Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Clay Harvey

I find it refreshing for those in the know to actually "name names" and cite specific examples of a person's misdeeds. That isn't something that you find very often.

Added: Of course, they need to be sure and get it all taken care of while the miscreant(s) in question are still alive. If they try to make any such things known after the person passing, they will be hammered with that tired, old crap about not speaking ill of the dead (even when they deserve it).

My wife of 32 years bought me this book. One of the few gun related presents she gave me. Have no idea where she found it. Full of load data from other gun writers and load manuals. Lost her to a heart attack some time back. Only reason I keep it.
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It takes "balls" to speak ill of the living, but any coward can tarnish the reputation of a dead person with little fear of retribution.

Lots of people on this site firmly supported Safariman, Mark Claiborne, until after his hypocrisy was exposed. After that, his supporters evaporated like ice on a sidewalk in July.

Jeff,

Actually, I don't know if any of the guns Harvey borrowed from various companies could be termed stolen, since they "consigned" them to him willingly. But I also don't know if any of the companies tried to prosecute him. The only incident where I know all the details happened to a relatively small rifle company, which had consigned Harvey four rifles. The owner of the company didn't know anything was amiss until some guy called him from another state, saying he'd bought one of the rifles at a gun show, and as I recall, wanted some higher scope rings, or something like that.

The owner asked for the serial number and found it was one of the consigned rifles--and also found the guy had purchased it for less than a quarter of the standard price. I suspect he didn't prosecute because he'd didn't have vast amounts of money, and he'd have had to hire a lawyer in the other state. But he did change his policy about consigning rifles to writers, allowing them only one at a time. If they wanted to test another, they'd have to return the first rifle.

Some of the other compmanies may have prosecuted, but I don't know. They may have looked into it and decided writing the "disappeared" guns off as promotion, or lost goods, or whatever was cheaper than trying to get any money out of somebody in another state. They probably could only have gotten back the wholesale price anyway, since that's normally what the "gun writer" discount. But I don't really know.

I do know Harvey made his Zimbabwe safari not long after the word got out about him selling consigned guns, and he was blackballed from the industry. And he sure didn't make enough money writing for the magazines he did to make such an expensive trip, since he also brought along his wife and two daughters.

Actually, I also don't know if Harvey tried to pass off other people's hunting experiences as his own. But he was full of BS, often coming to conclusions far beyond those warranted by his actual experience.

As for Capstick, borrowing other people's experiences is an old literary tradition, especially in fiction!

The nahc book that this thread was started about is called "The Hunting Rifle" and I have it. I keep it because it is a good read and has a lot of useful info in it. The guy does know a lot about rifles. As far as the hunting experiences he lets you know up front that he is relating tales from Rick Jamison, Chub Eastman, Jack O'Connor, Bob Hagel, and our own dogzapper. There is nothing deceptive going on.

JA had gone to his maker by that time, Steve. Perhaps it was Ken Warner. Or Ken Howell (although Ken denied it).

CH was obviously a scoundrel, but there have been a few other writers "blackballed" for various reasons (Frank Hibben comes to mind), and some old-time writers were guilty of chicanery with consignment (and custom) guns beyond Harvey's wildest dreams.

John,

Yes, what you have written is what I have understood.

Until I started reading about PHC's books being embellished, I thought that they were presented in a way that the reader would naturally assume that they were PHC's actual experiences, rather than a compilation of his and other PH's experiences rewritten to make PHC a key player in the story.

I'm not supporting Clay or disputing any of the negative things that anyone who has knowledge of Clay's wrong doings has said. I've never met the man or been wronged by him, so I don't have any skin in the game as they say. However, having read all of the negative comments, I would be a fool to do business with him, given his on-line reputation.

Jeff

Regan Nooneman told me that he built a rifle that was never paid for or returned for a writer who is currently both popular and prolific. This by a writer who is regularly cited and praised on this site, along with several others.

I was right in the middle of one of Clay's dealings.

It was about 1986 ir 1987 and I was helping out at Kimber of Oregon on my weekly day off at my store. I had a few firearms articles under my belt at that time and my scribbling efforts were finally bearing fruit.

Clay Harvey was flown out to Kimber (at corporate expense) and was being treated to the royal treatment. Greg asked me if I wanted to give Clay a factory tour and to go to dinner with the crew ... and, of course, I jumped at the chance.

Greg gave each of us a M84 .17 Mach V at the dinner and asked if we would each write articles about the rifle/round. We each, agreed ... Hell, it was a free rifle; it would be fun to develop it and make a few bucks from the words.

As we left the dinner, Clay came over to me in a conspiratorial fashion and, "We'll share loading data as we develop it ... OK?"

I opined that the data should be developed independently and when we each had a set of data that we should compare.

About two weeks later, I was working the Tech Phone at Kimber when a guy called from South Carolina. He introduced himself and told me, "I bought a brand-new Kimber rifle from a fat little guy at our local gun show and now I cannot find ammo for it ... Hell, their ain't even any loading data ... What do I do now? The barrel is marked .17 MACK VEEEE."

I asked him how much he paid and it was about 20% of the retail price.

My answer to him was that he could either send the rifle in for a rebarrel to a commercial cartridge, totally at his expense. Or he could wait a couple of months for me to develop data on my own .17 Mach V.

He sent the rifle in for a rebarrel to .223 Remington and still paid less than half-price for the rifle.

Here's the funny part: I was at the store a few days later when Clay called. The conversation went kinda like this ...

Clay: "Remember the .17 Mach V rifles Greg gave us?"

Me: "Yep."

Clay: "I've started my article and can't find any loading data ANYWHERE ... Can you send me yours?

Me: "Nope. We agreed to develop data independently and compare. Do you have any data you've actually shot in your rifle to share with me???"

We went around and around for about ten minutes. I knew that he'd sold the rifle as soon as he got home and had neither the ability to develop data ... nor probably the skills, even if he still had the rifle.

Clay never did publish a .17 Mach V article.

I published mine a few months later in Handloader 132

Blessings,

Steve

Highly doubt that.




Dave

Nice!

I doubt it too. I think Harvey's selling the same story to two different magazines finally did it. Plus the other shenanigans.

I'm not going to belabor the PHC thing again except to say that he did borrow (extensively) and embellish (liberally), but he had been there and had done some of it, so it had a ring of authenticity and the SOB could write.

People tend to fish out people.

Eventually.

And sometimes.




Clark

Cream rises to the top, glad to have some of the cream of the crop on the board here

1987 sounds right.

I was hanging around in a largish gun shop her in NC when the owner hollered at me to give him a hand. He, I, and some guy I didn't know went to a car out front and started unloading an unbelievable amount of new in box guns, cases of ammo, and assorted goodies. I remember Remington's and several Ruger rifles in unheard of calibers or set ups, mostly because of a friend of mine who was also in the shop at the time was a serious Ruger collector and had never even heard of these offerings. He was trying to figure out how to take a second mortgage to pay for all the treasures in front of him and still be able to live when the wife found out. The owner and the guy was talking to the owner and being young and broke in those days I was just marveling at all the new reloading tools I had never seen before and I couldn't afford. I did manage to buy a (for the time) complete set of RCBS shell holders and a large book of technical drawings and all measurements of hundreds of cartridges. I ended up giving that to a Community College gunsmithing program. The instructors had never seen anything like it and were eager to get it.
While looking at the pile of gun lovers Valhalla on the counters and tables in the shop I asked who the collector was that was selling all of this bounty. "That's Clay Harvey, the gun writer."

My brush with greatness.

Dogzapper,
"Last I heard, Clay was working as a gopher in a yogurt shop down in South Carolina. He is under-qualified for the job and I the nineteen-year old manager should NEVER trust him with money."

What goes around comes around. The guy needs some kind of brand put in his forehead to warn people.

What I don't understand about the gun industry is how these people that don't have any idea what they're doing end up becoming employed.

I've met a lot of self-proclaimed "gun guys" and it usually takes about three minutes before you figure out they don't know much about anything.



Dave

What's not to understand?

Every industry is filled with them......

Very true...I work in the outdoor industry on the fishing side and its piled high over here as well...perhaps even a little higher. Gun enthusiasts and hunters seem more informed than anglers by a wide margin.