That which bears me

 About this time last year Angie and I took a trip to Pennsylvania. During the return trip my 2015 VW Jetta TDI started to make a weird humming noise at about 65mph. Interestingly if you went a little faster or slower the noise went away.

I ignored it up until about a month ago when the humming turned into a grinding noise at all speeds. Sounded like a wheel bearing to me. I jacked up the car and, yup, definitely a wheel bearing gone bad in the rear passenger side. I ordered parts and then had to order tools. The wheel bearing is held in by an 18mm triple square bolt. I had a 14mm triple square socket to remove the caliper bolts but not one any larger. I was unable to find one locally so Amazon sent me a set of Capri brand. Hopefully the set will have all the bits I need..

The bearing itself is really easy to replace, jack the car up, remove the wheel, remove the brake caliper with that 14mm triple square socket, remove the torx (t30? I forget) screw that holds the brake rotor on and remove the rotor. Then pound a screwdriver into the gap that holds the cap on. Mine was really stuck, took a lot of pounding.

Then use the 18mm triple square socket to remove the axle bolt. This was REALLY tight. It just laughed at my Makita 1/2" cordless impact. I put the 30 inch breaker bar on it and added a 24" piece of jack handle. Took a lot of body weight even then.

As you can see the old one was really grungy. There are two bearings there, the inner one was okay, the outer was pretty terrible.

Installation is reverse of removal, no tricks here. I torqued the bolt to 130ft-lb and then 90 degrees. Along with the locktite on the bolt explains why they were so hard to remove. These are torque to yield fasteners, single use only. I ordered a new bolt but the bearing came with one so I've got a spare for what it's worth.

A test drive shows that the noise is gone but now I'm thinking there might be another failed bearing in the front. I didn't check those since I only had the rear of the car jacked up, I did check the passenger side, it was silent.

Oh well, in a day or two I'll jack it up again and have a look see...

Black powder cartridge gun

Interestingly one of the topics I find that a lot of hunters and shooters aren't aware of are black powder cartridge guns. People seem to think that smokeless powder created the need/desire for cartridge guns instead of the other way around.

Last year dad gave me an old Damascus barrel side by side shotgun. For those not in the know Damascus steel is made by folding layers of different quality steel and iron together to make a solid where the layers are attached but still different materials. This would be instead of mixing the metals to make a homogenous whole. Damascus steel is easier to make with primitive tools than modern "fluid steel". The problem is that it's nowhere near as strong and isn't tolerant of smokeless powder shotgun shells.

Well that's no problem, I've got black powder (well, for cartridge guns I use Pyrodex) and for $80 Lee will send a simple shotgun shell loader.

My initial experiments weren't terrific. It's difficult to get the height of the load correct to ensure that the crimp is nice. To negate that issue I picked up a roll crimper.

The roll crimper does exactly what the name suggests, it rolls the lip of the shell to secure a card wad in place holding your load inside the shell.

There is definitely a trick to getting the crimp just right but after a little practice I could produce a pretty nice product.

The over shot wad gives a handy place to label the load, these are all 1 1/8oz of #6 shot. The two cases with the B are bismuth shot, the other two are lead. The powder charge is the same volume as the shot or about 3 drams.

This is a half loaded shell, looking at the case itself you might notice that it's been cut off, the shotgun has a 2 1/2" chamber. For best results I started with a 3" shell and cut 1/2" off. This cuts off the old star crimp and makes it easier to get a nice roll.

These are all bismuth loads. Back when I first got my 16ga muzzleloader I picked up 2 pounds each of #4 and #2 shot. Last year there was a sale so I bought 10 pounds of #6. #6 bismuth is good for ducks, #4s for geese.

During bear season I found a beaver pond with a ton of duck activity so one day during duck season I snuck in before dawn. The pond was completely deserted until right at sunrise when the wood ducks started piling in. 

I had a pretty good hide and enjoyed myself just sitting there watching the birds come in, completely unaware of my presence.

My shooting wasn't great but I did manage to score two.

Its pretty sweet taking ducks with a 120+ year old gun using shells you made yourself. That duck hole is a great spot that appears not to be hunted by anybody else. While I was there I heard, but never saw, some geese. I'll definitely be back next season.