Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Rick Jamison personna no grata?

Jamison appears to be a thief, little more. He settled with Olin... but if he had a case, he would have stayed the course and been much better off.
Winchester bought his silence as well as saving tons of money by settling with the con artist. To think, a patent for millimeters and degrees of something that had been around for near two centurys

The sycophantic douchebaggery that passes for logic to the Winchester/Olin lickers always amuses me when the topic of Rick Jamison comes up. Con-artist? Really?

Damn straight....and thief!

This is really the crux of the matter. Settlements are not about who is right or wrong. It is about the cost of the trial.

Agreed, and in the end it is also about developing a successful product.

Everyone should remember what is the whole point of getting a patent. It is to make money. A complete prohibition of Winchester from producing the product makes Jameson zero $.
On the flip side for Winchester to produce their own and then contest Jamisons patent is quite expensive. Based on their decision to settle it was likely more than the cost to negotiate with Jameson.

Jamison spent a whole bunch of time on a design. He marketed that to Winchester and they entered a joint venture to produce his design.
Winchester made a business decision that they thought they could avoid paying Jameson $. The Court disagreed or atleast paved the way for possible high dollar litigation and or a jury award.
Ultimately, Winchester and Jamison came to an agreement to do exactly what both sides originally agreed to do.

How that makes him a thief is questionable. You can dispute the legitimacy of his patent but that is irrelevant as it applied to Winchester.
Could Winchester have developed a short mag to compete with Jamisons? Yes, but not after they signed a confidentiality agreement and accepted his research.

People may hate the player but at least understand the game that was played

I think I see a clue to why Jamison isn't on the newstands these days.

Or (3) they could have just paid him to license their manufacture of the cartridges.

Ironically, the firearms industry has a long history of copying/co-opting ideas.

If the ideas were so common, I still can't understand why Winchester would roll over.




Casey

Winchester never rolled over...what was dispersed to Jamison was considered a cost of doing business... The price of a WSM And a bargain to be sure!
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Even though Jamison was not the inventor of the WSM, but the possessor.

Looking for a couple of posts from old threads. Here's one from dogzapper:

A personal comment: Rick's ballistics lab is unbelieveable. Basically, Rick went to (fill in the arms maker) and presented a line of cartridges with total data and specs, only to be told "Thanks, but no thanks." And shortly later the company brought out precisely the same cartridges.

That, my Campfire friends, is wrong

I would have sued their asses off, too. And I would have won.

Corporate stealing seems to have become quite acceptable and somewhat of an art form in the firearms industry.

I've also been ripped-off and thrown away, so I can attest to that fact.

I will NEVER be back and I suspect that my friend Rick has learned this lesson, as well.

Flame on. Have fun tearing up a fine man, truly a man whose knowledge of ballistics exceeds that of most in the industry.

Back to lurkdom.

Steve

Another quote from MD in a 2006 thread:

Let me state here that I have knowledge of much of what happened, through friends in the industry--and have sympathy for both sides.

Generally when a gun writer develops a wildcat and one of the major firms decides to make it factory, the gun writer gets a pat on the back, a free rifle in the new caliber, and MAYBE his name on it. The 7x30 Waters is an example, the 7mm STW another.

But generally when a gun writer develops a new cartridge, his participation doesn't go beyond getting some friendly reamer maker to make a new reamer, and some friendly gunsmith putting together a rifle or two. Then the gun writer shoots the new rifle, working up loads by guess and by gosh.

Often the pressures he works up to are a little over what is generally considered "safe" by the industry. This is NOT what happened with the 7x30 Waters, but is what happened with the 7mm STW--the reason the factory STW rounds never got anywhere near the 3500-3600 fps with 140's mentioned in most pre-factory articles about the round.

My understanding is that Rick did the real work in developing his rounds, including pressure-testing, in his own lab, which is extensive. He is also a very competent gunsmith, and did all the work himself, except perhaps grinding the reamers. So when he ended up with his line of cartridges, they worked as advertised, and safely. He also put a lot of time and money into them.

It ia also my understanding (again, through friends in the business) that his rounds were indeed accepted by major factories (both ammo and rifle) and were about to be announced, when there was a considerable tiff over who was to pay for the considerable amount of time Rick put into them, as well as whose name would be on the headstamp. My sources said that Rick was not going to be satisfied with a pat on the back and a factory rifle.

As noted above, I heard this through various friends in the industry, who all told the same story. I cannot say whether it is true, not having been there, but they all tell it the same way, and it sounds believable.

How much all this had to do with the eventual lawsuit I don't know. I do know that, like many gunwriters in the industry, I was called by various attorneys and asked about previous cartridges of the general design of the WSM's. I pointed them toward P.O. Ackley's book, which is where the information about rounds made from the .348 in the 1950's appeared.

Whether Rick's patents were anything new and startling, however, is beside the point. He did the work and had the patents approved.

MD

I can tell for for CERTAIN that Jamison HAPPILY slayed a decent mulie buck on the AZ strip in like 01 with a Winchester M70 in 270 WSM, and the letters "JRW" weren't mentioned... and he had a huge schitt eatin' grin on his face.

The notion that you can patent an "idea" in lieu of an actual design is foreign to me.

Maybe he's flush and doesn't need to be.

There is a very significant difference between Jamison's cartridges and the WSM's both as to measurements of the case and their capacity. Not at all the same cartridge.

Jamison's case was larger in many measurements yet his internal capacity by his use of the 404 Jeffery case, was approximately the same as the smaller WSM case. The 404 case is much thicker and heavier than the WSM cases. Had Olin adopted his design, the exterior of the cases would have been the same yet the internal capacity (if made lighter as the WSM's are made,) would have been significantly larger. His ballistic data would have been of absolutely no use and would have had to have been redeveloped. I built 4 338 Jamisons and then two 338 WSM's using the 300 WSM case. Everything is totally different as would be the case with any new cartridge.

This was a case of two mules pulling against each other. The bigger mule won. The little mule should have known that.

I don't care about these arguments, but I sure would like to read his writing again.

"The notion that you can patent an "idea" in lieu of an actual design is foreign to me. "

It appears the Patent Office disagrees with your appraisal of the situation. Ditto the courts.

Wow no wonder there are commercials on "let us help you file your patent"
Most of the people here bitching about this how no freaking clue about patents.

Stop your griping, courts don't make unfounded decisions like that for no reason. Not understanding contract law about agreements, and patent law about what "inventions" and "processes" that are protectable normally bites a company only when they obviously break them.

Do you guys really think Winchester couldn't hire good lawyers?

Jamison was a bad azz writer. And although he's probably best known for his technical writing, he had a lot of knowledge when it came to harvesting fur.

I hope he's rich as [bleep] and doing well. His writings spurred my love for all things invovling rifles and the outdoors when I was a kid.


Travis

Yes, and we know the government never makes a mistake.

Yeah and we ALL know that a huge corporation like Olin would NEVER [bleep] an individual out of a dime in a business deal....

Get a clue.

I already said it, but I have several saved old Handloading magazines with his articles. There was actually good information and not advertising like most today. I wish he would start writting again and if in his shoes I would have wanted to be compensated as well.