Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Hornady's sour grapes with WSM

Interesting,Hornady loads .243 Win,.300 Win,.270 Win,.308 Win,.458 Win,.338 Win etc.. but they won't load the WSM,s because of Rick Jameison lawsuit,correct?

my understanding from the cheap seats is that Win, Rem, ect do not charge royalties to support their cartridges

If you actually read up on it, Rick Jamison is not a parasite. While he may not have originated the "short, fat" concept, he did invest a lot of time & research into developing them, and actually had a patent on a nearly identical design. More damning to Winchester is the fact that he was actually in contract negotiations with them, and had actually developed the 300 JRW for commercial release, to the point that it was a finished concept, with a scheduled writer's hunt with completed rifles & ammo. Winchester demanded that he give them all rights to the design, for zero remuneration, and threatened to drop the round unless he did so. He refused, so they followed through and dropped it. But, lo and behold, 9 months later, they introduced, all on their own, a nearly identical round called the 300 Winchester Short Magnum. Rick Jamison then took them to court over it, and rightly won.

I did read up on it, including the court documents. IMO parasite is fitting.

So he should have done all the research & development for the cartridge, and not receive anything for it?

it sure seems to me that Jamison's cartridges are 'nearly identical' to the Lazzeroni short mags, which are older by a wide margin.

Winchester (Olin) merely underestimated the resources needed to win the case.

Being as I rarely shoot factory ammo, Hornady's choice is no big deal to me.

I've owned over a dozen rifles chambered for the WSMs. Have had 6.5, 270, 7mm, 300, and 325, among them Browning, Kimbers (Classic and Montana) Nosler, Sako, and Winchester. The only one I ever had feeding issues with was an early Kimber Classic in 300 WSM.

My Nosler Custom Sporter in 325 WSM feeds slicker that owl schitt.



Currently have WSMs in the 6.5 Leopard (6.5-300 WSM), 270 WSM and 325 WSM.

I've laid away enough brass for each to last more than a lifetime at the volume which I shoot.


Turkey meets the Leopard.

Of course your mileage may vary

JAPPF,

GWB

OK, I'll admit that "spiteful" may be a little off, but, to me, I think the point of those descriptions in the manuals is to talk about the merits and peculiarities of each cartridge, just like they do with the other cartridges. I thought the 270 WSM description was decent. With the 300 WSM, I didn't really see a single favorable comment other than the case capacity. And even that couldn't be left alone because the next statement says the RSAUM is slower but more efficient... Another backhand in my opinion. The entire description seems to lead the reader to believe that the 300 WSM is pointless and inferior to the RSAUM. They could have talked about how inferior it was to the RCM, but that would have been too obvious.

I personally don't care if Hornady likes or loads the WSM. I just expect them to be a little more objective, I guess. I don't have anything against ANY cartridge out there. Some I like and some I don't, but I don't consider any of them pointless. Some are possibly redundant, but if we never tried new things, we wouldn't have smokeless powder or ballistic tip bullets.

I only recently heard about the WSM royalty issue. Had I known sooner, I may not have bought any of the WSM calibers. I am on the fence as to whether Jamison deserves anything for a similar design, but I may not have invested in a cartridge with so much baggage. Personally, I'd like to see something like a slightly shorter and slightly fatter case than the 30-06AI, but that would probably be really ridiculous.

Oh, they knew Rick Jamison had a patent--he came to Winchester with the fully developed cartridge. Then they blew him off and started producing Jamison's cartidge as the WSM's. Firearm manufacturers have a long history of doing this. That's why Jamison patented it first.

And Jamison sued and won a settlement for patent infringement. I don't blame Jamison one bit, either.

Casey

Lots of panties in a wad here over a description in a loading manual...

"And Jamison sued and won a settlement for patent infringement. I don't blame Jamison one bit, either"

I hear ya Casey. The wildcaters,benchrest fraternity,and long range shooters do the R&D. Put in the time and money for reamers,barrels & custom dies. To have the fruits of their labor pirated by some board of directors someplace. Good for Rick I say.

No parasite to it... For a private individual to take on a publicly traded company with a bevy of patent attorneys at their disposal over a patent infringement issue, and win, is not very common. Sounds like, for once, the "system" worked the way it is supposed to...

no, parasites suing big companys and winning happens all the time. the cost just gets passed on to you and me.

'good for them' right?

Hornady is being obstinate about not loading the 300WSM, at least. It is the best-selling cartridge introduction in a long time, and will continue to become the "standard" American magnum cartridge as time goes by. They are simply losing out on the opportunity to make some money, royalties due or not. That's called being stubborn, not smart.

I agree that the costs of frivolous lawsuits get passed on to you and me as the end consumer. Been in and out of the corporate world for 30 years. Have seen my share of frivolous law suits get paid a certain amount of "go away" money. However, we are not talking the prototypical "slip and fall" or "Look, there's a cockroach in my food" type of scam artists.

We are discussing blatant theft of intellectual property. To that point, do you have any recent citations for private individuals frequently winning patent infringement lawsuits versus publicly traded companies ? My Google-foo is not so good. However, I could not find ANY reference to private individuals in the first 3 pages of search results. Let alone private individuals prevailing in patent court against publicly traded corporations.

Were there not nearly identical cartridges to the WSMs in wildcat form going back to the 1950s?

No,the above is called delusional.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/rcbs_2012_rifle_die_sales.htm

They don't load for the 260 Rem. that im aware of...

Maybe it is because it has a limited following. Unless something has changed, its parent (Remington) is producing a limited offering in rifles so chambered. This is telling.

A second observation. Hornady announced last year or the year before that they would suspend manufacture of bullets that did not have strong support. They are at maximum manufacturing capacity. This may be frustrating to some, but it is a valid business decision.

Any manufacture has a limited production capacity. Wither large or small, there is a limit.

For sake of argument. Let's say that Hornady, Rem., Winchester, or Federal can produce and sell 100,000 units of 30-06, 100,000 units of 308, 90,000 units of 7mm Rem Mag, and 90,000 units of 300 Win Mag. We'll not even consider the other most popular rounds, the 243, 270, and 30-30--or the amount of PISTOL ammo that is flying out of the doors.

What is the real cost to produce 20,000 units of WSM or 30,000 units of 260 Rem?

The real cost is 200,000 units of 30-06/308 and 180,000 units of 7mmRem/300 Win mag.

Like I stated earlier, Remington could produce all of the 260, and Winchester could produce all of the 300 WSM to meet the need...if there was one.

GB

I guess if you develop a new line of cartridges, someone else basically steals your design and then you go to court to recover damages you are a "parasite"?

That is exactly what happened with Rick Jamison, Winchester and the WSM cartridges. Winchester tried to cheat Jamison, then got taken to court and lost - as they deserved.