A TJ Roscoe

Roscoe:  It’s slang for a snubnose revolver.  No one is really sure where the term originated.   There are others…heater, rod, piece, burner, gat (that last one is easy, with me knowing a little bit about The Gatling Gun and all), but the origins of most of these terms are lost in the haze of handgun history.  And on that Roscoe terminology, I recently tumbled onto a very cool website I’ll be talking about a bit more here on the ExNotes blog.  But that’s for later.  This blog is about my Roscoe.

It’s a Model 60 (no dash) stainless steel Smith and Wesson snubbie, to be specific.  I mentioned it and the work my good buddy TJ was doing to it not too long ago, and it’s back.   And it’s awesome.  I had TJ do an action job, a little cosmetics work, and fix a problem or two.

First, the action work.  TJ lightened both the double and single action trigger pull, and he did it the old-fashioned way…lots of hand work, polishing, and fitting.  Here’s what the guts of my Model 60 look like after a TJ Level 1 action job:

I initially thought I’d have TJ put a high polish on the entire revolver (it would have been something north of $300 just for that work), but TJ was looking out for my best interests.  “I can do the whole revolver,” TJ said, “but it will look a lot better if you just have me do the ejector rod, the cylinder, the trigger, the cylinder release, and the hammer.” He was right.  It looks awesome.

Here are a few more shots of the high polish TJ put on these components.

The work on the trigger is lot more than just cosmetic.  TJ recontoured the face of the trigger in addition to polishing it, and it really makes a difference in double action shooting.  It’s much easier to find and control that precise instant when the hammer drops during double action shooting with the new trigger contour.

As part of the Level I action job, TJ also applied orange Day Glo to the front sight. It’s a small touch that works wonders. Finding and putting the front sight on target is much faster with this Day Glo treatment.  It’s not just a cosmetic thing.

I mentioned in a previous blog that the revolver was hard to open, and TJ found and fixed the root causes of that problem.  The ejector rod threads had stripped, the ejector rod’s axis wasn’t concentric to the bore, and the barrel underlug catch was not properly configured.  My Model 60 opens and closes the way it should now.  It’s slick.

Here’s another small detail I like…polishing the cylinder release and its slotted nut (it’s not a screw, even though it looks like one).  This little bit adds a nice touch to the revolver.

The grips are smooth rosewood, and they work well with their S&W emblems against the stainless steel revolver.  I like the look.

So, on to the main question:  How did the TJ-customized Model 60 shoot?  Superbly well, thank you.  I tried two loads with the new-to-me Model 60.  The first was the 148-grain wadcutter with 2.7 grains of Bullseye; the second was a 158-grain cast truncated flat point bullet with the same 2.7 grains of Bullseye.  I loaded both on my new-to-me freebie Star progressive reloader.  Yep, the Star is up and running now, and how it works will be a story for a future blog (in the meantime, you can read about the Star resurrection here).

I fired four targets at 50 feet and the results are interesting.  The first two targets were with the 148-grain wadcutter load (I use an Alco silhouette that has four small silhouettes on a single target sheet).

I shot the target on the left with a 148-grain Missouri double-ended wadcutter bullet; the one on the right is with a Hornady swaged 148-grain hollow base wadcutter bullet.  I’ll tell you more about those in a bit.

Before TJ did any work on my Model 60, the gun printed wadcutter groups a good 12 inches to the right (good if you want to hit your bad guy in the elbow, I suppose).  After TJ fixed the ejector rod issue I described above, the wadcutter bullets still shot a little bit to the right, but much less than they had before.  That rightward bias is a function of the load, not the gun (as you’ll see in the next set of targets).

The really good news is how the Model 60 performed with the 158-grain truncated flat point bullets.  Those puppies shot exactly to point of aim, and after warming up with the first group on the left target below, I got serious about focusing on that beautiful Day Glo front sight and shot the group you see on the right target.  Point of aim was at 6:00, and for a 2-inch barrel Roscoe, that ain’t bad shooting.

If you’re not familiar with all this wadcutter and truncated flat point bullet business, here’s your lesson for the day.  Let’s call it Bulletology 101.

The brass cartridge on the left is loaded with a Missouri 148-grain DEWC (double ended wadcutter) cast bullet; the nickel-plated 38 Special cartridge to its right is loaded with a Hornady 148-grain swaged hollow base wadcutter (HBWC).  The Missouri DEWC bullets are symmetrical (they’re the same top and bottom); the Hornady HBWC bullets have (as the name implies) a hollow base (you can see those bullets in the center of the photo above, one inverted and the other right side up).  The idea behind a wadcutter bullet is that it punches a clean hole in the target (that makes it easier to score).  The two bullets on the right side of the photo above are 158-grain cast truncated flat points. I have a local caster make these for me.

I am enjoying my Model 60 and the custom work TJ did on it, but I’ll tell you what…this puppy bites.  The recoil is significant (even with the lighter 148-grain wadcutter loads), and I’m a guy used to shooting big bore handguns.  That little .38 Special cartridge is nothing to sneeze at (Elmer Keith, Dirty Harry, and all the rest of the bigger-is-better gunsels notwithstanding).

For a defense gun, I can live with Roscoe’s recoil (it’s not a handgun I would put 100 rounds through during a range session, though).  For all you keyboard commandos out there, I know, I know.  You can do that all day long.  I can, too, with a 1911.  But this little Chiefs Special is a handful, and after firing 5 or 6 groups, I’ve had enough.  Your mileage may vary.   I know, too, that if I put the Pachmayr-style oversize rubber grips on it, it would be more manageable (and I own a pair of those).  But then it wouldn’t look like it does now, and I love that look.

Hey, there’s more to this story…TJ also did a little work on my Compact 1911.  The latest improvements on the Compact 1911 are coming up in a future blog, so stay tuned!

More Tales of the Gun are here!

Want silhouette targets for your next trip to the range?    Don’t pay exorbitant range prices.  Get them here.

Custom grips for a snubbie Smith and Wesson?  Take a look here!
Never miss an ExNotes blog…get your own free subscription!

Want to turn your handgun into a one-of-a-kind combat companion?  You don’t need to live out here; TJ’s work is carried daily by law enforcement officers (and others whose lives depend on their sidearms) all over the world.  Here’s where you need to go to get started:

Tuk Tuks for Troublemakers!

There’s something about 3-wheeled utility vehicles that interfere with our brainwaves.  They’re cool and most of us want one.  Let me give you few quick examples.

When Gresh and I rode across China on RX3 250cc motorcycles, we started with a tour of the Zongshen plant in Chongqing. It was just the beginning of what was one of the grandest adventures of my life, and we met a lot of great guys over there, including Sergeant Zuo, a retired Chinese Army NCO who was to be our ride captain.   That’s Sergeant Zuo in the video below.

Chongqing is exotic in many ways (think foreign city, 34 million people living in 80-story apartment buildings spread across a rolling and lush green landscape, incredible dining experiences, and one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers on the planet).  More exotica?  A tour of the Zongshen R&D facilities and a sneak preview of what was in the works (I rode the RX4 while it was still a concept, and we saw the new 400cc twin mocked up in clay).   The vehicle that really lit Gresh’s candle, though, was a three-wheel 500cc diesel trike utility truck (it’s the one you see in the large photo above).   “I have to get me one of these,” Gresh said, in tones that intimated an impending orgasm (that’s inference on my part, as I’ve never actually heard Gresh in such a situation, at least that I know of, and I’d like to keep it that way).

I mean, that yellow trike was nice, but Gresh’s reaction to it floored me.  While I was still at CSC Motorcycles, Gresh was relentless in his full-court press to get me to get CSC to import the things.  Go figure.

Next up?  That would be a very recent Facebook post by good buddy Jackie showing a new passenger three-wheeler, no doubt intended to meet the pressing demand for tuk tuks (that’s what they’re called in the third world).  I immediately asked Jackie what the powerplant would be (it’s an internal combustion engine for now, with an electric one slated for a follow-on version).

I shared the Zongshen post on my Facebook feed, and it drew an immediate response from good buddy Colorado Dan.   He wants one.  Maybe I could have predicted that…Dan is a guy who has an Enfield Bullet, a Ural, and a couple of Zongs in his garage.  And a friendly moose or two in his backyard.  Like the cannibals say, there’s no accounting for some people’s tastes, I guess.

I’ve sort of been bit by the bug, too.  When Juan, Carlos, and I were assaulting the Andes in Colombia a few years ago, we stayed in a very rustic hotel on the outskirts of beautiful downtown Barichara (it’s pronounced Bah-de-chah-da, with the accent on the first syllable).  Juan called a taxi to take us to dinner (it had been a long day on the bikes).  I suppose I was expecting some sort of bright yellow sedan to appear, but nope, it was a little tuk tuk.  All four of us squeezed in, and we all laughed like madmen on the ride down.  It was a downhill ride and that little one-lunger didn’t have to work very hard (gravity is your friend going downhill), but while we were laughing, I was wondering how the thing would do bringing us back up that steep mountain.  A couple of hours and an outstanding Italian dinner later, I found out.  We could feel every stroke of that little tuk tuk’s motor on the climb up, and we laughed even harder.  It was a fun evening.

Then there was Bangkok.  Ah, Bangkok.  It’s unquestionably one of the most exotic cities in the world.  I’d seen these tuk tuks all over Bangkok, but I’d never been in one.  It was a character flaw I aimed to correct.  The video is a bit long at 16 minutes, but hey, you won’t have to suffer the 17-hour flight in a middle seat to get there (like I did).  Just imagine 100-degree temps and humidity that’s off the charts, and you’ll have the compleat Thai tuk tuk travel experience.

9mm Jacketed Bullet Comparo

Back in January I tested a bunch of 9mm cast bullet loads in the three handguns you see above:  A SIG P226 Scorpion, a Smith and Wesson Model 659, and the Springfield Armory 1911 Target.    For that test series (you can read it here), all the loads used the Missouri 125-grain cast roundnose bullet with different powders and different charge weights.  My cast bullet testing showed the SIG to be the most accurate, followed by the Springfield and then the Smith and Wesson Model 659.

I promised an update with jacketed bullets to assess accuracy and functionality of all three handguns (and to find favored accuracy loads for each).  It took a while, but I finally got around to making good on that promise this past week.  The six different loads I tested for the jacketed 9mm test series are summarized below:

Actually, the term “jacketed” doesn’t really apply to the Xtreme bullets (they are copper plated, not copper jacketed).  The Armscor bullets are brass jacketed.   Both the Winchester and Speer bullets are copper jacketed bullets.  As you can see from the table above and the photos below, the Xtreme, Armscor, and Winchester bullets were of the roundnose configuration.  The Speer 147-grain bullets were jacketed flatnosed bullets.  I didn’t try any hollow points in this test series; I prefer roundnose bullets in my 9mm handguns.  They are reliable.

All groups were 5 shot groups.   I shot a total of 360 rounds in the two test series (both the jacketed and cast bullet accuracy tests).

Winchester jacketed bullets.
Xtreme plated bullets.
Armscor brass jacketed bullets.

While I was shooting last week, I was a little disappointed.  I thought I had done a lot better with the cast bullets back in January.   I thought my jacketed groups were larger when I eyeballed the targets, but you never really know until you measure the groups.

9mm jacketed bullets on an Alco target. I like using the Alco target that has four mini-silhouettes on a single target. All testing was at 50 feet.

When I returned home, measured the group sizes, and tabulated the results, I was surprised.   The results of the jacketed and plated bullets were not too different from what I had achieved with the cast bullets almost a year ago.  Take a look:

The most surprising finding, for me, was that the average results with the jacketed bullets (versus the cast bullets) were almost identical.  Here’s that data extracted from the above, shown in a table that makes it a little easier to make the comparison:

My testing showed essentially the same results for the three handguns I tested whether I used cast bullets or jacketed bullets:  The SIG P226 Scorpion is the most accurate (it is a magnificent handgun), followed by the Springfield Armory 1911, followed by the Smith and Wesson 659.   It doesn’t matter whether it’s with cast or jacketed bullets:  The averages are eerily similar for each gun, with a very slight accuracy advantage going to the cast bullets for the SIG and the 1911, and a very slight accuracy advantage going to the jacketed bullets for the Smith 659.  But the differences between jacketed and cast bullets are so small they can be ignored.  Cast bullets are usually a lot less expensive than jacketed bullets, so this is good knowledge.

Help us continue to bring stories to you:  Please click on the popup ads!

More Tales of the Gun are here.

Sign up for free!

Pffffft…Bond…James Bond

Like everyone else on the planet except the nefarious bastards of SMERSH and SPECTRE, we mourn the passing of Sean Connery, the great talent who defined and was the ultimate Bond.  James Bond.  Checking out at age 90, Sir Sean lived a long life.  With that many years and many wonderful roles under his belt, he got his money’s worth, I think.  So did we, speaking as one among hundreds of millions of people lucky enough to enjoy his work.  Still, it was tough to hear of his passing.

That poster of Sean Connery above?  A lot of gunsels may not know this, but the iconic early James Bond movie posters showed Sean Connery armed with…a pellet gun.  A Walther LP53, to be specific.  Take a good look, and then look at this photo of my Walther.

I’ve owned my Walther for a lot of years (I wrote an ExNotes blog on it a year or two ago that tells a more complete story of the Bond connection, with a bit of pellet pistol bragging rights thrown in for good measure).

Rest in peace, Mr. Connery, and thanks for the many good stories you brought to us.

Comments, bitching, and more

Gresh’s most recent blog (The 5 Stupidest Ideas in Motorcycling) really lit up the blogosphere yesterday.  It’s a piece that got thousands and thousands of pageviews and a ton of comments.  Gresh, you see, likes to stir the pot.  And he’s pretty good at kicking beehives.  We motorcycle riders are opinionated folks with big egos and prominent buttons that Gresh knows how to push.  It makes for an entertaining mix.

We share a lot of our stuff with targeted Facebook groups (Big Tech lets us do so as long as it’s not anything from that Vinnie Bobulinski guy about Hunter Biden), and the Facebook comments were, well…let’s just say they were entertaining.  Here are a few (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and other errors included so you get the full keyboard commando impact).  With that as an intro, here we go.

Written by a Luddite

I agree with the one piece riding suites lol, but I like everything else

Damn, dude. Just ride your own ride. Who cares what others do to enjoy their ride?

This read is more like a crybaby session than a useful blog article lol

He ain’t wrong…….

Fine article written by the worlds last typewriter repair man…

Total angry old man afraid of tech?

I feel “stupider” for even trying to read this crying, bitching, moaning “article”….

My Harley has all the technology this guy hates except the info system and intercom, and I’m glad it does.. Really don’t care with this dbag thinks

The author of that article is full of it. Seriously, what’s wrong with him?

Sounds like someone is jealous that the world and technology have moved on without them.

A couple of possible solutions are:
1. Intensive training in technology and joining a Technophobic support group.
2. Sticking to 20 year old bikes.
3. Harley still makes quite a few models that are still technological dinosaurs… I think even Royal Enfield has ABS these days on all their current models.

Leather one-piece suits are the greatest thing the motorcycling world has adopted. If you stow your clothes in your saddlebags and leave the ankles unzipped, you can just pee while you ride and it’ll funnel everything to the road where it belongs. Unzip the neck for some airflow and you’ll be riding dry in less than an hour.

Good list.

i think he is right

There’s been more than one occasion where an idiot made a left in front of me, and only the locking of the tires and slewing the bike sideways saved me.
ABS would have had me t-boning the car…

Kind of agree woth #5 but everything else this guy says is BS

Very bored ,angry little man😂🤣

I said I’d never be old enough to need a fairing or a radio. Now I wouldn’t be without either one of them. My aftermarket TPMS is a great item, especially with saddlebags, wouldn’t be without that either now.
This guy left out the kickstand, his attitude eliminates the need for that stupid gadget. Real men know they can use their helmet and save all that weight and eliminate the possibility of it catching on a log when bouncing through the woods.

Sound like someone is jealous of my Goldwing.

A boomer wrote this list.

I agree on both the ABS and the keyless ignition. Especially when they only give you one key fob. 😖

Wow … my grandad has a moto page. Who knew?

I have no experience with the ABS systems, key thingy, or one piece suits. I disagree with the comm systems, mine has made my wife and I’s two- up experience tremendously more enjoyable. My peeves are underglow lighting, and stereos. Stereos don’t belong on bikes. I can see how someone might enjoy having one, but for God’s sake man, turn that shit off when group riding. I don’t want to hear your crappy music. I usually just quietly peel off the group and go away if someone is blasting thier latest Gwar song.

Thank goodness. Thought there was going to be a debate on oil again.

Old bloke moaning warning

Absolutely agree with you.

This article may be the stupidest thing I’ve seen in motorcycling

What an absolutely stupid list. Clearly written by a technophobic, Luddite, Boomer troll.

Get off my lawn!!

Wow whoever wrote that just dated themselves . Somebody got old and refused to go with the times . All these innovations made motorcycling better . And complaining about abs for off-road use is just lazy writing : a) modern bikes have off-road abs that work amazing in the dirt ! B) abs saved probably hundreds of thousands of life’s

And this last one, which is my favorite:

It’s Joe Gresh. Nuff said…

Want more Gresh?  Hey, we’ve got it!  Check out the Gresh articles, the Resurrections, and our Product Reviews pages!

The 5 Stupidest Ideas in Motorcycling

We don’t do many listicals here at ExhaustNotes.us. Editorial policy frowns on the cheap, easy list as a lazy man’s way to get attention. However, that doesn’t mean we are completely immune to the meth-like attraction of lists. The thing is, click-bait lists are nearly impossible to get right. Whatever harebrained idea you’ve thought of to generate more clicks, and hopefully shares, will be blown out of the water in the comments section by people much, much smarter than you. And that’s ok, that’s why listicals are so popular.  It’s a way to piss people off and generate interest.

Number 1: ABS Brakes

I don’t know which lawyer came up with the idea, but it had to be a lawyer. Full-time Antilock Brake Systems are the single most dangerous feature on modern motorcycles. Just a month ago my buddy forgot to disarm his BMW’s antilock system after a trailside nap. (The BMW system defaults to “on” whenever you shut off the bike.) After we started riding again the trail turned steeply downhill. The steepness of the descent meant that rain washed away any fine sands and left behind large rocks and boulders. His BMW rolled and rolled.  All attempts at braking were futile and so naturally he crashed. The bike was basically freewheeling down a rocky hill. At least his BMW had the option to opt out of ABS.

There’s no sicker feeling than panic stomping on the brakes and nothing happens. Any motorcycle that even slightly hints at off road capability should come with a means of disabling the ABS. For that matter practically every street bike has been known to travel a dirt road or two so really all motorcycles should come with the ability to disarm the ABS. These aren’t cars we’re talking about here. Many occasions call for a motorcycle rider to lock up the rear wheel and sometimes (like on that rocky downhill) lock up the front wheel.

Number 2: Keyless Ignitions

Those electronic key fobs are a stupid solution to a problem nobody had. What is wrong with a plain old key? You know, the kind you can have a duplicate made almost anywhere? The stupid electronic-proximity widgets are huge, like the size of a Krispy Kreme doughnut. They are bulky in your pocket and you’ve got to keep a good battery in them just to start your bike! God help you if you ever lose the thing. It will require a dealer’s services and several hundred dollars to program your new Kreme.

Most times I’ve ridden a bike that came with a clunky electronic key fob I ended up leaving the thing in the saddlebag or hidden on the bike somewhere. This defeats the purpose of having any sort of lock on your motorcycle at all but I’d rather have the bike stolen than carry that stupid key fob. I suspect the real reason for the electronic key fob is to allow constant surveillance at the factory level. Didn’t make that latest payment? No problem we’ll disable your ride until you cough up the cash, Highway Rebel!

Number 3: Helmet Communicators

These silly devices allow passenger to operator conversation or communication between groups of riders. Precisely the thing you’re trying to get away from when you ride a motorcycle. Look, if I want to know what you’re thinking, which I don’t, I’ll wave you to a stop and we will discuss it hand to hand. The advertisements for these Zen-terrupters tout range and clarity as if those are aspirational goals. I might buy a set if the manufacturer promised me the damn things would never work.

Some of you find pleasure in the constant road-chatter. Not me, I want you to keep your thoughts to yourself and I’ll do the same. Some of you think that communication devices are a good way to warn back markers about road conditions. That assumes anyone will actually believe you after that last bone-headed move you pulled leaving the Waffle House. Then I’m told they are good for keeping the group together so that stragglers won’t get lost. Has it ever occurred to these pro-communication, Chatty Cathy’s that the stragglers want to get lost? That maybe they are sick of your yapping about fence posts, tar snakes and how you want everyone to stop because you have to pee. Aren’t you old enough to go to the bathroom alone?

Some of my most memorable group-ride dinnertime discussions have been a result of the group breaking up, missing turns, getting lost and arriving at the restaurant with wild stories to tell. That won’t happen if everyone has had the exact same experience. “Did you see the size of that buck?” is met with a flat-toned chorus, “Yes, we all heard over the radio and saw the buck.” rather than “No, but the hitch hikers we picked up when we made that wrong turn robbed us at gunpoint and then Phil ran off with the redhead.” Remember, the best part of riding in a group is being alone.

Number 4: Entertainment Systems

This includes stupid Bluetooth, interconnecting phone features, stupid music systems and stupid, play-pretty graphics that distract a motorcyclist from the main job at hand: staying alive. Riding a motorcycle is dangerous enough without the rider fiddling around with the dash display on his motorcycle. Engine RPM and velocity, along with distance traveled is all the data you need to correctly operate a motorcycle. Page after page of bright, TFT-BS will only make you worry about the minor fluctuations any mechanical device goes through in the normal prosecution of its job.

No one ever cared about their tire pressures until those TPS systems polluted the instrument panels of America. Now it’s like everyone is running Moto GP and 1 psi really matters. Stop it! And if your idea of a fun motorcycle ride is playing with the stereo and poking your thumb at 45 different handlebar buttons maybe you should quit changing the display settings and just stay at home with your younger brother’s Nintendo. The one your parents made him put down in the basement so the noise won’t bother your mom’s overly sensitive ears. Doesn’t it seem like the older she gets the more sound annoys her?

Number 5: One-Piece Riding Suits on the Street

I know some riders swear by one-piece suits but don’t take their opinion on the subject, take mine. I had a one-piece leather suit 43 years ago and the trauma from that experience still haunts me. Many a night I wake up in a cold sweat having to use the restroom but mentally stuck inside a one-piece suit. I can see road racers wearing one piece suits for the extra protection they afford during high-speed get-offs. If you’re riding your street bike anything like a Moto GP star you should probably not be riding on the street. Sure, they look great in website road test photos but those guys are only riding the bike for 15 minutes at a time. As soon as the camera stops clicking they peel that crap off toot-sweet.

For normal, everyday riding a one-piece suit is incredibly inconvenient. There are only a few things more disgusting than using a filthy, urine-soaked gas station toilet and one of them is using a filthy, urine-soaked gas station toilet while wearing a one-piece riding suit. Once you wiggle out of the top and drop your drawers you’ll soon realize that there is not enough space between the lip of the toilet and the urine-soaked floor for all that material. It’s like trying to corral your parachute in France after you’ve landed behind enemy lines on June 6th, 1944. Ok, I have no idea what that’s really like but you kind of sit there holding the bag: Practice hovering if you simply must mimic Marc Marquez on your Honda Blah.

I have more stupid motorcycle things, many more, but 5 is a good number to stop at. I mean, I may have to test some of these stupid motorcycle ideas and I don’t want to use up all my outrage in one story.

More Joe Gresh is here!

Joe Gresh Enfield and Baja impressions are here!

A TJ tune for my Model 60

I had trouble selecting a title for this blog.  The other contender was 50 Shades of Gray to go with the big photo you see above.  I wish I could say I took that photo, but the credit goes to good buddy and master gunsmith TJ.  TJ is the best pistolsmith there is, and one of the things that makes working with him so enjoyable is his photography.  When TJ works a custom gun project, he photodocuments it to keep you appraised of what’s going on, and a couple of the photos you see here are the ones he sent to me on my Model 60 project.   But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me back up a bit.

If you follow the blog (and you all do, right?), you’ve been watching the Star reloader resurrection project I’m working.  That’s coming along nicely, and I’m already making .38 Special ammo on my resurrected reloader.   This story started with my noticing an ad in my gun club newsletter for a Model 60 at a killer price.  I’m normally not a snubnose kind of guy, but hey, a deal’s a deal and I like the idea of a snubnose .38.  Maybe I watched too many cop shows in the ’50s and ’60s.  You know.  Cannon, Kojak, Hawaii 5-0, 77 Sunset Strip, Dragnet…you get the idea.  All those guys carried snubbies.

Anyway, the Model 60 was a good deal, but swinging the cylinder out to the side was a bit dicey…sometimes it wanted to stick.  The seller told me about that but I didn’t see it as a problem.  I saw it as an opportunity to do another project with good buddy TJ, and that’s what I’m doing.  TJ is doing his Level 1 action job for me (polishing all the internals and lightening both the double and single action trigger pulls), and I’m having him also put a mirror finish on the cylinder, the ejector rod, the cylinder release, the trigger, and the hammer.  It will make for a nice, subtle contrast with the brushed stainless finish on the rest of the gun.  That leaves only the grips, and I’m doing something about those, too.  TJ put into words what I was thinking, and that was that the stock grips (the ones you see above) are butt ugly (pardon the gun pun).

Back in the day Smith used to offer uncheckered rosewood grips, and that’s what I really wanted.  They don’t sell those any more, though, and I mentioned to TJ that I should have bought a set back in the ’70s.  You know,  just in case.  “Try E-Bay,” TJ said, and I did.  I hit paydirt almost immediately, and the grips you see below are on their way to me now.  Rosewood.  Smooth.  Just what I wanted.

The finish on my inbound grips may be a little funky, but that’s another opportunity, too.  It’s TruOil time, folks.  TruOil and a little patience will have these grips looking literally better than they did when they left the S&W factory in Springfield.

The Star reloader is operational now (I’ll show you more on the Star resurrection in upcoming blogs, and I’ll include a video that shows it making finished ammo).  I’ll have the Model 60 back in a few days, so I went ahead and loaded a box of ammo with the outstandingly accurate 158-grain cast bullets I get from my good buddy Roy.  It took only a few minutes on the Star (it would take closer to an hour on a single-stage press).  For a machine that’s probably older than I am, the Star sure does a good job.

When I take my custom snubbie .38 to the range, I’ll grab a few photos and share a range report with you here on the ExNotes blog.  Stay tuned, my friends, and keep your powder dry.

More Tales of the Gun!

Enter your email address for a free subscription to ExNotes!

The $100 Hamburger…

The $100 hamburger:  It’s aviation slang for any hamburger that requires flying in to a local airport for a burger. I first heard the term from good buddy Margit Chiriaco Rusche when researching the story on the General Patton Memorial Museum.  You see, there’s still an airport at Chiriaco Summit, left over from General George Patton’s Desert Training Center.  Margit told me about pilots flying in for the mythical $100 hamburger at the Chiriaco Summit Café, and I knew I had to have one as soon as she mentioned it.  The Café doesn’t actually charge a hundred bucks (it was only $15.66 with a giant iced tea, fries, and a side of chili); the $100 figure pertains to what it would cost a pilot to fly your own plane to Chiriaco Summit, enjoy the General Patton Burger, and fly out.

Even though bloggers like Gresh and me are rolling in dough, we don’t have our own airplanes.  But we have the next best thing.  Gresh has his Kawasaki Z1 900, and I have my Royal Enfield Interceptor.

Good buddy Marty (a dude with whom I’ve been riding for more than 20 years) told me he needed to get out for a ride and I suggested the Patton Museum.  It’s a 250-mile round trip for us, and the trip (along with the General Patton Burger, which is what you see in the big photo above) would be just what the doctor ordered.  I’d have my own hundred dollar burger, and at a pretty good price, too.  Two tanks of gas (one to get there and one to get home) set me back $16, and it was $18 (including tip) for the General Patton Burger.  I had my hundred dollar burger at a steep discount.  And it was great.

I’ll confess…it had been a while since I rode the Enfield.  In fact, it’s been a while since I’d been on any ride.  I didn’t sleep too much the night before (pre-ride jitters, I guess) and I was up early.   I pushed the Enfield out to the curb and my riding amigos showed up a short time later.  There would be four of us on this ride (me, Marty, and good buddies Joe and Doug).   Marty’s a BMW guy; Joe and Doug both ride Triumph Tigers.

As motorcycle rides go, we had great weather and a boring road.  It was 125 miles on the 210 and 10 freeways to get to the Patton Museum and the same distance back.   Oh, I know, there were other roads and we could have diverted through Joshua Tree National Park, but like I said, I hadn’t ridden in a while and boring roads were what I wanted.

The Patton Museum was a hoot, as it always is.  I had my super fast 28mm Nikon lens (which is ideal for a lot of things), and I shot more than a few photos that day.  You can have a lot of fun with a camera, a fast lens, a motorcycle, and good friends.  A fast 28mm lens is good for indoor available light (no flash) photography, and I grabbed several photos inside the Patton Museum.

It was a bit strange looking at the photos of the World War II general officers, including the one immediately above.  I realized that all of us (Marty, Joe, Doug, and I) are older than any of the generals were during World War II.  War is a young man’s game, I guess.  Or maybe we’re just really old.

You can see our earlier pieces on the Patton Museum here and here.  It’s one of my favorite spots.  If you want to know more about Chiriaco Summit, the Chiriaco family, and the General Patton Memorial Museum’s origins, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Mary Gordon’s Chiriaco Summit.  It is an excellent read.

We rode the same roads home as the ride in, except it was anything but boring on the return leg.  We rode into very stiff winds through the Palm Springs corridor on the westward trek home, and the wind made for a spirited ride on my lighter, windshieldless Enfield Interceptor.  My more detailed impressions of the Enfield 650 will be a topic for a future blog, so stay tuned!

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

The Star’s Hulme Case Feed Mechanism

The Star story just keeps getting better.  I not only picked up the reloader for free…I also got a free Hulme case feed mechanism.  I didn’t realize what I had until I started learning more about these marvelous old machines.

You may remember that we posted a blog a month or so ago about the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department Pistol Team.  It was a cool old video (it was from the 1930s), but I didn’t realize just how cool it was until I spoke with my buddy Paul about the Star reloader I’m resurrecting.  Paul mentioned that the LASD video had a segment about reloading .38 Special ammo, and as soon as he said it, I remembered the scene.   You’re certainly welcome to watch the entire video again, but my advice would be to jump to the 13:57 mark to see the Star reloader in action:

Man, those guys are busy, I thought as I watched them reloading .38 Special ammo in the video above.   It’s almost as if you need three hands (or two people) to operate the Star.  For every cycle, you need to:

      • Insert a case in the shell plate.
      • Insert a bullet in the case that’s just been charged with powder.
      • Pull the main lever down.
      • Pull the main lever up.
      • Index the shell plate one position counterclockwise.

Then I realized:  The guys in that video above were placing the empty .38 Special cases directly into the shell plate.   My Star doesn’t work that way.  It has a case feed mechanism.  Instead of inserting the empty case directly into the shell plate, you insert the case into the case feed mechanism.  Why do that, I wondered, when you can insert the case directly into the shell plate?

Then it hit me:  My Star had the optional Hulme case feeder.  It was missing a couple of parts (the empty case magazine and the support for that magazine), but those parts would be easy to replace or make myself.  That way, I wouldn’t have to insert an empty case into the Star every time I pulled the lever.  I could just load up 25 or 30 cases at a time, and the Hulme case feed mechanism would take care of the rest.  That would simplify the number of actions I’d have to do each cycle. Woo hoo!

Here’s another YouTube I found that explains how the Hulme case feed mechanism works.

It’s all very clever.  I started this part of the Star resurrection by cleaning up the Hulme case feed mechanism on my press.

Here’s what it looked like before I disassembled it for a more thorough cleaning.  Notice the rusty cam angle at the top of the photo below.

Here’s another photo of the rusty cam.  It’s the piece that drives the Hulme case feeder to the rear when the tool head is lowered (which occurs when the main lever is pulled down).

The Hulme case feed mechanism attaches to the Star base with a single Allen bolt.  Stars originally did not have that hole in the base, but the Hulme case feed mechanism was such a popular option that Star included a drilled and tapped hole (for the Hulme device) on all their presses sometime around 1959.  I learned this from good buddy Bruce at Star Machine Works in New Jersey.

I removed it and then cleaned the case feed mechanism with Kroil, WD 40, and Scotchbrite.

Then I went to work on the cam and its mounting bracket with Kroil and Scotchbrite.  After that, I remounted the Hulme case feed mechanism.  Here’s what the case feed mechanism looks like in operation:

So, I had the case feed mechanism cleaned and it was operational.  But I still needed to feed in a single case every cycle.  I didn’t want that; I wanted the cases to feed automatically.  It was time to channel my inner Bubba.  All I needed was a tube in which to stack empty .38 Special cases above the case feeder, and a means to secure that tube.  Hulme originally offered the componentry to do that, and my good buddy Bruce at Star Machine Works (the company that restores these magnificent old reloaders) offers the parts, but I hadn’t spent anything on my Star, and I wanted to keep it that way just for the sake of living up to my cheap SOB reputation.  I wondered:  WWJGD (what would Joe Gresh do)?  I noodled a few ideas around, and then went to the closet for a coat hanger.  I already had a clear plastic tube from one of my Lee reloading presses.

Like we say in French: Voilà!

The Star and its Hulme case feed mechanism works, and it works well. Take a look!

We’re getting pretty close to being done with the Star resurrection project, but there are still a few more things I want to show you.  Stay tuned; you’ll see them right here on the ExNotes blog!

Subscribe for free!

Read the entire Star resurrection story here, along with our resurrections of other cool old machines!

Dream Bike: Ossa Pioneer

The styling of the 250cc Ossa Pioneer is what attracted me to the bike in the first place. I loved the old-fashioned, pin-striped black panels over the orange base. It was like some sort of cheerful, horse drawn funeral wagon. That cool rear fender extension gave the bike a flat track look that I have been a sucker for since forever.

The Spanish built Ossa’s bodywork was fiberglass, the original miracle plastic that many manufacturers used back in the late 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, modern alcohol laced fuel plays hell with fiberglass so the use of the miracle plastic has faded. Rotocast, alcohol resistant, poly-some-such-crap has taken its place. The new stuff is not without its problems as I’ve had fuel tanks that were exposed to sunlight crumble into dust. (Don’t leave your weed whacker in the back of a pickup truck for 6 months.) I’m assuming that problem has been fixed because the IMS rotocast tank on the Husky has held up fine for 5 years.

The Ossa was similar in construction to a Bultaco but where there were four or five Bultacos running around the town where I grew up there were no Ossas. So maybe rarity has something to do with my fascination with the brand.

The cycle magazines of that era praised the Ossa for its handling and generally good off road manners. One road tester stuck a spare plug in the Ossa’s fiberglass rear fender storage area and then complained when the loose plug beat a hole in the compartment…after riding trails. Even as a young whippersnapper I knew you couldn’t let stuff bounce around on a dirt bike. I felt the Ossa name was sullied for no good reason and if it was me that did something so stupid (and I have) I would have kept quiet about the situation.

I saw a Pioneer race motocross out at Haney Town a long time ago. Tuned softer than a MX engine, the Ossa grunted around the track fairly well. The rider was talented in the art of crossing-up and wasted valuable energy and time showboating over each jump. Still, it had the desired effect. I wanted an Ossa bad.

Ossa prices are still very reasonable as they are still not popular. A couple grand should get a fairly clean runner and that’s some cheap vintage dirt riding my brothers. The bikes are easy to fix and I’m sure you could order any part need from some hole-in–the–wall bike shop over in Spain. Just remember to use non-ethanol fuel or your gas tank will turn mushy inside.

Later Pioneers, called Super Pioneers, were styled in a more modern fashion and don’t tug at my heart like the old ones. I guess it’s a little odd to want a motorcycle that you’ve never ridden and only seen one running many years ago at a motocross race. Stranger still is my defense of the Pioneer’s rear fender compartment, but that’s the way love works. It sinks its hooks into you and the pain never subsides. You never forget your first Ossa and one of these days I’ll have my very own Ossa Pioneer.

More Dream Bikes are here!

Subscribe here for free: