I blush to be included with the likes of Creeker, Blammer, et al but I see what you mean. It is a bit tiresome to wade through the newbie questions. I respond to them cheerfully but there are times when I have to take a deep breath first. Let's face it, in this digital age, fewer people can be bothered with reading basic reference works (loading manuals, old books, etc.) and go straight to the forum for an answer. I fear it is something we need to resign ourselves to.
That said, I was a newbie once myself and I would rather spare a current newbie the horrid mistakes I made early on.
A beginners Q&A forum is a great idea, as well as a forum for the technical minded folks. For example, I sure would like to learn how to lathe bore some new moulds with some plain base target bullet designs I have in mind, but I know enough about metal lathes to get by only and would need tutoring.
As an aside, for anyone wanting to read the collected columns of Frank Marshall, who wrote in the early issues of the Cast Bullet Association newsletter, they are available in CD form for around $10 on the CBA website. He was a friendly curmudgeon whose columns addressed many newbie questions, contained much practical technical info, and a lot of sage hunting advice and humor from his life of cast bullet shooting. He would be 100 years old were he alive today. I met him 30 years ago and wished I had known him longer. If I taught a college level class in bullet casting (ha!!) this CD would be on the required reading list.
