I rode my motorscooter to the range yesterday, my longest trip so far this year (I'll get back to that) and a fun one, given the sweeping curves along Kessler Boulevard. I did not so much enjoy the gusting breezes at the open field of the WXLW transmitter site,* but that's how it rolls.
"Pictures or it didn't happen," you say?
Okay.Besides the usual reasons (loud noise, small holes in distant pieces of paper and big fun), I wanted to check out a recent acquisition, an H&R model 623 "pull-pin" .22 revolver. It was inexpensive and simple; I didn't expect much. Anyway, chrome-plated like that, it was cute and collectible.
Surprise! It shoots a treat! The sights are set up "cowboy," with point of aim just atop the skinny front blade rather than covered by it, but as soon as I had figured that out, the little plinker was turning out nice, tight groups.Considering it's not unusually heavy, felt recoil is 'stonishing low, lower than the 6"-barrelled High Standard Sentinel I'd also brought. The "pull-pin" system is less frustrating than you'd think; pull the pin and the cylinder drops right out, then the pin is used to operate a conventional ejector star; loading is easy and you push the cylinder back in place and run the pin home. Or return to the frame empty and use a little loading notch on the right side, if you're the fretful sort or range rules require; either way, you do have to mind muzzle direction and finger proximity throughout the process.
Fast? Not especially, though the guy with a Nagant revolver will envy you. --Which reminds me, DA trigger pull on the H&R 623 is like butter, smooth and easy. (I didn't try it in SA; that's just not how I use revolvers).A great deal of fun and an excellent value. If you encounter an H&R pull-pin revolver for sale (they made several models, built the things for decades) and you were wanting a nice plinker, give it a look.
On scootering: the intersection of Kesseler Blvd. and Georgetown St. is accident-prone; I arranged to arrive the on red and went through with other traffic. But the worst I have seen and one reason I've not been riding to and from work other than low-thryroid-induced fatigue is the degree of damfoolishness I have observed this year. Evenings on my way home, some yahoo along College keeps popping out of a stopsigned cross street in the 4000s and making a sweeping 90 through traffic (two lanes coming from his left, one from the right) to slam-bang into a parking space. It's a festival of brakelights and singing tires and he'll survive unhurt just as long as everyone else has their wits about them -- but I have no interest in taking a small motorscooter though there. I figure I'll wait 'til he's made his appointment with Fate. Alas, he is only the worst of a lousy crop. It's offputting. Still, I hope to start riding to work more -- scooter, bicycle, whatever. Need to take a different route.
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*A classic old-school building, now with a lot of open space around the teeny-weeny modern 5 kW transmitters; in its day, it housed a gigantic RCA transmitter, a nice workshop and kitchenette -- plus a miniscule apartment, just in case a transmitter operating engineer got snowed in out there in the sticks! Nowadays, you could just stroll over to the stripmall next door for lunch, or hike a little farther on city-plowed streets to a motel. The site is on the linked map, just a bit west of the intersection.
Your experience with H&R's is much the same as mine. My first real six shooter, at age 11, was an H&R my Dad traded ration points for. The SA trigger was just above the hair trigger level.
ReplyDeleteIf the rat I was aiming for stopped, his tail was mine, fleas and all. And I could still make money shooting running rats for the bounty.
I certainly miss the H&R's, Owl's Heads,and other mid priced revolvers of the era. But don't ask about the cheap ones!
Stranger
I have a 923 - nickle plated 9-shot version with 6" barrel.
ReplyDeleteFun to shoot, relatively accurate.
Correction: Nickel plated.
ReplyDeleteHand-eye-keyboard coordination must be off this morning.
Yeah I was on that 56-Kessler route a bunch of times on Friday.
ReplyDeleteIn between the people that will drift out of their lane and into yours and will be shocked like a largemouth bass when you honk, the intersection darters, and those that figure they can slow down right after a blind curve...
it makes for an interesting drive.
For me the fun intersection is Kessler and Kessler, odds are good someone'll be broke down or smashed up there.
Ah, yes, the intersection of Kessler, Kessler, Cooper and 56th, or How To Make A Simple Cross Intersection Tricky.
ReplyDeleteOut-of-towners: Kessler makes a hard left. Or a hard right if you're headed the other way. Why? why? Shaddup, you, or the city planners will hit us again.
When you first posted about that I sort of thought it might be a longer-barreled model of the weapon Verna (Marcia Gay Harden) pointed at Tom (Gabriel Byrne) in "Miller's Crossing".
ReplyDeleteWrong. Turns out it was a Colt Pocket Positive. (scroll all the way down)
Hard to make it out in the frame, in my defense.
Mike James
I had the 9 shot version with the 6 inch bbl. I bought it new for 98.95 in 1978. That along with a new break top 38 4" H&R that was around 150. I wish I still had them both.
ReplyDeleteMy dad had one just like that in the 9-rd version, pull pin and all. The trigger pull was in the double digits. With dad, that didn't matter. He was a part time blacksmith and I saw him carry 40lb ingots suspended from a single finger.
ReplyDeletethat fate tempting driver must be from Florida. Going by what I see on a daily basis, we must lead the nation in the number of idiot drivers.
ReplyDelete