Bringing a 405 Ruger No. 1 Back To Life

Good buddy and fellow Inland Empire shooter Jose recently posted on Facebook about what has to be one of the best deals ever for a highly collectible Ruger No. 1 in .405 Winchester.  Ruger produced only a small number of these rifles (I’ve only seen one in person at a gun show a few years ago).  This one has exceptional walnut, which makes it even more desirable.

Here’s Jose’s story.  Enjoy, my friends.

I’ve never had any desire to hunt African game and I probably never will. But I’ve enjoyed reading about the African plains rifles since I was a kid in junior high school. Bringing a copy of Guns & Ammo magazine to school would probably get you a quick trip to the principal’s office these days…but I digress.

Exquisite walnut is often found on the older Ruger No. 1 rifles.

Quite a few years ago I saw an old Ruger No.1 Tropical in the consignment rack of a small gun shop that is now long gone. The owner said, “just pick it up and feel the heft.”  And of course, I did and the next thing you know we were talking price, knowing I would never pay $2,000 for a collectible Ruger No. 1.  Shaun confided in me that the rifle’s owner couldn’t find the obsolete 405 ammo for it anywhere and he wasn’t a handloader, so he wanted to sell the rifle. Another problem with the rifle was that a previous owner had cut down the front sight, probably because he had been shooting handloads with .41 caliber pistol bullets. So we settled on $500 and I became the owner of my first “unobtainable” Ruger No. 1!

In the gun shop years ago eyeing the Ruger No. 1. Salesman Shaun said, “hand me your phone and let me take a photo of you so you can see how good you look with that rifle!”  Shaun passed away a couple of years ago, but I know he smiled down from Heaven yesterday as I fired the Ruger No. 1H Tropical for the first time. And he was right, this gun was meant for me!

It took me a lot of searching over the past few years, but I finally located a set of 405 Win reloading dies, the shell holder, and all the components to bring this rifle back to life.

Hornady had made a run of new 405 Winchester brass and I was lucky enough to find a New Old Stock box of 50 shells. I also located some new Barnes .412, 300 grain TSX bullets.

The first step in restoring the old 1H Tropical was to contact Ruger and purchase a new gold bead front sight. That was a simple install as the blade is held in place by a small detent spring.

New Ruger NOS gold bead front sight blade installed.

Not wanting to use the expensive Barnes TSX bullets quite yet, lead bullets were cast from lead wheel weights with a bit of tin added using a Lyman 412263 plain base mold to cast 288 grain bullets. These were sized to 0.413 inch and lubed with Alox. Lyman has since discontinued this fine old bullet mold.

A Lyman 412263 bullet, lubed and sized.

Finally, yesterday morning I decided it was time to resurrect this old rifle! Besides, the project would give me the opportunity to test some old “salvage” Hodgdon 4198 powder I’ve had sitting on the shelf for nearly two decades. The powder is probably from the 1950s or early 1960s. I also had some ancient CCI 200 large rifle primers on hand.

Hodgdon “salvage” 4198 smokeless powder. The powder is probably WW II US Military surplus powder that Hogdon bought in bulk and repackaged in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Vintage components for a vintage cartridge.

I loaded 20 rounds of 405 Winchester ammo using the cast lead bullets and a starting load of 38.5 grains of 4198 and headed down the hill with good friend Yvon to an informal shooting range on BLM land.

The obsolete 405 Winchester cartridge (left) and the popular 45-70 Government cartridge (right) used by 1880s plains buffalo hunters of the American west. I don’t shoot buffalo and never will. But I enjoy reviving and firing old guns!

Let me say that this Ruger No. 1H Tropical in 405 Winchester lives again. It shoots incredibly tight groups with the cast bullets and gold bead open sights.

My next project will be to develop a non-lead hunting load using the 300 grain Barnes TSX bullets.

Bringing life back into old obsolete rifles can be tons of fun.

That’s an awesome story, Jose, and thanks for allowing us to share it here on the ExNotes blog.  Your No. 1 has to be one of the best deals ever.   The dealer’s original asking price is probably what that rifle is worth if you could find one for sale.  Well done, my friend.

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Retail Therapy, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Lower The Boom

Here at ExhaustNotes we like to support local businesses. Without local stores and a healthy business environment a town dries up and becomes a collection of houses. Interaction between the town populace slows to a crawl and sad as it is, the only action will be found at Walmart or the Chevron station out by the highway. That’s no way to live.

In the USA we operate on the capitalist economic system. This means I do your laundry and you do my laundry, we keep handing the same money back and forth. The cyclical movement, or pumping action, of these few, tattered dollars are where the magic happens. Capitalism relies on all of us constantly spending and gathering dollars: the trick is to keep that money supply moving. If no one buys anything no one earns anything and the whole system crashes.

When we buy stuff online that money goes out of our local economy to some far-fetched location. In other words, they do our laundry but take their laundry to another town or state. Maybe they don’t even get their laundry done. Maybe they invest in block-chain cyber securities and sit on it.

If the system is functioning correctly you will eventually do the laundry of someone who did the laundry for someone else three states over who did the laundry for someone else. Except when the system gets so large and ruthlessly efficient your town becomes unable to do laundry at the massive scale required to match the price of the other, Mega-Laundry-Towns.

The local pool of cash begins to flow in one direction: out of here. Your neighbors no longer want you to do their laundry. It’s easier and cheaper to send dirty clothes to an Internet laundry service. The people in your town become bitter, superstitious and convinced the system is rigged against them. Less money circulating means people have to shop for the cheapest place to get laundry done or forego clean clothes altogether, taking money out of circulation even faster.

Look around now: the people are wearing dirty clothes because no one can afford laundry service. There’s nothing to buy and no money to pay for it if you did find something to buy. Since there is no money circulating the pulse of your community grows weaker. Young people see a bleak future with no one to do laundry for and leave. They move elsewhere, anywhere clothing is being washed, leaving the halt and the lame behind.

Neighborhoods become run down due to deferred maintenance. Angry, desperate, hungry and poor, this is the point when you turn to a life of crime. You steal from other poor people, your neighbors, and get caught doing it. After the trial you are sent away to a privatized, for-profit prison because your local prison cannot compete with the private Mega-Prisons. There you are: locked up and forced to do laundry. For free.

So ExhaustNotes likes to shop local. Like the other day when my wife’s lock switch fell out of the driver’s door of her Jeep. It’s a Jeep thing. The plastic bezel that holds the switch has two little tabs that fit behind the door panel and the switch is held in by two metal flat springs. The whole magilla snaps into place and works fine unless the tabs break off. I spent 45 seconds on Amazon and found a replacement selling for $14 with free 2-day shipping. I was about to send the bezel to my cart when I thought about our local Jeep dealer and figured I’d practice what I preach. I like having a Jeep dealer in town and I want him to stay in business.

The Jeep dealer is about 23 miles away and I know I should have called first but I usually have a hard time describing what I want to the parts guy. I drove down the hill to the Jeep dealer and chatted up the parts guy. He found the driver’s side switch bezel on his computer after 15 minutes. “We don’t have it in stock, it’ll take a couple days.” I said, “go ahead and order it for me.” The price was $35. I asked the parts guy if he gave a local discount and he knocked $10 off. I was well-chuffed as they say in England.

A few days later the Jeep dealer called and said the part had arrived. I drove back down the hill and picked up the bezel. All was well with the world. Sure, I paid $10 more than Amazon but I had supported our local economy: I kept the money in town.

When I tried to install the bezel I noticed that it was the bezel for the passenger door. The little graphic of locked and un-locked would be upside down and the angle was wrong. Darn it. Ah well, mistakes happen. I rigged a few pieces of sheet metal to hold the switch in the door and drove back down to the Jeep dealer. I know I could have called but I figured I’d have a hard time explaining that they ordered the wrong part and it’s easier to deal in person. The parts guy looked the bezel over and apologized. He said he would order the driver’s side bezel for me.

A few days later the Jeep dealer called and said the part was in. I drove back down the hill and picked up the part. It was the correct one and fit perfectly. All in, I drove 184 miles to get a $25 switch bezel that cost $14 on Amazon. I used around 12 gallons of gas. Gas is right around $3 a gallon here so I spent $36 on gasoline. My time doesn’t really count because I enjoy riding around in old Brumby but if you’re counting I spent about 11 hours driving back and forth and talking with the parts guy.

I feel really good that I supported a local business. The money I spent was circulated to the gas stations, the Jeep place and a hamburger stand where I ate lunch on one of the four trips to the dealership. I really spread it around, man. I used my Social Security check to pay for the switch so that’s Uncle Sam’s money injected right into the veins of my town. Buying local is the best way we can work together to save capitalism… and have clean clothes to boot.

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Yellowstone National Park

Man, it was cold.  It was the coldest we would be on our 18-day, 5000-mile ride around the western United States.  Yellowstone National Park was our destination and we wanted to arrive early.  Baja John was doing the navigating and the trip planning, and we were leaving early that morning out of Cody, Wyoming, at 5:00 a.m. to beat the tourist traffic in Yellowstone.  I had an electric vest; our Chinese and Colombian guests did not.  I knew they had to be hurting.  I had my vest dialed all the way up and I was.  Did I mention it was cold?

So, about that big photo above:  That’s Yellowstone Falls on the Yellowstone River.  There are something like 10 waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park.  I’ve only seen the one above.  That means I have at least nine reasons to return.

Back to the story.  I did mention it was cold riding into Yellowstone that morning, didn’t I?

Following Baja John into Yellowstone. That trip was 6 years ago, and I still get cold looking at this photo.
Another shot entering Yellowstone National Park from the east.  That’s Baja John in front of me…we were dressed for the cold, but I think our guests found it to be a little colder than the weather they are used to in southern China.

The trip was a wild one…18 days on the road with a dozen guys from China, two from Colombia, and all on free motorcycles provided by Zongshen via CSC Motorcycles.  CSC was the importer, I was the go-between spanning the CSC/Zongshen interface (and two continents), and while we were arranging the initial shipment Zongshen asked if I had any ideas to promote the bikes in the US.  Wow, did I ever!

In Zongshen’s main offices, with key Zongshen execs viewing photos from my rides in the US and Baja. Sue grabbed this photo and it’s one of my favorites. Without realizing it, I was selling those guys on giving us 15 motorcycles to ride around the US.  This looks like a staged photo.  It’s not.

That ride became the Western America Adventure Tour, and it was a hoot.   I mean, think about:  Every angry and ignorant asshole on the Internet was condemning Chinese bikes and here we were, with 15 of the things just arrived in America, setting off on a 5,000 mile ride from So Cal to Sturgis, west across the US to the Pacific Ocean, and then riding the Pacific coast back to So Cal.  On that epic ride we didn’t have a single breakdown and that was giving the Internet trolls meltdowns.  It was a grand adventure.

But I digress.  Back to Yellowstone.  On our ride, we hit every National Park along the way, and Yellowstone was one of the best.   Prior to that ride, I’d never been to Yellowstone and I had always wanted to see it.  And for good reason…it is (in my opinion) the quintessential National Park.  Yellowstone is surreal, with sulfur-laden steams and ponds spewing forth, majestic views, waterfalls, bison, bears, deer, elk, wolves, geysers, and more.   It was a first for me.  I was a Yellowstone green bean.

When we entered Yellowstone, we arrived so early the gates were unmanned and we entered for free.  But it had been a long, cold ride in from Cody and we were nearly out of gas.  My fuel light was blinking as we entered the park and I didn’t know for sure if there would be gas in Yellowstone.  John felt confident there would be, and he was right.   I saw the Sinclair sign up ahead, but before we got there, we had a close encounter of the bison kind.  We were cruising along at about 30 mph, and all of a sudden I noticed this locomotive next to me.  I was too slow to realize what it was until I was alongside, but our chase vehicle driver John (we had two Johns and one Juan on this ride) grabbed this photo…I had passed within 10 feet of this monster!

Just as I went past my big buff buddy above, he  exhaled.   In the frigid Yellowstone air, fog came out of his nostrils.   It was like riding alongside a steam locomotive.

Here’s another cool shot in Yellowstone:  The Continental Divide.  We had crossed it several times on the ride to Yellowstone already, but I think this is the first time I stopped for a photo.

Sometimes the photos almost take themselves.

One of the many attractions in Yellowstone is Old Faithful.   Here’s a shot of the geyser in its full glory.

It was one of those motorcycle rides that was so much fun it made me feel a little guilty.  (That’s a Jewish thing; maybe some of our Catholic readers will understand it, too.)  I felt bad because Sue wasn’t enjoying the trip with me.  So I fixed that.  A few years later Sue and I hopped in the Subie, pointed the car north, and a few days later I rolled into Yellowstone National Park again (this time with my wife).  Naturally, I grabbed a few more photos.

Peering into the valley carved by the Yellowstone River.
Ah, the bison. This was really cool stuff.
Click. Click. Click.
A photo of Sue in the Subie photographing a bison.
Wow.

I’m not a geologist, but geology seems to me to be a pretty interesting subject and there sure are a bunch of geological things in Yellowstone.  Like the bubbling and burbling pits and pools you most definitely do not want to fall into.

You get the idea.  In doing a bit of Internet research on Yellowstone, I came across this Yellowstone map.  It is a good way to get the lay of the land up there in Wyoming, but visiting Yellowstone National Park would be even better.

You can learn a little bit more about Yellowstone as a destination (and how to get there) by reading an article I wrote for Motorcycle Classics magazine.  It’s a cool place and I’ve never met anyone who felt like visiting Yellowstone was anything other than a marvelous experience.  Trust me on this:  Yellowstone National Park belongs on your bucket list.

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Would you like to read more Motorcycle Classics Destinations articles?  Hey, just click here or better yet, buy your own copy of Destinations.

One more thing…if you’d like to learn more about the RX3 motorcycle and our 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, you should do two things:  Buy yourself a copy of 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM, and watch Joe Gresh’s video:

Baja’s Sierra de San Francisco Cave Paintings

Real Indiana Jones stuff, this is:  Baja’s prehistoric cave paintings, or as they are known in BCS, Pinturas Rupestres en Baja California Sur.  They are in the Sierra de San Francisco mountains in an area north of San Ignacio on the eastern side of the peninsula.

No one knows for certain how old these paintings are or who created them.  Conventional wisdom holds that the prehistoric Comondú people (ancestors of the Cochimí natives first encountered by Spanish explorers in the 1600s) created the paintings perhaps 7500 years ago, but like I said, no one knows for sure.   One of the very few relatively accessible sites is about 520 miles south of Tijuana, but don’t let the miles fool you.  You’ll need a very full day of hard traveling once you’ve crossed the border to reach Guerrero Negro, and it will be a full day from there to get to the cave paintings and return.

The red arrow on the left points to Guererro Negro; the red arrow on the right points to the cave paintings at Cueva del Raton.

There are well over a hundred known prehistoric Baja cave painting sites throughout the peninsula (there may be others yet to be discovered) and with very few exceptions, most involve traveling by mule for a day or two through difficult terrain.  One of those exceptions, though, is the Cueva del Raton site (the subject of this blog).  Getting there makes for a grand adventure, and you can do it in a day if you’re already in San Ignacio to the south or Guerrero Negro to the north.   Our advice is to visit Guerrero Negro and take in the whale watching, have a grand breakfast at Malarrimo’s the next morning, and then head southeast on Mexico Highway 1.  Guerrero Negro is where Mexico Highway 1 turns to cut across the peninsula to the Sea of Cortez.   You’ll head southeast for about an hour.  Keep your eyes open and watch for the Pinturas Rupestres sign pointing to the left.   Trust me on this:  The ride into the mountains is grand.  The road runs straight as an arrow for maybe 15 miles, with the at first distant and magnificent Sierra de San Francisco mountains straight ahead.

The path into the Sierra de Francisco Mountains. Mexico Highway 1 bends southeast to go across the peninsula at Guerrero Negro on Baja’s Pacific Coast. The big lagoon is Scammon’s Lagoon, one of two choice whale watching locations in Baja.

Then the road climbs through a series of desolate, precipitous, and tight switchbacks with stunning views in literally every direction.  I don’t use the word stunning lightly:  The ride into the Sierra de San Francisco Mountains is, all by itself, worth a Baja trip.   I’ve never seen other vehicles out there, unless they were fellow riders in the groups I’ve led to the cave paintings. I’ve seen goat herds tended by shepherds and sheep dogs (don’t tempt those dogs; sheep dogs in general are fiercely protective of their flock and the ones in this region seem particularly aggressive).  You may see other things out there as well.  On one trip, I had a close encounter with a very docile Mexican Red rattlesnake.

This guy (or gal; I wasn’t going to turn it over to check) was very polite. He (or she) was just outside my car door in the early morning hours. He (or she) didn’t rattle, although with those nine buttons I imagine its rattle would have been impressive.
They say few people (or even horses) survive a bite from one of these Mexican Red rattlers. This one’s previous meal might have been a rabbit; you can still see a hair on the right side of its mouth. I shot this photo with a 70×300 Nikkor lens (on a Nikon D810 camera) at 70mm. I was maybe 6 feet away in my Subaru with the window down, and the snake was just outside my door.

The road to the Cueva del Raton site (after you leave Mexico Highway 1) is paved for maybe 15 miles, and then the pavement ends for the next maybe 10 miles.  I would call it a fairly gnarly dirt road, but I’m an old guy and what’s gnarly to me may not be to you.  I wouldn’t attempt to ride it two up on a motorcycle.  I’ve done it in my Subaru with no problem and I’ve done it several times on my 250cc CSC RX3 motorcycle.   Depending on your skill level, you might be able to do it on a street bike.   Common sense is the order of the day:  If you’re on a Gold Wing or an FLH-anything, I would not think any less of you if you took a pass.  I think towing a trailer or driving a large recreational vehicle on this road would be a very bad move.

Twists and turns through the Sierra San Francisco Mountains.
When the pavement ends, this is what is ahead. It gets way rougher as you get into the mountains.
Traveling in style: My Subaru CrossTrek. It was a grand automobile for Baja exploration.
Don’t let this photo phool you. This was the only smooth stretch on the dirt road to the Cueva del Raton site.

You’ll see the sign for the Cueva Del Raton cave paintings on your right, but you can’t just go in.  There’s a locked gate and a set of stairs to get to the cave paintings, and to get in, you’ll need to buy a ticket.  There are two little villages in this area.  One is almost directly opposite the Cueva Del Raton site; the other is another two or three miles along the same dirt road (which dead ends in the little village of San Francisco de la Sierra).   At times I’ve tried to buy tickets in the little village directly across from the cave painting site and they sent me on to San Francisco de la Sierra, and at other times I’ve gone up to San Francisco de la Sierra and they’ve sent me back to the little village near the cave paintings.   The fees are modest and I always use larger Mexican bills and tell the people there to keep the change.  You’ll have to sign in when you purchase your ticket.  The cave paintings are a UNESCO World Heritage site.   Seeing them is a big deal.

If you ride to the end of the road to the little village of San Francisco de la Sierra, there’s a cool little church that is normally left unlocked. It’s a good spot for grabbing photos.

After you have purchased your tickets, one of the guides will meet you at the locked entrance to the Cueva del Raton site.  He will walk down from the village, so you may have to wait a couple of minutes.  Sometimes two guides come along.  They don’t speak English, so they don’t provide much explanation.   But you don’t really need much narration.  The paintings speak for themselves, which is no doubt what the artists who created them thousands of years ago intended.

The Cueva del Raton entrance. I led groups of CSC RX3 riders to this site several times. CSC offered no-charge Baja trips to its riders as part of its marketing approach and it worked. I don’t know why other motorcycle manufacturers don’t do the same.
Our local guides. These fellows didn’t speak English, but they didn’t need to.  The paintings spoke to me.

Once the guide unlocks the gate, it’s a modest climb up about three flights of steps, and there you’ll see the cave paintings (the cave is actually more of an overhang).  The paintings are protected from the rain and the region’s arid climate have protected them well.

Deer, a puma, and a human with a black face. In the more than one hundred known Baja cave painting sites, only four instances of humans with a black face have been found.
Another painting of a puma and a deer. In some cases, the paintings are done over other paintings. The black puma makes me wonder…was it really a cougar, or was it a jaguar? Jaguars have been found as far north as Arizona, even in modern times.
Goats? Or deer?
Another depiction of a person.
A better photo of the figures to the left of the humans.
And another. It was an eerie feeling, seeing these paintings and knowing they were done by a civilization that vanished thousands of years ago.

As I mentioned at the start of this blog, there are more than a hundred known cave painting sites throughout Baja and most are relatively inaccessible.  I’ve been a Baja traveler for more than 30 years, and many of my trips have been on Mexico Highway 1 down through the Cataviña boulder fields.   Several years ago I noticed a new sign for cave paintings just north of Cataviña on a trip with my daughter and three of her college friends.  We had to stop. These paintings were just off the main road and I’m pretty sure they were done by the famous Cochimí artist Sherwin Williams and his sidekick, Dutch Boy.  Don’t be taken in; you want the real deal and that’s the much further south Cueva del Raton.

A Spring Break trip through Baja with my daughter and three of her friends. All of these young ladies have gone on to very successful careers.

Our preference when traveling by car or motorcycle is BajaBound Insurance.  I’ve been using them for years and they are the best.

If you would like to learn more about Baja’s cave paintings, Harry Crosby’s The Cave Paintings of Baja California is a stellar reference with outstanding photos. It’s the best work of its kind on this fascinating topic.

Want more Baja moto adventure?  Check out our collection of stories on several trips in the full color Moto Baja book!

The six best bikes for Baja?  This one always gets the keyboard commandos wound up!

More on Baja, including favored restaurants, hotels, and destinations?  It’s all right here!

A Tale of Two Creedmoors

The 6.5 Creedmoor cartridge draws a lot of flak on the Internet.  I suspect most of the folks who go negative do so with no real experience.  I have two 6.5 Creedmoor rifles, and both do very well for me.  Will they magically overcome a shooting skills deficit?  No.   Are there other cartridges out there that can do as well?  Sure.  But the 6.5 Creedmoor, in my opinion, does what it is supposed to, and that’s provide accuracy with modest recoil.  I’m a believer.

I had my two Creedmoors on the range a few days ago, a Browning X-Bolt and a Ruger No. 1 (you’ve seen them on these pages recently).  Both are elegant rifles and each has what I would call exhibition grade wood.  The Browning has a curly maple stock and the Ruger has fancy walnut.  Both are factory rifles, and other than mounting scopes on each, both are unmodified guns.

Which one is prettier?  It’s a tie in my opinion.  Good wood, to me, is one of the best parts of having a fine rifle, and both these 6.5 Creedmoors answer the mail in that regard.  The wood seems to be alive on each, changing  depending on the viewing angle and how the light hits it.  This sensitivity to light orientation is probably more pronounced with the maple-stocked Browning.  The curl runs from front to rear and top to bottom on both sides (this rifle has an unusually highly-figured stock).  When photographed from the front (as I did in the photo below), the figure on the Browning is more subdued.

When photographed from the rear, though (as you can see below), the Browning’s curl really pops.  The Ruger’s fancy walnut looks good from any angle.

The Browning is a bolt action rifle based on the Paul Mauser design (as are nearly all bolt action rifles) and it holds five rounds (four in the magazine and one in the chamber).  You can buy extra magazines and carry them with four more rounds ready to go in each (you know, in case your deer starts returning fire).  The Ruger is a falling block action and it is a single shot.  I prefer that and I admit it is a bit of snobbery on my part; I like to think I only need one shot.  On the rifle range, I only load one round at a time.  Come to think of it, on a hunt I also only load one round at a time.  California’s magazine restrictions are irrelevant to me; to my way of thinking if you need a 30-round magazine you aren’t much of a shot.

As much as I love Ruger No. 1 rifles, I prefer the scope location on a bolt action rifle better.  A telescopic sight on a bolt action is in a more natural position.  The Ruger No. 1 positions the scope further forward, and even when I mount the scope as far to the rear as it will go, it requires an unnatural amount of forward stretch to get the correct eye relief.  You can get Ruger scope rings with a rearward setback to overcome this problem, but they look goofy and they add more weight to the rifle.

The Ruger is a heavier rifle.  Part of that is the slender and shorter barrel on the Browning.   Walnut is lighter than maple, but the Ruger barreled action is heavier that the Browning X-Bolt barreled action.  Browning’s specs put the maple X-Bolt at 6 1/2 pounds; a Ruger No. 1B (this rifle’s configuration) is listed as 8 1/4 lbs.  On the rifle range the Ruger’s heft doesn’t bother me.  If I was carrying a rifle all day on pig hunt, I’d prefer the lighter Browning.  The Browning feels almost dainty compared to the No. 1.

I mounted inexpensive scopes on both rifles.  The Browning has a Vortex 4×12 scope and the Ruger has a 3×9 Redfield. The optics are equally bright on both.  The Vortex has indistinct indexing on its windage and elevation click adjustments; the Redfield turret is snappy and allows counting clicks by feel alone as you make them.  The Redfield Revenge is discontinued (the Redfield company is no more), but it is a good scope.  I prefer the Redfield to the Vortex.

Both rifles are accurate at right around minute of angle, and both will occasionally get down in the 0.6-inch group neighborhood.  The Ruger didn’t like the Speer 140 grain jacketed soft point bullet with 41.0 grains of IMR 4350, although I’ve used it before with a lighter charge of that same powder and achieved sub-minute-of-angle groups.   Rifles have their preferences.  With a load dialed for each rifle, the accuracy of both rifles is comparable.

I tried a few loads in both rifles recently with IMR 4350 and Varget powder, and I also tried neck-sized-only ammo in the Browning.  Here are the results:

If there’s an advantage to neck sizing fired cases in the Browning, it’s not obvious to me.  I’m going to full length resize the brass from this point forward, which will allow me to use my reloaded ammo in either rifle.

When I bumped the IMR 4350 charge up to 41.0 grains, accuracy deteriorated from previous sessions.  The Browning likes 40.7 grains (or maybe a little less); the Ruger did better with the Speer 140 grain jacketed softpoints at 39.5 grains of IMR 4350.

What’s next?  I found Berger Bullets load data for IMR 7828 SSC propellant.  That’s a slower burning propellant ordinarily used in magnum cartridges, but I like the fact that it fills the case (which should make for a more accurate load) and I thought I would give it a try.  I have 20 rounds loaded and I’ll test this combo later this week.   Stay tuned, and you’ll read about it here on the ExNotes blog.

More Tales of the Gun!

Our recent Browning 6.5 Creedmoor story!

Our recent Ruger No. 1 Creedmoor story!

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My 2022 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions

The New Year is a good time to take a clear-eyed look at your past and relive your many failures. It’s a time to regret what you have done, a time for guilt and bitterness, but no matter how badly you screwed things up the preceding year the New Year is also a chance to make things right. The New Year is like a fresh tub of store-brand guacamole, its smooth machine-made surface waiting for that first nacho chip. Full of promise, the New Year is a blank slate upon which to write your opus of good intentions. This is your moment, this is your time: don’t blow it by double dipping.

Making resolutions in real life often requires some effort on our part to accomplish. Things like losing weight or getting stronger, maybe to change into clean underwear, or foolishly, to drink less. These are hard things to do which is why so many New Year’s resolutions lie broken and forgotten by February. Social media resolutions are much easier to keep.  In fact, most of them only require you to pause, to not do, to disengage. With that here are my five social media resolutions for 2022.

Social Media Resolution Number 1:  I will stop informing Internet grifters… I mean sellers that the price they are asking for their well-used sale item (without shipping) exceeds the price of a brand new, duplicate item with shipping included. I don’t know why I have chosen to be Mr. Price Check on various forums but it needs to stop. If Joe Blow wants to list a rusty old Yamaha gas cap for three times more money than a new one from Yamaha who am I to post a link to the cheaper new item? Why do I care? Am I really trying to warn other idiots of the price gouging or am I a Bob Barker-like crusader for the frigging Price Is Right? From now on I vow to stay out of the grifter’s deal and let the buyer beware. Unless it’s a basket case JT1 Mini Enduro for 2800 dollars; then I have to pipe up.

Social Media Resolution Number 2: When some tasteless, classless, skill-deprived person puts up a photograph of their sad, pipe-wrapped, loop-butchered, Brat style motorcycle and then asks the hive mind what do we think about it, I vow to stop telling the builder what I think about it. It does the builder, and I use that term loosely, no good to list all the horrible things he has done to what was a pretty cool vintage Japanese bike. I promise to stop telling the idiots who vandalize a decent motorcycle that the bike is worthless now and they should give their 4-inch angle grinder to a chimpanzee because the average chimp has a better grasp of style and tool usage than the so-called builder. Look, if Brat builders had any chance of turning around their lives I’d go along with the god-awful mess as just a phase. I’d try to steer them in the right direction, you know? But that’s not going to happen. The Brat builder’s bad taste will only grow progressively worse, going from butchering Japanese bikes to big wheel baggers constructed entirely of Bondo to huge, jacked-up diesel pickup trucks with those 28-inch rims. Regardless, I will never comment on the Brat’s topic from this day forward.

Social Media Resolution Number 3: I will stop blocking people who answer, “Google is your friend” or “use the search function” in response to questions on a brand-specific motorcycle owner’s forum. Unlike these paragons of efficiency, you and I understand that owner’s groups exist for more than the just the facts. The owner’s group fosters camaraderie, and a sort of gallows humor develops regarding your particular motorcycle’s consistent failures. It’s reassuring to know that you’re not alone when your swing arm breaks. The search bar does not provide real-time condolences. After sufficient time any owner’s group will have covered all known problems and these issues will have been exhaustively discussed. At that advanced state of know-how answering a query with conventional wisdom becomes almost like a chant. Chanting is good for the soul; it wipes the mind clean, if only for a moment. I approach a Zen-like state when I repeat, “remove the sway bars” to a Jeep YJ owner for the 1000th time.

Social Media Resolution Number 4: I will stop trying to figure out Facebook. My Facebook account is slowly losing functionality. One by one, little features disappear. Facebook Messenger went away a few years ago. I can’t access the messages, but Messenger still sends me notices that a friend has left a message. I can no longer post videos unless I download them to YouTube first then paste a link on my page. YouTube uploads slowly with my weak Internet connection. A 5-minute video might take 8 hours to upload. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I’m no longer in control of some Facebook pages I created. Group settings are changing and I didn’t change them. I used to shake my fist at Facebook and rail against the Face-less algorithms that keep eroding my online presence. For 2022 I’m going to let the anger go. I’m going to stop bitching about Facebook and let its perverse tentacles unwind themselves from my life at whatever pace their little robot-minds care to proceed. I have found that my opinion of humanity varies in an inverse proportion to how much I use the service: lots of time on Facebook depresses me, less time on Facebook and my outlook improves. Maybe human beings were never meant to know so much intimate detail about each other’s lives. In the past it took active agency to find out who was a jerk. Now people tell you they are jerks 10 or 15 times a day. In writing.

I now know jerks in every country of the world. I know jerks in India, I know jerks in Saudi Arabia, I know jerks in China, and I know jerks in every state of these United States and its territories. Before the Internet was created there was no way I could I dislike so many people. It’s a little overwhelming. I don’t believe we have evolved enough to cope with so many jerks all at once. Handing us a phone and an Internet connection is like taking a pre-contact tribesman from the Amazon jungle and dropping him off in the middle of the Las Vegas strip with a bag of halcyon-days meth and 7500 dollars cash. It’s too much, too soon and I’m going to stop trying to sort it all out.

These four social media resolutions seem eminently keepable to me. They seem like actions that will improve my life at absolutely no cost in time or effort on my part. I like that. What are your social media New Year’s resolutions?

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The Spy and the Traitor

I’m an old fart.   I pretty much have everything I ever wanted, and that creates a problem for my family when birthdays and Christmas roll around.  But they know I’m a reader, they buy books for me, and they have my preferences dialed.   A recent gift was Ben MacIntyre’s The Spy and the Traitor.  I could say it was great, but that would be a massive understatement.  The Spy and the Traitor is riveting.  It is a book I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. reading.  It is that good.  And it’s a true story.

Oleg Gordievsky is a former Russian KGB colonel who was Britain’s highest placed espionage asset for 30 years.   I can’t say which parts of the story were more exciting…his espionage activities or his MI6 exfiltration from Soviet Russia when the KGB found out about him.  You might wonder how the KGB finally tumbled to him; the answer would be Aldrich Ames, the CIA traitor currently rotting out the rest of his days in an Indiana federal penintentiary (properly so, in my opinion).

Trust me on this: If you want a page turner, pick up a copy of The Spy and the Traitor.  You won’t be disappointed.

More product reviews (including great reads) are here.

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The Model 60, Betty, and Getting Hammered

That’s a Model 60 Smith and Wesson snubbie you see in the big photo above, and Betty and Boris you see in the photo below.  You’ve read about the Model 60 before here on the ExhaustNotes blog.  One thing about the Model 60 I wasn’t excited about is that it had a tendency to misfire occasionally when firing double action (it always fired single action, but when shooting double action, I would get one or two misfires in every box of ammo).

I know I was supposed to shoot Boris (the zombie), but Betty is the real troublemaker here and it was easier to get a better sight picture on her.  Sorry about that, Betty.  Sometimes it’s fun to mix it up a bit and shoot zombie targets.

When shooting double action, the hammer fall is a little less than it is when firing single action, and that little bit of energy loss makes a dfference in ignition reliability.  I tried replacing the hammer spring on the Model 60 (thinking the spring had fatigued like it did on my Rock Island Compact), but I still had the double action misfiring problem.  Hmmm.  It was time for a bit of online research.

The Model 60’s hammer spring. Removing it requires the same high-tech tool I used to disassemble the Rock Island Armory Compact 1911. You don’t have to remove the sideplate on a Model 60 to remove and replace the hammer spring.

I’ve read that there are differences in primer manufacturers that can make a difference in ignition sensitivity, with CCI primers being the hardest to light and Federal being the easiest.   These days, it’s a stroke of good fortune to find any kind of primers.  I have CCI primers (with components, halitosis is better than no breath at all).  I had tried Winchester primers in the Model 60 in the past and they had the same propensity to occasionally double action misfire.

.38 Special wadcutter ammo loaded on my Star. Those are 148 grain Xtreme wadcutter bullets in the foreground. They’re called wadcutters because they punch a clean hole in the target. These particular bullets are orientation insensitive; you can load them in the cartridge case facing up or facing down (they are the same on both ends).

My research tumbled me onto something I kind of already knew but more or less forgot:  Primer seating makes a difference.  It’s typically not an issue for most guns, but on those with little hammers (like the Model 60 snubnose), it matters more.  From what I read, you can’t just seat your primers to a consistent depth and call it good.  There’s variability in the primer height and there’s variability in the primer hole depth.  There’s also variability induced by the carbon residue from the last shot if you’re reloading fired cases.  The conventional wisdom is that you need to have the primer anvil in firm contact with the bottom of the primer cavity, maybe even with a little bit of crush on the primer cup material.  A little bit of primer crush affects primer output less (i.e., it’s better, or so I’ve read), than not having the primer fully seated.  If a primer is not fully seated, the first strike may or may not light the primer.  If the primer is not seated, a lot of the hammer’s energy is consumed finishing the primer seating operation.  After the primer gets seated the rest of the way by the firing pin, the hammer may not have enough energy left to ignite the primer.  It all makes sense to me.

Primers need to be fully seated, which usually means the primer face should be 0.005 to 0.006 inch below flush.

The more I thought about the above, the more I convinced myself the Model 60’s occasional misfires were a primer seating issue.   The reason I think that’s what I had going on is because when I had a misfire, the cartridge that misfired always fired on the second strike.  That’s consistent with the primer-not-fully-seated hypothesis.  If it was just a matter of insufficient firing pin energy, the primer wouldn’t fire on the second strike, either.  The issue is more pronounced on a little snubby like the Model 60 because it has such a tiny hammer and hammer spring.  There’s not a lot of energy there like there is on a Colt Python or a Ruger Blackhawk (those handguns have much bigger hammers and hammer springs).

I loaded a box of 38 Special ammo on my Star reloader (I love that machine) and examined the primer seating depth.  They were below flush with the rear of the cartridge, but not by much.  I can fix that, I knew.  The Star has an adjustment for primer seating depth, as explained in the photos below.

Lowering the primer seating adjustment shaft is accomplished by loosening a locknut and turning the shaft in a bit more.
The Star’s primer seating shaft. It operates a lever on the press downstroke that pushes the primer up to seat it in the cartridge case.  Adjust the shaft down, and the gizmo seating the primer pushes it into the cartridge case deeper.

After adjusting the Star to seat the primers deeper, I loaded another box of .38 Special wadcutter ammo.  You can guess where this story is going.  I double action fired a box of ammo I loaded before I made the adjustment, and I had two misfires.  That’s about how the Model 60 has always performed.  Then I shot the second 50 cartridges using ammo that I reloaded after making the primer seating depth adjustment, and every round fired.  There were zero misfires.  My Model 60 double action misfire issue was primer seating.   What do you know.  Live and learn.

All this is interesting, but I usually don’t shoot wadcutter ammo loaded on the Star in the Model 60.  My Star reloader is configured to load the classic .38 Special target load: 2.7 grains of Bullseye and a 148 grain wadcutter bullet.  The powder weight is not adjustable without buying a new powder throw bar for the Star, and I don’t want to do that.  The Star will remain dedicated to .38 Special wadcutter ammo.

For the Model 60, I found that a good accuracy load (and a heavier load better suited for defensive purposes) is 3.5 grains of WW 231 propellant and a 158 grain cast flatpoint (also known as a truncated cone) bullet.  That combination shoots to point of aim at 50 feet in the Model 60.  I reload that ammo on my single stage RCBS Rockchucker press.  For primer seating on the Rockchucker, I use an old Lee priming tool (they called it the AutoPrime II) I’ve had for 40 years (it’s shown in the photo below).  Unfortunately, Lee no longer offers this system and they don’t have anything that offers both automatic primer feeding and primer seating on the press upstroke.   That’s a pity, because it’s a good approach and allows for much more positive primer seating.

A good primer seating system no longer offered: The Lee auto primer. It is 40 years old and still works well.  A mini-ram replaces the shell holder in the Rockchucker ram, and the primer seating operation occurs up north.
Freshly-reloaded .38 Special ammo with ballistics similar to the old FBI load…a 158 grain cast flatpoint bullet and 3.5 grains of WW 231.

A couple of final notes…when doing this kind of testing, I always make sure the revolver is clean and properly lubricated.  My preference is BreakFree cleaner and lubricant.  It does a stellar job.  And if you’re wondering about the grips on the Model 60, they from Altamont.  Those grips turn the Model 60 into a more manageable and less punishing handgun.  I like them.

You know, one of the things I enjoy with this reloading hobby is just how much there is to learn.  I’ve been reloading for about 50 years now, and I’m still learning (and sometimes relearning) new things.  When you roll your own, you’re in charge and you can tune a load for better accuracy, better reliability, and lower cost.  Reloading is a cool hobby, and it’s as much fun as the shooting itself.

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More gun and reloading stories are here!

More Model 60 articles!

A TJ Tune For My Model 60
A TJ Roscoe
New Shoes For The Model 60
A Model 60 Load Development Plan
Model 60 Load Testing

A Great Cup of Coffee

Good buddy Ren Doughty of Batdorf and Bronson Coffee Roasters asked me what kind of coffee I like.  Hmmm.  Let me think about that.

I’ve ridden through the Andes in Colombia and I thought the coffee there was mediocre.  Thanks to Juan Valdez (remember him?) all the good stuff goes to the U.S., my Colombian compadres Juan and Carlos told me.

Other than in big city five star hotels that cater to foreigners, the Chinese don’t drink coffee.  Gresh and I really struggled with that riding across China and we made do with Gresh’s Nescafe stash on our entire 6,000-mile ride.   Joe would get up early and make it for both of us, boiling the water twice and then sprinkling in the Nescafe.  Nescafe is a last resort if you need coffee.  Halitosis is better than no breath at all, I guess.

Singapore and Thailand had good coffee, about like we do.  I enjoyed my coffee in those spots.

Italy had okay coffee.  Espressos may have been born there.  The Italians in Vatican City enjoy a good cup of coffee.  I’ll get to that in a second.

Turkey had better than average coffee.  They can tell your future by reading the coffee grounds left in your cup. (Turkey, by the way, is one of the most fascinating places I’ve ever visited.)

Baja has surprisingly good coffee, especially on a motorcycle ride.  But then everything is better on a motorcycle ride in Baja.

When I was in Puerto Rico for the first time 30 years ago, the waiter asked if I wanted coffee with my breakfast.  Nah, I said.  He looked at me strangely.  First time in Puerto Rico?  Yeah, I said.  You have to try the coffee, he said.  It is the best in the world.  Okay, I’ll play.  He brought a cup over.  It was quite good.  Told you, he said, and then he asked when I flew in. Last night, I answered.  Did you see the jet at the Mayaguez aeropuerto with funny markings?  That’s a Vatican jet, he explained.  Comes in twice a month for coffee. For the Pope.  Up until a few days ago, I thought Puerto Rico had the best coffee in the world.   I mean, who’s going to argue with the Pope?

But all that changed with my introduction this morning to Batdorf and Bronson coffee.  It’s fitting.  Today is my birthday.

My first taste of Batdorf and Bronson coffee came about in a most interesting way.  Gresh has a lot of friends and one of them is cool guy, motojournalist, and coffee expert extraordinaire Ren Doughty.  I knew the name from Cycle World magazine and Gobi Gresh’s Facebook posts.

Ren reached out and offered to send me a sample.  You see, he’s with Batdorf and Bronson, and the man knows coffee.  And motorcycles, too.  That’s Ren and his wife you see above on their recent BMW-borne moto trip across America.

Ren asked what kind of coffee I preferred, how I prepared my coffee, and in which country I had most enjoyed coffee (hence the soliloquy above).  He was dialing in my preferences, and two days later this arrived at my front door.

You might be wondering what the dancing goats thing is all about.  Ren explained that, too.  It seems coffee was discovered by an ancient shepherd who observed his goats eating berries and then excitedly jumping about (the berries were from a coffee plant).   Dancing goats…get it?   That’s how it all started.  And that was a good thing.  For now (and to close this blog) this old goat is going to have another cup of Batdorf and Bronson coffee and enjoy his birthday.  Maybe I’ll dance about a bit, too.

Thanks, Ren.  You made my day.

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Zuo!

You guys remember good buddy Sergeant Zuo from the Dajiu and Arjiu ride across China (Dajiu and Arjiu are me and Joe Gresh, as christened by our Chinese riding buddies).

Zuo hiking the Ma Ya Snow Mountain in China at an altitude of 4,500 meters.

Zuo is a great guy and he and I correspond regularly.   He wrote a guest blog, and here it is (first in Chinese, and then followed by an English translation).

夜雨秋 2021
残荷 飞雪雷音寺 荻花 瑟瑟恐龙湾

我想该去转转吧，牵马出槽，天气很阴，气温很低。很多时候，连一个说话的人都没有，孤独就成了很好的朋友，不是有人说“孤独，只有天才和疯子才配有，你充其量是寂寞罢了。”我不知道自己是寂寞还是孤独，总之，为了一个梦境我想该去趟恐龙湾地质公园，为了远方的牵念该去趟雷音寺。

好像，自从新小三（赛科龙RX3s）仰或说是大黑吧入手到现在1000多公里这是第一次跑这么远。离开市区天空好像在零零星星的飘雪，毕竟今天是大雪节气，哦，天慢慢的冷了，一个拐弯处，隔着头盔都感觉到了凛冽，最冷的时间到了，我真的很怕，今年好像格外的冷，降温了，马路上没有几辆车。

新小三良好的动力储备，游刃有余的操控性能感觉真好，感觉滕森轮胎的低温抓地性能比起正新轮胎好点，自动感应大灯在进入隧道的时候很是给力。磨合到了1000公里，是该跑跑高速了，时速到了120km/h还是没有再拉起来，毕竟才1000公里的里程，极速还是再忍忍吧，人就是这么的自私，自己的车总是谨小慎微，给厂家试骑的时候却是档档见红。

寒冷的天气，大雄宝殿也挂上了厚厚的门帘，是不是菩萨也怕冷，干净的雷音寺没有一个人，香火依然，庄严依然，再次叩头的时候前额还是有些隐隐作痛，实际上，菩萨也罢，神灵也罢，谁也救不了谁，磕个头、念声佛号也就是消除自己的贪心、 嗔心、痴心、嫉妒、慢心。明明知道，哪有什么菩萨，要有菩萨也是在老家炕上躺着的那尊佛，为了那尊佛的康健，还是去了寺庙，如果非要给皈依一个合理的解释，那就是给自己灵魂找个家，让孤独不再孤独，让流浪不再流浪，让牵念可以穿越时空，也许这就是菩萨吧，也许这就是佛吧，但是，我真的很喜欢寺庙的幽静，喜欢和那尊泥菩萨的对视，喜欢听那念佛声声。

恐龙湾池塘的残荷一如既往的展现着它的忧伤，恰有几片雪花的飘落，还有那瑟瑟的荻花，那随风摇曳的更多的是一种无法言表的曾经，朋友说过他喜欢瑟瑟的荻花，那是生命的底色，一如广袤荒凉的西部环境。

站立慢速骑行在小径，身边池塘、残荷、荻花……环境，静的可以听到自己的心跳，柔和的发动机声音还是惊起了不知名的大鸟，把新小三停在铁道旁，远远的看着那个隧道，多少年了，还是为曾经的年轻，曾经的莽撞心有余悸。
—— 2021.12.07 兰州 大雪节气

What, hey…you don’t speak Mandarin?  Well okay, then…here you go!

Night Rain and Autumn Breeze 2021
Remnant Lotus Feixue Leiyin Temple Dihua Sese Dinosaur Bay

I think I should go around, lead the horse out of the trough, the weather is very cloudy and the temperature is very low. Very often, loneliness becomes a good friend without even a single speaker. It’s not like someone said, “Lonely, only geniuses and lunatics have it. You are lonely at best.” I don’t know if I am lonely or alone. In short, I think I should go to Hanauma Bay Geopark for a dream, and Leiyin Temple for the memory of distant places.
It seems that this is the first time since the new junior three (Seccoron RX3s) started to run this far, more than 1,000 kilometers. Leaving the city, the sky seems to be fluttering. After all, it’s a heavy snow festival today. Oh, the sky is slowly getting cold. I can feel the coldness through the helmet at a corner. The coldest time is here, I’m really I’m afraid, it seems to be extremely cold this year. The temperature has dropped. There are not many cars on the road.

The new small three has a good power reserve and easy handling performance. It feels that the low temperature grip performance of Tenson tires is better than that of Zhengxin tires. The auto-sensing headlights are very powerful when entering the tunnel. After running-in to 1000 kilometers, it is time to run at high speed. After the speed reaches 120km/h, it is still not pulled up. After all, the mileage is only 1000 kilometers. It is better to bear with the top speed. People are so selfish, and their cars are always cautious. When I gave the manufacturer a test ride, the stalls turned red.

In the cold weather, the Daxiong Hall also hung a thick curtain, whether the Bodhisattva is afraid of the cold, there is no one in the clean Leiyin Temple, the incense is still, the solemnity is still, there is still a slight pain in the forehead when I kowtow again, in fact, the Bodhisattva Forget it, gods, no one can save anyone, knocking one’s head and chanting Buddha’s name is to eliminate one’s greed, hatred, infatuation, jealousy, and slowness. Obviously knowing that there is no bodhisattva. If you want to have a bodhisattva, you will also go to the temple for the sake of the health of the Buddha. If you have to give a reasonable explanation for refuge, it is to give your own soul. Find a home, let loneliness no longer be lonely, let wandering no longer wander, let Qiannian can travel through time and space, maybe this is the Bodhisattva, maybe this is the Buddha, but I really like the quietness of the temple, and I like to be with that statue. The Bodhisattva looks at each other and likes to hear the sound of chanting Buddha.

The remnant lotus in the pond of Hanauma Bay shows its sadness as always. There are just a few snowflakes falling, and the rustling flowers. The swaying wind is more of an unspeakable past. My friend said He likes the rustling Dihua, which is the background of life, just like the vast and desolate western environment.

Standing and riding slowly on the trail, surrounded by ponds, remnants of lotus, Dihua… the environment, you can quietly hear your heartbeat, the soft engine sound still startled the unknown big bird, and stopped Xin Xiaosan by the railroad. Looking at the tunnel from a distance, for so many years, still for the youth and recklessness of the past.
—- 2021.12.07 Lanzhou Snow Festival

If you’d like to know more about our ride across China (and it was a great one) you can read the story in Riding China:  Running with the Cult of the Zong.   Don’t wait for the movie (although there have been a couple of YouTubes on our grand adventure riding through the Ancient Kingdom, which you can view below).