Henry Single Shot rifles. The steel-framed ones have a conventional pistol grip stock. The brass-framed rifles have a straight grip. They are available in chamberings ranging from .223 to .45 70.
About four years ago I went to the range with my good buddy TK. TK is a cool guy and he had a rifle I didn’t know much about. It was a new .44 Magnum Henry lever action rifle with a brass receiver and, in a word, it was stunning. The brass and the bluing were highly polished, the walnut stock was highly figured, and wow, was it ever accurate. I’d seen Henry rifles before but I had never handled or fired one, and when TK let me shoot his…well, let me put it this way: Wow! TK was impressed with my marksmanship and so was I. I put five .44 slugs through a hole you could cover with a quarter, and folks, with open sights, that’s good shooting. The rifle looked, felt, handled, and shot the way a rifle should.
Just a couple of weeks ago, good buddy Greg and I were on the range again and Greg had a new toy. He had recently purchased an older Harrington and Richardson break open rifle in .223, and it was nice. Harrington and Richardson stopped making their rifles some time ago, and I always thought having one in .45 70 would be the right thing to do. But I had never gotten around to scratching that itch. Maybe it was time to do something about that, I thought.
I like the concept of break open rifle, and I love the concept of a single shot. They are just cool. You have to make every shot count, and that’s appealing to me. A Ruger No. 1 or a Ruger No. 3 single shot rifle has always been my first choice. There’s something about a single shot rifle that floats my boat.
Seeing Greg’s H&R single shot .223 got me to thinking about Henry rifles again, probably because I’d seen something on the web about Henry having introduced a new single shot. I remembered the quality of TK’s Henry, and I love the break open configuration I was seeing on Greg’s H&R. It reminded me of my very first rifle…a .177 caliber pellet gun I’ve had since I was a kid wandering the woods in New Jersey. What I had in mind was a Henry single shot rifle with a brass frame chambered in .45 70 (one of the world’s all-time great cartridges). Throw in some fancy walnut, and it would be perfect. It would be just what the doctor ordered.
One of the artisan’s at the Henry plant handling a .45 70 single shot rifle. Check out the walnut!
Hmmmm. Brass. Walnut. .45 70. The wheels were turning, and that prompted a visit to Henry’s website. What’s this? A contact form? Hmmmm again. Would it be possible to get a Henry Single Shot in .45 70, brass framed, with hand-selected walnut? Well, it seems the Henry folks had checked out our ExNotes gun page, and the answer was swift: Yep, they could help me on this.
So, to make a long story a little less long, I’ve been corresponding with Henry USA and I bought one of their brass frame single shot rifles. The good folks at Henry assured me it will have nice walnut. I’m talking to the Henry marketing director to learn a little more about the company tomorrow and I’ll be posting a blog about that in the near future. I’ll soon have a new Henry rifle in the ExNotes armory, and you can bet I’m going to have lots to say about it.
Stay tuned, folks. You’ll read all about it right here.
Here at Exhaustnotes.us we don’t have to wait until we know what we are talking about to give you our impressions of new gear sent to us for review. No, we can do whatever, whenever we want and right now I want to tell you about this swell jacket. You’ll get a longer-term review after Daytona Bike week.
BMG’s Mercury jacket is warm. The thing comes with a liner made of something like plutonium or krypton. The (only) day I tried the jacket temperatures ranged from 45 degrees to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. My base layer was a cotton T-shirt, no logo. At 45 degrees I was a bit cold but nothing unbearable. As the temps got into the high 60’s low 70’s the jacket became warm. It was fine as long as your speeds were above 40-50 miles per hour.
I could have taken several steps as the weather warmed up. I could have taken the liner out. I could have opened the vents (which I did later on) but I’m lazy and just put up with the heat.
The collar on the BMG Mercury jacket is designed well. I can lock it in solid and it doesn’t chafe on my helmet when I rotate my head to preen. Some jackets catch helmet parts and make cleaning tail feathers a less rider-friendly operation.
The sleeves have both a zipper and hook-and-loop fasteners strips to seal off your wrists. This is great for me because I ride without gloves when I am operating a camera or getting on and off the bike frequently. Using the two closing methods you can achieve an airtight wrap and stop the cold from entering your arm area.
Closing the jacket is also a multi-level affair; a zipper, hook-and-loop strips then snaps should pretty much keep the coat from opening up in a crash. The jacket has light shoulder/elbow armor that doesn’t intrude on comfort. Which is fine by me, I don’t like heavily armored motorcycle gear.
There are two front and two rear vents that are not huge but when open make the jacket noticeably cooler. After getting a bit hot on slower trails I ran them open until around 5pm when New Mexico’s February temps start dropping. I closed the vents and had a snug, evening ride home, arriving back at Tinfiny Ranch around 55 degrees, the perfect temperature for using the Mercury fully deployed.
The Mercury comes with a lot of adjustable straps to control the shape of the thing. I didn’t mess with them because it was fine with the liner installed. I imagine in hot weather I’ll have to take the liner out and then those extra snaps and straps will help prevent flutter.
The British Motorcycle Gear Mercury Jacket really works well for New Mexico’s daily 40-degree temperature swings. I think if I combined it with a t-shirt and my electric vest I would be good down to the mid-30 degree range. Available from BritishMotorcycleGear.com at a list price of $250 the jacket is not outrageously expensive and appears well made. I’m taking it with me to Daytona’s Bike Week where I hope to gather more information on the Mercury’s rain proofing and function without the liner.
I had the new Enfield 650 up on Glendora Ridge Road this week and I thought I’d share a few photos with you. Not a lot of words this time, folks, other than to say I’m still breaking in the bike and I’m taking it easy. And the bike is pretty enough that it doesn’t need a lot of explanation. I’ll offer a little, though, and with that in mind, here we go.
To me, the Enfield is the closest thing ever to the original Triumph Bonneville, more so even than the modern Triumph Bonneville (in my story on the Royal Enfield in Motorcycle Classics magazine, I said that Enfield out-Triumphed Triumph). And that’s a good thing, because to me a ’60s Triumph Bonneville is the yardstick by which I measure all motorcycles. Edward Turner and the folks in Coventry got it right, and late ’60s Triumphs were the ultimate in style, performance, and cool. I spent major portions of my youth dreaming about Triumph Bonnevilles (and maybe a little bit about Raquel Welch). The 650 Enfield has that old Triumph Bonneville look and feel, and that’s the highest compliment I can give a motorcycle. But’s it not old Triumph quirky. Think original Triumph mystique, but with Honda fit and finish, and you’ll pretty much have an idea of what this motorcycle is like.
That’s enough wordsmithing for now.
More photos, you say? Coming right up!
It was a glorious day up in the San Gabriels. Glendora Ridge Road is always a great ride.
The new Enfield photographs well, I think. There are several colors available in this new model. I like the metalflake gold. It’s the same color as the test bike I rode in Baja and it makes for great photography.
This next photo could be a magazine cover. There aren’t too many magazines out there any more. It’s nearly all online now, as Gresh and I know all too well. That’s a topic for another time. Back to my point: This next shot would make a hell of a magazine cover.
And finally, one more photo…my signature selfie. This one is yours truly in the Enfield’s starboard muffler.
Glendora Ridge Road is a great road and a great place for breaking in a new motorcycle. A road with 234 curves in 12 miles…just what the doctor ordered for keeping the revs down and the shifts up. Click on that link above and you’ll learn more about GRR, and please do follow the ExNotes blog to learn more about the Enfield. I’ll be posting a lot on this bike. And I’ll still be posting stories about my CSC TT 250 and RX3, too. The right tool for the right job. They’re all great machines.
I may head over to Douglas Motorcycles later today; they’re having an Enfield open house and if I go I’ll grab a few more photos to share with you. There are other Enfield colors (they’re all beautiful), and they need me and my Nikon. The 24-120 lens and I hear them calling.
Hey, there are other Enfield owners out there. Let’s hear from you! Please add your comments to the blog. Folks want to hear what you have to say!
The year was 1971 and I was 20 years old. Those were the good old days. Movies were wildly entertaining, it was real easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, movie stars kept their political opinions to themselves, and being politically correct hadn’t been invented yet. And the movies were better for it. To me, there’s one movie in particular that stands out: Dirty Harry.
Dirty Harry was an exceptional movie for its time and it was an iconic role for Eastwood: Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department. Eastwood went on to make several Dirty Harry movies. The Callahan role propelled Eastwood’s career enormously. But Callahan was only one of two stars in Dirty Harry. The other was Smith and Wesson’s Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver. Much as I like Clint Eastwood, I liked the Model 29 better, and yep, I bought a Model 29 after seeing Dirty Harry. I’ll get to that in a minute.
Susie and I were flipping through movies on Netflix a few nights ago and Dirty Harry was on the menu. “Put it on,” Sue said, with some resignation. “You know you want to watch it.” She was right. I did. Before I get into the Model 29 and all that, watch the video clip below. It’s a classic bit of tough guyism, and it’s a scene a lot of guys like me burned into our mental firmware.
So…back to the Model 29. Before Dirty Harry, Smith and Wesson didn’t quite know what to do with their Model 29. The police didn’t want it (the .44 Magnum is wildly overpowered as a police cartridge), nearly everyone who tried the cartridge back then took a pass, and the gun just kind of languished at the dealers. Oh, I know you read Elmer Keith and you’re a keyboard commando and all that, but let me tell you…in the ’50s (when the .44 Magnum was introduced) and on into the ’60s, nobody was buying them. The guns retailed in the mid-$150 range in those early years, but they just weren’t moving. Then Dirty Harry hit the big screen, and everything changed. Whaddaya know, everyone wanted a Model 29. I know. I was one of them. I was there.
You couldn’t find a Model 29 anywhere after Dirty Harry. It was product placement before anyone knew what product placement was, and all those N-frame Smiths gathering dust in dealer showcases vanished. In 1971 the MSRP for a new Model 29 was $183, but all that changed after Dirty Harry. They were going for $500 when you could find one on the used gun market, and that wasn’t very often. Everyone wanted to be Dirty Harry Callahan, including me. But I had an “in.” I had people. My father was an Olympic-class competitive trap shooter and he had contacts in the gun world. Dad put the word out and one of his buddies (a firearms wholesaler in south Jersey) had a brand new Model 29 (if I wanted it, he said) at the discounted price of $150. If I wanted it. Like I could say no. It’s good to know people, and I was in. Inspector Callahan, move over.
My Model 29. It’s a beautiful handgun and it’s a good shooter. I bought the custom grips at a gun show in Dallas back in the 1970s.
I shot the hell out of that Model 29 in New Jersey and then in Texas when I went in the Army, until it loosened up so much I didn’t want to shoot it any more. I put a notice up on a bulletin board at Fort Bliss and the next day an artillery captain bought it from me for, you guessed it, $500. I no longer owned a Model 29, but that was only a temporary situation. I reached out to my peeps back in New Jersey (it was my home of record and I was still a legal resident) and a week later I had another new Model 29. It’s the one I have today and the one you see in these photos.
The early Model 29s were of impeccable quality. Note the rollmarking and how it is free of any distortion or metal upset around the letters. Check out the deep blue. These are amazing handguns.
So when Sue and I watched Dirty Harry the other night, I realized it had been more than a few years since I shot my Model 29. I checked the ammo locker and I had some .44 Magnum ammo I had reloaded back in 2012. I dug the Model 29 out of the safe that evening, and the next day I was on the range. You know what? I still do a pretty good Dirty Harry. Inspector Callahan has nothing on me.
Five-shot groups at 50 feet on an Alco target. I shot the upper left target first and scored a decent group that was high right. The rear sight was way to the right, so I centered it and shot a second group at the same target. I moved over to the target on the right, then down to the left target on the bottom row. Ah, one went high on that one, but I was getting familiar with the Model 29 again. My last group was the lower right target, and that’s how you do it. The load was the 240-grain Speer swaged semi-wadcutter over 5.6 grains of Bullseye (light for a .44 Magnum, but still enough to get your attention). Even Dirty Harry didn’t shoot full-bore .44 Magnum loads!
So back to that opening Dirty Harry scene…you know, the “Do you feel lucky, punk?” bit. It is classic Hollywood tough guy babble, but I had no idea of its reach until we had a bunch of Chinese guys come over from Zongshen to ride across the United States (you can and should read about that in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM). We had a couple of days to kill before starting our epic journey, and when we asked the Chinese what they wanted to do, their answer was immediate: We want to shoot a gun. You know. ‘Murica, and all that. Hey, I was only too happy to oblige and we were off to the gun club. After sending a lot of lead downrange with a Ruger Mini 14, our Chinese guests then wanted to visit a gun store (the full American experience, you know), so we rolled over to Bass Pro.
I was a little nervous because the Chinese like to take pictures (and guys like me don’t like anyone, especially foreigners, taking our pictures in gun stores). Our Chinese guests were cool when I told them to put their cameras away, but I need not have worried. The Bass Pro folks were intrigued by all of this when we walked in. They invited our Chinese guests to take all the photos they wanted, and then they allowed them to handle the guns. That was really cool. One of the Bass Pro sales dudes gave Hugo, the young Zongshen rep, a monstrous .500 Smith and Wesson revolver. The Chinese guys had their cameras on Hugo in a heartbeat as he handled that massive hand cannon. Hugo knew what to do. With a slight Chinese accent (but otherwise perfect English) he was transformed. Hugo became Dirty Harry:
I know what you guys are thinking. Did I fire six shots, or only five? Tell the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. What you need to ask yourself is: Do I feel lucky?
Well, do ya, punk?
Hugo was amazing and we all (me, the Chinese guys, and the Bass Pro staff) had a good laugh. Hugo was born on the other side of the world a good 30 years afterDirty Harry hit the big screen, but he knew that line perfectly. And he knew it was part of the whole Smith and Wesson schtick. I guess it’s no small wonder. It was both the opening and closing scenes of Dirty Harry. Take a look:
Me? I still have my Model 29, and I can still hit the target with it. I still feel lucky, too.
You may recall from Zed 19 I had to re-soak Zed’s gas tank as 10 days were not enough to dissolve the rust. I drained, dried and reloaded the tank with apple cider vinegar and let it sit for 4 more days. This is what it looked like originally:
The second session really knocked most of the rust out. After rinsing I dumped a large box of baking soda into the tank and added clean rainwater sloshing it as I filled to mix thoroughly. I don’t know the chemical reaction that takes place but the baking soda neutralizes the acid, turning the metal a dull grey, almost white color. This treated metal does not flash rust and I’ve been going 3-4 years on another tank I cleaned like this without rust reappearing. It’s like the metal turns passive and stops reacting to oxygen.
If I wasn’t so hell-bent on riding this bike I think I would flush and cider the tank one more time but it looks good enough and I’ve got to ride! I connected a small hose to my shop vac and played it all over inside the tank. I can hear nothing when I shake the tank so at least there are no big chunks loose inside.
Proving that even the simplest life forms can learn I bought an entire new petcock for $23 rather than the rebuild kit for $8. This is real growth on my part. Usually I buy the kit, mess with it for hours then put it on only to have it leak. Only then will I buy the new one. Kawasaki uses a turnbuckle-type left-hand/right-hand thread on the Z1 petcock. It took about 145 tries to get it to tighten up facing the correct direction.
The new petcock has screens inside the tank and a bowl filter but with 40% of Zed’s tank out of my view-field I can only assume the entire tank is as clean as the places I can see. Inline fuel filters, one for each set of two carbs will hopefully catch any debris still in Zed’s tank.
An update on the Z1 Enterprises regulator/rectifier: It works. The battery charges @ 14.8 volts which is still a tad high but much better than the 17 volts Kawasaki’s setup was doing.
From the top Zed looks pretty well sorted. I took it for a ride and it ran really well for off the bench carb settings. It might be a little rich at idle or it might just be our 6000-foot elevation. I’m not going to tinker with it for now. I’d rather get some miles on the bike.
I don’t know what this bracket is for. Located on the right side down tube near the tach drive, it’d too light for a steering damper mount. Anyway, there’s enough stuff on the bike as is so I’m not going to worry about it.
I took Zed to my secret proving grounds and she ran through all 5 gears smoothly. The bike hit 90 MPH without even trying. I’ll need a better front tire to do any high-speed work. The brakes work ok. When you ride a SMR 510 Husqvarna all other motorcycle brakes seem like crap. After 33 miles there are small oil leaks at the tach drive and countershaft area. Maybe the clutch pushrod seal or sprocket seal is the culprit. That stuff is easy to fix.
The patina on Zed is excessive, bordering on shabby. The bike sat outside for years and paint wise there’s nothing left to polish or wax. The finish is just not there. The pin striping is cracked and missing sections. I’m not sure what to do about that. On the one hand a ratty bike may be less attractive to thieves and old Z1’s are getting fairly expensive. On the other hand it does look pretty bad. I’ve seen my Enduro buddy Mr. French do some amazing work with rattle cans. Maybe I’ll give it a go. The paint can’t look any worse.
That’s it: from Dead to Zed in 20 easy sessions. Don’t worry, this won’t be the last you’ll hear of Zed. I’ll be doing some long trips on this bike, maybe Mexico, maybe ride to a few flat track races. I’ll update the blog if I do any more major work on the bike. The story of Zed’s resurrection may be ending but the story of Zed is just beginning.
And there you have it. If you’d like to run through the gears (i.e., the previous 19 installments of Zed’s Not Dead), you can do so here!
It’s time to clean out Zed’s rusty gas tank. Before I bought it Zed sat outdoors for a long, long time and heavy rust inside the tank had gotten out of control. Clean gasoline is critical when there are 4 carburetors to clog up. You know how I feel about tank liners and new Z1 tanks aren’t very expensive so I won’t be doing any heroics to save this one. If it doesn’t come clean I’ll go to plan B. I’m just looking for any excuse to buy one of Z1E’s beautiful painted body sets.
A few years back I read a story on using apple cider vinegar to dissolve rust. I used the stuff to clean Godzilla’s rusty tank and it worked great. Of course, Godzilla’s tank wasn’t nearly this bad. The cider vinegar is a very mild acid and works slowly so you don’t have to worry about eating a hole in your gas tank.
Available at Wal-Mart, cider and baking soda are the two ingredients used. I also pressure washed the inside of the tank to knock loose any flakey rust. After pressure washing I dried the tank with a heat gun and dumped in 4.25 gallons of apple cider vinegar.
With the tank jugged all you can do is wait. Zed’s tank was really bad so I left the cider in for 10 days. I dumped the rusty cider into a bucket and flushed the tank with water. The results were encouraging but the tank was still not shiny clean.
Normally this would be the time to pour in the box of baking soda and fill the tank with water to neutralize the acidic vinegar but Zed’s tank needs another dose of cider. Using the heat gun I dried the tank again then refilled it with a gallon of fresh vinegar and the rest with the murky cider I had dumped out of the tank. Vinegar is not cheap, you know.
While the tank was soaking I dismantled and de-rusted the gas cap. I wasn’t sure which way the new rubber gasket went on the flange. One side is 1/32” wider than the other and manufacturers do stuff like that for a reason. The old gasket was no help. It had crumbled. Figuring I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right I installed the gasket wide-side towards the gas tank.
Zed’s exhaust was held on by coat hanger wire when I got the bike. The headers seem well made but the muffler section looks a bit crude. Not terrible but nothing like from a factory. It has an internal reverse cone 12” from the end of the muffler body. There was no baffle anywhere.
The muffler end cap was secured by a stripped sheet metal screw. I drilled and tapped a piece of flat stock for a 6mm screw. This backing piece gives the screw more meat to bite into. Then I set the backing piece into place and welded it to the end cap. I can’t weld and trying to stick a thick piece to thin sheet metal is hardest of all.
Where the muffler was held on by a coat hanger I brazed a 3/8-16 nut to act as a blind nut. This wasn’t critical but it will make muffler installation much easier as there is not much space for a wrench. It also eliminates one more variable when you are fumbling around trying to line things up.
I made a baffle from perforated aluminum, rolling it over a 1-1/2” PVC pipe to form the tube. The baffle is long enough to protrude past the inner reverse cone for support and is wrapped in standard fiberglass insulation. The end of the baffle is folded in on itself and riveted. There are a lot of tiny holes in the baffle so I don’t think it will be too restrictive. I’m sure the Mansfield house insulation won’t last long but at least I tried.
After all that pipe work I splashed some BBQ black on the muffler and it doesn’t look bad. As long as you don’t get within 25 feet.
Zed was overcharging the battery to the tune of 17-volts so I bought a non-stock replacement unit from Z1E. The new unit eliminates the factory rectifier, having that function combined into the body of the regulator. Electrically, the unit is plug-n-play and the bolt holes from the old/new regulators line up but the wiring harness from the new unit was too short by about ¾”. There was no way to plug the regulator in and still have enough slack to reach the mounting holes under the battery box. I tried all sorts of finagling and considered rotating the regulator and using only one mounting bolt or drilling new holes closer to the harness socket. In the end I made a bracket to move the regulator. While I was at it I narrowed the bolt spacing between the slotted regulator mounting holes to make it easier to install.
All is mounted securely now and the unit plugs in just fine. It remains to be seen if it regulates. We will find that out in Zed 20.
The pace has quickened here at Tinfiny Ranch. Lots of new parts from Z1 Enterprises arrived and lots of new ground was covered on Zed’s resurrection. We are going to ride like the wind soon. In Part 17 the ignition switch was giving me trouble but that’s been resolved with all new locks from Z1E. I had to dismantle the headlight area to replace the ignition and the under-seat area to install the new seat lock. The fork lock was easy. I should have gone with new parts in the first place. Ah well, if I didn’t do stupid things no one would understand me.
The luggage rack I bought from ebay fit Zed only in the broadest sense of the word. It was made to connect to the original grab bar on this tab but I don’t have the grab bar. That’s ok because it sat way too far back on the bike for me. Like 6 inches past the taillight. I lopped that tab off and shortened the rack where it mounts to the top shock bolt.
Without the tab or grab rail there was nothing to hold the rack from flopping down onto the rear fender. Using a New Mexico hammer-and-14mm deep socket-roll forming machine I knocked up two brackets that fit into the old grab rail mounting holes. I made a 1-inch spacer out of some solid steel round stock that had lain in Tinfiny’s driveway for several years.
The rack looks much better tucked in tight but cantilevered as it is, I’m not sure the tubing will be strong enough to hold much gear. I may redesign the rack with a long gusset running on the bottom of the tube that will incorporate the mounting tabs for a rearward set of blinker tabs. Moving the blinkers aft will allow me to use those toss-over, Pony Express style saddlebags.
Zed’s lower, right-side engine mount was missing and I’m getting tired of buying parts for this bike so I made a paper template and cut a chunk out of an old motorhome bumper that had also laid in Tinfiny’s driveway for years. I hate to disturb the junk buried around Tinfiny because it stabilizes the soil. You never know which part you pull out of the ground will cause a landslide. It’s like living atop a Jenga stack.
The mount is not as nice as a stock mount but it’s way on the bottom. No one will ever know.
I also bought a new seat! Replacement foam and a new seat cover added up to nearly the same as a whole new seat so I bit the bullet. It tasted like brass with a hint of lead. The seat came complete with brackets, rubber supports and seat latch. It was missing only the pivot pins that hold the seat on. Using my New Mexico hand-lathe, I spun down a ¼-20 stainless bolt to fit through the frame brackets. A hole for a cotter pin & washer keeps the seat pins from falling out.
Besides rebuilding the caliper and master cylinder in a previous Zed installment I replaced the rubber hoses and the missing hose support down by the fender. I also had to replace the solid pipe from the caliper to the lower brake hose.
Bleeding the brakes was fairly straightforward. So far nothing has leaked out of the rebuilt parts. The lever feels a bit mushy; I’ll let it sit a bit to let the air bubbles coalesce then try a little more bleeding.
I rigged the bike with a spare battery and tested all the electrical circuits. Amazingly, everything works. The alternator works a little too well putting out 17 volts to the battery! Not to worry, another $100 has a new Z1 Enterprises regulator/rectifier on the way. The new unit is not an exact replacement. The regulator/rectifier is all in one finned casting unlike the stock Kawasaki set up where the two functions are separate parts.
The last time I ran Zed way back in Zed’s Not Dead 10 it ran and idled great. Now the bike is popping and won’t run off choke. The poor quality of gas sold today turned dark red in a very short time so I have removed the float bowls and will blast the carbs with aerosol carb cleaner. Hopefully this will get the bike running normally as I don’t want to take those damn carbs apart again.
Read our earlier Zed’s Not Dead installments for the rest of the resurrection!
So you’ve probably noticed I haven’t been riding too much lately. You know how it goes…it gets cold, you have other things going on in your life, you want to send some lead downrange, and on and on it goes.
I needed to break that pattern, and there’s no better way to do that than to buy a motorcycle. Yeah, I know…I already have two motorcycles (what has to be the world’s most well-traveled RX3, and a pristine, low miles TT 250). I like CSC motorcycles. But you may recall that Uncle Joe Gresh and I road tested two Enfields last year and I fell in love with the 650 Interceptor.
Down Mexico way…dinner at the San Remedio in Guerrero Negro. Life is good, folks.
I was primed to buy a Royal Enfield when I returned from Mexico, but the Enfield dealer in Glendale had done a God-awful job prepping the Bullet (I wouldn’t buy squat from those guys now), and the Enfield dealer in Brea was doing the normal bend-you-over-a-barrel, here-comes-the-setup-and-freight-charges routine. Folks, I’ve worked in the industry, and I know what setup and freight costs actually are. Trust me on this…they ain’t $1500. So I didn’t buy an Enfield.
Then an amazing thing happened. One of the few dealerships I trust picked up the Enfield line last week. It’s Art Guilfoil’s Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino. I asked Art what he could do for me on a new Enfield, I was shocked at how low the number was (don’t ask, because I won’t tell), and, well…
I think this is No. 42 or No. 43 or something. I’ve owned a lot of motorcycles. This is the latest. Sue is cool with it, too!
I’m picking up my new 650 Royal Enfield on Thursday, and to say I’m excited would be an understatement of immense proportions. It was a tough call for me between the Enfield and the new CSC RX4, but truth be told, I love my RX3 and it checks all the boxes for what I want in an adventure touring motorcycle. Arguably, the RX3 is the finest adventure touring motorcycle in the world if you’re going places other than the corner burger joint (for all the reasons I explained in my piece titled Why a 250?). I know. I’ve been to places other than the corner burger joint, and I’ve made most of those trips on an RX3.
So with my new Royal Enfield coming in, it begged the question: What should I do with my RX3 and TT 250? My first thought was that I’d sell them. Then I got to thinking about the RX3. I’ve done some miles on that thing, folks, and we’ve bonded. Nope, I’m going to hang on to it. Baja beckons, and all that. The RX3 is perfect for poking around the peninsula. And next, month, that’s where I’m headed. Susie’s going with me, and we’ll share a Tequila or two with Baja John. You can read about it here.
That leaves the TT 250. Hey, I was involved in bringing the TT 250 to America, and it all started when I eyeballed the 150cc version on display in Zongshen headquarters. It was a bit of an uphill struggle…you know, getting Zongshen to make a 250cc version, and then selling the idea in Azusa. I got the powers that be to go along and then I was out of town when the prototypes arrived in California. A couple of the CSC underlings didn’t like the bike, and I had to sell it in Azusa all over again. But it worked out, and the TT 250 is one of CSC’s best selling motorcycles ever. It should be…it is a hell of a bike for a stunningly low price.
My TT 250 on the road at La Rumarosa in Baja.
With the Enfield coming in, I thought I would sell my TT 250. Hell, it’s pristine, but because I don’t ride it too much, the carb gummed up on me. I thought maybe I’d bring it to CSC and have them make it perfect again, and then another serendipitous thing occurred. A few days ago, a post popped up on Facebook (why do I spend so much time on that moronic site?) from Revzilla, and what do you know, it was about doing your own maintenance on a CSC motorcycle. In this case, it was the San Gabriel (a wonderful name for a motorcycle if ever there was one), and the guys from Revzilla said the CSC shop manuals were wonderful. I thought that was great for a lot of different reasons, including the fact that, along with help from Gerry Edwards and the guys in the shop, I wrote many of the CSC manuals. Then I realized…hey, I wrote the TT 250 manual. I can fix my own carburetor. I looked up the carb stuff and this afternoon I took mine apart, I cleaned the low and high speed jets, and now my TT 250 is running great. There’s something uniquely satisfying about fixing your own motorcycle, and the Revzilla boys were right: Those CSC manuals are amazing. So are the motorcycles. And so is the 650 Enfield. I know, because I took one on what had to be the longest demo ride ever…all the way to Baja and back!
More good times coming up, folks, on the Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor!
I noticed my good buddy and Facebook friend John’s post about his decision to purchase the RX3 instead of the new RX4 on the Facebook CSC page and I thought it was well done. Both the RX3 and the RX4 are great motorcycles and I enjoyed reading John’s analysis, so I wrote to John and asked if I could post it here on ExNotes. John said yes (thanks much, Amigo), so here it is.
RX3 versus RX4
By John Franklin
I recently bought a new RX3, and yes the RX4 was available at the time. I have gotten more than one pm asking me why I didn’t go with the RX4. It’s a very valid question. My last ride was a 2016 KLR650, so the RX4 is much closer in power. While that is true, it’s only part of the picture. I paid $5700 for my KLR, the close to another $3500 for givi luggage, panniers, crash bars, skid plate, tires, USB power, heated grips, progressive front suspension, better seat, folding gearshift, handguards, GPS and on and on. Yes I rode it; I spent more time off road than on road. I did several two week long adventures. Then I had back surgery.
There’s good riding in John’s neck of the woods (photo by John Franklin).
In considering a new bike, post back surgery, I was really looking at what I could do without hurting myself, and what I really needed, as well as what I could spend. I was out of work for a year, and kinda tight on funds. My list was fairly firm on what I had to have. I wanted a lighter bike to start with. I needed luggage, hard panniers and a top box big enough for my helmet. Crash bars, skid plate, and real hand guards were also a non-negotiable must. Heated grips were also high up there.
A shot of John’s RX3 in it’s natural surroundings (photo by John Franklin).
With that firmly established, I started looking. I found used bikes and older bikes. A random link in a article I was reading led me to the RX3. I ignored it; then I began to see more and more mentions of the RX3. So I really dug in. The chinariders forum was a great resource. I have ridden bikes all over the world and ridden all kinds of makes, so I was not initially put off by the non USA mainstream brand.
Once I decided that it was a valid option and I started looking, here is how it broke down.
The 2019 RX3 with heated grips, handguards, taller top box, Wolfman tank bag, USB power outlet, led headlight upgrade and extra oil filters was $4602.95. That’s what I paid CSC. I had to pay SC sales tax, SC property tax and the registration fee. Grand total was $5100.63. That is what it cost me for everything. All fees, taxes and bribes.
A RX4 starts at $4995, add the $400 shipping fee, handguards $109, luggage $490, tank bag $90, heated grips $109, skid plate $160, crash bars not available for RX4 and oil filters $50 we are at $6403. SC sales tax, property tax and tag fee would put it right at $7200. A difference of $2100. And at the $7000 range I could find a good used BMW 650GS, on which I could get out of the sales tax and not being new, the property tax would be a joke. Plus I would have to create a set of crash bars (which was actually a plus, because I love fun stuff like that).
Go ahead…what’s the worst that could happen? (Photo by John Franklin.)
I admit, I have put more than a little into the RX3 after deciding I like it. Bar risers, better tires, better chain, 13T front sprocket, folding shift lever, GPS mount… You get the idea. But I would have done the same to anything I decided to keep and ride. It honestly came down to two things for me. Value of the purchase (not price in and of itself), and weight.
CSC has been great, and it is a wonderful company, even if the service guy hates replying to emails, but he reads them and will talk for hours on the phone. I don’t regret it. Hopefully in a couple of years I will be able to ride a larger, taller bike again, but this thing was a good purchase.
If you’d like to see more on the RX4, and comparisons of the RX4 to the RX3 and the KLR 650, please check out our ExNotes RX4 page! And if you’d like to know more about the RX3 and the RX4, mosey on over to the CSC Motorcycles page. Hey, one more thing…if you’d like to read about real world adventures on the RX3 (I’m talking good stuff here, folks, like riding across China, Colombia, the US, and Mexico), you should buy any or all of the books listed below!
The Davidson’s Circassian walnut Ruger Mini 14. It was a limited production item offered for sale about 10 years ago.
My Mini 14 quest for accuracy is over. I have the answer and an honest-to-God 1.5 MOA Mini 14. With open sights. At 100 yards. Yippeeee!
It’s been an interesting journey.
Davidson’s Circassian Mini 14
I like rifles with fine walnut, and about a decade ago when Davidson’s (a large Ruger distributor) offered a limited quantity of Mini 14 rifles with Circasssian walnut stocks, I had to have one. Most of the Circassian Mini 14 rifles had very plain wood, but when I saw the one you see here, I pulled the Buy Now trigger. That’s a light trigger, I’ve learned. If it’s for a rifle with highly-figured walnut, in my case you might even say it’s a hair trigger.
Another shot of the Circassian walnut on the Davidson’s Mini 14. That’s a Springfield Armory M1A in the background. I like fancy walnut.
The problem I had is that Davidson’s Circassian Mini 14 wasn’t legal in California because of its two 30-round magazines and flash suppressor. Here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia (Gavinland, if you will), we can’t have mags that hold more than 10 rounds, and semi-auto rifles with flash suppressors are verboten. So I had the rifle shipped with no magazines to an outfit with a Class III license, and they replaced the flash suppressor with a muzzle brake. Then I had to wait my state-mandated 10-day cooling off period. After I had chilled sufficiently, the rifle was mine.
The muzzle brake on my Mini 14. It may seem silly to have a muzzle brake on a .223 rifle, but if you fire this rifle and then a Mini 14 without a muzzle brake, there is a perceptible difference in recoil.
I think the muzzle brake looks better than the flash suppressor, and I don’t need a 30-round magazine. I hated the idea of leaving those 30-round mags with the guy I bought the rifle from (they were worth about $80), but hey, our mush-minded legislators think they made the Golden State safer and that’s what matters.
My rifle has a 16-inch barrel (most Mini 14 rifles have 18-inch barrels), which looks cool but it is not conducive to great accuracy. There’s nothing inherent to the shorter barrel in and of itself that hurts accuracy, but what that shorter barrel does is reduce the sight radius. A longer sight radius offers an accuracy advantage, a shorter one can work against accuracy.
The bottom line? The rifle is beautiful. I shoot it a lot, and whenever I’m on the range with it, folks are taken with it. It draws a crowd. You just don’t see Mini 14 rifles with wood like mine. But it wasn’t terribly accurate. I was going to change that. And I did.
The First Accuracy Mod: Tech-Sights
I did not like the standard rear sight on my Mini 14. To adjust elevation, you had to loosen the windage adjustment and then rotate the entire rear aperture, and to adjust windage you had to loosen both Allen screws at the base of the sight and move it. There was not indexing for windage, so where you ended up was only repeatable with a repeated fire, check the point of impact, loosen the sight, adjust, tighten the sight, fire again, and repeat until you were happy. I also didn’t like the range of elevation adjustment on the stock sight; it seemed liked the aperture had to be way too high to bring my shots to the point of aim.
The Tech-Sights rear sight on a Mini 14. It’s a first class product, and it is much better than the stock Mini 14 rear sight.
The hot setup is a replacement rear sight from Tech-Sights. It was about $70, but it was well worth it. The Tech-Sights rear sight is click adjustable for both windage and elevation, and it is repeatable when I make adjustments. It’s a much better mousetrap.
Mini 14 Accuracy Loads
I tried different reloading recipes until the cows come home, and over the last decade, I’ve converged on two that gave the best results in my Mini 14. Both use inexpensive Hornady full metal jacket boat tail bullets. The first is the 55-grain Hornady FMJBT with 26.2 grains of IMR 4320 propellant, a Winchester small rifle primer, and a cartridge overall length of 2.255 inches. That’s a near max load, and the only reason I don’t run it up to the max load is the 26.2 grains damn near fill the .223 case. The second favored load is the Hornady 62-grain FMJBT bullet with 23.2 grains of ARComp propellant. I use the same primer and overall cartridge length as the first load.
Hornady 55-grain full metal jacket boat tail bullets. The boat tail reduces aerodynamic drag and allows a flatter trajectory, or so the theory goes. These are accurate bullets with the right load.
Either bullet (Hornady’s 55-grain or 62-grain FMJBT) can usually be purchased for something between $7.50 and $8.00 per hundred when they are on sale. I probably get 10 emails a day from the different reloading houses advertising their sales, and when they throw free shipping into the mix, I’m in. You usually have to order above $100 in stuff to get the free shipping, and that’s why I have 1400 of the 62-grain Hornady bullets inbound. I’ll burn through those in 6 months or so. Yeah, I shoot my Mini 14 a lot.
I don’t crimp the bullets in either of the above loads, and I’ve found that what kind of brass I use doesn’t make a difference in group size. Using brass from different manufacturers does move the group around, though, so when I load, I do so using only one kind of brass for each lot of ammo. For me, that is usually either Remington or military brass. I have a good supply of both.
Factory versus Reloaded Ammo in the Mini 14
There may be good factory ammo out there that groups well in the Mini 14, but I haven’t found it. I buy bulk factory only to get the brass (believe it or not, when loaded bulk ammo goes on sale, I can actually buy it for less than what unprimed brass costs). When I shoot the bulk factory ammo, the accuracy is truly abysmal. At 100 yards from a bench rest, a 20-shot Remington bulk ammo group spans about 12 inches. For all you keyboard commandos out there…I know, you can do better. One guy keeps commenting that he can shoot the lock off a Cadillac with his Mini 14. Whatever. I’m reporting my results, and with factory ammo, they’re terrible.
With either of the two reloading recipes described above, I can get the group size down to about the size of the 9-ring on a 100-yard target. That’s a big improvement from factory ammo and the other loads I’ve tried. The problem, though, was the rifle wasn’t consistent. I could get a good group, but then the next one would open up. Then I’d get another good group, but it would shift on the target from the last group.
Bedding the Mini 14 Action
Past accuracy quests with bolt action rifle always included bedding the action. What that means is creating a glass-fiber-impregnated epoxy bed for the barreled action in the stock. It’s a lot trickier on a Garand-style rifle (which the Mini 14 is) than a bolt action, because the Garand-type action doesn’t have a conventional recoil lug or action screws. On the Mini 14, two tabs on the receiver fit into sheet metal inserts in the stock, and the trigger group’s trigger guard pivots to lock the whole mess (barreled action, stock, and trigger group) together. On my rifle, I could detect a minor amount of play between the stock and the barreled action, both fore-and-aft and left-to-right.
The jeweled bolt on my Mini 14. This photo doesn’t really add to the story and the bolt jeweling does nothing to improve accuracy, but I love the look. The jeweling was done by my good buddy TJ at TJ’s Custom Gunworks. I locked the bolt to the rear for the next photo so you could see the glass bedding.That brown stuff is the glass bedding below the action, between the receiver and the stock. Bedding a Mini 14 is a bit tricky, but it worked out well for me.You can just barely see that there is Acraglas bedding beneath the receiver, between it and the stock. The reason you can barely see it is because I did it well.
I used Brownell’s Acraglas as the bedding compound, and after reading and watching everything I could on the Internet about glass bedding a Mini 14, I did so with mine. It turned out well, I think. There is zero play between the barreled action and the stock now.
ASI’s Mini 14 Gas Port Kit
I wrote about this before in a previous blog. The Mini 14 throws brass into the next county, and that’s a real pain in the ass. I’ve actually dented cars behind the firing line with brass ejected from my Mini 14. The reason the Mini’s ejection is so violent is that Ruger overdesigned the ejection approach to make the rifle reliable. Ruger uses a gas port with an approximate 0.085-inch-diameter opening to port propellant gas to the op rod, and that pretty much guarantees that no matter what type of ammo you’re shooting, the rifle will function. It’s way more gas pressure than the op rod needs, though, and the ejection is so energetic that the barreled action doesn’t stay in the same place after each round. That hurts accuracy.
Mini 14 gas ports. The three on the left are ASI’s 0.035, 0.040, and 0.045-inch diameter ports. The fourth port in the kit (a 0.050-inch diameter port) is currently in my rifle. The port on the right is the stock Mini 14 gas port. You can see its ID is huge.There are four Allen bolts securing the upper and lower Mini 14 gas blocks. You have to remove the barreled action from the stock and unscrew these four bolts to replace the gas port.As delivered by Ruger, the gas block Allen bolts are staked in place. Getting them out (and back in again) takes some muscle.
As an aside, the Mini 14 is kind of like the AK 47 with regard to its ejection energy. Both rifles have excess margin in the extraction and ejection gas porting design to make sure they always work.
The ASI gas port kit includes four bushings with different diameter ports, and the idea is you try each one to find the bushing that gives you reliable function. You want to use the smallest one possible consistent with reliable operation. I’ve tried all four and I’m now at the 0.050-inch port (the largest one in the ASI kit), and it is usually reliable, but not always. I still get an occasional failure to extract. I may take the smallest one (with its 0.035-inch bore) and have it opened up to 0.060 inch, but that will come later. I’m not going into combat with my Mini 14, so I can tolerate the occasional failure to extract. I like to think of my Mini 14 as a SHTF rifle, but truth be told, I’m more concerned about shooting tiny groups than I am about doomsday scenarios. Your mileage may vary.
I think the reason the largest of the ASI ports still sometimes fails to extract is because my rifle has that short 16-inch barrel, which imparts a little less of a gun gas pressure pulse to the op rod than would a rifle with an 18-inch barrel. It may be another disadvantage of the shorter barrel.
ASI Gas Ports and Glass Bedding
My last Mini 14 blog was on the effects of both the glass bedding and the ASI gas port. Both of these upgrades made a difference, but the rifle still wasn’t where I wanted it to be from an accuracy perspective. Interestingly, the dispersion got smaller top to bottom, but it was still about the same left to right as it had been with my preferred 62-grain bullet load.
Better, but still no cigar on a 100-yard target. Glass bedding and the 0.050-inch ASI gas port reduced vertical dispersion to about 3 inches and brought the lateral dispersion down to about the size of the bullseye, but I still wasn’t where I wanted to be.
5.56 NATO versus .223 Ammunition
Ah, here’s where things start to get both technical, and to ballistics geeks like me and you, extremely interesting. You might be wondering why this blog is suddenly going tangential into a discussion of 5.56 NATO ammunition and the .223 Remington commercial cartridge. Bear with me and it will all come together.
As we proceed, keep this in mind: Even though the Ruger Mini 14 is marked as a caliber .223 rifle, it has a 5.56mm NATO chamber.
For starters, there is a difference between the two cartridges (they are loaded to different pressure levels, with the 5.56mm NATO cartridge loaded to higher pressure than the .223 Remington cartridge), but the 5.56mm NATO and commercial .223 Remington share identical exterior dimensions. Military (i.e., NATO) ammo has thicker case walls, which means the interior volume decreases slightly, but on the outside, the dimensions are the same.
Okay, the above addresses the two cartridges. Now, let’s consider the two chambers (the part of the rifle that surrounds the cartridge). There are lots of differences between the chambers in a 5.56 NATO rifle versus a rifle chambered for the .223 Remington cartridge. The first is the leade (the distance between the case mouth and where the rifling begins in the barrel). Rifles chambered for the 5.56 NATO round have approximately twice the leade as do rifles chambered for the .223 Remington cartridge. That’s what allows the 5.56 NATO round to be loaded hotter than .223 Remington cartridge (it’s exactly the same thing you see in a Weatherby rifle; they are cut with longer leades to allow loading the cartridges hotter for more velocity). Because longer leades allow loading a cartridge hotter (the bullet is free to move a little more before the rifling resists it), the longer leade allows higher muzzle velocities. But longer leades may allow the bullet to tilt a bit before it hits the rifling, so rifles with longer leades tend to be less accurate. In a bolt action or single shot rifle, you could account for this by seating the bullet out further in the cartridge case to get it closer to the rifling, but you can’t do that in the Mini 14. If you seat the bullet out further, the cartridges won’t fit in the magazine.
All that business above about the 5.56mm NATO chamber’s longer leade is interesting, but it’s not the primary concern here. The bigger concern as it pertains to the Mini 14 (and its 5.56mm NATO chamber) is that the 5.56 NATO chamber is slightly larger than is a chamber for the .223 Remington cartridge. That’s to meet the military’s combat reliability requirements (a rifle with more clearance between the chamber and the cartridge is less likely to jam). The difference in the two cartridges’ chamber dimensi0ns is shown in the chart below.
In particular, note Dimensions C, D, F, and L, which govern the length, neck location, and diameter of the chamber. As you can see above, they are all larger for the 5.56mm NATO chambered rifle, and like I said above, the Mini 14 has a 5.56mm NATO chamber. The cartridge has a lot more clearance between the case and chamber walls in the Mini 14 than it would in a rifle with a .223 Remington chamber. The cartridge can move around in the Mini 14’s chamber, and that hurts accuracy. Big time, as it turns out.
With one exception in the Mini 14 family (that was the Mini 14 Target, which was kind of a commercial flop), the Mini 14 has a 5.56mm NATO chamber, because Ruger designed the rifle to work with either 5.56mm NATO ammunition or .223 Remington commercial ammunition. What that means to us is that the rifle is not optimized for accuracy. There’s a greater bullet jump from the cartridge case to the rifling, and there’s more clearance around the cartridge due to the slightly larger chamber. Both work against optimal accuracy.
Neck Sizing Mini 14 Brass
Well, that chamber issue sure had my attention as a potential significant contributor to the Mini 14’s accuracy woes. It made me wonder: Would neck sizing the brass (rather than full length resizing) make a difference? Maybe the Ruger’s chamber is just too loose to be accurate, I thought.
So what is neck sizing? There are two approaches to resizing brass during the reloading process. The first is that you full length resize the brass, which brings it back to factory specification. The entire case is resized, including its diameter along the full length of the cartridge case, the case neck diameter, and the location and angle of the case shoulder (you know, where it necks down to the part of the case that holds the bullet). The other approach is to neck size only, and the idea here is you leave most of the case (in its post-fired condition) alone and only resize the part of the case that holds the bullet. The concept is that the case has formed (we call it fireforming) to the exact dimensions of the chamber in which it was fired, and resizing only the neck assures a near perfect fit of the reloaded cartridge in the rifle that previously fired it. It should be a near perfect fit around the case diameter and from the case shoulder to the bolt face. It should theoretically improve accuracy because the cartridge and its bullet are in exactly the same position for each shot.
I know you usually would not ordinarily neck size brass for ammo to be fired in a semi-auto rifle, as it could degrade reliability. But my thinking was maybe the Ruger’s chamber is so big it would work. As a first step, I tried an empty case that had been fired in the Mini to see if it chambered and extracted easily. It did.
.223 cartridge cases that have been neck sized only. Only the area between the arrows has been resized. The rest of the case is left in its fireformed condition. It will more closely match the dimensions of the Mini 14 chamber in which it was fired.
There are two approaches to neck sizing brass. One is that you can use the full length resizing die, but you don’t screw it into the press all the way. The intent is that it resizes the case neck but not the case body. The problem with this approach is that it is hard to get most of the case neck without the full length resizing die contacting the cartridge case body. I tried this as a first approach, though, and the results on the target were dramatic. Using the last of my 62-grain Hornady FMJBT bullets and 23.2 grains of ARComp propellant, I was now reliably getting groups I could mostly keep in the black at 100 yards. Yowzers!
Progress at 100 yards! Neck sizing the .223 cases using a full length resizing die got the group sizes down to the size of the bullseye. Things were moving in the right direction.
I ordered the RCBS neck size only .223 die on Amazon and when it arrived the next day, I loaded ammo with what had been my best load with the 55-grain Hornady FMJBT bullet (and that was 26.2 grains of IMR 4320 propellant). How did it work? Read on, my friends.
My new RCBS .223 neck size die. It cost just over $30.
The Sweet Feel of an Accurate Mini 14
Ah, the sweet feel of success. I was out of my 62-grain Hornady bullets (more are on the way as I write this blog), so like I said above I used my other favorite load with Hornady’s 55-grain bullets. That load worked even better, and surprisingly, it required no sight adjustment from the 62-grain bullet load.
Good times with an iron-sighted Mini 14 at 100 yards. That group on the right looks like it could have been fired with a scoped rifle, but it wasn’t.
I had two targets set up at the 100-yard line (the two you see above), and I first shot the target on the left. I could see the holes with my 20X spotting scope, and it felt mighty good to see them all plunk right into the bullseye. Then I fired on the target on the right, and when I checked it in the spotting scope, I thought I had done well, but I wasn’t sure. The way the light was hitting the target I couldn’t count five holes through the spotting scope. At the next line break, my buddy Greg and I walked down to the targets and at first, I was disappointed. I could see only four holes in the target on the right, and I thought I had missed altogether with my fifth shot. I mentioned that to Greg, and then he pointed to the fifth hole. It was hiding right alongside the X.
100 yards, iron sights, and a Ruger Mini 14. I have this rifle dialed in now.
As I said at the beginning of this admittedly long blog, this has been an interesting journey. I think everything I did to this rifle helped to improve its accuracy, but the major contributors have been finding the right load, glass bedding, and neck sizing. Your mileage may vary (every rifle is different). I’ve found what works for me.
See Our Other Mini 14 Blogs
I mentioned several earlier Mini 14 blogs. Here are links to our Mini 14 posts:
