting a scope on it, so for now the peeper looks good but is not used. I’ve seen comparable sights on Ebay for over $225, so I’ve got that going for me.
The old bolt handle was a standard screw from someone’s grandpa’s blacksmith stable. It didn’t work. The handle needs to go through two sleeves to cock the firing pin properly. It wasn’t too hard to make a new one that works well. I had the little ball end you see above in my tool box for years. It was waiting for me to use it on something, and it looks like it belongs on this rifle.
The rifle’s wood stock showed its 85-plus years of use, so I sanded it lightly, stained it, and gave it a clear varnish finish. I similarly cleaned up the buttplate and its screws. I think it all turned out well.
After doing the above work, it was time to sight the rifle in. Waiting until it was dark, I clamped the rifle in a cleaning rest so it wouldn’t move on the table. With the bolt taken out I could look through the barrel at a distant streetlight. I then looked through the scope and adjusted the scope’s windage and elevation so it was right on the streetlight several hundred yards away. After making sure the barrel and scope were secure, I tried the rifle on the farm the next day. The rifle can shoot .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle ammunition. I could hit dirt clods fairly consistently from 40 to 100 yards away. That’s good enough for now. After shooting it for the first time, I had to go out and celebrated with a Yoo-Hoo and a new box of 50 rounds. I’ll next shoot at a paper target from a rest to hold it steadier then my 66-year-old arms can.
Overall, resurrecting the Model 69 Winchester has been a fun and satisfying project. It didn’t cost very much and gave life back to this 85-year-old firearm that is a hoot to shoot. It would be great for a youth rifle and for teaching kids to shoot. The rifle is small and light, and it can be taken apart for cleaning and reassembling quickly.
Meet our newest contributor: Rob Morel
Rob Morel is a good guy…a considerate, literate, and motorific kind of man. I first met Rob on the Western America Adventure Ride, when guys who owned Zongshen RX3 motorcycles joined Joe Gresh, a group of Chinese riders, a couple of guys from Colombia, and yours truly for our 5,000-mile romp around the US. Rob joined us in Idaho, and I knew I was going to like him the minute I saw the guy seated by the side of the road, waiting for us, somewhere before we crossed into Hells Canyon. It said a lot about Rob: He would be ready, he wouldn’t hold the rest of the group up, and he put others ahead of himself. Like I said, I liked him instantly. Rob has ridden with us a number of times…on that first Western America Adventure Ride, in Baja, on another ride through the Southwest, and more. He’s a machinist, a motorcyclist, a shooter, and a writer. This is Rob’s first piece as an ExNotes contributor. Welcome aboard, Rob, and thanks for this story!
California’s Pacific Coast Highway is one of the best motorcycle roads on the planet, and I never miss an opportunity to travel it. One of my favorite destinations on the Pacific Coast Highway is Hearst Castle. We’ve written about it previously here on ExNotes.
As the title of this blog implies, base camp was in Cayucos, California, instead of Cambria (more on that below). And from a photography perspective, instead of lugging around my boat-anchor, full-frame Nikon D810, I took the smaller and lighter Nikon D3300 with a “walking around” 18-55mm lens and a Rokinon 8mm (a super wide angle). I’ve been using that combination more and more lately.
The Rokinon 8mm super wide angle lens. Manual everything, it’s fun to use and it does a surprisingly good job.There’s not much in San Simeon, so people who visit Hearst Castle usually stay in Cambria. We stayed a stone’s throw away from Cambria in Cayucos, which is just north of Morro Bay.
Most folks who visit Hearst Castle stay in Cambria, a touristy, kitschy spot just down the road from San Simeon (the Hearst Castle location). This time we tried Cayucos, a tiny town that’s a bit further south down the Pacific Coast Highway. It’s friendlier, less expensive, and for my money, a lot nicer and more enjoyable than Cambria. Sue and I stayed in the Sunset Inn, a bed and breakfast in Cayucos. If you’re in Cayucos, the Ludano restaurant is the place for dinner (William Randolph Hearst was a regular here while building Hearst Castle). For a more casual Cayucos dining experience, Duckie’s (near the Cayucos Pier) is an awesome walkup seafood restaurant (try the fish and chips; they were great).
Hearst Castle, as seen through the Rokinon 8mm super wide.The Neptune swimming pool at Hearst Castle.One of the Hearst Castle’s guest bedrooms.The Hearst Castle dining room.Hearst Castle’s indoor swimming pool.
The Rokinon lens is strictly a manual affair. It doesn’t autofocus and it doesn’t work with the camera’s automatic metering features. It’s manual everything…focus, f stop, ISO, and shutter speed. The focus part was easy…I simply cranked the focus ring all the way over to infinity (with a wide-angle lens, that works). For ISO, shutter speed, and f stop, I used the camera’s histogram. Shoot, check the histogram, adjust, shoot again, check the histogram, adjust, and keep going until things are just right. Too dark, and I adjusted the shutter speed, the f stop, and the ISO until the histogram showed everything between the histogram upper and lower limits. Too light, and I made adjustments in the opposite direction. For the money, the Rokinon lens is a lot of fun, and I like the effects I get with a wide -angle lens. Some folks don’t. That’s okay. It’s my gear and these are my photos.
As mentioned earlier, I also used the Nikon 18-55mm lens on this trip. It’s not the sharpest lens but that’s okay. I’m not the sharpest matzoh in the box, either, and a matching lens fits me well. When I shoot in RAW (the camera’s capture everything, sort-it-out-later-in-Photoshop mode), the 18-55mm lens works surprisingly well, like in the photo at the top of this blog. It’s a shot of the Cayucos Pier, in which I did a little bit of post-processing to darken the sky and the water. I’m pleased with the results.
While we walked the pier, we talked to folks who were fishing from it. The fishing was good: Halibut, perch, and one fellow had landed a 4-foot shark earlier in the day (I wish I had been there when that happened; that would have been a hell of a picture).
The Nikon D3300 digital single lens reflex camera and the 18-55mm zoom lens that comes with the camera. It’s not a super sharp lens, but it’s not super expensive, either.
I took the photo below with the 18-55mm lens just a few miles up the Pacific Coast Highway. These are elephant seals and I liked how this photo turned out, too.
One of several elephant seal vista points along California’s magnificent Pacific Coast Highway. The two in the water was grunting loudly at each other in a domination contest. These seals can weigh up to 5,000 pounds.
You know, the discussions about lenses, cameras, and photography can go on endlessly. Sometimes all you need is a cell phone. I was blown away by the photos Joe Gresh grabbed when he recently visited Laguna Seca after riding his Kawasaki ZRX from New Mexico. Joe shot all of those with his iPhone, which is a much easier way to go on a motorcycle. When I travel with a digital single lens reflex camera on a motorcycle, the camera and a couple of lenses steal a lot of saddlebag space. There’s advantages and disadvantages to everything, I guess.
Old Creek Road out of Cayucos is a fun ride.
Riding the Pacific Coast Highway is a bucket list ride, and if you get an opportunity to do so, you should grab it. The area I’m describing in this blog is roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Pacific Coast Highway is currently closed around Gordo (well north of San Simeon), but that still leaves a lot of nice riding on the table. One of the best rides is Old Creek Road northeast out of Cayucos. It’s a lightly traveled and grand road, full of twisties, and it cuts through the California wine country to link up with State Route 46 (another fine road through the wine country). A few miles further east, 46 intersects Highway 41, and that’s where James Dean lost his life in a car accident (there’s a sign marking the spot). There are a lot of interesting things and a lot of interesting roads in California.
Rifles, that is…two Ruger rifles. I’ve written about them before, but it’s been a while since I shot either one and with the stream crossing to the West End Gun Club almost manageable these days (more on that later), I thought I would take them out to the 100-yard range. I shoot handguns regularly (at least a couple of times a week) on the indoor 50-foot pistol range closer to home, but there are times when the high-powered-rifle-on-a-football-field-length-range itch needs to be scratched.
The two Ruger rifles in this article are two of my favorites: A Davidson’s Circassian-stocked Mini 14 (the one in the photo above) and the Ruger GSR (GSR stands for Gunsite Scout Rifle). The Davidson’s Mini 14 1was a 2009 offering with (as the name implies) a Circassian walnut stock. Back then the Circassian Mini’s $700 price seemed high, but I’ve been at this for a while and I know that when a gun’s price seems high it only means I’m buying too soon. The price will always catch up with the calendar, and that’s certainly been the case with this rifle. It originally came with two 30-round mags and a flash suppressor. California being what it is meant I couldn’t own the rifle as Ruger built it. I had to leave the 30-round mags with the out-of-state dealer, and because of the flash suppressor, it had to ship to the Class III dealer here in La La Land.
Circassian walnut from the port side. It sure looks good.The California-legal muzzle brake. I wonder what the California legislators were smoking when they passed that law.
The California Class III dealer replaced the flash suppressor with a muzzle brake (which I think looks even more intimidating and I had to buy a 10-round La-La-Land-legal magazine for my Mini.
Circassian walnut from starboard side. This is the fanciest Mini 14 I’ve ever seen.
You might be wondering: Where can I get a Mini with a stock like this one?
The short answer is: You can’t. I watched the gun sale websites for months looking for a Davidson’s Circassian Mini 14 until I found one with nice wood (most had straight-grained, broomstick grade wood). When I saw the one you see here, I pounded (and I’m glad I did). You just don’t see Mini 14 rifles with wood like this one. It’s all mostly black plastic stuff on the range these days, which is almost a crime against nature.
The Techsites rear sight on my Mini 14. It has a slightly smaller aperture and better adjustability than the stock Mini 14 rear site.
I’ve done a few mods to my Mini 14 to improve its accuracy, and I’ve detailed this in prior blogs (I’ve provide a link at the end of this article). The Reader’s Digest version is I’ve added a Techsites rear aperture sight to replace the Ruger sight, I’ve glass-bedded the action, and I’ve done a fair amount of experimentation to find the right load.
So how does the Circassian Mini 14 shoot? It does very well. I grabbed two loads: A full metal jacketed load with Hornady’s 62-grain bullet, and another with Hornady’s 55-grain V-Max bullets. You can see the results below.
A bunch of shots at 100 yards with one of my favorite loads: The 62-grain Hornady full metal jacket boattail bullet and 25.0 grains of XBR 8208 propellant. This ammo was necked sized only, which usually is more accurate in my Mini 14. I held at 6:00 on all targets shown here.Another 100-yard Mini 14 target with two different loads, both using the 55-grain Hornady VMax bullet and 24.5 grains of ARComp propellant. The very tight 5-shot group was shot with bullets that were not crimped. The larger group was the same load, but the bullets were crimped. Surprisingly, both loads were full length resized. As mentioned in the photo above, neck-sizing usually provides better accuracy in this rifle.
The second rifle in this Tale of Two Rugers story is the Ruger GSR in .308 Winchester. This is an amazing (and amazingly accurate) rifle, but it didn’t start out that way.
How I purchased this rifle is kind of a funny story. I had oral surgery to start the process of installing two fake teeth, and the doc knocked me out with anesthetics. They warned me I would be in no shape to drive home, so good buddy Jim Wile volunteered to do the driving. Jim’s gone on to his reward (RIP, Jim). On the ride home, in a drugged but conscious state, I told Jim about this new GSR rifle Ruger had introduced, and we somehow managed to convince ourselves we each needed one. They say you should not buy guns when you’re under the influence. Like Hunter Biden, though, I didn’t heed that advice and Jim followed my lead.
The Ruger GSR on the range at the West End Gun Club.
The GSR is Ruger’s interpretation of the Scout rifle concept first put forth by a gun writer named Jeff Cooper. Cooper’s concept was a short-barreled rifle that would hold a scope in a forward location and make for a sort of do-anything long gun. Steyr built the first commercially available Cooper-inspired Scout rifle, and then about a decade later Ruger followed suit. Mossberg has one now, too (good buddy Johnny G has one). The Steyr is crazy expensive, the Ruger started out at a reasonable price but has since gone kind of crazy (along with everything else), and (in my opinion) the Mossberg is the best value (it’s a fine rifle and one I’ll probably own some day).
The left side of the Ruger GSR. Note the laminated stock, which provides a very stable bed for the barreled action.The GSR as seen from the right.A Ruger .308 selfie.The Ruger’s aperture rear sight. It’s similar to the original Mini 14 site. Techsites doesn’t offer a replacement rear site for the GSR; if they did, I would have a Techsites rear sight on this rifle.The Ruger GSR flash suppressor. It’s the same type that originally came on the Mini 14. On a bolt action rifle, it’s legal in Calilornia; on a semi-auto, it is not.
When I first took delivery of the GSR, it was a real disappointment. As had been the case with half the guns I bought in the last couple of decades, it had to go back to the manufacturer. The problem was that the rifle printed way to the right, and there wasn’t enough adjustment in the rear aperture to get it back to the point of aim. I returned it to Ruger, they greatly relieved the stock around the barrel, and I had it back in about a week. When I took it out to the range the same week it was returned, I was astonished by its accuracy.
A target I shot a few years ago. The GSR can be amazingly accurate. The difference between the two groups is probably due to how I held the rifle. The upper group is one of the best I’ve ever shot with open sights.
But that group above was then and this is now. I had not fired the GSR in a few years. I grabbed two loads for this rifle (a load I had developed for my M1A Springfield, and a box of Federal factory ammo with full metal jacket 150-grain bullets).
Federal American Eagle .308 ammo. I bought a bunch of this a few years ago for the brass; this ammo was about the same price as .308 brass.My reloaded ammo. This load shoots extremely well in my Springfield Armory M1A.
I only fired a couple of 5-shot groups at 100 yards with the GSR. It was getting late in the day, I was getting tired, I had not fired the rifle in a long time (shooting is a perishable skill), and I realized I wasn’t giving the rifle a fair shake.
With the same rear sight adjustment used for the previous GSR target shown a couple of paragraphs above, the Federal factory 150 grain load shot high and to the left. The group is considerably larger than the load with 180-grain Noslers and Varget propellant.Another 5-shot group, this time with 168-grain Sierra hollowpoint bullets and IMR 4064 propellant (the accuracy load for my Springfield M1A). The load doesn’t perform as well in my GSR as it does in the M1A, but it’s still substantially better than the Federal factory ammo. It’s why I reload.
That stream crossing I mentioned at the start of this blog? Lytle Creek flows across the dirt road going into Meyers Canyon, and it can be a real challenge at times. With all the rain and snow we’ve had this past winter, the reservoirs are full and the snow up in the San Gabriels is still melting. You may remember the blog I wrote about the time I high sided my Subie attempting a crossing. The stream is down a scosh since then, but it’s still not an easy crossing. Here’s a video I made on the way out on this trip after visiting the range with the Mini 14 and the Ruger GSR.
I’ll be shooting the GSR more in the coming weeks now that I’m back into the swing of shooting a .308 off the bench, so watch for more stories on it. I think I can do better than the groups you see above.
