Chongqing to Tibet!

The RG3 is Zongshen’s newest motorcycle, and yesterday this video and its description showed up in my feed:

We are excited to share the epic journey of RG3 crew! Along the 318 national highway, our RG3 adventurers spent 12 days riding to reach Lhasa, Tibet from our factory in Chongqing. May the journey inspire you to start you own!

This is cool stuff and Zongshen (sold by CSC Motorcycles here in North America) is a cool company.   I’ve been in the Zongshen plant a bunch of times along with good buddy Gobi Gresh, and we rode with Zongshen across China.

Gresh and I had a lot of fun with the Cult of the Zong, and we joked about the lines we’d be able to use after our 6,000-mile ride in the Ancient Kingdom.  You know, little things we’d slip into a conversation like “as I was riding across the Gobi Desert” and “when we rode down off the Tibetan plateau” and others. We knew it would gave us the street cred we needed to converse with hardcore riders making the trek to Starbuck’s.

Zongshen puts together first class videos, and I always watch their new ones as they are released.  One of my Zongshen favorites is the one they did on our China ride:

And another I enjoy is Joe Gresh’s video on that same ride:

I enjoy videos, but I enjoy a good book even more.  You might, too!

Hey, join the team…sign up here for free!

Marlin Cowboy Front Sight Replacement

About a dozen years ago I bought an impressive Marlin 336 Octagonal in 30 30, but that’s not the rifle you see in the photo up top.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but that 30 30 Marlin was a collectible rifle and I got a hell of a deal on it.  I’ll give you a link to that story at the end of this one.

When I started the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia paperwork on the 336 Octagonal, I saw a brand new 1895 Cowboy Marlin at the same gunstore with the John Marlin proof and exceptional walnut.  And that, my friends, is the rifle you see in the photos here.  I’m not in the habit of buying two rifles at the same time (in fact, you can’t even do that here in Nuttyland any more), but wow, that 1895 was pretty and I bought both the 336 and the 1895.  That Marlin rang all the bells for me…an octagonal 26-inch barrel, the .45 70 chambering, and killer wood.  The time to buy a lever gun with superior wood is when you see it, and that’s what I did.

Wowee! A Marlin Cowboy in .45 70 with super walnut and a John Marlin proof mark!

Over the last dozen years, I only had the Cowboy on the range a couple of times, and that was enough for me to know the sights were way off.    A couple of weeks ago, I decided to find out exactly where it was printing with my favorite .45 70 load (more on that in a bit).  The Cowboy grouped superbly well (it coverleafed rounds at 50 yards), but I had to go to the very top of the adjustment range on the rear sight to finally get the bullets to hit at the point of aim at 50 yards. In the rear sight’s middle elevation setting, the point of impact was 10 inches low at 50 yards. I couldn’t adjust the rear sight any higher, so I knew I needed a lower front sight.

I tried to call Marlin to ask for a shorter front sight, but all I got was a message telling me to go to their website.  I struck out there, too.  The website said that Ruger (Marlin’s latest and current owner) isn’t in a position to service Marlins or provide parts yet and they don’t know when they will be.  Hey, at least they were honest, and that counts for something.

The lollipop front sight as the rifle was delivered from Marlin. It was way too high, which caused the bullets to hit way too low.
I gently tapped the front sight out with a brass drift and a hammer.
The front sight that came with the rifle was 0.505 inches tall. That’s too tall for my loads.

Okay, I reasoned, this should be no problem.   I called Williams, the experts on iron sights, and I hit paydirt.  The Williams guy told me that in recent years Marlin put whatever front sights they had in stock on their rifles with no thought given to where the guns would print.  That’s what happened on my rifle.

Getting the correct front sight once you know where the rifle is printing is simple.  The height of the front sight that came with the rifle was about 0.500 inches, and it was printing 10 inches too low with the rear sight as high as it would go.  It’s an a/b=c/d calculation.  If you know the sight radius, the front sight height, the distance to the target, and how low or high the point of impact is, you can calculate the required change in front sight height to move the point of impact the amount you want.  I’d like to say it’s advanced engineering, but the truth is it’s a 7th grade algebra problem (and I made it through the 7th grade successfully, aside from a ton of time in detention).  The calculation goes like this:

Required change in front sight height =
(desired shift on target/(50*36))(sight radius)

where

        • 50*36 is the distance to the target in inches (50 yards * 36 inches/yard)
        • The sight radius is 23 inches
        • The desired point of impact on the target is 10 inches up (the rifle was grouping 10 inches below point of aim).

I did the math, and the required change in front sight height was a drop of (10/(50*36))(23) = 0.128 inches.  That meant I needed a front sight about 0.372 inches tall.

What you see above is what Marlin should have done when they selected the correct front sight for this rifle, but they didn’t and I did.  I bought two new front sights.  One would raise the point of impact about 13 inches at 50 yards, and the other that would raise it about 5 inches at 50 yards. I knew that one of the two should work.  The cost for both was only $35, and in the grand scheme of things, I always figured I can’t have too many gun parts to play with.

Williams had .341 and a .410 front sight.  You can’t get the exact height you want but that’s okay…that’s why the rear sight is adjustable.  So I bought both rear sights. The rear sight height adjustment would give me the room to dial either in. The .341 front sight would give me more than I needed; the .410 would give me a little less than I needed, but either one should get me into the adjustment range.

The two Williams replacement front sights on the left, and the original Marlin front sight on the right.

The front sight mounts in a dovetail on the barrel, and it has to be fitted.  It’s an interference fit, but it has too much interference as delivered.  You have to gently sand material off the bottom of the replacement sight so it goes into the dovetail with just a little interference.  Easy does it is the mantra here (you can take material off, but you can’t put it back on).  You want enough interference so the front sight has to be tapped in with a brass drift and it won’t move around due to recoil or normal hunting knocking about.

Sanding the front sight base down, a thousandth or two at a time.
The Williams 0.341 inch front sight ready for installation.
A white dot (which I greatly prefer over the brass dot) front sight, on station and ready for duty.

So how’s it all going to work?  I’ll let you know after I get to the range.  Oh, and my favorite .45 70 load?  It’s the 405-grain Missouri Bullet Company cast bullet, crimped in the cannelure, with 35.0 grains of IMR 4198.

One more thing…that 336 Marlin Octagonal I told you about?  It’s right here, along with a bunch of other cool lever gun stuff!  You’ll want to go there…the 336 Octagonal is an interesting firearm.

Sign up here!

The rest of the story with the new front sight installed!

Shoot and Scoot!

I should have won.  It was politics, I tell ya…that’s the only reason the Axis prevailed.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

That photo above?  Like I said, I should have won.  That’s my photo.  I watched the two judges, stooges of the Axis powers, deliberate for several minutes, even delaying announcement of the winner while they looked for a plausible reason to deny what was rightfully mine.

Okay, back to the beginning.  Me and the boys used to hang out at Bob Brown’s BMW dealership on Saturday mornings, and back in the day, Bob and crew were always coming up with great ideas…you know, things to do.   They outdid themselves on the Shoot and Scoot deal.  You see, one of Bob’s BMW customers owned a camera store down in Chino Hills.   Between Bob and the camera guy, they had this idea:  Combine a day-ride to the Chino Planes of Fame Museum and a photo contest.  It worked for me.  I ride (my ride was a Triumph Tiger in those days) and Lord knows I’m a photography phreak.  I was in.

The day started with photo ops and donuts at Bob’s dealership, with a very attractive young model.   Attractive, yes.  Creative or unusual?  Hardly.  But I grabbed the obligatory fashion shot…

From there, it was a quick ride to the Chino Airport’s Planes of Fame Museum.  I’ve always loved that place.  The idea was to grab an interesting photo or twenty in a place jam packed full of interesting photo ops.  Trust me on this, boys and girls…if you’ve never been to the Planes of Fame Museum, you need to go.

Anyway, these are a few of my favorite shots from that day…I was working the Nikon for all it was worth and I was having a good time.  I could win this, I thought.

My last few photos of the day were of my reflection in that big radial engine you see above, and then it hit me.  Like a politician who knows never to let a good crisis go to waste, when I have a camera that’s how I feel about reflective surfaces.  I was getting some good shots of myself in the polished prop hub, and then it hit me.

“Hey Marty,” I said.  Marty is my riding buddy.  You’ve seen him here in the ExNotes blog in many places.  Mexico.  Canada.  All over the US.  “Get in the picture right here.”

And he did.  That’s when I grabbed the photo you see at the top of this blog, and as I saw the image through the viewfinder, I knew I had a winner.  It captured what the day had been about.  Great photography.  Air cooling and internal combustion.  Riding.  Friendship.

So we rode from the Planes of Fame Museum over to the photo shop and uploaded all our shots.  We returned that evening when the winners would be announced.  I wasn’t interested in placing.  I wanted to win.  And I knew I would.  Or at least I knew I should.  The funny thing was, the two judges were the camera store owner and the local Canon sales rep.  I could see they were having a tough time.  They were down to two photos, mine was one of them, and they were struggling with the decision.  I think my photo was the clear winner.  But alas, I shot it with a Nikon.  This was a Canon contest being at least partly sponsored by a BMW dealer (and I rode a Triumph).  The Germans and the Japanese.  The Axis powers.  Still trying to make up for World War II.  Not that it bothers me.  Much.  But I should have won.

Never miss any of our stories…sign up here for free!

Youberty? You bet!

That would be my tuned Taylor Uberti in .45 Colt, the Italian Stallion Single Action Army revolver that has graced these pages in a few earlier blogs.  It was a good day…a couple of my good buddies stopped by with brass they didn’t want (including the ultra-tough-to-get-these-days .45 Colt), and I was hard at it on the reloading bench shortly thereafter.  My go to fun load in .45 Colt is 6.4 grains of Trail Boss, a 200-grain cast bullet (in this case the truncated roundnose thrown by the Lee mold, although just about any 200-grain semi-wadcutter works equally as well), and a crimp for an overall cartridge length of 1.595 inches.   It was 5 shots at 50 feet, and I was putting them pretty much into one ragged hole just about exactly at my point of aim.  You just gotta love a good Single Action Army revolver…I sure do!

Keep us in components…please click on the popup ads!

About the only thing I don’t like about Trail Boss powder is that it doesn’t obturate well, although you wouldn’t know it from the accuracy this load delivers.  Trail Boss soils the cases and they take longer to come clean in the tumbler, but it’s a small price to pay for this kind of accuracy.

The nice thing about the Trail Boss load mentioned here is that it shoots just about to point of aim for me at 50 feet.  Another nice thing is there’s almost no recoil…this load in a Single Action Army is a real powder puff.   Yeah, I could go hotter, but what would be the point?

More Uberti blogs?  Hey, take a look…

Colonel Colt and Captain Walker

Men of a Certain Age

And of course, there’s all the other Tales of the Gun stories!

Motorcycle stuff?  Right here, folks!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

ExNotes Product Comparo: Mitsubishi Mirage versus the Milwaukee Eight

Have we finally lost our marbles?  A Mitsubishi Mirage?  I’m comparing it to a Harley Big Twin? No way!

One of the nice things about business travel is the opportunity to sample different cars.  That’s something I like…extended test drives to find out if a car fits.  I’ve rented cars I thought I would really like only to find out I hated them (saved a lot of money on a Jaguar doing that), and I fell in love with a few by accident…mostly because because they were the only thing available and they surprised me in a good way.

My first time for a rental car romance was in August 1972 when I rented a VW Beetle one weekend at the Benning School for Boys (jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia).  (When I say a rental car romance, I’m referring to falling in love with the car, not any sort of an illicit parking lot relationship.)  The Beetle was a blast and I bought one.  I had a cool picture of it somewhere but it was taking too long to find, so you’ll have to trust me on this one.

The same thing happened again when I rented a Subaru (back when Subaru penetrated the US market with dirt cheap rental agency sales).  I was blown away by the Subie’s overall quality and I’ve owned four since (including my dynamite WRX you see below).

A 2006 Subie WRX near the marigold fields above Santa Barbara. That was a fun car.

And then it happened again recently when the only thing left in the Atlanta Enterprise lot was a Mitsubishi Mirage.

Mitzi. More fun than any $14K car has a right to be.

The Mirage is a car that would have never been on my radar, but I liked it.  Oh, it’s tiny and it didn’t have a lot of power, and it only has three cylinders, but somehow that made it even more appealing.  The three-cylinder thing made me think of my old Triumph Speed Triple, but as soon as I stepped on the gas, it was all Harley.  You know…open the throttle and there’s lots of noise and not much else.  But I was in no hurry, and I kind of enjoyed hearing Mitzi’s howling protestations when I poured the coal to her.  Harleys ain’t the only motor vehicles focused on converting gasoline to noise!

Three’s a crowd? Not with my old Speed Triple. Good lord, that was a good-looking motorcycle!

Mitzi.  Yeah, I gave my rental car a name…and that’s a first.

A sparse interior, but the car had cruise control, air conditioning, a heater, a radio, Apple car play, and an automatic transmission. She drove like a comfortable go kart.

Mitzi’s road noise was a subdued sort of thing…not the screaming tire whine like the Chevy Traverse I rented earlier in Houston (I think a more apt name for the Chevy might have been the Travesty).

Mitzi’s ride was firm and the seats were a bit on the hard side, but I liked it.  And Mitzi is most definitely not a lard butt.  She weighs a scant 2,095 pounds, or just a little more than twice what a Harley Electra-Glide weighs.  And you get air conditioning, power windows, Apple Car-Play, and a heater with the Mirage.  The best part?  I rolled all over Atlanta and the surrounding areas for the better part of a week, used nearly a full tank of gas, and when I filled up before turning her back in at the rental agency, she took just 7 gallons for a whopping total of $21.  I like that.

7 gallons. $21. I could learn to live with this.

Mitzi kind of reminded me of a motorcycle, but better.  I mean, think about it.  The new Harley Icon, a beautiful motorcycle to be sure, but damn, it’s $30K and 863 pounds!  Yeah, you get the Milwaukee Eight motor, but there’s no air conditioning, no heater (other than what rolls off the rear cylinder, as Harley riders know all too well), no spare tire, no windshield wipers, no rain protection, no automatic transmission, it only seats two, and the Harley gets lousy gas mileage compared to the Mitsubishi.  And the Mitsubishi will clock an honest 100 mph (don’t ask how I know).  Maybe the Milwaukee Eight will, too, with that 34-cubic-inch advantage it has over my old Harley’s 80-incher.  My ’92 Softail wouldn’t hit 100 mph.  Maybe this 114-cube Milwaukee monster will.

The Harley Icon. All $30K and 863 lbs of her. 863 lbs!

So I started researching Mitzi’s stats online, and our relationship deepened.  Mine was a no frills model (she actually had hubcaps on her tiny wheels, not the cast wheels you see in the photos above).  The base model I drove clocks in at a starting price of $14,625.  That’s not even half what the new Harley costs.  The Mitsubishi has a three-cylinder, 74-cubic inch engine (compared to Harley’s 114 cubic inch twin).  The Harley is mostly made in ‘Murica; the Mitsubishi comes from Thailand.

More Mitzi magic?  How’s a 10-year powertrain warranty sound?  10 years!  That’s  longer than most folks get for murder!  As an aside, when I owned my Harley Softail, Harley wouldn’t even work on the bike when it hit the 10-year mark.  The Mitsubishi would just be coming off its warranty!

I know I like a motor vehicle when I start thinking about what it would be like to take it through Baja, and that’s what I found myself doing as I was tooling around Georgia in my Mitsubishi.  It’s most likely not going to happen, but it sure would be fun to get lost for a few weeks in Baja in an inexpensive, light, air conditioned car that gets 40 miles per gallon on regular fuel.  With a price that starts under $15K, that leaves a lot of money for Tony’s fish tacos.

Tacos by Tony in Guerrero Negro…bring it on!

Don’t run out and buy a Mirage based on this ExNotes blog.  To balance my rose-colored outlook on life in general and the Mirage in particular, consider this opening paragraph from Consumer Report’s review…

The Mitsubishi Mirage lives up to its name. While its low $16,000 sticker price and good fuel economy of 37 mpg overall may conjure up an inviting image of a good, economical runabout, that illusion quickly dissipates into the haze when you drive this tiny, regrettable car. The Mirage comes as a tiny hatchback or sedan, built in Thailand and powered by a small three-cylinder engine.

Eh, Consumer Reports.  What do they know?  I wonder how the CR folks would rate the Harley Icon.  Funny how all this has come around…I used to refer to my ’79 Electra-Glide as my optical illusion.  You know…it looked like a motorcycle.  When it was running.  Which wasn’t very often.

My take? The Mitsubishi Mirage is one of the least expensive cars out there, it has one of the best automobile warranties ever offered, and it was fun to drive.  No frills here, folks.  It’s just an honest car that’s not trying to pretend it’s something it is not.  I like it.  If I buy it instead of the Harley Icon I could pay cash and still have enough left over for a little more than 20,000 fish tacos!

More product reviews are here!

Join up!  Sign up here for a free ExNotes subscription!

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.

Never miss an ExNotes blog.  Sign up here for free!

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!

Never miss an ExNotes blog.  Subscribe for free!

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.