{"id":29184,"date":"2025-03-03T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T08:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=29184"},"modified":"2025-03-02T19:45:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T03:45:48","slug":"where-does-the-time-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/03\/03\/where-does-the-time-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does the time go?"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

Wow, it’s March already.\u00a0 It seems like just a couple of days ago it was February.\u00a0 Seriously, though, the years are flying by.\u00a0 I had a bunch of things I wanted to mention, so this blog may meander a bit.\u00a0 Bear with me.<\/p>\n

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Baja John on the road to San Felipe back in 2005.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I got a note from Baja John yesterday.\u00a0 He’s down in San Felipe, which is not that big a stretch for him as he leaves down in Baja now.\u00a0 San Felipe celebrated their 100th anniversary this weekend and John wrote to tell me about it.\u00a0 \u00a0Baja John, good buddy Marty, and I rode down there for San Felipe’s 80th anniversary, and if your Ph.D is in math, you know that means our ride was 20 years ago this past weekend.\u00a0 Those 20 years sure went by in a blur.\u00a0 It feels like that ride was maybe a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n

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John and yours truly two decades ago. I rode a Harley in those days. John rode a Virago. The BMW belonged to our friend Marty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Man, I miss those Baja trips.<\/p>\n

Speaking of time, I somehow made the Ball Watch email list.\u00a0 Their watches have a unique way of making the hands glow in the dark, which is kind of cool.\u00a0 I usually don’t find their style appealing, but Ball introduced a watch they call the Trainmaster a couple of years ago, and that one is beautiful.\u00a0 But at $2995 it’s not appealing enough (at least to me).\u00a0 I don’t need another watch.\u00a0 It sure is elegant, though.<\/p>\n

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The Ball Trainmaster. I would love to own one of these. It’s a GMT, too, one of my favorite watch types.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You may recall that several months ago we explained the origins of the expression, “Balls out.”\u00a0 That one means running flat out, and it is nontesticular in nature (it refers instead to a mechanical governor’s centrifugal balls being fully extended).\u00a0 It doesn’t have anything to do with Ball watches, either.\u00a0 But another expression, “on the Ball,” does.\u00a0 The official watch for railroads back in the 1800s was a Ball pocket watch (the same company that now makes the watch you see above), and if a train was running on schedule, it was said to be “on the Ball.”<\/p>\n

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Two Old Timers for $26 at Walmart! I already accidentally cut myself with the big one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pocketknife thing is in full swing.\u00a0 I thought I had just a few laying around in various spots in the house, so I decided to gather them up and put them all in one spot.\u00a0 I was a little bit embarrassed when I finished.\u00a0 I don’t need any more pocketknives.\u00a0 But that may not stop me.\u00a0 I have one more inbound, and I’ll probably stop after that.\u00a0 Or not.\u00a0 We’ll see.<\/p>\n

More good stuff:\u00a0 I’ve had an old Savage 99 lever gun (chambered in 250 Savage) stashed away and neglected for several decades.\u00a0 Well, I finally dug it out a couple of months ago, and the neglect was obvious.\u00a0 It was rusty when I got it, but I let it get worse.\u00a0 Most of the rust is now off and it looks good.\u00a0 I bought some new 250-3000 brass cases and a set of Lee dies.\u00a0 I’m surprised I took this long to get around to the Savage, and I’m even more surprised at just how nice a cartridge the .250 Savage is.<\/p>\n

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A .250 Savage round in a Savage 99 rifle that is one year younger than me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I haven’t finished the dialing in the load or the rifle, and I am already getting these kinds of results at 100 yards.\u00a0 The .250 Savage cartridge is a winner!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another bit of misadventuring: I had a couple of old laptops that weren’t working and I’ve held off on tossing them for fear there might still be data on the hard drives.\u00a0 How do you wipe a hard drive so that whatever was there can’t be recovered?\u00a0 After a few minutes Googling the topic, it seems that the best way is to pull the hard drive and drill a few holes through the disk.\u00a0 Simply deleting the files or even using programs designed to eliminate whatever’s on there really doesn’t get the job done.\u00a0 \u00a0I have a power drill, but I had a better idea.\u00a0 How about putting the hard drives behind a target and having at them with a .45?<\/p>\n

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Two guys getting blown away at the West End Gun Club. There was a laptop hard drive behind the head on each target.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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ARX .45 ACP bullets meet hard drive. Yep, that worked.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Hard drives rendered unusable:\u00a0 Mission accomplished.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One more last item:\u00a0 You remember I told you about good buddy Lance and how well his end shake shims worked in my Model 60 snubbie.\u00a0 His company, TriggerShims.com<\/a>, also makes bolt shims for .22 rifles\u00a0 I have two sets coming in for two of my .22 rifles, and I’m going to see how well they work.<\/p>\n

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CZ 452 Varmint and Remington Custom Shop Model 504 22 rifles. I’m going to try Trigger Shims<\/a> bolt shims in both.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stay tuned, and you’ll get the full report right here.<\/p>\n

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