Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters definitive Seyfried thread

The ranch:

http://www.landreport.com/2011/07/for-sale-elk-song/

damn, must be a heck of a story behind the sale.

Anybody have a spare 8 million?

I never saw much of his work but what I saw I found informative and he expressed opinion well as if it were a summary.

I particularly recall an article on the. 340 Weatherby that got my attention.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/5148543/1


Adam

Yeah, me too. I'm still plotting a build of a .340. M700? M70? Pretty wood or tough, stable synthetic, or maybe laminate?

IIRC he used a 340 Wby to kill a big bear up in Alaska? I still have that issue, amongst a pile of classics. (Rifle or Successful Hunter?)

I recall it being a moose. (The article I remember was Guns and Ammo.)

The name of that article is "Bear Odessey". Read it if you have the opportunity. I think it was one of the better hunting magazine articles written. I believe it was in the arly years of Successful Hunter.

Expat

"Bear Odyssey" was in one of the Rifle Magazine Hunting Annuals that came before "Successful Hunter." Seyfried wrote that he traded his favorite "fighting rifle," a 416 Rigby, for his favorite "Hunting Rifle," a 340 Weatherby built on a Champlin action, on the hunt where he took the bear pictured in the article because of the distances he encountered on his first few hunts in the area. It is probably one of the top five most compellingly written articles to appear in a Wolfe Publishing magazine.

I might be able to add a little here as Ross has been a friend of mine for almost 25 years. I have eaten at his table, put food on his table, slept in his house, hunted with him , shot with him, fished with him, cast bullets with him, and reloaded ammo with him.

While that does not make me anything but a persistent pest who lived about an hour from his ranch it does speak of his patience in at least one case.

On Schrapnels story I have to say he never actually identified Ross. The breaks is big country and I have hunted with Ross enough to know he was not one to bumble about the countryside.

On the 22-250AI you guys are right in that the Shilen was the AI and the Remington stayed a standard 22-250. What most don�t know is that the Shilen never did kill a coyote because Ross quit hunting them the year he ordered the rifle. Seems he quit hearing them howl in the evening and decided the coyotes needed a safe place. Ross�s ranch became a coyote sanctuary.

On the Weaver Stance, Ross never did use a proper Weaver Stance and that is one of the Reasons he did so well in IPSC. A true Weaver stance has the strong side elbow locked at full extension. Ross never locked his elbows and the increase in recoil control was a part of his success. He never was super fast from the holster but once the gun was out and running very few were in the same league.

Think you're right, one of the best hunting article i read, writen by a real talentuous writer and hunter.
Too bad i gave the issue to one of my friend, who gave to another and so on and the magazine was lost.

Ross is really high class writer and really knowledgeable man about old world firearms.
I miss his writing.

Dom

John Burns - thanks for the good insight/information.

I don't know if this was alreday linked.

http://www.goodrichfamilyassoc.org/44_Special_Articles/Ross%20Seyfried%20%96%20Lipseys%20Ruger%20Flattop%20.44%20Special%20Bisley%20Revolvers.pdf

I tried to find a scanned version of his article describing #13 his ulimate revolver that was a custom Ruger Bisley in .475 Linebaugh built by Hamilton Bowen, but haven't been able to google it up.

Bingo...."Bear Odyssey", "Rifle Hunting" Annual 1999.

Another terrific Seyfried article is "Close Enough Buck", "Rifle Hunting" Annual 2000. Wow, what a read. Riveting doesn't describe it fully.

Those early "annual" issues were the best. I still have a bunch of them, everyone was chocked full of adventure.

Here's another one:

http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/article.cfm?tocid=321&magid=24

No. 13

When ever there is a family that dose not get along and there is a good chunk of money to be had, things get sold. In this economy my guess Elk Song is going to be on the market for some time, then again maybe not seeing how Ross spent dam near 20 years making it into Elk heaven. I would bet the Mouth of the South, Ted Turner will buy it if he has not already started the process.

I dearly hope not........

[/quote] The name of that article is "Bear Odessey". Read it if you have the opportunity. I think it was one of the better hunting magazine articles written. I believe it was in the arly years of Successful Hunter.

Expat [/quote]

"Bear Odyssey" was in one of the Rifle Magazine Hunting Annuals that came before "Successful Hunter." Seyfried wrote that he traded his favorite "fighting rifle," a 416 Rigby, for his favorite "Hunting Rifle," a 340 Weatherby built on a Champlin action, on the hunt where he took the bear pictured in the article because of the distances he encountered on his first few hunts in the area. It is probably one of the top five most compellingly written articles to appear in a Wolfe Publishing magazine. [/quote]

Roger. That's it. Thanks for the assist.

Expat

Ross was instrumental in showing the world that the 45 Long Colt might just be the best hunting cartridge for a revolver.

I remember one time Hamilton Bowen (legendary Revolver smith) was visiting Ross at his ranch in Roggen and I just had to show up to see what the grownups were playing with one weekend.

Seems Ross felt it would be a good plan to see how much punishment the factory Ruger 6 shot .45 LC could take before the cylinder bulged. The plan was to keep increasing the amount of H110 under a hard cast LBT 360gr WFN and mic the cylinder after each shot until it moved.

We each had a duty in this experiment.

Ross would don a grinding face shield and welding gloves in addition to shooting glasses and fire each round as the powder charge increase.

Hamilton would carefully mic the cylinder over the chamber to see if the cylinder had moved.

I was ready to call hospital in the event things got out of hand and Ross actually blew himself up.

We eventually gave up when the powder charge was so compressed that it was a race to get the loaded round into the gun and out the door to be fired before the crimp pulled and bound the cylinder.

I will say on the last few rounds Ross shot Hamilton and I choose to observe the firing from the cab of Ross�s Toyota pickup. No joke, we climbed in the cab for the last 2 shot of the experiment.

Say what you want about Ross but he was willing to personally shoot a Ruger to destruction just to find out how much safety factor the higher performing 45 Long Colt loads had if some silly fellow tried to stuff one in a 6 shot Ruger.

Based on what I witnessed that day it is simply not possible the hurt a 6 shot Ruger with H110 and 360gr LBT WFN with a .450 crimp to nose length.



I have shot that revolver and it shoot as good as it looks.

Bowen's book details that revolver, the No. 13. The welding and machining around the top of the hammer at the rear of the frame in order to close the hammer channel and build up the rear sight base is truly impressive. Ross also wrote about wrapping the grips with pigskin to preserve the scrimshaw when hunting.