Air Travel, Social Distancing, and Full-Figured Flyers

First things first…I enjoyed Gresh’s last blogs on his cataract surgery, but I’m sure glad he didn’t get a hemorrhoid removed.  Ah, the selfies he might have posted…the horror of it all.

So the topic du jour is air travel (and I sure have had a bunch of it in the last 30 days) and masks.  The secret mission business has come back with a vengeance, and what that’s meant for me is the air travel has been nonstop.  It’s all been domestic (I hear travel overseas is a bit dicey still).  It seems the Covid thing is still a problem in other countries…

Covid?  What Covid?  We don’t need no stinkin’ Covid.  And the 6-foot social distancing thing?  As Tony Soprano might have said: Fuhgeddabout it.  The airports and the airplanes are packed, and you’d be lucky to get 6 inches (let alone 6 feet) of social distancing.

I’ve been on about a dozen domestic flights crisscrossing the country in the last four weeks, and every plane has been full (as in completely full, with not a single empty seat).  I always seem to be seated next to fat folks, and to make a long story only slightly less long, those tiny airplane seats make the experience more intimate than most of my high school dates.  There’s a lot of full-figured folks in America, and it’s only gotten worse during the pandemic.

Yeah, the Covid thing is still around and I’m a bit apprehensive about being herded into tiny places with an amazing array of strange and oversized mammals (it’s what flying has become), but I guess the good news is that we’ve been kicking Covid’s butt.  If we weren’t, the air travel thing would be in one mainstream media story after another about super spreader events.  But it is not.  The rates are continuing to come down (the Covid rates, that is…not the ticket prices or the media’s fear mongering), so the vaccines and the masks seem to be making a difference.

Ah, the masks.  God, I hate those things.  Breathe out and the world fogs over.  Without realizing it, I have adjusted my vision and worldview to seeing the world only when I inhale.  But the masks and the vaccines, I think, have helped us.  I’m not looking for a political argument here.  I’m just stating my thoughts.  Hey, it’s America.  You’re free to be wrong if you think otherwise.

ExNotes Medical Review: Southwestern Eye Center Cataract Surgery Part 2

I’m typing this while looking through a brand new lens on my left eye. The result of my cataract surgery was a dramatic improvement but not the eagle-eyed sharpness I was hoping for. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After my first office visit where all manner of tests were performed and measurements taken I was sent home with several days worth of drops in a small vial. The drops were a cocktail of three drugs designed to get my eye ready for the trauma it would soon be subjected to during surgery. I put the drops in four times a day for three days and stopped putting them in on the day of surgery.

I get panicked over any kind of medical procedure; even drawing blood from my arm may see me faint to the floor in a cold sweat. The thought of someone cutting into my eye while I was awake was freaking me right out. Everyone kept telling me it would be no problem. Sure, no problem for them, I muttered to myself.

After the routine check in stuff the admitting nurse asked me which eye they were doing. I told her the left one and she put an X over the left eye with a marker and strapped a fluorescent green plastic bracelet on my left wrist. Then I walked into the pre-operation room.

The pre-op room was about 50 feet wide by 30 feet deep and beds were arraigned along the walls. Between the beds were metal racks with curtains that when closed allowed each bed to be sort of private. A jovial 80-something geezer that used a walker and an oxygen tank occupied the bed next to me. I could hear him cracking jokes with the nurses and generally being the life of the pre-op party. I sat in my bed thinking, “Don’t freak out…don’t freak out…don’t freak out.” Of course that kind of thinking just makes you freak out.

The anesthesiologist stopped by and I told him that I was going to have a hard time being awake for the surgery. Don’t worry, he said, I’ll be there the whole time, just put this pill under your tongue, don’t swallow it. The pill tasted horrible, like health food or something. A nurse kept stopping by and putting in eye drops. She asked me which eye they were doing and I told her the left one. This went on for several sessions of drops.

I wasn’t feeling any effect from the pill. I asked the nurse if it was supposed to get me high and that I didn’t feel anything. She said that it was just to relax me and that I wouldn’t get high from it. In my mind this did not bode well. I was expecting to get wiped out and not remember a thing. The damn pill was taking forever to melt. My mouth had a bitter taste. I wanted water but could not have any since two hours before the surgery.

My surgeon stopped by and told me everything was going to be fine and did I prefer dirty jokes or clean jokes while he was working on the eye. I asked for dirty jokes but not too funny as I didn’t want to move my head and cause problems. The nurse piped in and said I needn’t worry about the jokes being too funny. I found that funny.

The nurse, surgeon and anesthesiologist wheeled me into the operating room and it seemed like everything got bright and loud in that instant. My head was angled left and clamped between two bolsters. The surgeon asked me which eye he was doing and I told him the left eye. “This will only take about 8 minutes,” he said.

A rubbery-plastic shield with a sticky back was placed over my left eye and once secured the nurse peeled the center out exposing my eye. Some kind of clamping apparatus was attached to my upper and lower eyelid making blinking impossible.

It was hard to see what was going on because the room was so bright. There were two bright, square-shaped red lights side by side. Underneath the red lights was a single bright white light. These three lights were in the upper left hand side of my vision but the background was all dazzling light.

The surgeon was asking for this tool or that tool and I asked him when did I get the dirty jokes. He said that they were too dirty for public consumption and that I’d have to call him later for the joke. I could feel him tugging at the eye and at one point a crazed clear sheet slid away to my left, like a thin layer of dirty ice moving across a puddle of water. I assumed that was the cataract being removed. I thought it was strange that all this was going on and I wasn’t freaking out. I didn’t seem to care at all.  If they removed my leg and I would have calmly watched them do it.

Besides the cataract I had cornea Map-Dystrophy and floaters. My left eye was in pretty bad shape, almost useless really. There were strands from the pupil attached to the lens (or something) and the surgeon wanted a pupil expander tool. The nurse went looking for one and I chatted with the surgeon while we waited. They were taking too long so the surgeon used some other tool and managed to get the new lens in and everything buttoned up. It seemed like forever but the total time I spent in the operating room was 10 minutes.

The recovery area was in the same room as the pre-op beds except no curtains. The surgeon came by and asked how I felt and explained that my pupil wasn’t working quite right. I knew my pupil was messed up from a severe bout of conjunctivitis 40 years ago. It never expanded or contracted very well afterwards. Recovery only lasted 10 minutes and the nurse had me on my feet walking out the door. I was a little tipsy but managed to get in CT’s Jeep for the ride home.

The next day we had a follow up visit at the location where the first tests were done. The doctor examining my eye sad there were some loose strands floating around and that my eye was slightly swollen under the lens. My eye test went from 20-200 to 20-60, not what I had hoped for but a huge improvement over the old, yellowed smudge-vision I had before. When I went in the first day I couldn’t see the first big E on the chart and now I could see down to line 6. Before, reading my phone required the screen to be inches away, I can read the phone a foot away now.

The pressure in my eye had gone up so he gave me some drops for that and the pressure went back down in a few minutes. The doctor said my vision might improve as the eye healed but it’s been a few days and it looks about the same so I’ll probably still need glasses. I’ll withhold judgment on the final outcome as I’m still squirting medications in my eye four times a day.

Southwestern Eye Center’s customer service was stellar throughout this procedure. As far as my vision, every eye is different. My result may be as good as it can be considering the beat up eye they started with. Things seem a lot cleaner with the new lens. I drove my car with out glasses the other day and I could see pretty well. In a month or so when my eye has settled down I’ll get a new prescription and new glasses.

I think I’ll leave the right cataract alone for a year or maybe forever. It’s not nearly as bad as the left one. I sure could use some more of those relaxing pills though. I could be brave, like a hero or something.

Part I of the cataract story is here.

More product and service reviews are here.

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Seven Mini 14 Accuracy Tips

I love shooting and writing about the Mini 14.  Having said that, let’s get to today’s main attraction, and that’s how to get the best accuracy out of a Ruger Mini 14.

Tip 1:  Refine Your Shooting Techique

There’s a lot to say here.  I won’t spell it all out, as we’ve covered this topic before.  Focus on the basics and refer to our earlier post on Mini 14 Marksmanship.

Tip 2:  Reload Your Own Ammo

Ah, this statement will light up the trolls:  There is no great factory ammo for the Mini 14 and bulk ammo is generally inaccurate.  That said, mark my words:  Some troll will post that he shoots 200-yard half-inch 10-shot groups offhand using iron sights with (fill in the blank) bulk ammo.  Why such individuals aren’t competing at the international level instead of wasting their time posting comments on Facebook I can’t say.  Trust me when I delicately suggest they are not honest information brokers.

You might consider my experience and that of many others when I state that you really need to reload your own ammo to attain optimal accuracy.  For starters, there’s the issue of the chamber size.  With the exception of the short-lived Mini 14 Target Model, all .223 Mini 14 rifles are actually chambered for the 5.56 mm NATO round, and that chamber is actually slightly larger than .223 Remington ammo.   For this reason, neck sizing brass that has been fired in your Mini 14 will assure a much better chamber fit and accuracy will improve significantly.  You can read more about that here.

Regarding the specifics, I’ve had great luck with Hornady boattail full metal jacket bullets of either the 55-grain or 62-grain persuasion crimped in the cannelure with the Lee factory crimp die.  I’ve also found that the more expensive Hornady V-Max bullets are quite accurate.  As for powders, my best results are with IMR 4320 (no longer available unless you have a stash), ARComp (a superb powder), IMR 4198, and Winchester’s 748.  Other folks report good results with Varget (I have that powder, but I haven’t tested it in my Mini 14).  My most accurate Mini 14 loads are with charges near the upper end of the charge spectrum.  As always, start low and work your way up watching carefully for pressure signs as you increase the charge.  I never go above the max charges listed in my load manuals (and neither should you).

To get the best reloading results, you might also consider:

    • Sorting your brass by manufacturer.
    • Trimming the brass.
    • Cleaning the primer pockets.
    • Cleaning the brass.

As you read this part of today’s blog you might be thinking “but I don’t reload.”  If that’s the case, I have but one word:  Start.  You can get a good handle on the reloading process and the equipment you’ll need in our prior posts on this topic.

Tip 3:  Let the Barrel Cool

This might have been listed under Tip 1 (Refine Your Techniques), but I see so many Rambo wannabees on the range I want to include it as a separate point.   You know the kind of inbred I’m talking about:  The guy (it’s always a guy, and typically a younger guy) who wears camo gear (but has never been in the military).   He’s the guy who loads 20 or 30-round magazines and rapid fires all of them as if the ability to shoot 30 rounds in under 3 seconds somehow equates to shooting skill.

I think that guy’s name is most likely Richard Rambo, and you don’t want to be like him.  Don’t be a Dick.

I only shoot 5-round magazines, and I let the barrel cool between shots and between magazines.  The Mini 14 has an assymetrically-contacted, relatively thin barrel.   Heat that barrel up via rapid fire and your rifle will string its shots.  If you’re shooting for accuracy, let the barrel cool.

Tip 4:  Install A Tech-Sights Rear Sight

There’s an after market rear sight manufacturer, Tech-Sights, who offers a dramatically better rear aperture sight than the stock Mini 14 setup.   Get a set.  They are more easily adjusted and they will make your rifle easier to shoot accurately.  Make sure you LocTite them in place during the installation; if you don’t, they will shoot loose.

You could put a scope on your Mini 14, but I’ve never had good luck with a scope on a Mini.  Even with LocTite, the scope mounts always loosened after surprisingly few rounds, and before they did so, the group sizes really weren’t any smaller.  Tech-Sights is the way to go.

Tip 5:  Clean the Rifle

The good news about the Mini 14 is that it seems to run forever without cleaning, and the bad news about the Mini 14 is that it seems to run forever without cleaning.  I say that because accuracy will degrade long before reliability does, and if you’re fundamentally lazy like me, you’ll shoot hundreds (and sometimes a thousand or more) rounds before you clean your rifle.  Yeah, it will keep shooting, but the accuracy won’t be there.  Clean your rifle (including the bolt’s innards, the action, and the bore) after every range session.

Some folks will tell you the bore needs to be fouled before the rifle will attain its best accuracy.   They suggest you shoot a couple of magazines through a clean bore before testing for accuracy.  I haven’t found that to be the case; my Mini 14 is accurate with a freshly-cleaned bore.  In fact, my rifle doesn’t even display the typical first-shot-through-a-clean-bore flyer that other rifles exhibit.

When you clean your Mini 14, take care not to let the cleaning rod drag at the muzzle’s edges while doing so.  Give it a good soaking with Hoppes No 9 using a cleaning patch, let it soak for an hour, and repeat that until all the black powder residue is out.  Then let it soak for a few hours with Hoppes No 9, run a patch through the bore, and repeat that over the next two days to get the copper traces out.  I know I’m done when there’s no green or turquoise on the patch.

For the bolt, I spray the hell out of it with carb cleaner.  Taking the bolt apart is a nonstarter for me (you need special tools to do so), so I just spray it well (outdoors, of course).  Then I go to work on the other action components, using a brass brush on the piston and its surrounding areas to get all the carbon residue gone.  When everything is squeaky clean, I’ll lightly oil it all as I’m reassembling the rifle, except for the firing pin in the bolt.  I leave that dry.

Tip 6:  Glass Bed the Action

After seeing the positive accuracy impact on my M1A from a glass bedding job, I did the same on my Mini 14.  I use AcraGlas from Brownell’s when I bed a rifle.  Other folks have had good luck with Marine-Tex.

Bedding a Mini 14 is different than bedding a bolt action rifle.  The Mini 14 action beds along inside edges of the stock, and along the top edge of the stock where it contacts the bottom edge of the upper receiver.  It doesn’t take a lot of bedding material, and you don’t want to slop it all over.   You just want capture some at the rear of the receiver where it interfaces with the top of the stop, and under the receiver interior rails where they interface with the stock’s interior near the magazine well.

You’ll feel movement between the receiver and the stock of a Mini 14 that hasn’t been glass bedded; once you glass bed the action that movement disappears (if you’ve done the bedding job well).   That’s what you want.  This is one of the more significant tips in this article; a good bedding job will improve accuracy significantly.

Tip 7:  Practice (A Lot!)

You want realize your rifle’s accuracy if you are an occasional shooter.  I find if I don’t shoot my Mini 14 for a few weeks, my edge disappears and I need a couple of range sessions to get back in the groove.  When I take my Mini 14 out every week, the groups get smaller and they stay small.  It’s funny how that works.

Parting Shots

Some folks like to use a barrel brace under the Mini 14 barrel just forward of the stock.  It’s the thing that resembles an M1A gas chamber and makes the Mini look like an M14.  I’ve never tried those, so I can’t say if they work or not. It seems gimmicky to me.  Folks (including yours truly) have tried shimming the receiver where it mates with the stock, with the idea that this will remove any play between the stock and the barreled action.  I’ve tried that (before I went with glass bedding) and I found that the shimming approach made no difference in accuracy.  If you want to get rid of the play between the barreled action and the stock, glass bedding is the way to go.  I’ve also played around with smaller gas plugs.  More testing showed that while these did reduce how far the Mini 14 tosses spent brass, accuracy stayed the same while reliability decreased, so I went back to the stock Ruger gas port.

A lot of folks ask about my Mini 14 and its Circassian stock.  A dozen years ago Davidson’s (a large Ruger distributor) commissioned a run of Mini 14s with Circassian walnut.  Most had plain, straight-grained lumber, but a very small number were superbly figured.  I watched Gunbroker.com for several months and when the one you see here appeared, I pounced.  I bought it new for $699.  My attitude has always been you can’t pay too much for a gun; you can only buy it too early.  And no, this one is not for sale.

More Tales of the Gun!

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ExNotes Medical Review: Southwestern Eye Center’s Cataract Surgery

I’ll be blunt about it: the staff here at ExhaustNotes is getting a bit long in the tooth. Oh, we still ride motorcycles and punch holes in paper. We still pour concrete like we pour gin & tonics but we are falling apart gracefully. Luckily, decrepit old men are perfectly matched to the motorcycle consumer demographic.

My eyes have never been all that good and the last ten or so years have seen (or more accurately, not seen) degradation in my left eye. What the hell, we have two eyes, right? I adapted by curtailing my night driving and learned to accept a less precise representation of the world around me. I kind of knew what everything looked like anyway so my mind could fill in the details.

Time marched on and I could no longer use corrective lenses on the left eye due to the blurring: The eye wasn’t out of focus it was clouded. Things look yellower in the left eye compared to the right. It’s not a big deal. I can see fairly well in the daytime. The left eye still contributed to stereovision. Driving in the daytime is pretty easy. I can read signs and move about well.

Due to light refraction through the cataract driving at night is a harrowing experience with each point of light replicated five times. One oncoming motorcycle looks like a ring of five oncoming motorcycles and as the gang gets closer the lights combine into one. You can imagine the scene at a busy intersection with multiple lanes and traffic signals. A double yellow line looks like four yellow lines that merge in front of the bike. It’s more than I care to deal with.

But I like riding at night. I finally decided to do something about the problem last year but then Covid hit and everything was put on hold. Things are getting better covid-wise so CT decided we need to move on the cataract before I start running into walls while carrying scissors.

Southwestern Eye Clinic is located in Las Cruces, New Mexico and is a hotbed of retirees. The oldsters come for the sunshine and mild winters. The whole damn town is set up for end care, if you get my drift, so cataract surgery is routine here. At least as routine as any surgery can be.

The whole thing is so fast! I went in for an exam and found out the right eye has a smaller cataract also. The team at Southwestern ran a battery of tests (12-volt, deep cycle) and electronically measured my eyeball for the lens needed. I had the option of seeing far or up close and one other choice: A multi focus Panoptix lens that supposedly works like bifocals.

You know how I feel about new technology so the bifocal was out. You only get one chance at this and I didn’t want an eye that was constantly messing with my head. I’ve always been nearsighted so I opted for distance vision. My right eye has actually gotten better at distance over the years so I figured two distance eyes would match up better. I’ll probably still need glasses anyway. It’s ok, I’ve worn them since first grade.

The next step is surgery. I have some eye drops I’m supposed to start putting in four days before the operation. The surgery itself is out patient. You come and go the same day. After that I go back the next day to have the job checked over and then again a week later. It’s all so amazing and not that much more than an expensive pair of glasses.

I’ll file an ExhaustNotes follow up report after the surgery is completed and my eye has had time to heal. One downside is I have to rest for a while afterwards. I have a hard time resting. That means no lifting bags of concrete until the doctor gives the eye an all clear.

More Joe Gresh?  Or more Joe Berk?

Pan America Adventure Motorcycle: The World’s First No-Compromise Harley-Davidson

What does that even mean, no compromise?

Hear me out. Like you I’ve read all the reviews on Harley’s new Pan America Adventure-Glide and they have been uniformly positive. Surprising is the word most frequently used by the tattered remnants of the moto-press when describing the Pan America. And it is surprising.

I’m not likely to ever test ride a Pan America. I offer Harley-Davidson nothing but suffering and heartache. Why would Harley loan me a bike in a category I pretty much despise? I can’t stand big Adventure bikes. I don’t like them one little bit. I think they are dangerous off road. Anyone who sends me one to test ride is a fool and Harley-Davidson’s marketing department is not populated by fools. Luckily I don’t need to ride one because Kevin Duke, the hardest working man in motorcycle journalism, says the Pan America is a good bike and that’s all you really need to know.

The no compromise hook in this story is the most impressive part of the new Pan America. It’s the first Harley (since the late 1960s) that competes head to head with the best the world has to offer and does it at a competitive price. In all areas the new bike is acceptable, meets expectations and is even, dare I say, good.

Most all the high-end, heavy, dangerously inadequate offroad Adventure bikes clock in at around 20,000 US dollars retail and they all weigh nearly the same ground-crushing 600 pounds. It must be a class requirement. Check out the manufacturer-provided spec sheets on a GS BMW, Ducati Multi Service, and KTM Breakdown. All of the numbers are within spitting distance of each other.

And that’s the amazing part. Harley-frigging-Davidson has made a competent motorcycle for the same price as everyone else. There’s no brand penalty. Harley-Davidson has made a motorcycle that the owner isn’t required to look through leather-fringed, nostalgia-tinted lenses to justify. No more having to tell non-Harley riders that they don’t get it when their questions turn pointed. Like all cults, the Harley cult requires actively looking the other way when hard facts and performance figures per dollar are bandied about.

With the Pan America there’s no need to believe in the Harley mystique. There’s no need to defend anemic performance by waving an American flag. The Pan America stands on its own merits as a motorcycle, nothing more. Is it as good as the other big Adventure bikes? I can’t say but the fact that it’s spoken of in the same breath and held up in comparison to the world’s best Adventure bikes is a stunning turnaround for a company that seemed hopelessly stuck in neutral by its mad marketing genius.

As much as I hate big Adventure bikes, I love the new Harley-Davidson Pan America.

I hope it’s a harbinger of change. I hope it succeeds beyond Harley’s wildest dreams and ushers in a new era of 150-horsepower Sportsters that handle, stop and are as fast as any other guy’s bikes. The late 1960s was the last time Sportsters were hot. That’s a long, long time to rest on your laurels. Let’s hope the Pan American gives stodgy old Harley-Davidson new life and a desire to be measured against the very best. Listen, if there’s any way you can afford to go out and buy one, go out and buy one. Tell Harley I sent you. Maybe they’ll even let me take one for a ride.

Berk, on right, telling Gresh to go back to Starbucks and fetch a Pumpkin Spice Latte for him.

Memorial Day

Today is a special day.   Memorial Day is an official American holiday, always falling on the last Monday in May.  The holiday was originally called Decoration Day, it started in the years after the Civil War, and it became an official Federal holiday in 1971.   The concept was at first intended to honor those lost during the Civil War, but as our nation soldiered on, Memorial Day came to recognize and pay tribute to those lost in all our wars.

The Vietnam War dominated the news and our lives in my earlier years.  I missed that one by a fluke of timing, but I knew three fine young men who made the ultimate sacrifice:  Stephen Ponty (he was only 19 when he died in Vietnam), Timothy Ochs (who was 21 when he died over there), and Gary Buttenbaum (who was 23 when he was killed in action in Vietnam).   All three were from my neighborhood in central Jersey, and they were just a bit older than me.  I never met Colin MacManus (Captain MacManus was 25 when he was killed), but I feel like I know him and I think about him a lot, too.  I think about all of them, and I wonder what they might have become had they returned from Vietnam.  I’ve seen their names (along with more than 58,000 others) on the Wall in Washington, DC.  Not that I need to. I know who they are.

You don’t thank veterans for their service on Memorial Day (that’s what Veteran’s Day is for); you remember and think about those who did not come home.  I usually head to the range on Memorial Day with two of my favorite military weapons (the Garand and the 1911), and I think about Tim, Steve, Gary, and Colin.  Rest in peace, my brothers.  Your memories live on.

BMW’s R 18: The UberCycle

A colossal motorcycle, and I generally don’t like colossal motorcycles, but the BMW R 18 is somehow strangely appealing to me.  It’s beautiful, actually.  It’s the first one I’ve seen.  Gresh did a Dream Bike piece on this bike when BMW first released the concept.   Unlike most concept vehicles, the R 18 crossed the great divide and made it into production.   This was the first one I’ve seen.   I wouldn’t buy an R 18, but that doesn’t stop me from admiring it.

Did I mention this thing is colossal?

I recently stayed in Alpharetta, Georgia, while on my latest secret mission.   While on the Alpharetta assignment, my digs were a fancy hotel called the Avalon.  It’s in a high end mall with outdoor shops and a setup intended to evoke feelings of an earlier time.  You know, Main Street USA, with downtown shops and apartments above the shops.  It’s a trend in new shopping malls that I like and apparently so do a lot of other people.

In the evening the Avalon mall is a place to be seen with high end driveway jewelry, and the R 18 seemed right at home parked between a Mercedes UberWagen and a Rolls Royce SUV while Ferraris, Lambos, and McClarens growled by at 10 miles per hour.  For you BMW types, not to worry:  Avalon has the requisite Starbuck’s.

I did mention this motorcycle is huge, didn’t I?  How’s a 68-inch wheelbase and a 761-pound weight sound?

The idea behind the R 18 was to create an obese cruiser evoking BMW’s earlier history.  Not too far back, mind you.  They didn’t want to put swastikas on the thing (something BMW doesn’t really mention in their history…I suppose it wouldn’t be “woke”), but the ’60s were safe and the R60 styling works.  Take a look at this R60 I photographed at Bob Brown’s So Cal BMW shop and you’ll see what I mean.

BMW is obviously positioning the R 18 against Harley and other lardass cruisers, and they more than succeeded. In fact, I’d say they out-Harleyed Harley. To me, the last Big Twin Harley that had the right look was the Evo-engine Softails.  Everything since from “The Motor Company” looks out of proportion to me.  And for the uninitiated, “The Motor Company” is how rugged individualists who dress alike, have the same belt size and tattoos, and shop at the same do-rag supplier refer to Harley-Davidson.  The implication, of course, is that there is only one company that matters manufacturing internal combustion engines.  Ah, ignorance is so bliss.  Anyway, the R 18 is kind of like the Evo Softails: It is colossal, but all the pieces seem to fit well with each other and it successfully chasm crosses to an earlier, presumably better, Horst-Wessel-free time.  I like it.

A few more styling comparisons between the old and the new…

Like Harley and the whole Made in ‘Murica shtick, BMW is capitalizing on a “Berlin Built” mantra.

Berlin Built.  Seriously?

Berlin Built.  I can’t make this stuff up, folks.

I was getting into photographing the R 18, and as I was doing so, I hoped the owner would appear so I could ask him a few questions about the motorcycle (maybe that’s sexist; for all I knew, the owner might be a woman).  That didn’t happen, but I sure had fun working my iPhone magic on this two ton Teutonic twin…

The R 18 styling works for me.   I like the old-style BMW roundels, the steelhead trout mufflers (my term, not Berlin’s), the exposed shaft drive, and more.  If it were me, I would have made the bike a bit smaller, I would have found a way to incorporate a finned version of the GS1250 engine, and maybe I would have used Earles forks rather the R 18’s telescoping front end.  But hey, I don’t sell zillions of motorcycles a year and the Boys from Bavaria do.  As UberCycles go, the R 18’s approximately $20K entry ticket doesn’t seem out of line.  It’s not my cup of kartoffelsuppe, but I think the bike is beautiful.

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ExNotes Product Test: TR Industrial Demolition Hammer

Whenever I’m not riding motorcycles I like to break things into smaller pieces. It makes life just that bit less tiresome and one of the best ways to break stuff is with a jackhammer. A real jackhammer weighs 90 pounds and is pneumatic, also called air-operated. I used to run one when I worked in construction. A 90-pound hammer is a wonderful tool, and the weight is not a burden since you don’t really lift the thing often. I’ve found laying the hammer on your leg and pivoting the 90 to relocate the chisel is easiest. It seems like the heavier a hammer is the less vibration is transmitted to you hands. Less vibration means fewer blisters and less hand-bleeding. Properly handled you can run a 90-pound machine all day long as your pants slowly become covered in compressor oil blown from the hammer’s exhaust port.

As fine a proposition as a 90-pound hammer is, for most homeowners the large, engine-driven compressor required to supply enough air is a deal killer. For more refined destruction and with a nod to apartment dwellers look to the many 35-pound electric jackhammers sold everywhere.

I bought this TR Industrial 35-pound jackhammer several years ago for a concrete spalling repair job. The job required a lot of work on a scaffold so I didn’t want a big, heavy hammer to lift. The TR worked great and when the job was done I put it away in the included storage case.

Fast-forward three house moves and I had forgotten all about the TR hammer. It wasn’t until I was almost finished with the shed footing project that I remembered the thing and dragged it out to break up the hard, rocky ground the shed sits on. What an improvement over the pickaxe! The TR cut my digging time and was less tiring to use. It felt like I was cheating.

The TR jackhammer came with two tool bits: a flat chisel and a pointed bit. The flat chisel is great for breaking rocks and concrete. Remember, don’t start in the middle, you have to work from the edge when breaking concrete so that the broken piece has somewhere to go. If you’ve used a 90-pound air hammer don’t expect the blows from an electric 35-pounder to have the same effect. Everything will take longer.

I haven’t used this point bit yet but then I haven’t done everything yet either. It may come in handy on extra hard or thick concrete. Maybe I’ll split logs with it.

I recently bought a clay spade for the TR hammer and it is perfect for the ground conditions at Tinfiny Ranch. You wouldn’t use a clay spade on concrete but for rocky soil it plows right through. When lightly excavating an area to be formed, say you need to remove 2 inches of fill; the wide paddle makes it easy to eyeball grade and loosen just the top layer while not unduly disturbing the ground underneath.

Not all hammer bits are the same. The TR takes this hex style but note the impact end is round. Some bits are hex all the way, some are fluted, and little ones have a mushroom shape. Bits for the TR are plentiful and easy to order online.

To change the bit you pull this little spring-loaded widget out and rotate it.  Insert the bit with the cutaway facing the widget and reverse the operation. Bit changing takes seconds and the bits stay put.

All jackhammers are oily but the electric ones are less so. There is an oil reservoir built into the TR hammer. Regular motor oil is recommended. To fill the hammer you unscrew the sight glass and dump whatever slippery stuff you have inside. If you ran the hammer for 8 hours you might need to refill the reservoir but for my sporadic use a fill lasts months. Note that oil will leak out of the machine even if you’re not using it, so plan accordingly.

One of the things I don’t like on the TR jackhammer is the side handle. It looks flimsy as hell and no amount of tightening will keep it in place. I thought about wrapping duct tape around the hammer to make the handle fit tighter but decided the tape would just wear off in a few minutes. Since you don’t really push on the hammer I leave the thing as-is with the floppy handle. The floppy handle is convenient in tight quarters, swapping sides is easy.

The TR hammer is probably cloned from a well-known brand and there are quite a few hammers that look exactly like the TR on eBay and Amazon. The design seems to be open source now and I can’t comment on the quality of those other clones. I will say that which factory a tool or motorcycle engine comes from is important. There’s a lot of variation in things that look the same.

I give the TR Industrial version high marks and can recommend it if you like to break things. My hammer is an older version no longer produced but the one in the link is an updated machine with better electrical isolation for the operator. This might be important if you work in wet areas.

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The Rodolfo Fierro Revolver

By any reasonable measure, Rodolfo Fierro was a world class SOB.  I know it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, but old Rodolfo shucked this mortal coil more than a hundred years ago and I’m going to take a chance.  Bear with me.

I am a big fan of the Colt and Smith and Wesson 1917 .45 ACP revolvers and all their modern derivations.  You’ve read my scribblings (or tappings?) here on the ExNotes blog about the virtually new 1917 Colt I scored a couple of years ago, and you know I’m not above bragging about a group or two I’ve shot with my Model 625 Smith.  You can read all about that sort of thing on our Tales of the Gun page.

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Anyway, to get back to the main attraction (which is the beautiful nickel-plated and engraved 1917 you see here), a few years ago I bought a very cool Marlin from Collectors Firearms in Houston, Texas.  They are good people and as luck would have it, I had a secret mission in Houston a week ago.  Hmmm, I thought.  As long as I was headed to the Lone Star state it might be a good idea to stop in at Collectors, and before we left the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia I went online to see what Collectors had in stock.  That’s when the revolver in these photos appeared.

Wow!  My life suddenly somehow felt incomplete.  I needed that revolver.  Nickel plating.  Engraving.  Ivory grips.  .45 ACP.  An Army 1917.  Want.  Need.  Gotta have.  I was a dog in heat.

I studied the photos, of which there were many, and I noticed the following on the revolver’s frame:

General Rodolfo Fierro.  Who the hell was he?  So I Googled the name, and wow, what a mean bastard he was.  Turns out old Rodolfo was Pancho Villa’s darker side, and he was the one who handled the dirty work for Villa.  I won’t belabor all his dastardly deeds (you can Google the name yourself), but as dastardly bastards go, this guy was as bad as it gets.

But wow, the gun was a 1917 Colt (a favorite), it was highly engraved, it was advertised as being in good shape, and I wanted it. At $4950, the price was way out of my range.  But the provenance…the provenance of this Colt was incredible.   And the photos…take a look:

Collectors Firearms had a brief description on their website that was even more enticing:

Colt 1917 .45 ACP caliber revolver. Beautifully engraved and chiseled Colt .45 ACP revolver. This revolver is extensively engraved with traditional Colt style scroll work. The right-side of the frame has a relief chiseled figure of the Mexican Seal of an eagle and snake with cactus in the foreground. The left-side of frame is a relief chiseled figure of a puma braced on a rock. Bore is excellent. Action works perfectly. Barrel length is 5½”. The grips are of old mellow ivory. The backstrap is engraved “Gral Rodolfo Fierro” AKA “The Butcher.” Fierro was a known associate of Pancho Villa. Revolver has 100% of its nickel finish. Barrel has a relief chiseled figure of a longhorn steer. Very handsome and striking revolver!

So I was about 80% of the way there, thinking I could probably Presbyterian these guys down (it’s an inside joke shared by Members of the Tribe), sell a bunch of other stuff, and I would ride with Rodolfo.  Visiting Collectors Firearms became an imperative and after finishing my secret mission stuff, Sue and I rolled in to that magnificent firearms emporium on that fine Texas morning.

Collectors Firearms is huge, possibly the largest high-end gun store I’ve ever visited.   Folks, trust me on this…if you’re ever in Houston and you want to see some really cool stuff, you absotively have to see this place.

It took the kid who attended to us a few minutes to locate the Rodolfo Fierro revolver, and when he did, I was stunned.  The nickel plating and engraving were absolutely magnificently executed, far more so than revealed by the website photos above.  Somehow, the nickel finish and engraving made the revolver seem even larger than it actually is (and it’s a big gun).  I shot a few photos with my iPhone, and I’ll share one with you here:

So I thought about that revolver the rest of the time I was in Texas and then I thought about it more when I returned home, the gears turning with what I might have to sell to get it.

And then it hit me.  In researching old Rodolfo and all the evil he brought to those in his orbit, I found out that while there is some uncertainty about his date of birth, there’s none whatsoever about when he died.  That was in 1915 when he drowned in quicksand after being thrown from his horse, weighed down by gold he had presumably stolen.

1915.  Got it?  That’s the year old Rodolfo had to stand before his Maker and answer for all his sins.  You see, 1915 was two years before Colt introduced the 1917 Army .45 ACP revolver, and that tells me there’s no way this gun was carried by that bloodthirsty SonuvaYouKnowWhat. Whew! Just saved myself $4950 on that one.

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ExNotes Product Test: Ocoopa 10,000 mah Hand Warmer

Winter’s bony fingers have released their icy grip so now is not the time to be testing a hand warmer. But we don’t follow the rules or the seasons here at ExhaustNotes. We do what we want, see? The Man and his stifling rules don’t apply to cool kids and the ExhaustNotes staff are cool with a bullet. I did test the Ocoopa hand warmer in cooler weather a few months ago so stock up now while the heat is on and Ocoopa has to give the things away.

The Ocoopa hand warmer is a neat little device that replaces those old fashioned lighter-fluid type that if they didn’t set you on fire would kill you with fumes spilling up from your jacket. How it works is unclear but the unit charges from most any USB wall pig and then you select one of three heat settings and the sucker gets hot.

Pop one in your cell phone pocket of your jacket and cold rides become just that bit more toasty. It’s like having a live kitten in your pocket but without the constant need for feeding and potty breaks.

I’ve found the highest and best use for the Ocoopa hand warmer is camping. Last time I slept inside a polyester house in the woods the temperature was in the mid 30’s at night. I fired up the Ocoopa and tucked in my sleeping bag. The thing was on low, I slept like a six-legged baby atop Chernobyl’s concrete sarcophagus. The Ocoopa was still going strong in the morning so I left it on low to see how long the thing would heat.

Turns out the Ocoopa lasts around 12 hours. You really only need the low setting because medium and high are too hot to put near your body. Maybe a couple layers of thermal underwear could work with medium. High must be used for baking.

When it’s not cold outside the Ocoopa will also charge your phone or whatever plugs into a USB and you can recharge the thing from your motorcycle if the bike has a jack, Jack.

I’m not able to tell you about the lifespan of the machine or if it will catch on fire during the night but I will do a follow up report should events demand one. I’ll go ahead and recommend the thing just for keeping me warm in the polyester house.

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