Motoschutzen participants share a common interest in technology. Whether we’re talking Yamaha motorbikes, Ram trucks or firearms, there’s a lot of appreciation for what it takes to make great stuff. It makes riding, shooting or visiting the H-S Precision rifle making facilities in the Rapid City fun for everyone.

We’ve packed a lot of business and recreational activities into a relatively short timeframe. Testing firearms and ammunition is usually a single-topic business trip.

Riding motorcycles through national parks and seeing the amazing scenery is usually an entire vacation.

Same thing with touring manufacturing plants.

But Motoschutzen allows media types, business owners and manufacturer’s representative to get together in a non-threatening atmosphere.

When it’s time to ride, there are no labels, just riders out to enjoy the experience (top). The Black Hills in South Dakota provided plenty of opportunities to ride and enjoy amazing scenery (bottom).

If you aren’t an experienced rider, the expert riders will help. Their being in the business of making firearms means you can talk business while learning about a shared hobby.

It also means you can ask direct questions at the range or ignorant questions about riding and be viewed as a fellow rider without either of you feeling threatened by the question- or the answer.

Barriers come down.

It’s the same technique Chrysler used decades ago at their annual “Skywriters” dinner. Held atop the Chrysler building in New York City. A five-star dinner was followed by a no-holds barred question and answer session between automotive writers and Chrysler execs. No business question was off-limits. And every question got an honest answer. It turned adversaries into acquaintances. As Lee Iacocca explained to me, “it’s hard to write that a car stinks when you know the people who build it. It’s equally tough for an engineer to ignore auto writers he knows telling him why people hate his seat design.”

There’s nothing adversarial about our group, but we do ask each other focused business questions. And we get- and give - equally focused answers. But the shared experience drops the barriers. Whether we’re media types, manufacturer’s representatives or business owners, this week we’re all members of Motorschutzen.

Trying your hand at long range-shooting with a rifle from H-S Precision (top) having fun shooting a “Barkeeper” revolver from Heritage (center) are part of the business side of Motoschutzen. Riding in a Ural sidecar with Ron Norton of Inland Manufacturing (bottom) is one part of the fun.

As a shooter, the chance to get trigger time following nearly a year without those opportunities has been awesome. Especially in the awesome visits of South Dakota. The chance to try new precision rifles from Weatherby and H-S Precision also brought the opportunity to get familiar with Barnaul ammunition. Weatherby and Benelli shotguns both ran just fine using Fiocchi shot shells.

There’s no way to encapsulate all the information collected this week into a single piece. From long distance travel and sightseeing via RV to new motorcycles, guns and ammunition, it’s a lot to digest. And I’ll do a lot of that on the nearly 1300 mile trip back home.

And as always, we’ll keep you posted.

Shoshones!

— Jim Shepherd