Citizen Nighthawk GMT

Another favorite watch and one I highly recommend:  The Citizen Nighthawk GMT watch.  I bought mine maybe 25 years ago when this model was first offered as an exclusive through Macy’s.  Today you can find them for sale through many different outlets (sometimes below $300).  One of the best spots is Amazon.

At 43mm it’s a big watch, but unlike a lot of big watches, it wears well on my wrist and doesn’t seem to want to roll around.  The Nighthawk has a lot of features, some of which I use on a regular basis and others that I use infrequently.  I like them whether I use them or not.  Watches are grown-up boy’s toys, and this one answers the mail for me.  There’s the standard date display at 3:00, there’s the slide rule (explained in an earlier blog on my first-gen Citizen Blue Angels watch), there’s the GMT feature (more on that in a second), there’s the Eco-Drive engine, and there’s a lume to this thing that just doesn’t quit.

That photo above?  I shot it with my iPhone in the dark a night or two ago, and other than cropping, it’s not been tweaked in PhotoShop.  The lume really is that bright and legible at night.  You can’t read by it, but you almost can.  It’s the brightest lume I’ve ever seen on a watch.  It’s so bright I sometimes wonder what it might be doing to me.  Wearing this watch might be the equivalent of living in Chernobyl for a month.

The GMT feature (GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time) is one that allows you to simultanously see the time in two time zones.   This is one I use when I’m traveling (especially overseas).  Unlike other GMT watches, the Citizen’s approach is to offer another hand and a dial printed on the watch face.  It’s that half-circle deal you see with red and white lettering on the inner left half of the dial.  The way this works is when you are in, say, China, you unscrew the watch stem, click it halfway out, and advance the hour hand so it shows the time in China (it’s usually a 13-hour difference).  To see the time back home, you use the that inner half-moon dial and the home watch hand.  The home watch hand is the small hand (with a red aircraft on one end and a white aircraft on the other end), and it continues to show the time back in California.  You read the p.m. time on the red scale with the red airplane, and the a.m. time on the white scale scale with the white airplane.  It’s all very clever.

Citizen has had this watch available in one form or another for a couple of decades now.  Mine is the original version, and it’s the one I probably wear most often.  The Eco-Drive feature works, and it works well with just about any kind of light.  When I’m not wearing this watch, it sits on a shelf in my office, and the artificial light in there is enough to keep it percolating.  I set the watch to the time.gov NIST site, and months later, it is still accurate to the second with the official US government time.

The most recent versions of this watch are a black-faced version with an OD green leather band, or an all black version with a black leather band.  I saw the OD green version in a Macy’s up north this past week, and it’s a good looking piece.

Here’s the blacked out version.

Citizen’s had a lot of mileage with their Blue Angels themed watches, and that treatment has been applied to their GMT in stainless steel and leather band versions.

The two Blue Angels versions immediately above are not in current production, but they are still available.  I like this watch so much I’m tempted to buy the Blue Angels version, too, but that would be excessive even for a watch guy like me.

In general, I prefer a steel band watch to a leather band.  I like the look of the leather band better, but leather bands wear out or get dirty within a year or two.  Then you can’t always find an exact replacement for the original leather band.  I tend to wear a watch 24-7 (including in the shower), so a leather band is not the way I typically go with a watch.

Oh, one other advantage to these watches:  I sometimes forget to take my Citizen Nighthawk off going through airport security, and for whatever reason, it doesn’t trigger the metal detector.

More ExNotes product reviews are here.   Watches, motorcycles, guns, reloading stuff, movies, books, camping gear, bicycles, and more.

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ExhaustNotes Space Plane Review: Richard Branson’s Unity

About a mile west of New Mexico’s Spaceport is a newly paved road, A013. The road runs south from Armendaris Ranch in Engle to Interstate 25. A013 is about 40 miles long and while the paving is sort of new the road roughly follows The Camino Real, a route from Old Mexico to Santa Fe that has been in use since 1598. There are marked areas where you can hike along the very same ancient road the Spaniards retreated back to Mexico on during the Pueblo Revolt. A013 does not sound nearly as cool as The Camino Real. At 420 years old, The Royal Road deserves something better than A013.

Railroad tracks closely parallel the west side of A013 and in the narrow area between the railroad tracks and the highway hundreds of cars and people have gathered near the blocked entrance that leads to Spaceport. We’re all here to watch the very first space tourism rocket blast into the sky and it’s as close as we can get to the action. Who is the first space tourist on Virgin Galactic? Astronaut 001, Richard Branson.

Spaceport from our vantage point between the railroad tracks and barbed wire. Normally you can get much closer.

In a huge public relations mix up, none of the staff at ExhaustNotes were invited along for the ride into space. It’s like Virgin Galactic has been talking with Harley-Davidson or something. No matter, you know how we operate here at ExhaustNotes: We review anything, even things we know nothing about. There were plenty of other celebrity types in attendance like Elon Musk. Also some music industry, TV and TicToc stars I have never heard of. Lots of vindicated-feeling bigwigs from New Mexico’s government were in attendance as Spaceport has been a political football since Day One.

CT and I situated our Space Watch Compound along the fence line with our cooler full of iced tea and La Croix fizzy drinks, folding chairs, hats and a large, porous ground cloth. We were the most organized people in the scrum. The sky was early-morning New Mexican: A pale blue color that washes away into the bright sun leaving you hopelessly in love with the place. Last night a storm came through the area making everything seem to sparkle. Temperature in the Chihuahuan Desert was in the low 80s and it was still only 7:00 am.

We had fairly good cell phone coverage so CT pulled up the live feed. There were several sources all seeming to use the same video. Oddly, Steven Colbert hosted the launch coverage. I like Colbert okay but I wouldn’t have used him in this situation. It kind of made the event more like a joke instead of the historic, high technology, dangerous business that it actually is. The TicToc chick surprised me in that she did a pretty good job with the fluff pieces. Hell, what am I saying, all of it was fluff pieces.

The nearly two-generation gap between Musk and Branson was obvious when it came to social media. Even with all the advancements in video and audio technology Branson’s feed was poorly done. The video and audio looked pretty bad when you’re used to counting the screw heads holding the display panels to the command module in a SpaceX launch. Most of the stuff was 2 to 3 minutes delayed and unwatchable. The moon landing in 1969 had clearer shots and audio. I swear, my iPhone would have done better. If I had known it was going to be so bad I would have handed my phone to Branson before he went up. Maybe the recorded stuff came out better.

Heavy lifting appears to flex Eve’s wings on the way up.

None of that mattered once Eve lifted off the runway with Unity strapped firmly between its dual fuselages. A loud roar of cheers went up from all of us along the fence line. The big dually flew northwest towards Albuquerque and climbed to 45,000 feet. We could see the exact moment the Unity dropped and lit off its rocket engine. A white contrail of rocket exhaust went straight up and out of sight. On Virgin’s feed TicToc chick was saying they were going to release Unity in 2 minutes, 30 seconds.

More cheering followed Unity’s escape into space. People were shaking hands and whistling. We were glad the launch went well and nobody was bitching about rich people not using their money to feed the poor. Branson was the first billionaire in space and it had been a 17-year quest for him.

Pretty much nothing happened for a while. We expected the mother ship to come down and land but it stayed aloft. I’m guessing with only one runway at Spaceport you wouldn’t want anything landing until the powerless Unity glided back down to earth. The mother ship can go land somewhere else if need be.

Finally we caught sight of Unity coming home. It flew right over our cheap seats, circled east, then north and came in for a perfect landing, heading 340, Runway 1. The sounds of cars starting and cheering mixed with the dust from exiting spectators. I was thinking where are they going? The mother ship is still up there!

Where is it? I kept asking CT. It’s right there, she told me. I can’t see it. I guess my other eye needs a rebuild now. The mother ship spiraled down using the same counterclockwise pattern Unity used. She flew directly overhead, her barren space-socket exposed.

And then it was over. We looked around. There was only one other car still parked between the fence and the railroad. Billions of dollars and nearly two decades of work by thousands of people were on display today. It all worked perfectly. That stuff is amazing to me. Soon you’ll be able to buy your own ride into space for the price of a couple well-appointed diesel pickup trucks. $250,000 is not that much money nowadays.

Branson’s space plane may not go as high as the Space Station but I bet it uses 10% of the fuel a normal rocket launch does. Human beings are pretty impressive when they stop being jerks. Many people get angry at rich people for not saving the world with their money and then when a rich guy tries, like Gates, we suspect them of implanting tracking chips for a reason no one sane can articulate. The thing is, we are so clueless, so in the dark, we can’t guess the real world innovations that will come with space travel.

A man and his dog started packing up. He had one of those 10-foot sunshades. I asked him if he needed a hand folding it up. He said no that it was easy to do. The space show was over. The dust from all the spectator cars settled back to the Chihuahuan Desert. A guy named Kamaz, I think after the Russian Truck company, was giving a concert over at Spaceport for the VIPs.  Maybe you’ll be able to find it on video.

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A Favorite 1911

The 1911 is an all time favorite handgun for me (and a lot of other people, too).   I’ve owned several 1911s over the last few decades, I carried one in the Army, and I enjoy shooting them.  One of the best I’ve ever owned is a bright stainless steel Series 80 Government Model I bought new back in the mid-1980s.   Mine has been customized by good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) and it’s the one you see here.  I have no idea how many rounds I’ve sent downrange with this gun, but it’s been zillions.  Maybe even gazillions.

TJ’s Custom 1911 Touches

My bright stainless 1911 has had a number of TJ’s custom touches.  The fixed Millet sights are probably the most obvious.

Front and rear Millet sights on my 1911. You’re actually supposed to focus on the front sight and the rear should be blurred when shooting (just the opposite of what you see here). I’ll post more on that in a later blog.
The Millet red ramp front sight.

TJ polished and ramped the gun’s internals so it will feed anything, he added a Les Baer match grade barrel, and I had him engine turn the chamber (I love the look).

A Les Baer match barrel.
I like it so much I photographed it twice!

The original Colt front sight wouldn’t stay put on my 1911 (probably because of the number of rounds I was cycling through it), and after having the front sight restaked twice, I knew something more permanent was required.  The Millet red ramp from sight has two stakes, they are each larger than the single Colt front sight stake, and TJ JB-welded them from underneath after staking.  They are on there for the duration.  A lot of folks prefer a dovetailed front sight and that would have worked, too, but I’m partial to these no-longer-made Millets.  I just like the look.

The rear sight is a fixed Millet dovetail and it has a bright white outline that works well with the red ramp front. I’m not normally a fan of gimmicky sight doodads like red ramps and white outlines, but these just flat work.  They’re quick to acquire and they put the bullets where I want them to go.  Millet sights are no longer in production, but they are some of the best ever made and TJ keeps a stash in stock for his customers.  I imagine he spends a lot of time on Ebay hunting for these things.

One other thing TJ did on my 1911:  He fitted the extractor.  It was very rough as delivered from Colt and difficult to remove for cleaning.  Now (after TJ’s magic touches) it inserts and removes easily, and extraction is flawless.

1911 Accuracy

Close enough for government work, most folks would say, and maybe that’s so.  When I slow down and do my part, I can tear one ragged hole at 50 feet with my 1911, and that’s good enough.  If I’m shooting for fun with a bit of speed, it’s not problem to put an entire box of ammo through one big ragged hole with the odd flyer or five like you see up top.

The Millet sights print where I want them to, and I like the simplicity of fixed handgun sights.  It’s a good setup.

Getting a Grip

My 1911 didn’t need a trigger job, and TJ recommended not trying to improve the trigger after he felt it.  The gun came with the rubber Pachmayr-type wraparound grips from the Colt factory, and I added a Pachmayr rubberized rear grip housing.  Those two items (the rubber grips and rear grip housing) are, in my opinion, as good as it gets in the 1911 game.  I don’t think that rear grip housing is available any more.  I wish I had bought a few extra when Pachmayr was still making them.

Appearance Is Everything 

I’m not normally a shiny objects kind of guy, but when I first saw my bright stainless 1911 in that gun store 35 years ago, I knew I had to have it. The gun just looked cool and it’s a conversation starter.  It’s easy to pick up minor scratches that I can see before other folks do, but they come right out with a bit of Flitz (a superb stainless steel polish) and a little elbow grease.

My Three Favorite .45 ACP Loads

The target you see at the top of this blog?  That’s 50 rounds at 50 feet with one of my favorite loads for this and any other 1911 I’ve ever shot:  5.0 grains of Bullseye under a 185-grain cast semi-wadcutter bullet.  I’ve got a couple of other favorite loads, too.  One is the 230-grain cast roundnose over 5.6 grains of Unique (that load is 100% reliable in any 1911).   Another for target work is 4.2 grains of Bullseye and a 200-grain cast semi-wadcutter.  All three loads are as reliable as taxes going up under a Democrat, and they all work with the same recoil spring.  In my case, that’s the spring that came with my Colt 1911.

230 grains (in this case, bullets from Xtreme), 5.6 grains of Unique, and good times.

If you’re interested in learning how to reload .45 ammo, here you go:

Reloading Part I
Reloading Part II
Reloading Part III
Reloading Part IV

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We have more good stuff on our Tales of the Gun page, and if you enjoyed this piece, you might take a look.

Enfield 650 Valve Adjustment

This blog explains how to adjust the valves on a Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor.   This was the first valve adjustment my motorcycle has had, and it occurred at the 500-mile mark.  The first valve adjustment is an important one, as decreases in the valve gap will typically be more severe as the engine is breaking in.  For the record, though, on my bike’s eight valves only one was slightly tight (and that was one of the intake valves).  The other seven were pretty much where they were supposed to be, but I loosened the adjusters and readjusted them just to see if any were difficult to access or if they would give me any problems.  Accessibility was superb and the adjustments were all easy to make.

Like most threaded adjuster valve adjustments, 90% of the job is just taking away or loosening the stuff you need to get at the valves (and then putting it all back on the bike).  On the Enfield, that’s the right side body panel, the seat, the fuel tank and its connections, an electrical subassembly between the upper frame rails, and the valve cover.  The actual valve adjustment only takes a few minutes.

You’ll need several tools for this job.  Here’s the list:

      • Feeler gage.
      • 17mm socket.
      • 8mm socket.
      • 10mm socket.
      • Sparkplug socket.
      • 14mm Allen drive.
      • 4mm Allen drive.
      • Ratchet with extensions.
      • 10mm wrench.
      • Flat blade screwdriver.

Because I’m an old fart and a pack rat, I had everything I needed except for the 14mm Allen drive (that was one I had to order on Amazon).  Odds are you already have most or all of this stuff already, too.  We tend to pick up oddball stuff over the years.  If you live on the Tinfiny Ranch, that includes stuff like lathes, concrete mixers, tillers, old MGs, and more.  But the only tools you’ll need for adjusting the Enfield 650’s valves are what I listed above.

The other thing we need to do is make sure the engine is completely cool.  You can’t ride the motorcycle, shut it off, and then adjust the valves.  The engine needs to be cold.

Adjusting the valves sounds way more intimidating than it is.  I took a couple of hours to adjust the valves on my Enfield and this was the first time I did it.  On subsequent valve adjustments I’m guessing I’ll need less than an hour now that I know my way around the bike.  Dealers charge up to $581 for this job, which is kind of a joke when you consider the amount of time it takes (that is, if you think getting ripped off by a dealer is funny).  The dealers are counting on you being intimidated.  You shouldn’t be.  This is not a hard thing to do.

Start by putting your motorcycle on the center stand, as you see in the big photo at the top of this blog.   That makes getting to both the left side and the right side of the bike easier.

Use your ignition key to unlock the right side body panel.  It pivots out from the bottom and then pulls down, and that will take it off the bike.

Once the right side body panel has been removed, you’ll have access to the seat release (shown by the red arrow).  Pull it out and remove the motorcycle seat by sliding the seat to the rear.

The next step is to remove the two 10mm bolts securing the fuel tank to the frame.  This job is a lot easier if you run the fuel level down (it makes the tank lighter and easier to handle when you disconnect the two electrical connections and the three hoses underneath the tank).  I had mine on E, but there was still a fair amount of fuel in the tank.

Once the two bolts are removed, set them aside (not like you see here; put them someplace where you won’t lose them).  The tank will then slide to the rear.  Put a shop rag on the frame behind the tank so you won’t scratch anything.

As mentioned above, there are five things that have to be disconnected underneath the fuel tank so that you can remove it from the motorcycle.  As seen in the photo below, going counterclockwise from the upper left corner of the photo, these five things are:

      • An electrical connector to the fuel gage (the green connector).
      • A fuel vent line.
      • The fuel pump electrical connector (the yellow, red, and black connector).
      • Another fuel tank vent line.
      • The fuel hose (this is mated with a quick-disconnect fitting that stays on the fuel tank; it has a button you press to allow pulling the fuel hose off).

I show this on the motorcycle side of the equation.  It would have been a little tough to get a photo of the bottom of the tank.

Here’s another shot of the fuel hose quick disconnect male end (it stays with the motorcycle).

This is another shot of the fuel level gage electrical connector.

And here’s a photo of one of the fuel vent lines and the fuel pump electrical connector.

After tilting the tank up and disconnecting all five of the connections described above, remove the tank and place it on a cloth to prevent scratching.

At this point, disconnect the sparkplug leads and remove both sparkplugs.  We are going to crank the engine by hand, and we don’t want to have to fight the engine’s compression as we do so.

The next step is to remove the three Allen bolts that secure an electrical subassembly between the upper frame rails.  We don’t need to remove the subassembly; we just need it to be pushed up so that we can maneuver the valve cover out of the way (which, incidentally, I found to be the hardest part of the valve cover adjustment process).  Set the three Allen bolts aside in a secure location.

Next, remove the four 8mm bolts securing the valve cover.  Set them aside in a secure location.

Once the four valve cover bolts are out, you can remove the valve cover.  It will slide out on the left side of the motorcycle.  You’ll probably invent a few cuss words when doing this.  The valve cover is a tight fit between the cylinder head and the motorcycle frame’s upper rails (it’s why we loosened that electrical subassembly described above).  There’s a complicated and reuseable rubber gasket that seals the valve cover to the cylinder head.  Be careful not to nick the gasket when you’re sweet-talking the valve cover off the engine.

Once the valve cover is off the engine, you’ll have access to the valve adjusters.  As this is an eight-valve engine, there are four adjusters for each cylinder (two intake and two exhaust valves).  The four valves on the right side of the engine are shown below.

And these are the four valves on the left side of the motorcycle.

Here’s where you’ll need that 14mm Allen drive mentioned above.  It was the only tool I didn’t already have.  It was something like $6 on Amazon, and I now have two of them.   Amazon sent me an email a couple of days after I ordered the tool because they felt like they lost one in shipment so they shipped it again, and then two arrived in separate packages on the same day.  Don’t tell Amazon.  I’m keeping both.  Bezos can afford it.

Here’s the access port cover on the left side of the engine.

Remove the access port cover on the left side of the engine with the 14mm Allen drive.

Note that the access port cover is sealed with a rubber o-ring.  Don’t lose this part.

If you peek inside the access port, you’ll see a 17mm bolt head.  This is where the 17mm socket is used.  You can crank the engine by hand (always going counterclockwise, never clockwise) to bring the crank to a position where the valve being adjusted is not being lifted by the cam lobe.  This is known as getting the lifter on the cam’s base circle, and that’s what we want when we make the adjustment.

I had a feeler gage from way back tucked away in my tool cabinet.  If you don’t have one of these tools, they are available on Amazon.  We’ll need the 0.003 inch (or 0.076mm) feeler gage for the intake valve adjustment, and the 0.007 inch (or 0.178mm) feeler gage for the exhaust valve adjustment.  The intake valves are the ones on the rear of the engine (closest to the fuel injectors) and the exhaust valves are the ones on the front of the engine (closest to the exhaust headers).  I know.  Duh.

This valve adjusting business is done by feel with the use of the feeler gage.  I guess that’s why they call it a feeler gage.  You want to make the adjustment such that after you make it, there’s a slight drag on the gage as you move it back and forth between the valve stem and its actuator (you get the “feel” of this slight drag; hence the “feeler gage” name).

Enfield makes it easy to get the engine rotated to the right spot so that the lifter is on the cam’s base circle with a handy indicator located in the cylinder head.  It’s on the engine’s left side as shown in the photo below.  The indicator is marked with an L above a scribe line, and an R above a scribe line.

Turn the engine by hand with the 17mm socket (again, always counterclockwise, never clockwise) until the L and its scribe line are aligned with the line on the casting as shown below.   We want the L and its scribe line aligned with the corresponding line in the casting when we adjust the valves on the left side of the engine.  After we’ve adjusted the valves on the left side, we’ll want to do the same thing to get the R and its scribe line aligned with the line in the casting to adjust the valves on the right side of the engine.

When the crank is appropriately positioned (for the left side of the engine, as shown above), we are now ready to adjust the valves.

The actual valve adjustment is accomplished by loosening the bronze-colored valve stem lock nut with a 10mm wrench, then making the adjustment with a flat bladed screwdriver in the adjuster screw slot, while positioning the appropriate feeler gage blade between the adjuster and the valve stem.  This is what controls the gap between the adjuster and the vavle stem.  When the gap is what it’s supposed to be, lock the adjuster in place with the locknut.  We do this for both intake valves with the 0.003-inch blade, and both exhaust valves with the .007-inch blade.

After we’ve done the left side of the engine, we similarly rotate the crank to align the R index mark and then we adjust the valves on the right side of the engine.  The R has to be on the right side of the index plate so it reads right side up.

At this point, I rotate the engine two complete turns by hand and use the feeler gage to check the valve gap again.  If it’s not good I redo the above adjustments.  This is just a check.  For me, it’s always been good.

So, about that valve cover and the complicated seal between it and the cylinder head.  Here’s what it looks like from underneath.

Note that the seal is orientation sensitive.  It’s got a little half moon in the seal on the left side.   As mentioned above, getting the valve cover off was a challenge.  Getting it back in place with the seal properly positioned was even more of a challenge.  But neither steps were really that bad.  The good news is that this was the toughest part of the job, and it wasn’t that tough.

After you finish adjusting the valves, assembly is the reverse of disassembly.  There are three cautionary notes:

      • Use a shop rag or two on the motorcycle frame so you don’t scratch the frame or the fuel tank when you reinstall the fuel tank.
      • When you remake the fuel line quick disconnect, make sure you feel it click into position.  It’s possible to not fully make the connection, which could result in pressurized fuel being pumped out over your hot engine.  That would not be a good thing.
      • When you reinstall the valve cover, make sure the seal between it and the cylinder head is correctly positioned.  If it is not, oil will leak from this interface.

So there you have it.  For me, that’s $581 (what the closest Enfield dealer charges for a valve adjustment) going in the Baja kitty.  Or maybe the reloading components fund.  Whatever.  It’s not going into the dealer’s pocket, and that’s the point.

Enfield did a nice job engineering these bikes, I think, and they made the valve adjustment process straightforward.  It would have really been cool if the valve cover was designed so that it could be removed without taking the body panel, seat, and fuel tank off (like on an old airhead BMW or a Moto Guzzi), but hey, it is what it is, and what it is is way less complicated than most other modern motorcycles.  There’s also an argument to be made for hydraulic valves (which never require adjustment), but hydraulic lifters weigh a little more and don’t work well at high rpm.

More on Enfields?   Hey, read our series on taking two Enfields (a 650 and a Bullet) through Baja.  It’s what prompted me to buy my Enfield!

This idea on online maintenance tutorials was something we started at CSC Motorcycles with the RX3 250cc adventure touring platform introduction.  The market received it well and we had a lot of fun assembling the tutorials.  CSC was well ahead of the curve on this sort of thing and it is one of the many reasons their bikes have done so well.

ExhaustNotes Product Review: Cooper 2 Lightweight Tent

Camping on a motorcycle has never been near the top of my Fun Things To Do list. Like it or not, it seems I end up camping on a motorcycle more than is needed for strong bones and healthy fingernails. Street bike camping is tolerable because you can pile junk sky high but trail riding with a load of camping gear is a chore. Off-road, small lightweight equipment is the way to go. I’ll never admit it but it’s possible to go too small and too lightweight. My tent is an example of going overboard.

I’ve been using an old-style pup tent, like the Boy Scouts use, and when folded correctly the thing is admirably small. The pup tent reduces to the size of a bag of Batdorf & Bronson coffee and weighs next to nothing.

The problem with the pup is the ceiling height and the square footage. There’s no way to sit up in the thing, you have to crawl in and out. Once you’ve stored all your gear inside finding space for you body is a challenge. If you toss and turn throughout the night like I do your arms will be hitting the walls and roof. It’s a tight squeeze.

Unless you buy brand name equipment camping gear is really cheap, like me. I found a larger tent; the Cooper 2 (no relation to the road racing legend) for $28 on Amazon and shipping was included.

The Cooper 2 is easy to set up as it has only two fiberglass poles crossing in the middle. You fit the ends into the corners of the floor and bowing the poles raises the tent. Nearly 50-inches high at the center and with 49 square feet of floor space the Cooper 2 was huge. I could stuff all my gear inside and still have room for my sleeping bag. I could easily change into my Space Patrol pajamas with the privacy those pajamas demand. You know how it is.

The Cooper 2 is vented at the top, which kept condensation to a minimum. I didn’t get to test it in the rain but I suppose it will do as well as any other 28-dollar tent. I set up my sleeping bag towards the back of the tent and had plenty of room to throw elbows and kick out from under the covers. It was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a tent. Which is to say I woke up cotton-mouthed, fingers bleeding and a dead raccoon next to me.

All that luxury comes at a price, however. Folded up, the Cooper 2 is nearly twice as large as the pup tent and weighs 4 pounds 9 ounces compared to the pup’s 3 pounds 4 ounces. Still, the extra tonnage is worth it to me. I’ll just have to get rid of some other gear to compensate for the Cooper 2 tent, like maybe the handlebars or the front wheel of the Husqvarna.

More ExNotes product reviews are here!

How about a 30mm big bore rifle?

When I worked at Aerojet Ordnance, we made 30mm GAU-8/A ammo for the A-10 Warthog. The government originally planned to manufacture this ammunition in a government arsenal and the Army’s projected cost per round was $85 in mature production. The A-10 ammo had a warhead with a depleted uranium warhead and an aluminum sabot in one round (that was the armor piercing incendiary round), a high explosive incendiary in another (that was the “soft target” round), and a target practice tracer round.  It was all potent stuff.  Each had more muzzle energy than a World II 75mm Howitzer round.

Ed Elko

Our president (Ed Elko, a wonderful man and brilliant business leader) tried to convince the Army to buy its 30mm ammo from a commercial outfit (that would be us, Aerojet Ordnance), but Ed couldn’t get past the stale minds in the Army (the Army buys munitions for all of the services). So he bypassed the Army’s civil service dinosaurs and went to the US Congress.  Congress knew a good deal when they saw it and they directed the Army to buy the ammo from Aerojet.  The Army didn’t like that, but they did what they were told.  And that was a good thing.  The last year I was at Aerojet we were selling 30mm ammo to the Army for $6.30 per round and making a 30% profit.  This, on ammo the Army thought would cost $85 per round in mature production if it was made in a government load plant (your tax dollars at work).  I can’t make this stuff up, folks.  They really were (and their successors probably still are) that stupid.

Charlie Wilson with a Lee Enfield rifle.

That 30mm cartridge, incidentally, was one that we sanitized for an Afghan project back in the 1980s.  “Sanitized” means it had no markings identifying it as being made in the US.  We were doing this for a charismatic Congressman named Charlie Wilson. Old Charlie was sponsoring a deal that involved a shoulder-fired rifle chambered for the GAU-8/A cartridge.  You backed the rifle up to a tree or a rock and got underneath the thing to fire it.  Charlie and his Mujahideen amigos wanted to use it to take out the Soviet Hind helicopters, and here’s where the plot thickens.  Our government didn’t want to sell the Afghan rebels Stinger anti-aircraft missiles because they had guys like Osama bin Laden in their ranks.  But we wanted the Afghans to be able to take out the Hind helicopters.  They needed something, and the thought was that maybe a 30mm elephant gun was the answer.  And wow, did that effort ever go south.

The guy who led the 30mm rifle development effort here in the US somehow managed to fire a cartridge in a Washington, DC, gas station.  Yes, folks, he had an accidental discharge of a 30mm rifle in a DC gas station.  That event lit up the gas station and injured four people.  It’s one of the first things I think of whenever I read comments about the inherent wisdom in carrying a concealed weapon with a round chambered.  But I digress.  To get back to the 30mm story, the GSI (that’s gubmint-speak for gas station incident) was hushed up by the folks in trench coats (you know, Boris and Natasha types), everyone recognized the innate and incredible dumbness of a shoulder-fired 30mm rifle, and a short while later President Reagan approved selling Stingers to the Afghans.  And within weeks of that decision and the Stinger’s Afghan debut, the Soviets decided maybe Afghanistan wasn’t such a good idea after all. The movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” is based on those events, but it left out the 30mm rifle and the DC gas station debacle.

I met Charlie Wilson a couple of times (that’s Congressman Wilson in the photo above). He was a hell of a man and I’ve written about him before here on the ExNotes blog. But back to the 30mm accidental discharge event…that story is here:

Ex-Pilot’s Quest for Better Weapon Goes Awry – The Washington Post

The Stinger

As usual, the Washington Post got the story wrong. The guy who had the rifle in his pickup truck  wasn’t “trying” to sell the rifle to the government; he was being paid to develop the weapon so it could be used by the Mujahideen, and he was doing quite well until the gas station incident. The thing about all of this that is interesting to me is that the real story never reached the public.  You won’t find any photos of that rifle floating around on the Internet, or of the gas station fire (believe me, I tried).  Imagine that.  A guess station catches fire in Washington, DC, and there are no photos.  My, my.

More about the A-10 and its 30mm Gatling gun?   Hey, it’s all right here:

Safe Queen, or Shooter?

Some folks won’t shoot a commemorative or high end custom gun, and instead relegate the firearm to a life of being on display or taking up residence as a safe queen.  Other folks espouse a manly “I won’t have a gun I don’t shoot” attitude.  I’m a few days away from having to make that decision with the Lyman Ruger No. 1 you see in the photo above.  What’s your feeling, and why?

Let us know here in the comments section and don’t waste any energy posting on Facebook.  This is where the cool kids hang out and we want to know what you think.

More Tales of the Gun are right here!

How Much Milk Is Left?

A few weeks ago I read a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Peter Funt (of the Candid Camera show).  His article was on the pandemic lockdowns and isolation inducing more folks to publish their memoirs, and Funt made the case that this was not such a good thing.  Most memoirs are God-awful boring.

That got me to thinking about the adventure touring genre.  You know, the books, blogs, videos, and endless Facebook posts and forums about adventure rides.

Adventure rides.

We used to call a motorcycle ride a motorcycle ride.  Now they are all “adventure” rides.  And we don’t tell a story or do a bike test.  Now, it’s a reveal.  Harley is going to introduce a new bike in few days.  But it’s not a new model announcement.  It’s a “reveal.”

Ten to twenty years ago, the place to go to read good riding stories was ADVRider.com and their Rides page (back then, the stories and photography were actually good) and HorizonsUnlimited.com.  Now it’s mostly videos, Facebook, and blogs.  There’s too much of this (and I say that as guy who writes a blog).  I seldom view any of it.  Which is not to say you should stop reading ExNotes.  We’re different, you know.  We’ve never had a “reveal” (other than that one unfortunate wardrobe accident in China) and we never will.

All of the above begs the question:  How much milk is left in the adventure riding cow?

Fads come in waves, and a surefire way to know that a wave is dissipating on shore is when a big company tries to surf in on the little bit of surf that’s left.  Witness the Pan America, Harley’s too much, too late entry into the ADV world.  Harley wants to compete with the BMW GS, KTM, and Ducati high end ADV bikes.

It’s hard for me to see how Harley is going to prevail.  For starters, my feeling is that most folks who ride big V-twin cruisers (folks who form the bulk of Harley’s current customer base) have little interest in adventure touring.   The premise is that Harley will attract a new crop of customers, presumably drawing the sheeple who would have bought BMWs, or KTMs, or Ducatis.  Color me skeptical, but I just don’t see it happening.

No, what’s happening is a sea change, not an opportunity to do a little surfing in a dying market.  The world moves in fads, with each fad having about a ten-to-twenty-year life, and we’re due for a new one.  I just don’t know what it is.  Consider this:

    • In the 1960s, it was British vertical twins.  Those were cool years and the Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons, and Enfields of the day were cool bikes.
    • In the 1970s and the 1980s, it was Japanese machines (the so-called UJMs).   Honda’s 750 Four had five gears, and that fifth one was for the paradigm shift that swallowed the British empire and made us wonder if maybe Japan won World War II after all.  Four cylinders across the frame, with differences between manufacturers that could only be described as trivial.  The UJMs were kind of cool, too, but not as cool as the Britbikes (at least to my way of thinking).  But the Britbikes were toast, destined to emerge two decades down the road as the darlings of a small but well published vintage motorcycle market niche (and in case you missed it, that was a plug for Motorcycle Classics magazine).
    • In the 1990s, it was Harleys and all that went with it.  You know, middle aged guys becoming pirates and bikes festooned with chrome, leather fringe, and conchos.  I was one of them for awhile and I had everything but the tattoos.  Bikes that people with more money than brains bought (often paying over MSRP) so they could don do-rags, denim, and non-DOT helmets, and look pretty much exactly like all the other beer-bellied rugged individualists.  I was one of them for a while, too.
    • Sportbikes had a good run somewhere in the middle of all this, too, with ergonomics that guaranteed significant incomes for chiropractors and physical therapists, who frequently used that money to pay well over list price for a Harley (see above).  Guilty again.  You got me.  I had a TL1000S, a Triumph Daytona, and a Speed Triple.
    • With the turn of the century, the trend migrated toward 650-pound, liter-plus bikes styled like dirt bikes and equipped with electronics rivaling Air Force One.   Denim and do-rags were replaced by Power Ranger clothing.  Everybody wanted to be Charlie and Ewen, but few could afford the chase trucks and mechanics, and even fewer could handle one of the bloated beasts off road.  Most adorned driveways and Starbuck’s parking lots.  I mean, the headlight lenses on some of these things cost $1800; no way anyone was taking those wunderbikes into the woods.  I’m sort of guilty here.  I had a Triumph Tiger.  I took it off road just once and it was terrifying.

I think we are fast approaching the last throes of the overweight off-road $25K-to-$30K wannabee adventure bikes and their thousand-dollar Aerostitch-wearing riders…you know, the guys who stand on the pegs even when riding on level asphalt.  (Sit down, guys…your “sell by” date flew by years ago and I’ll say what everyone else is thinking:  You look silly.)

So what’s next?

Electric motorcycles?  Nope, I don’t think that’s going to happen in any major way.  Alta is gone, Zero is struggling, and the Livewire may have already suffered electrocution as a consequence of Harley’s rewiring.  Electric bikes don’t sound like motorcycles, the range is not there (it’s not going to be any time soon), and I think a motorcycle without an internal combustion engine really isn’t a motorcycle at all.  So what will be the next big moto thing?

Self-driving motorcycles?  Nope.  Dead on arrival, I think.

Even more “mode complexity” on street bikes?  Probably not.  That sort of thing appeals to juvenile minds (ones susceptible to Jedi mind tricks).  I think even the easily-led characters mentioned above recognize this as too gimmicky.  I once had a pimply faced kid ask me at one of the IMS shows how many modes our imported-from-China 250cc ADV bike had, and I told him:  Two.  On, and off.  He nodded knowingly, as if I had let him in on a great secret, and wandered off toward the Ducati booth.

I think the ADV thing is going to dry up, even though we are still seeing sales upticks in the motorcycle market.  Sort of.  ADV-style bike trends have been up, but it always was a relatively small market segment and the current increase (most likely the result of the “more free stuff” crowd rocking Washington these days) appears to be big but actually is not.  Dirt bike sales are up, but that’s for off road dirt bikes only.  Street bike sales are down about 10%.  And that thing about motorcycle sales overall going up?  Yeah, it is, but it’s mostly ATVs (of the 4-wheel persuasion, which are included in the motorcycle sales figures).  One bit of actual data, and that is this:  CSC can’t keep bikes in stock.  They sell out as soon as they arrive.  But CSC delivers real value at a very reasonable price…I don’t know that I ever saw an RX-Anything with conchos and fringe.  And CSC motorcycles are definitely not $25K driveway bling.  Yeah, the big bike ADV thing is fast approaching its “sell by”date, I think.  The fat lady is singing, folks.  It’s almost over.

So, given that the ADV milk is drying up, the next big thing will be…

Hell, I don’t know.

What do you think?  You guys figure it out and let me know.  And if you think you know, leave a comment here.  Curious minds want to know.

45 Colt New Service (by Guy Miner)

Good buddy Guy Miner, former US Marine and retired law enforcement officer, enjoys following the ExhaustNotes blog and in particular, our gun stories.  Guy has a very cool 1909 Colt and he wrote a guest piece on it for us.

Pressed into service by the Army, Navy and Marines early in the twentieth century, the Colt New Service revolver also served in various police departments and of course as a sturdy handgun for many outdoorsmen. This particular revolver was my grandfather’s and I’ve been caring for it the past 35+ years. The old Colt is a big revolver, with a 5 ½” barrel and those gaping 45 caliber holes in the cylinder. Grandpa, a WWI veteran, got this Colt after it was sold as surplus by New York. The backstrap is marked NYST for New York State Troopers. He carried it as part of his WWII era security duties with the Home Guard.

When it became mine, I replaced the bulky custom grips that fit the frame poorly and my hand worse. A pair of recent manufacture, original looking grips better suit both the revolver and my hands. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of accuracy and was pleasantly surprised on my first trip to the range with it. The first ammo I used was Federal’s 225 grain LSWC hollow point which produced modest recoil and good accuracy.

All of the major ammunition makers support this wonderful old cartridge. It was originally a low pressure, big bore tossing a heavy lead bullet at modest velocity. For this revolver, that’s exactly how I load it. Typically I’ll use the soft swaged 250 grain Speer LSWC loaded with 8 grains of Unique and a CCI 300 primer for about 830 fps.

One caution when loading for these fine old revolvers – they’re not meant to handle the very stout 45 Colt loads intended for use in Ruger’s much newer and stronger revolvers. Stick with loads for the old 45 Colt, which approximate the power level of a 45 ACP.

I treat the old gun gently, shooting only a few boxes of ammo through it every year. Now and again I’ll shove it into a holster and haul it along with me on a camping or fishing trip, though I prefer a smaller revolver for those duties. Mostly it gets hauled along out of a sense of nostalgia. Handling it, I can’t help but think of my grandfather, of the trooper who carried it long ago, and of the history wrought by these grand big bore revolvers.

Guy, thanks very much for your guest blog.  I always enjoy reading about vintage revolvers.  Your Colt has an interesting provenance and a great family history, and the grips you put on it look great.  I always wanted a 1909, and your story makes me want one even more.  You write well, my friend.

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An Enfield Oil Change

This blog is a maintenance tutorial on changing the Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor’s oil.  The Interceptor requires a motorcycle-specific 10W-50 synthetic oil.  Motorcycle-specific means that no friction reduction additives are in the oil.  If you use an automotive oil with friction reducers, the Enfield’s wet clutch will slip.

I bought Maxima oil online for this oil change (you can get it from CSC Motorcycles or from Amazon.com).  It’s the synthetic oil CSC uses in their motorcycles and it served me well in my RX3 and TT 250 (both of which are wet clutch motorcycles).

I changed the Enfield’s oil in my garage.  I usually leave the Enfield on its sidestand, but I put it on the centerstand for the oil change.

The bike should be straight and level for the oil change.  This will let the oil drain more completely and make the oil site glass reading more accurate.

I have an oil drain pan I’ve used for years, and it was put into service again for this Enfield oil change.  You can see the oil filter in the photo below; it mounts on the front center of the engine.

Removing the oil filter for the first oil change was a challenge.  It was put on way too tight at the factory.  I have an accumulation of oddball tools in my rollaround tool cabinet, and I found this oil filter wrench.  I have no idea when I bought it or where.  It’s been with me for decades.

Even with the oil filter wrench, getting the oil filter to unscrew was not easy.

The oil filter finally came off, and I allowed the oil to drain into the pan.

The oil drain plug is just to the right and below the oil filter mount (as you face the engine from the front).

I guessed it was a 13mm, and I guessed right.  It, too, had been installed way too tight.

When the plug comes out, you’ll notice it has a crush washer (which doesn’t really look like a crush washer) and a magnetic pickup that sits in the oil bath.  The intent of that oil pickup is to grab any bits of loose steel that float around in the oil during the break in process (and after that, too).

As mentioned above, the oil drain plug is way too tight from the factory.  Be careful not to screw it up taking it off.  And remember when you reinstall the oil drain plug, it’s a steel part threading into an aluminum engine case.  Don’t overtighten the drain plug when reinstalling it.

Next up is removing the oil fill cap.  Mine was installed way too tight and if you’re taking it off for the first time you probably won’t be able to remove it by hand.  I grabbed a rag to protect the plug and persuaded it a bit with an adjustable wrench to get it started.  Once it was loose, it unscrewed easily.

After the fill plug was out, I let the oil continue to drain.  Note that there is no dipstick on these bikes.

I let the oil drain about 20 minutes so it would drain completely.

After the oil drained, I installed the new oil filter.   You can order the Royal Enfield oil filter if you want to wait months for the official Royal Enfield filter or you can hit Amazon.com and get a Mobil 1 M1-104A oil filter.  You can guess the path I took.

When installing the new oil filter, hand tightening (as tight as you can go by hand) is good enough.  Tighten it more and you’re just making life miserable for yourself at the next oil change.

So, here we are.  Oil drained.  Oil plug reinstalled.  New oil filter installed.  It’s time to add the new oil.  You’ll need a funnel at this step.  My advice is to use a plastic funnel that will deform when you flex it.

Wedge the funnel outlet into the oil fill port as shown below, and it will stay in place when you add oil to the engine.

There’s an oil sight glass on the engine’s right side.  The idea is to add enough oil (about 3.2 liters) so that the oil is approximately halfway between the lower and the upper fill marks.

After you see the oil level between the sight glass upper and lower level marks, reinstall the fill port cap and then start the engine and allow it to run for a minute.  The level will go down.  Add a bit more oil to get the level where it is supposed to be.

After adding a bit more oil, install the fill port cap, hand tighten it, and you are good to go.  Take the bike for a short ride and check for leaks.  And that’s it.

In case you were wondering, I called the nearest Royal Enfield dealer and asked how much they would charge for parts and labor to do what I described in this maintenance tutorial.  There’s no rocket science here, folks, and changing the oil is one of the simpler things you can do to maintain your motorcycle.  The dealer’s price for an oil change was a cool $170.  My cost to do what you see in this blog was about $50.

Our next tutorial will be on valve adjustment.  Stay tuned.