The ExhaustNotes Blog

ExNotes Movie Review: The History of Concrete

By Joe Gresh

Me being me, I heard from several sources about the new movie, The History of Concrete. My initial thoughts were that it would probably not really be about the history of concrete. Still, CT and I decided to get off the ranch for the weekend and drove up to the Santa Fe Railyards to see the show.

The Railyards in Santa Fe is actually a rail yard. It’s a nice, rejuvenated place with shops, restaurants, bars and the movie theater. Design aesthetic in the Railyards favors steel, rust and the exposed industrial look I favor in my own construction endeavors. The commuter train from Albuquerque terminates at the Railyard. Sharing this congestion is a tourist train painted like a purple dragon that does a slow, jiggedy, hop south. This train has music, a bar car for alcoholic drinks and a storyteller giving the history of the rickety spur to Lamy, New Mexico. Even though the tourist train doesn’t make it all the way to Lamy, you can still board the Amtrack train at Lamy’s train station. From Lamy the world is your oyster.

Our entertainment-industrial complex is so played out and audiences so jaded I expect public hangings to return shortly.

The History of Concrete is a comedy-documentary style production, very self-reverential. In fact, that’s the conceit: The film maker’s attempts to sell and fund a movie about concrete. It’s shot in a low budget, YouTube style and has no real plot to speak of. Laid atop this montage is an Ira-Glass-toned narrator.

Most of the film consists of short bits on various topics only tangentially, if at all, related to concrete. Occasionally the movie address concrete head on. While the film is not outright negative towards concrete, I got the feeling the people involved in the movie don’t like concrete nearly as much as I like concrete.

Another comedy hook was the attempt to follow Hallmark romance movie guidelines for a movie about concrete. This involved a middle-aged rock musician, and the movie came uncomfortably close to making fun of his life. At first, I laughed with the rest of the crowd, his crummy vocals, his part-time job as a greeter at a liquor store, the run-down gigs. Then I began to feel that I was an asshole like the others in the chortling audience. We were so much better than this guy.

What a crappy feeling. I began to dislike The History of Concrete for bringing out my worst, mob-justice, safety-in-numbers bravado. As the movie progressed and we came to know the musician better, I was totally on the guy’s side and had no respect for a film maker that would use a real person in this way just for laughs. Our entertainment-industrial complex is so played out and audiences so jaded I expect public hangings to return shortly.

Maybe I’m overreacting. I mean, the musician might have known what he was getting into. Or maybe not. The guy seemed decent and sincere, dealing with loss and trying to be true to his passions. It wasn’t so funny; it was a real life being stretched, shaken, and snapped for us. And maybe what I was feeling was what the film maker wanted me to feel.

Whatever happened in the movie theater in the Railyards of Santa Fe I didn’t like it. The movie made me feel like I got lazy, I took the easy laugh and it wasn’t gallows humor.

The Sharpfinger

By Joe Berk

The Schrade Sharpfinger is a knife with an interesting history. I’ve had one for years and knew literally nothing about it, other than the fact that it had “Guns and Ammo” on the handle. I must have obtained it one of the times I subscribed to Guns and Ammo magazine years ago, although for the life of me I can’t remember it. The only reason I became interested in it was that good buddy Paul saw it and complimented my choice of a Sharpfinger (and he mentioned that he had one, too). I didn’t even know that’s what the knife was called.

The knife that grabbed Paul’s attention: A Schrade Sharpfinger.

Paul’s comment piqued my curiosity, so I started researching what this Sharpfinger business was all about. The Sharpfinger knife has an all-too-familiar history: It was first manufactured by American companies (Imperial Schrade and Camillus) and now it is made in China. The knife is the currently sold as the Schrade 152OT (the OT stands for Old Timer, the knife company that makes it today). Imperial Schrade stopped making the knife in the US in 2004, Camillus stopped making it in the US in 2007, and Old Timer acquired the rights to the name. As mentioned above, the Schrade Sharpfinger is produced in China (with one or two exceptions, about which I’ll say more in a bit). There are collectors who specialize in these things. I learned that my Guns and Ammo Sharpfinger is a made-in-America Schrade and it is somewhat collectible. It’s not going to make the down payment on a Ferrari, but knowing it is semi-collectible makes me feel good.

Saw cut Delrin and the Guns and Ammo inlay.

The Old Timer Sharpfinger has sawcut Delrin handles. I’d never heard of that material before so I looked it up. Delrin (according to Google) is a high performance engineered plastic. Now you know, too. “Sawcut” means the handles have arcs machined into their surface (which is probably done in the mold; I doubt they are actually sawn after molding).

These knives are smaller than the typical belt-worn, fixed-blade knife, but the size feels about perfect to me. I think the Sharpfinger was designed for skinning animals (something I don’t get called on to do very often), as the blade profile and handle design give a great deal of control when holding the knife. The whole thing is about 7.5 inches long, and the blade is just a scosh over 3 inches. I watched good buddy Tom skin a hog last year at the Dunton Ranch, and I noticed he held the blade of a much longer knife closer to the blade tip, so I think the Sharpfinger would be about perfect for that task. You don’t need a 12-inch Bowie for skinning an animal. In fact, you don’t need a 12-inch Bowie really for anything. But that’s never stopped me from buying one. Or two.

If you want something a bit larger than the standard Sharpfinger, Schrade also offers the 152OTL (and here, the “L” stands for large). It’s just a bit longer than the regular Sharpfinger. Mine is the standard size Sharpfinger, and like I said above, it feels perfect to me.

About that made in the US business mentioned earlier: Schrade actually has a version of the Sharpfinger called the 152OTG (the G stands for “Generational”), and it’s made in America. It has a mirror polished blade and sawcut bone handles. The Schrade “Generational” Sharpfinger sells for around $70, but to me, the bone handles look kind of crude. It’s cheap enough, though. Maybe I’ll pick one up. Maybe not. I’d have to see this one in person before pulling the trigger.

Because I was researching this online, I am now getting all kinds of popups and emails from companies that sell Sharpfingers. One looked interesting:

The Pakistani Sharpfinger (although it is not labeled as such). Nice looking in the photo, but I’ll take a pass all day long on anything from Pakistan.

I asked the company that sent me the ad where the knife was made. Their first response dodged the question completely (the guy who answered it is probably running for Congress). I pointed out to him that he didn’t answer my question, and then in his next email he did: Pakistan. That’s a hard pass for me. I can appreciate something made in China because their quality is good, but for me Pakistan is a nonstarter. I bought knives from Pakistan in the past and returned them as soon as they arrived (they were real junk). There’s another thing at work here, too: I despise Pakistan. They harbored Osama Bin Laden all those years (and lied about it all the while).

As part of my research on this, I found more than a few YouTube videos on Sharpfingers, and I learned there are several companies manufacturing knives with this blade shape. We took a ride to Bass Pro a few days ago and I saw a Sharpfinger made by Bear and Son. It was only $27, so I bought it.

The Bear and Son Sharpfinger. I haven’t taken it out of the package yet.

At that price, I assumed the Bear and Son knife was made in China, but I was wrong. It’s made right here in the good old USA in the great state of Alabama. How they can do it for $27 is beyond me, but I’m glad they are.

Bear and Son knives are made in America.

I suppose one of the more well-known people who carried a Sharpfinger knife was Hells Angel Sonny Barger. In an interview about a book he wrote, Barger said:

“A lot of people I ride with carry that knife. I actually prefer fixed blades—like the Sharpfinger—to a folded blade. Although I carry a folded blade too, with a fixed blade you don’t have to reach inside your pocket. It’s always handy, on your belt when you need it. I use my Sharpfinger as a tool. I do everything with it. I like knives with sharp points. You never know when you might want to pop a balloon or peel a banana.”

You would have to be careful about carrying a Sharpfinger here in California (the knife comes with a sheath). It’s legal to carry a fixed blade knife here in the land of $8.19/gallon diesel, but it can’t be concealed at all (even partially, as might occur if your shirt hung over it with the sheath on your belt). I don’t imagine too many cops would have stopped Sonny Barger asking about that, though.

I checked this morning and Amazon is running a Prime Big Deal special on both the Schrade standard Sharpfinger and the made-in-America Generational Sharpfinger. You can get the standard Sharpfinger for $14.07; the Generational Sharpfinger is $63.52. Those prices won’t last long.

A Tale of Two Mini 14s

By Joe Berk

You know, when you’re retired, every day is a Saturday. My friend Greg and I are both aerospace industry retirees. It’s not a bad gig. It lets us have time to do what we want, and one day this week, we wanted to shoot our Mini 14 Rugers.

Good buddy Greg and his Mini 14. Greg and I go to the same barber.

Yeah, I know: The Mini 14 is not supposed to be as accurate as the AR platform. Both rifles have their acolytes; it’s Ford v. Chevy discussion. I owned an AR once, many years ago. Carried one, too, many years before that. I’ll take the Mini. It’s more fun to shoot, and I like the feel of a traditional blue steel and wood rifle. Mattel might be swell, but black plastic just isn’t my style.

Our two Mini 14s represent a good span of Ruger’s production. Greg’s is the earlier 180-series rifle, mine is the later 580-series. My rifle is the one at the top of this blog. The 580-series rifles are supposed to be more accurate, but I couldn’t see an accuracy difference between the two. Both rifles shot groups about the same size (Greg and I are either equally bad, or equally good).

The 180-series Mini 14 receiver, along with a 5-shot magazine.

One of Greg’s 5-shot groups at 50 yards. Our group sizes were about the same.

My 50-yard target, with 25 holes in it. Two went outside the 10-ring. Nobody’s perfect.

Greg and I are both reloaders. We’ve experimented a lot to find our preferred loads. I have two loads I like. Yesterday, I shot a BallC2 load. Greg shot an IMR 4064 load. They are both good and like I said above, we had comparable results at 50 yards. The range had gongs hanging at about 110 yards, and we were connecting regularly with those, too. Paper targets are cool. Hearing gongs clang is even cooler.

My ammo and a 5-round mag. I’m not a fan of larger magazines.

As you can see, Greg and I both use 5-round magazines. I’m a target shooter and sometimes hunter; I’m not a combat infantryman and I don’t need high capacity mags. In my opinion, most of the folks who have them don’t need them, either, but I don’t think the government has any business limiting magazine capacity. For me in a hunting scenario, five rounds is about four too many. Your mileage may vary.

I’ve found that my Mini 14 prefers loads near the upper end of the spectrum. Greg’s load is a scosh milder. Here’s what the chrono results showed for both:

Chronograph results for our two loads. I use my Garmin chronograph a lot.

My fIred cases. There’s no primer flattening, indicating pressures are not excessive with this load.

Published data for the .223 Remington and the 5.56 NATO cartridges show the muzzle velocity to be in the 3,000 feet per second range. The Mini 14 has a shorter barrel than most bolt action rifles, which drops the velocity a bit, and the 5.56 NATO cartridge is loaded to higher pressures than .223 Remington (the two cartridges are not identical, as explained here).

The prices on a Mini 14 have climbed quite a bit from when Ruger first introduced it in 1973. A Mini 14 was $200 back then. Adjusted for inflation, that works out to $1,200 today. A quick look at Ruger’s website shows a blue steel Mini 14 has a retail price of $1,289; the stainless steel version carries a list price of $1,389. Retailers typically offer these rifles for about $200 lower than Ruger’s suggested price, so considering inflation, the price has actually gone down.

The Mini 14 is fun to shoot and we had a great time. I can’t wait to get out there and do it again.

We have a bunch of other articles on the Mini 14:

7 Mini 14 Accuracy Tips
The Quest for Mini 14 Accuracy Continues
Politics, Pundits, and More
Mini 14 Bench Cleanup
Mini 14 Marksmanship
TJ’s Custom Gunworks
Do You Feel Lucky?
A Tale of Three Garands
Refinishing the Mini 14

We started a Mini 14 group on Facebook!

More Tales of the Gun!

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Buy Once, Cry Once

By Joe Berk

In a conversation with one of my friends not too long ago, he mentioned that he hardly had the strength to rack the slide on a 1911 anymore. I knew what he was talking about, and like Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress buddy used to say, I could feel his pain. The last time I shot my Compact 1911 RIA, which was probably about a year ago, it was literally beyond my ability to rack the slide.

The original recoil spring in the Rock Compact gave up the ghost about 5 years ago and I replaced it with a Wilson spring. That was immediately stronger (i.e., it was harder to rack the slide), but doing so was still achievable. Somewhat counter-intuitively, compact 1911 springs have a much higher spring constant than do the springs for standard-sized 1911s. The last time I was out with the Rock, though, it was worse and it had passed the threshold of my strength. Was I getting weaker, or was the recoil spring getting stronger? Or was something else causing the increased resistance when I attempted to pull the slide back?

I plugged the question into Google’s Gemini AI program. It had a few recommendations (what to look for on the gun), but I knew the Gemini suggestions weren’t the culprits. Gemini pointed me in the right direction, though, so I field stripped the Rock earlier this afternoon, I went looking for the problem, and I found it. I’m told that’s frequently how AI is used. It doesn’t give you the exact answer, but it provides clues as to where the answer lies.

The Rock 1911s are incredibly cheap, low-quality 1911s, but they are fun to shoot and surprisingly accurate. I like their look and their Parkerized finish. The Rock Island Armory 1911s remind me of better times when I wore green or khaki every day and carried weapons with Parkerized finishes. The nostalgia notwithstanding and in earlier writings on this Rock Compact, I concluded that the slide steel was too soft, or the slide stop was too hard, or both conditions existed (40+ years doing failure analysis in the aerospace industry guided that assessment).

When I examined the Rock 1911, I noted further metal deformation on the slide at the slide/slide stop interface. The slide deformation was much more pronounced, and it had produced larger burrs. These burrs were now dragging on the frame, creating an interference fit between the slide and the receiver. I gently went to work with a small file on the slide burrs (in the areas denoted by the red arrows in the photo above this blog). I reassembled the 1911, and pulling the slide back was much easier. I disassembled my Compact again, gave the bare metal burr removal areas a couple of hits with cold blue, and I was good to go. The cold blue does a good job touching up a Parkerized gun.

I originally paid $429 for this 1911 maybe 8 or 10 years ago. Cheap indeed. At some point when I get tired of chasing this problem (or when there’s no parent metal left in the original slide), I’ll replace the slide and slide stop with higher quality parts and have TJ do the work. TJ has done a lot of work on this gun. I’ll probably have $2K in it before it’s done. I should have just bought a Kimber or maybe a Springfield Compact 10 years ago. They are a lot more expensive, but I would have bought once and cried once about the higher cost (instead of buying cheap and chasing bad money with good, like I’ve been doing with the Rock Island Armory Compact for the last several years). But this is more fun.

I know when I post this blog, Google Analytics will show a sudden uptick in hits in the Philippines. That’s where Rock Island 1911s are built, and it’s what happens every time I post a blog outlining the Rock’s design or quality shortfalls. I suspect the Rock Island people read these blogs. Kapag nabasa ninyo ito, paano kung ipaalam ninyo sa akin na ang inyong mga slide at slide stop ay maayos nang na-heat treatment, at paano kung padalhan ninyo ako ng bagong slide at slide stop?

Metal Tank Vintage Dirt Bikes

By Joe Berk

I recently visited The Metal Tank Vintage Dirt Bikes in Glendora, California. Wow, was that ever a fun day! I met with Mark Carter (the owner) at his shop for a story I’m doing for Motorcycle Classics magazine, and I learned more about two-strokes and Husqvarna motorcycles in one day than I had in the preceding 75 years (and that’s no exaggeration). If Huskys are the topic, Mark Carter is the man to see.

Mark Carter and his tech Paul in The Metal Tank shop.

A Husky that wouldn’t bark until Mark worked his magic. These are stunning motorcycles.

I think motorcycles (especially vintage motorcycles) are art, and the bikes Mark and The Metal Tank focus their attention on certainly fall into that category. In particular, Mark and his shop restore and service pre-1983 metal tank, two-stroke, offroad Husqvarnas. Mark is an interesting guy, made all the more so by his vocalizations of various two-stroke engine anomalies. His impressions of different engine issues are phenomenal.

After spending time in the shop, Mark invited me to see his gallery in downtown Glendora. The gallery is only a block or two away from his shop. It is right in the middle of downtown Glendora, and take it from someone who knows: Glendora is one of California’s hidden gems. It’s a classic American town, and its central shopping and dining area is one of California’s best kept secrets.

Traditional Husqvarna colors. These are iconic, visually-arresting motorcycles.

One of The Metal Tank’s customs. Mark does some of his own painting, and he also uses other painters.

The early metal tank Husqvarnas can be made street legal, but mostly they are strictly offroad propositions. Think pre-mix for the oil and gas (at a 50:1 ratio), no ignition switch, light weight, and serious performance. An ignition switch? What’s that? You want to start the bike? Give it a few kicks. You want to turn it off, hit the kill switch. Simple. Light weight. Lots of power. Big knobbies. Jewel-like, show-bike appearance. My first thought was it would be a shame to get these machines dirty. My second thought was it would be a shame not to.

A street-legal conversion, one of Mark’s custom offerings.

Details on the motorcycle shown immediately above.

Husqvarnas were favored motorcycles by guys like Malcolm Smith and Steve McQueen. They are very classy bikes, and the restorations and customs Mark creates are beautiful. Some of the machines in the Metal Tank gallery have an impressive lineage, like the one in the photo below. It is a Husky that was owned by Steve McQueen.

Another Husky in The Metal Tank gallery was signed by Billy Gray. Billy Gray is the actor who played (among other roles) “Bud” in Father Knows Best. Gray later became a serious and successful motorcycle racer.

Mark has other notable two-stroke machines in his Glendora gallery, including one of Gresh’s favorites, the Spanish Montesa.

If you take the tires off, would this be a Barefoot Montesa?

The gallery held another motorcycle that (like me) you may never have heard of: the Lube (it’s pronounced “Lu Bay”). Lube was a Spanish motorcycle manufacturer founded in 1947. They were made in Barakaldo, Spain, they built approximately a thousand machines, and the company only lasted until 1967. Lube bikes used NSU engines manufactured in Germany. This is cool stuff. I learned a lot that day from Mark. Lube. Who knew?

A Lube motorcycle. It has an NSU engine. NSU also made motorcycles.

It was a fun day for me. When I came home from The Metal Tank shop, I told Sue about the gallery, and she immediately said, “Let’s go.” If you’ve never been to Glendora, you should go, because you’re in for a treat. I think the best time to visit is Wednesday night. That’s when Glendora Avenue shuts down, the town hosts a farmer’s market where fresh produce vendors set up right on the street, and all the shops (including The Metal Tank gallery) and the restaurants are open. It’s a cool place to visit and a great place to have dinner.

Sue enjoying a margarita in downtown Glendora.

A flight of tacos. They were delicious. I can’t wait to return.

After Sue and I visited The Metal Tank gallery, we wandered across the street for a wonderful Mexican dinner at Ramon’s Tacos y Tapas (a restaurant recommended by Mark and his wife). Our dinner was great and it was a wonderful way to wrap up an awesome day.

We beat ’em again!

Well, we scooped the Wall Street Journal once again. That makes three: Mo Gao, Camino de Santiago, and now, Fallingwater.

This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal had a feature on Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright home in western Pennsylvania. We wrote about it in February 2023. I think our story was better, and I know our photos were. The Wall Street Journal only had one photo (and it was a great one), but we had several (and they were all great).

The WSJ’s sole Fallingwater photo from their article “A House at One with Nature.” You read about it first here on ExhaustNotes.

Enough with the gloating already. Here’s our story from 2023.

By Joe Berk

Fallingwater, a famous Frank Lloyd Wright structure in southwestern Pennsylvania, is a place we have long wanted to visit. We finally checked that box late last year and it was well worth the trip. It’s one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous architectural accomplishments, designed in 1935 and completed in 1939 for the wealthy Kaufman family. The Kaufmans owned a large department store empire in nearby Pittsburgh, and Fallingwater was their vacation home. The Kaufman family turned the estate over to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and it now operates as an area open to the public.

The Kaufman family’s request to Wright was straightforward: They wanted something unique, something that merged the mountains’ natural beauty with the architecture, and they wanted the local stream to run through the home. The resulting home became one of Wright’s best known accomplishments. Frank Lloyd Wright had a distinguished career and he is arguably one of the most famous architects who ever lived. Fallingwater is the only Wright home open to the public.

A river runs through it…the view from one of the balconies at Fallingwater. Check out the leaves turning color.

Note the layered sandstone construction.

The Kaufmans asked Wright to use natural materials from the area and he did. Much of the home is constructed of local sandstone. They also asked Wright to design the interior furnishings and decor. It all works well together.

Wright also designed the interior and its furnishings.

This looks southwestern, but it works with the sandstone walls.

In 2019, Fallingwater was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is also a National Historic Landmark, it is a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Treasure, the American Institute of Architects named it the best all time work of American Architecture. All that’s great, but take it from us, the ride and the place are awesome. As a destination, Fallingwater is tough to beat.

A photo from the exterior, showing the balconies and the surrounding woodlands.

Fallingwater is in the Laurel Highlands area about 70 miles outside of Pittsburgh. It’s a mountainous area, and because of that, the roads are perfect for great riding. The scenery, the roads, and the riding in this area are pretty much what good motorcycle riding is all about in all but the winter months. Fall is one of the best times to take it in as the leave turning colors add a further visual treat to what is already a delight to the senses. The trick is to do it late enough in the year that the leaves are turning, but not so late that the temps are too low or the roads are too icy. We were lucky; our timing was perfect.

You can’t just show up at Fallingwater. You have to make a reservation and pay for your tickets online. Trust me on this: The tour is money well spent.

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The Wayback Machine: A 200th Year Ruger .22 Pistol

By Joe Berk

I enjoyed Joe Cota’s Bugout piece so much yesterday that I resurrected a post I wrote way back in November 2018 on the marvelous Ruger .22 pistol. Joe, thanks for your story. I hope you enjoy mine as much as I enjoyed yours.

Purchased used in the early ’80s for $125, this super-clean 200th Year Ruger .22 semi-auto has sent a lot of lead downrange. A comparable Ruger today costs more than $400.

The story goes something like this: William Batterman Ruger (we all knew him as Bill) was a government engineer in the late 1940s who had a good idea for an inexpensive semi-automatic .22 handgun. Ruger’s design featured a grip frame constructed of two steel stampings (left and right sides) welded together, a tubular receiver, and a reciprocating bolt. Most folks think it looks like a Luger (the famed German semi-auto handgun of both world wars), and the name Ruger sounds a lot like Luger, but the new Ruger operation was nothing like the old P-08 Luger. Ruger’s new semi-auto was actually based on the World War II Japanese Nambu pistol. It’s where the idea of a simple back-and-forth bolt in a tubular receiver came from.

The profile is thought by most to be of the more widely-known German Luger, but the design is actually based on the Japanese Nambu.

Ruger left the government, hung out a shingle on a barn in Connecticut, and built 2500 of the things in 1949. They cost under $40 and they sold quickly. Ruger tweaked the design a bit and called the updated version the Mk I, and that version remained in production from 1950 to 1981 in both fixed-sight and adjustable-sight versions. The new Ruger was wildly popular, and for good reason: It was accurate, it was well built, it was nicely finished, and it was inexpensive. In 1976, every gun Ruger produced had a cool roll stamp: Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty. 1976 was the year I came back from an overseas US Army stint, and I started collecting Rugers with the 200th year stamp. One is the Ruger you see here.

Every Ruger manufactured in 1976 carried a 200th Year of American Liberty roll mark. They’re kind of cool, I think.

I picked up the Ruger you see here in the early 1980s, used, for $125 from a small gun shop in Pomona, California. The gun shop is no longer there, and it’s been so long I can’t even remember the name of the place now. You don’t see many small gun shops anywhere in the US anymore (the regulatory hurdles are just too burdensome for most small businesses) and these days, you don’t see too many gun shops of any size in California. Some think that’s a good thing. As you’ve no doubt guessed, I’m not one of those people.

This old Ruger is one of my all-time favorite guns, and I was out on the range with it yesterday. It’s fun to shoot. It was windy as hell out there (so much so, that ultimately the wind peeled the cardboard target board completely off the posts it was nailed to), but I managed to squirt through four boxes of ammo first (that’s 200 rounds). Even with winds gusting somewhere north of 50mph, this 40+ year old beauty (the handgun, not me)gave a good accounting of what a well-built American pistol can do.

Not too shabby for an old guy and an old gun on a windy day. That’s 50 rounds at 50 feet with up to 50 mph gusts. I think maybe I sneezed for that one lower left shot (the only one that didn’t break the 10-ring).

The Ruger 22 semi-auto is now in its fifth design iteration. There were the originals (the first 2500 referenced above). The Mark I followed. Then the Mark II in 1981. The Mark II had the bolt stay open after firing the last round (on mine, it closes on an empty chamber, so you have to keep track of how many shots you’ve fired). The Mark III arrived in 2004, and it featured a magazine release on the side of the grip frame, unlike the prior models’ latch release on the grip bottom (the Mark III’s mag release was more like a 1911’s). Ruger introduced the Mark IV a couple of years ago, and its claim to fame was a tilt-up receiver that made disassembly and reassembly a lot easier. Disassembly has always been easy on these guns; it’s the reassembly part that some folks find challenging.

The Ruger grip frame, formed from two welded steel stampings. The magazine latch is at the bottom of the grip frame.

I love my Ruger. That said, I really wanted a Mark IV when I found out a limited number were available with Turnbull’s color case hardening (which is a beautiful thing to behold). But alas, the Ruger Mark IV is not on the California list of approved handguns. Like I’ve said many times before, we have our share of nutty gun laws here in the Peoples’ Republik, eclipsed only by our healthy dose of nutty politicians.

A Turnbull color case hardened Ruger Mk IV. This is a beautiful handgun. It’s not available in California, unfortunately, or I would own one.

There are some collectors who focus exclusively on Ruger’s extensive array of .22 auto handguns. Lord knows there’s been a bunch of them, from the original through the Mark IV, in blued steel and stainless steel, some with plastic frames, different barrel lengths, bull barrels and tapered barrels, fixed sights, adjustable sights, one with a 1911-style grip frame, and many more. My fixed-sight 200th Year Ruger, the one you see in this blog, is one of the simpler ones and it has served me well. I’ve put a ton of .22 ammo through it in the last 40 years, and I aim to send another ton downrange over the next 40 years.

Good old .22 ammo. Check out the price on this box!

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My Bugout Bag

By Joe Cota

The old “If I had only one gun” game!

This is what’s going into my bugout bag (the stainless steel Ruger .22 you see above), although it would be hard to leave behind my 1911, big bore N-frames, and other handguns. I suppose it depends on what the emergency is at the time, but the Ruger is my survival gun.

The pistol you see above is the Ruger Mark II, stainless, 6-inch tapered barrel version, fitted with Wilson Speed-Jector magazine quick release, fixed sights, six or ten pre-loaded factory magazines (no aftermarket mags for me), and at least 500 or 1000 rounds of hyper-velocity Winchester SuperX 40-grain bullets, loaded for 1435 feet per second. Maybe I’ll include one box of subsonic ammo, too. Or not.

The emergency, whatever it might be, would probably be of such short duration that carrying lead bars, bullet molds, powder, primers, and a hand reloading press in the manner that Skeeter Skelton wrote about for a bugout gun would be counterproductive.

With this humble .22 pistol I know I could find something to eat and defend myself. With this setup, I won’t be planning to single-handedly take out tanks and aircraft or fight off packs of wolves and grizzly bears. But I won’t starve to death!

What’s going into your bugout bag “if you could only have one”? A bazooka?

Springfield Armory

By Joe Berk

Good buddy Hack asked about the difference between the Springfield Arsenal in Massachusetts and the Springfield Armory I sometimes write about here on ExNotes. The one in Massachusetts was a US government arms plant; the Springfield Armory is a commercial manufacturing and sales organization. I always called the original Springfield an arsenal because that’s the terminology that typically refers to government weapons manufacturing plants. Hack referred to the government plant as Springfield Armory, and he was right to use the term “armory” instead of “arsenal.”

The original Springfield Armory, now a National Historic Site. I’d like to visit it someday.

The commercial Springfield Armory in Geneseo, Illinois. It has no direct relationship with the original.

I wanted to get my head screwed on straight with respect to this issue, so I turned to Google to get the specifics. Here’s the question I asked:

Is the Springfield Armory gun company different than the Springfield Arsenal government plant?

Here’s what Google returned:

Yes, they are two completely different entities, though the commercial company purposefully uses the famous historical name for branding.

	U.S. Armory at Springfield (Historical Federal Plant)	Springfield Armory, Inc. (Modern Commercial Company)
Type	Federal government weapons factory & arsenal	Privately owned commercial firearm manufacturer
Active Years	1777–1968	1974–Present
Location	Springfield, Massachusetts	Geneseo, Illinois
Famous Products	M1903 Springfield, M1 Garand, M14 rifle	M1A, Saint, Hellcat, XD series
Status Today	National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service	Active commercial gun maker

How They Are Connected

- The Original Arsenal: Founded during the Revolutionary War and formally designated by George Washington in 1794, the federal Springfield Armory designed and mass-produced iconic small arms for the U.S. military for nearly two centuries. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara closed the facility in 1968 to cut costs.
- The Commercial Company: In 1974, Elmer C. Ballance registered the trademarked name “Springfield Armory” for his private gun-making company, which was later bought by the Reese family in Geneseo, Illinois. The modern company has no corporate continuity, federal ownership, or geographic link to the original Massachusetts facility, though it frequently manufactures civilian reproductions of military firearms like the M14 (sold as the M1A).

So there you have it. Hack, thanks for asking the question.

As it turns out (and I had never thought about this before), I own guns from both places. I have three from the commercial Springfield Armory (in Illinois) and two from the Springfield Arsenal (in Massachusetts). The Springfield Armory guns are two 1911s (in .45 ACP and 9mm; both are stellar), and the beautiful M1A you see at the top of this blog. I enjoy all three, but Springfield Armory quality, in my opinion, has been spotty. My 1911s have been flawless right out of the box; one of my buddies was not (and he had to return it to Springfield Armory twice before they got it right). I had issues with my M1A and returned it to the factory to get it right (but when Springfield returned it, it shot magnificently well and turned in very tight 100-yard groups). My Springfield Arsenal firearms are a 1903A1 World War I rifle and an M1922 training rifle. Both are well over a century old, both were originally issue guns, and both are in almost as new condition.

ExNotes Book Review: Ghost

By Joe Berk

I could have titled this blog “The Day I Almost Met Yasir Arafat,” but more on that later. Yep, that’s him in the Caddy up above, and you can clearly see his trademark keffiyah in the lower right photo inset. Like I said, more on that murderous bastard later.

What made me reach for Ghost on Amazon was a reference to it in a Facebook group called Snub Noir, which is kind of focused on old school detectives, snub nosed revolvers, and associated armaphenalia. Someone in the Facebook group mentioned the book’s frequent references to the author’s Model 60 Smith and Wesson. I have one, so I was naturally interested in what the book had to say. As it turns out, there was very little specifically on the little S&W, but that’s okay. Ghost was an outstanding read. If I want to read more on the Model 60, I can just turn to any of our ExNotes stories on it.

Ghost is a real page turner if ever there was one. The book is not about Arafat, although he is mentioned in a couple of places. It’s about Fred Burton’s career in the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, an agency whose missions include assessing threats to State Department employees and U.S. citizens all over the world, providing security for visiting diplomats, protecting the U.S. Secretary of State, and preventing attacks against State Department assets. The book reads almost like a novel, and includes DSS actions before, during, and after several well known incidents (including the Achille Lauro hijacking, numerous aircraft hijackings, the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing, and many others). One of the most interesting events was when the president of Pakistan’s C-130 aircraft went down, and the true story behind who was responsible. The information released to the public held that the crash was an aircraft mechanical failure (the fear was that India had shot down the aircraft, and everyone wanted to avert an all out war between India and Pakistan, two nuclear armed opponents). Burton shared with us that nerve agents killed the pilot and co-pilot, and the Soviet Union was responsible. It’s fascinating reading.

Now, on to the Yasir Arafat incident. Back in the 1980s, I was an expert witness in an Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals lawsuit against the United States Navy. Forget what you might think about our military’s engineering functions and their competence. In many cases, they are bungling fools, and in this case, the Navy’s engineers were just about the worse I’d ever encountered (and my job was to explain that to the trial judge). The case went well, my client prevailed, and I made a ton of money experting my opinions at trial.

But the above stuff is not the story here. Nope, the story here is that I had my old film Nikon with me (a Nikon N70), and early one morning I was on a D.C sidewalk looking around for something interesting to photograph. About that time, there was a flurry of activity in front of a hotel. I didn’t know what it was about, but I was curious and I had my camera. I suppose I looked like a tourist, and in a way, I sort of was (a working tourist, to be precise). A tall , polite guy with an earpiece approached me. He asked that I move away from where I was standing. At the time, I thought he might have been a Secret Service man, and I further thought maybe I could get a photo of Bill Clinton (who was President at the time). I knew that somebody important was about to emerge from the hotel’s underground parking lot. I asked the secret agent guy who it was, and he just smiled. They can’t tell you stuff like that, I guess.

A large black SUV emerged from the hotel’s parking area, followed by a Cadillac limo. The side windows were darkened on the limo so I couldn’t see who was inside, but as it sped away, I grabbed a photo. It was only when I had the film developed later that I realized whom I had photographed. Yasir Arafat had been in the news (he was in Washington that week), and in the photo I could see his distinctive keffiyah (the checkered black and white head covering he wore). Imagine that: A photo of Yasir Arafat.

The last page in Ghost has a better photo of Burton (better, that is, than the photo on the cover you see above). I studied it for several minutes without realizing why, and then it hit me: I imagined the guy in that photo minus about 40 years. I swear Burton was the young DSS guy who asked me to move along all those years ago in Washington. I could be wrong. But I don’t think I am.