That photo above? My good buddy JBFLA posted it on the Chinariders.net forum a few years ago along with the following comments:
I finally received Moto Baja. Another good read by Joe Berk. At 116 pages of light reading with lots of photos, it can probably be read in one sitting. It took me 3 sittings, with time spent perusing the excellent photos, and my mind wandering…imagining a ride to Baja…..and being chased by wild dogs.
Seeing that comment again got me to thinking about what the next book might be. I have the urge to write. I just have to decide about what.
My two favorite topics? Motorcycles and guns. I’m thinking about a gun book, as I’m about tapped out on riding books. Maybe a photo book featuring fancy walnut gunstocks. The problem with a photo book, though, is that it cries out for color and books printed in color get expensive fast. And expensive books don’t sell.
Fancy walnut on a .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1.
We’ve done a lot of stories on gun stuff here on the blog; maybe a collection of favorite stories with just a few photos might work as a gun book. It would be easy to put together. Another thought is a Mini 14 book. There are a few Mini 14 books out there, but none of them look interesting to me. When we blog about the Mini 14 blog we get a ton of hits. There might be a market for a Mini 14 book.
My Ruger Mini 14.
I’ve been trying to talk Gresh into writing a book. He’s got a ton of good stuff that would work well as a set of collected works. I mean, the man can make a 50-year-old air compressor story interesting. Joe is that rarest of human beings: A writer who sees things most of us miss. And Gresh can describe these things so they become visible to us (and then make us wonder how we missed what Joe makes seem obvious).
Gobi Gresh, in (of course) the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert, man!
I’ve been after Gresh to write a book for years. Help me out here, folks.
I love shooting and writing about the Mini 14. Having said that, let’s get to today’s main attraction, and that’s how to get the best accuracy out of a Ruger Mini 14.
Tip 1: Refine Your Shooting Techique
There’s a lot to say here. I won’t spell it all out, as we’ve covered this topic before. Focus on the basics and refer to our earlier post on Mini 14 Marksmanship.
Tip 2: Reload Your Own Ammo
Ah, this statement will light up the trolls: There is no great factory ammo for the Mini 14 and bulk ammo is generally inaccurate. That said, mark my words: Some troll will post that he shoots 200-yard half-inch 10-shot groups offhand using iron sights with (fill in the blank) bulk ammo. Why such individuals aren’t competing at the international level instead of wasting their time posting comments on Facebook I can’t say. Trust me when I delicately suggest they are not honest information brokers.
You might consider my experience and that of many others when I state that you really need to reload your own ammo to attain optimal accuracy. For starters, there’s the issue of the chamber size. With the exception of the short-lived Mini 14 Target Model, all .223 Mini 14 rifles are actually chambered for the 5.56 mm NATO round, and that chamber is actually slightly larger than .223 Remington ammo. For this reason, neck sizing brass that has been fired in your Mini 14 will assure a much better chamber fit and accuracy will improve significantly. You can read more about that here.
Regarding the specifics, I’ve had great luck with Hornady boattail full metal jacket bullets of either the 55-grain or 62-grain persuasion crimped in the cannelure with the Lee factory crimp die. I’ve also found that the more expensive Hornady V-Max bullets are quite accurate. As for powders, my best results are with IMR 4320 (no longer available unless you have a stash), ARComp (a superb powder), IMR 4198, and Winchester’s 748. Other folks report good results with Varget (I have that powder, but I haven’t tested it in my Mini 14). My most accurate Mini 14 loads are with charges near the upper end of the charge spectrum. As always, start low and work your way up watching carefully for pressure signs as you increase the charge. I never go above the max charges listed in my load manuals (and neither should you).
To get the best reloading results, you might also consider:
Sorting your brass by manufacturer.
Trimming the brass.
Cleaning the primer pockets.
Cleaning the brass.
As you read this part of today’s blog you might be thinking “but I don’t reload.” If that’s the case, I have but one word: Start. You can get a good handle on the reloading process and the equipment you’ll need in our prior posts on this topic.
This might have been listed under Tip 1 (Refine Your Techniques), but I see so many Rambo wannabees on the range I want to include it as a separate point. You know the kind of inbred I’m talking about: The guy (it’s always a guy, and typically a younger guy) who wears camo gear (but has never been in the military). He’s the guy who loads 20 or 30-round magazines and rapid fires all of them as if the ability to shoot 30 rounds in under 3 seconds somehow equates to shooting skill.
I think that guy’s name is most likely Richard Rambo, and you don’t want to be like him. Don’t be a Dick.
I only shoot 5-round magazines, and I let the barrel cool between shots and between magazines. The Mini 14 has an assymetrically-contacted, relatively thin barrel. Heat that barrel up via rapid fire and your rifle will string its shots. If you’re shooting for accuracy, let the barrel cool.
There’s an after market rear sight manufacturer, Tech-Sights, who offers a dramatically better rear aperture sight than the stock Mini 14 setup. Get a set. They are more easily adjusted and they will make your rifle easier to shoot accurately. Make sure you LocTite them in place during the installation; if you don’t, they will shoot loose.
You could put a scope on your Mini 14, but I’ve never had good luck with a scope on a Mini. Even with LocTite, the scope mounts always loosened after surprisingly few rounds, and before they did so, the group sizes really weren’t any smaller. Tech-Sights is the way to go.
Tip 5: Clean the Rifle
The good news about the Mini 14 is that it seems to run forever without cleaning, and the bad news about the Mini 14 is that it seems to run forever without cleaning. I say that because accuracy will degrade long before reliability does, and if you’re fundamentally lazy like me, you’ll shoot hundreds (and sometimes a thousand or more) rounds before you clean your rifle. Yeah, it will keep shooting, but the accuracy won’t be there. Clean your rifle (including the bolt’s innards, the action, and the bore) after every range session.
Some folks will tell you the bore needs to be fouled before the rifle will attain its best accuracy. They suggest you shoot a couple of magazines through a clean bore before testing for accuracy. I haven’t found that to be the case; my Mini 14 is accurate with a freshly-cleaned bore. In fact, my rifle doesn’t even display the typical first-shot-through-a-clean-bore flyer that other rifles exhibit.
When you clean your Mini 14, take care not to let the cleaning rod drag at the muzzle’s edges while doing so. Give it a good soaking with Hoppes No 9 using a cleaning patch, let it soak for an hour, and repeat that until all the black powder residue is out. Then let it soak for a few hours with Hoppes No 9, run a patch through the bore, and repeat that over the next two days to get the copper traces out. I know I’m done when there’s no green or turquoise on the patch.
For the bolt, I spray the hell out of it with carb cleaner. Taking the bolt apart is a nonstarter for me (you need special tools to do so), so I just spray it well (outdoors, of course). Then I go to work on the other action components, using a brass brush on the piston and its surrounding areas to get all the carbon residue gone. When everything is squeaky clean, I’ll lightly oil it all as I’m reassembling the rifle, except for the firing pin in the bolt. I leave that dry.
Tip 6: Glass Bed the Action
After seeing the positive accuracy impact on my M1A from a glass bedding job, I did the same on my Mini 14. I use AcraGlas from Brownell’s when I bed a rifle. Other folks have had good luck with Marine-Tex.
Bedding a Mini 14 is different than bedding a bolt action rifle. The Mini 14 action beds along inside edges of the stock, and along the top edge of the stock where it contacts the bottom edge of the upper receiver. It doesn’t take a lot of bedding material, and you don’t want to slop it all over. You just want capture some at the rear of the receiver where it interfaces with the top of the stop, and under the receiver interior rails where they interface with the stock’s interior near the magazine well.
You’ll feel movement between the receiver and the stock of a Mini 14 that hasn’t been glass bedded; once you glass bed the action that movement disappears (if you’ve done the bedding job well). That’s what you want. This is one of the more significant tips in this article; a good bedding job will improve accuracy significantly.
Tip 7: Practice (A Lot!)
You want realize your rifle’s accuracy if you are an occasional shooter. I find if I don’t shoot my Mini 14 for a few weeks, my edge disappears and I need a couple of range sessions to get back in the groove. When I take my Mini 14 out every week, the groups get smaller and they stay small. It’s funny how that works.
Parting Shots
Some folks like to use a barrel brace under the Mini 14 barrel just forward of the stock. It’s the thing that resembles an M1A gas chamber and makes the Mini look like an M14. I’ve never tried those, so I can’t say if they work or not. It seems gimmicky to me. Folks (including yours truly) have tried shimming the receiver where it mates with the stock, with the idea that this will remove any play between the stock and the barreled action. I’ve tried that (before I went with glass bedding) and I found that the shimming approach made no difference in accuracy. If you want to get rid of the play between the barreled action and the stock, glass bedding is the way to go. I’ve also played around with smaller gas plugs. More testing showed that while these did reduce how far the Mini 14 tosses spent brass, accuracy stayed the same while reliability decreased, so I went back to the stock Ruger gas port.
A lot of folks ask about my Mini 14 and its Circassian stock. A dozen years ago Davidson’s (a large Ruger distributor) commissioned a run of Mini 14s with Circassian walnut. Most had plain, straight-grained lumber, but a very small number were superbly figured. I watched Gunbroker.com for several months and when the one you see here appeared, I pounced. I bought it new for $699. My attitude has always been you can’t pay too much for a gun; you can only buy it too early. And no, this one is not for sale.
I recently purchased a copy of Field and Stream, a magazine I had not read in decades. I was traveling, the selection of good reading material at airport newsstands is limited, and it was the only thing that looked even remotely capable of occupying my interest on a 3-hour flight. In scanning the cover, I saw that the magazine included an article on long-distance shooting, so Field and Stream it was for that flight.
The Ruger Mini 14
Back on topic, the Ruger Mini 14 is a rifle not known for its accuracy, and I was frustrated with mine. It was (I thought) barely okay as far as accuracy goes. I like shooting it, but the Mini 14 wasn’t great in the accuracy department and great was what I wanted.
The Ruger Mini 14, a rifle not known for exceptional accuracy.
The Field and Stream piece on long-distance shooting was partly focused on hunting at extreme distances (something in which I have zero interest), and partly focused on rifle marksmanship (something in which I have a keen interest). There was nothing new in the article (I’d been exposed to all the topics it covered at one time or another), but seeing them all in one place was a good refresher that made me realize I was getting sloppy in my old age. As I read the article, I realized that I wasn’t doing a lot of the things that are important for shooting tiny groups and I had been relying too much on the rifle and the load to make it all happen. This somehow seemed particularly relevant to the Mini 14 and it made me want to get to the range with it and focus on the techniques mentioned in the story. I realized there was more to this accuracy business than just the gear and the ammo. The nut behind the trigger plays a significant role, and this particular nut had not been focused on the basics.
I resolved to concentrate on the fundamentals mentioned in the Field and Stream article (things I learned 50 years ago in the Army) during my next trip to the range. As soon as I returned to California, that’s exactly what I did. And you know what? I shot better. A lot better.
Back to basics, and the groups got smaller. My load was a 62-grain PRVI full metal jacket boat tail bullet over 23.2 grains of ARComp. Always start low on the powder charge and work up; this is a max load in my rifle. Your results may vary. These targets were shot at 50 yards.
The load (a 62-grain bullet over 23.2 grains of ARComp) is one I had previously found to be a decent one in my Mini 14, but it had never given me groups like I shot that morning. That morning my groups were consistently tight and significantly smaller than what I had seen in the past. It was extremely satisfying, and I proved to myself once again that it’s the fundamentals that make a difference. Bear with me; I’ll get to those in a moment.
First, a comment or two on my Mini 14. Whenever I show a photo of it or take it to the range, folks ask about the stock. My rifle is a special run 580-series Mini 14 offered by Davidson’s (a Ruger distributor) about 10 years ago. It has a Circassian walnut stock (folks often ask if it’s a custom stock, but it’s not). I looked at a lot of Mini 14s online from that special run before I bought the one you see above. I wanted exceptional walnut and I think I found it in this rifle.
As configured from the factory, my Mini 14 didn’t meet the laws here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. I had to remove the flash suppressor and replace it with a muzzle brake to bring it into the Golden State. I also replaced the Ruger rear aperture sight with one from Tech Sites (it’s a better design, in my opinion). Other than that, the rifle is completely original. I’ve put tens of thousands of rounds through my Mini 14, it’s my favorite rifle, and it’s absolutely reliable. But it’s never been terribly accurate (or so I thought) until I read that Field and Stream article and got back to the basics.
Marksmanship Fundamentals
You might be wondering about what the fundamentals of sound rifle marksmanship are. Or maybe you already know what they are, but you would like a few reminders. That’s kind of where I was. Here’s what I took away from that Field and Stream article.
1. The first fundamental is to get into a good position. I shoot from the bench, and most folks might think that the rest, the rifle, and the bench make everything work. There’s a lot more to it than that. You need to get square to the rifle and sit directly behind the stock, and you need to adjust your position to achieve a natural aim. What that means is that after you think you are in the right position, you sit up away from the rifle, close your eyes, and then position yourself behind the rifle again. Open your eyes, and when you look through the sights, the sights should naturally align on the target. If they are not on the target, you’re not there yet. Move around and try it again. Keep doing this until you can shut your eyes, get in position, look through the sights, and find the target right where you want it to be. Trust me on this: It makes a difference.
2. The next fundamental is to focus on the front sight only. The Field and Stream article was about a rifle with a telescopic sight, but it mentioned front sight focus for iron sights and I knew I had a hard time doing it right when shooting the Mini 14. I guess I needed to be reminded. This is a tough thing to do for most people. I do it superbly well with a handgun, but I have a tough time doing it when shooting a rifle equipped with a rear aperture sight. I find myself wanting to look at the target, wanting to get the front sight post perfectly aligned in the rear aperture, and generally not doing this the way it’s supposed to happen. Focusing on the front sight only is almost zen-like in the concentration it demands. When I do it right, though, I actually don’t see the rear sight or the target and that’s tough for me to accept mentally. When I do it right, the only thing I see is the front sight and the muzzle flash when the hammer drops. Seeing that flash outlining the front sight lets me know I’m in the zone and I’m doing it the way it should be done. It’s a weirdly satisfying feeling. When it happens, I know the bullet will go where I want it to go.
3. The third important factor is breath control. None of us can hold a rifle steady while breathing, so I had to find a natural point to hold my breath. According to the Field and Stream article (and my old drill instructors) we can only do that for a couple of seconds before the sight starts to blur. In the Army, we were taught to take a breath and let it half out. The Field and Stream article pointed out that the “let it half out” thing may not be the best approach. The article said to find your natural point for holding your breath, so I tried that and sure enough, I seem to have a spot about two-thirds of the way down that feels like a natural stopping point. The article also mentioned that if the front sight starts to blur, don’t try to force the shot. Take another breath and start over. Not doing all of these things, I realized, were bad habits I had picked up.
4. The fourth important factor is trigger squeeze. Easy, steady, straight back, using the tip of my finger only. I have a tendency to get my finger too far around the trigger. On this outing, I forced myself to use only my finger tip, and wow, it really worked.
5. The last thing the Field and Stream article mentioned was holding the rifle properly with your trigger hand. Some of this stuff I knew, and some of it I didn’t. Shooting from the bench involves barely touching the rifle. That part I knew, and I think I did okay there. What I do is to just barely have my cheek on the stock without bearing down on it (you can impart torque into the rifle if you hold it too securely, and that works against accuracy). The other thing was how to hold the rifle with your trigger hand. This was something I hadn’t been doing correctly. The correct technique is to use my lower three fingers to lightly pull the rifle straight back into my shoulder, use my trigger finger tip to squeeze straight back on the trigger, and position my thumb off the rifle above my other fingers (I had to relearn not to wrap my thumb around the stock). That last part felt unnatural to me, but boy oh boy, it sure worked. I could see the difference on the target.
So there you have it. I focused on the fundamentals described above, and what do you know, I shot my Mini 14 better than I ever did before. My Mini 14 is suddenly far more interesting and way more fun to shoot, and I have a new respect for it. And the group sizes show it. Back to the basics. Good times.
Lester, one of our Chinese guests, drawing a bead with a Ruger Mini 14 at the West End Gun Club. Photo by Ying Liu.
If you do, sign up for our free email updates. You can do so with the widget to the right (if you’re on a computer) or at the bottom (if you’re reading this blog on a mobile phone). At the end of March, we’ll pick a name from the folks on our email list and that lucky person will get a free copy of one of our moto adventure books. In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite chapters from 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM, one of our best selling books. The background is this: We had a bunch of folks coming over from China and Colombia (huh, Colombia?) to ride with us from LA to Sturgis to Washington and Oregon and back to LA along the Pacific coast, stopping at every National Park and hitting the best roads along the way. It was a hell of a ride. But the events of a trip to the rifle range and a nearby Bass Pro store were equally as interesting.
The Chinese and the Colombians all arrived around the same time, and they all came in through Los Angeles International Airport. Steve and I met our six Chinese guests as they arrived. I’ll take a minute here to introduce everyone.
Hugo was the first to arrive. Hugo is a Zongshen employee, and he is the Zongshen representative and sales manager assigned to Colombia. Colombia is Zongshen’s largest export customer, and Zongshen keeps a full time representative in that country. Hugo came to us as a result of the US government denying entry visas to the original Zongshen people who planned to accompany us on the Western America Adventure Ride. I liked Hugo the instant I met him. He’s a good guy.
I should also tell you at this point that our Chinese guests’ names may be a little confusing. The Chinese use their family name first, and their given name second. Hugo’s real name is Ying Liu, so Ying is his family name and Liu is his given name. I read that and I called Hugo “Ying Lew.” He laughed at my pronunciation and told me how to say it correctly. I tried a couple of times and then dropped any pretense of being culturally sensitive. Hugo it would be.
A lot of the Chinese adopt an English name to make it easier for big dumb Americans like me to communicate with them. It’s a nice move on their part. I’m telling you all of this so you’ll realize that some of the guys have Anglicized names, and some have Chinese names. You’ll get the hang of it as the book progresses.
The next flight brought Lester, Tony, Tso, Kong, and Kyle to us.
Lester is a tall man who looks just like Yul Brynner in The King and I. He’s a physical fitness instructor in a primary school in China, and he also owns a very successful motorcycle and bicycle luggage manufacturing company in China. Lester spoke English well. He is a prominent blogger in China on their premier motorcycle forum. Lester blogged about our trip extensively while we were on the road.
Tony is a celebrity photographer. He owns several motorcycles and his photos are widely published in China and other parts of Asia. He’s an interesting man. You’ll see him holding a small stuffed dog in my photos. That’s MoMo, a mascot who has accompanied Tony to more than 20 countries.
Tso would emerge as the quiet one in our group. He stuck with his Chinese name (it’s pronounced “szo” with a hard “sz” sound). Tso is another industrialist; he owns a motorcycle clothing company in China. He was wearing his company’s motorcycle gear, as were several of the other Chinese riders.
When I met Kong, I immediately told him that from this point forward on our ride, he would be “King Kong.” The Chinese got a big laugh out of that. They all knew the movie and they all liked Kong’s new name. Kong is a prominent automotive journalist in China.
Kyle had an English name, but he didn’t speak much English. He is an advertising designer and executive, and his customers include the big oil companies in China. Kyle was a lot of fun, and he sure could work wonders with a video camera.
I asked Hugo how Zongshen selected these guys for the Western America Adventure Ride. I didn’t understand everything he told me, but I think it was based on their motorcycling experience and a contest of some sort Zongshen had held in China. Each of these guys has a huge media following in China. They were all what I would call high rollers. These folks owned their own companies and were well-known writers and bloggers in China.
The two Colombians also met us at the airport that night. Their participation in the ride was a last minute arrangement. I received a Skype message from Hugo about a week before the ride asking me if the Colombians could accompany us. It was a surprise to me, but I didn’t have a problem with it. I thought they would be AKT employees, but they weren’t.
Juan Carlos, one of the two Colombians, owns the only motorcycle magazine in Colombia. He’s a tall thin guy and an excellent rider. He once rode a KLR 650 to Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America, and he had written a hell of a story about it.
Gabriel Abad was the other Colombian. He was instrumental in helping Juan Carlos start his motorcycle magazine. Although Gabriel is a Colombian, he lives in Canada. That certainly was in keeping with the international flavor of our team.
When our good buddies from China and Colombia arrived in the USA that evening, one of their first requests was for an In-N-Out Burger. We did that on the way home from LAX. Then it was on to the hotel in Duarte (the next town over from Azusa) and a good night’s sleep after their long journeys to America.
We had a spare 2 days before the ride. We rode around locally to get everybody used to their bikes on the first day, and on the morning of the second day I asked our guests what they would like to do.
Their answer was direct: We want to shoot a gun.
I was happy to oblige. I’m a firearms enthusiast and I’ve been a member of our local gun club for decades. I put my Ruger Mini 14 in the van and we were off to the West End Gun Club.
Our guests were fascinated with everything America has to offer, and the freedom guaranteed by our 2nd Amendment was obviously high on that list. After a brief lesson at the gun club on the rifle, the .223 cartridge, and firearms safety, we set up a target and took turns putting the Ruger through its paces. The guys loved it. The smiles were real, and I had brought along plenty of ammo. The Chinese and the Colombians did well. Literally every shot was on target. They told me I was a good teacher. I think they are just good shots.
Now before any of you get your shorts in a knot about guns and shooting, let me tell you that even though I am a strong 2nd Amendment supporter, I can understand why some of you might be opposed to the freedoms guaranteed by the US Constitution. When I go to a public range I sometimes see people who I wouldn’t allow to have oxygen (let alone firearms).
The problem, as I see it, is that if you restrict our rights in this area, it would be a government pinhead making the call on who gets to have guns and who doesn’t (and that scares me even more than some of the yahoos I see with guns). It’s a tough call, but I’ll come down on the side of the 2nd Amendment every time. The founding fathers knew what they were doing, and they did it before the pinheads permeated the government.
Ah, but I digress yet again. Back to the main attraction…my day at the range with our guests.
I didn’t get photos of that event. I was busy teaching, watching, and explaining, and I just didn’t have an opportunity. The Chinese and the Colombians did. They were having a blast (literally and figuratively), and they captured hundreds of photos. I didn’t realize just how special this would be to them when we first left Azusa for the gun club, but it became apparent as soon as we arrived at the range. They all ran up to the line and were fascinated by the spent brass lying on the ground. Several of our guests took pictures. Imagine that…taking pictures of empty shell casings!
When I took the rifle out of its case and opened the ammo box, there were even more oohs and aahhhs. And more photos. I guess I’m so used to being around this stuff I didn’t realize how special this day was for our guests. These guys had never held or fired a gun before. Ever. I was amazed by that. They were amazed that we have the freedom to own and shoot firearms. It was an interesting afternoon.
When we finished, all of our guests collected their targets. I had brought along enough targets to give each person their own. We had the range to ourselves that afternoon, so each of the guys would shoot a magazine full of 5.56 ammo, we made the rifle safe, we went downrange to see how each person did, and then we put up a new target for the next guy. Many of the guys repeated that cycle three or four times. It was fun. The guys were like kids in a candy store. I enjoyed being a part of it.
It was hot when we finished shooting at around 4:00 p.m. that day. We were due to meet for dinner at Pinnacle Peaks (a great barbeque place in San Dimas) at 6:00 p.m., and we had a couple of hours to kill. I asked our guests if there was anything else they wanted to do before we went for dinner. My thought was that they might want to go back to the hotel and freshen up. That’s not what they had on their minds. They had another request: Can we go to a gun store?
That sounded like a good idea to me. We have a Bass Pro near where we were, and it’s awesome. Okay, then. Our next stop would be Bass Pro.
I was already getting a sense of how much our guests liked taking pictures, so I told them when we entered the gun department at Bass Pro we should put the cameras away. Usually there are signs prohibiting photography in these kinds of places. We gun enthusiasts don’t like being photographed by people we don’t know when we are handling firearms (big brother, black helicopters, and all the rest of the unease that comes with a healthy case of paranoia and a deep distrust of the government). I told our guests I would ask if we could take photos, but until then, I asked them to please keep their cameras in their cases.
The guys were in awe when we entered Bass Pro, and then they were even more astounded when we reached the gun department. They were literally speechless. Open mouths. Wide eyes. Unabashed amazement. There isn’t anything like Bass Pro in China or Colombia. I’ve been to both countries and I know that to be the case. Hell, there wasn’t anything like Bass Pro in America until a few years ago. It’s a combination of a museum, a theme park, a gun store, an armory, and a shopping emporium. I love the place and all that it says about America.
Now, you have to picture this. The Bass Pro gun department. Hundreds of rifles and handguns on display. Targets. Ammo. Gun cases. Reloading gear. A bunch of guys from China talking excitedly a hundred miles an hour in Chinese. The rest of the customers watching, literally with dropped jaws, wondering what was going on. We were a sight.
The Colombians were talking excitedly the same way, but in Spanish.
I was the only guy who looked like he might be from America (my YouTubby belly probably gave me away). The gun department manager looked at me with a quizzical eye. I explained to him who we were and why these guys were so excited. He smiled. “Would they like to take pictures?” he asked. Hoo boy!
The guys loved it. So did the Bass Pro staff. They were handing the Chinese these monster Smith and Wesson .500 Magnums so they could pose for photos, ala Dirty Harry. It was quite a moment and it made quite an impression. One of the guys had his video camera out and he was recording one of the Chinese riders holding a huge Smith and Wesson revolver. The guy with the revolver did a pretty good impersonation of Clint Eastwood (albeit with a Chinese accent):
Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?
It was pretty funny. That Dirty Harry movie is 40 years old and it was made before most of our guests were born, but these guys knew that line. The Chinese would surprise me a number of times with their mastery of many American things from our movies and our music. All that’s coming up later in this story, folks.
The Chinese and the Colombians were absolutely fascinated with the whole guns and shooting thing and what it is like to live in America, and the Bass Pro staff were quite taken with them. I was pleased. Our guests were getting a first-hand look at American freedoms and American hospitality. It was a theme we would continue to see emerge throughout the Western America Adventure Ride.
For me, a crowning moment occurred on the way to dinner that night. One of the Chinese told me that all the time he was growing up he had been told that Americans were evil and we were their enemy. “That’s just not true,” he said.
equipment for my reloads.