Hear ya go, an article written by an honest-to-goodness “gunriter” in an actual magazine (if e-zines qualify, a subject for another time) that re-enforces all your core beliefs and notions about sporting arms. He makes some excellent points, and if you, like the author ignore some pertinent and inconvenient truths you’ll come away from reading it feeling fully vindicated about all those naysayer posts you’ve made. Enjoy!

https://sportingclassicsdaily.com/confessions-of-a-lead-slinging-luddite/?mc_cid=5d1b00f36d

Of course many of the points he makes are true, but he seems lost in the mists of time, dreaming about a world that is long gone, but doing his level best to recreate it, if only in his imagination. That's certainly one way to go through life...

I'd never heard of Roger Pinckney, but I sure enjoyed the article that you have posted.

I don't agree with his statement that the 250-3000 is superior to the 243 or that the 87 grain bullet is useless, but everyone has an opinion, some even based on actual experience.

"The 250 Savage, invented in 1915, was the first commercial round to crack 3,000 feet per second and was marketed as the 250-3000, though that was with a useless 87-grain bullet. The round really comes into its own with the 100-grain round-nose at 2,800, far superior to the much newer 243 Winchester that tends to get sketchy up against thick-skinned mature boars, often to a hunter’s dismay and peril.".

Pappy,
Fun little article and I find myself agreeing with most of it on one level. But I enjoy my variable scope, synthetic stock, decoppering powder, and high-tech bullets at the same time. Thanks!

I do that, a lot, but occasionally achieve a breakthrough, especially with guns. I mean, how many 98s can one old fart actually use?

I singed up for that free daily when I subscribed to the regular magazine. Enjoying both, along with Sports Afield. Lets hope they survive.

Enjoyed that - Thanks for posting the link!

Good reading, and thanks for posting. I guess I'm somewhat of a luddite when it comes to that stuff. Sometimes I sort of miss the days when I could easily obtain things like 6.5mm bullets for my 6.5x55, before the demand for them increased so much.

Modern cartridge components have improved/changed things about a hundred time more than any new hedstamp has. Not that other improvements haven't, but a great bullet means a lot more than less body taper or altered shoulder angle.

Think shotguns for instance. New gauges/headstamps didn't appear & change the game, same 12 or 20, just better stuff inside.

Enjoyed the article, thanks Pap

There are a lot of us old phart gun nuts but sadly the guys buying the latest whizbang rifles and cartridges are the ones spending their money and thus driving the market for things that go BANG.
OTOH I just rebarreled a 308 to 6.5 Creed and love it.

Excellent article filled with truths, many too painful for "modern man" to acknowledge.

He's got a good grasp on firearms, but not the people who use them.

It also includes several technical errors:

A-Square Partition? A-Square's soft-nose bullet was the Dead Tough, a very different design. He may have been thinking of the Swift A-Frame.

Useless 87-grain bullet? Speer's 87-grain Hot-Cor is designed for the .250, with a jacket as thick as their 100-grain .25 Hot-Cor, and works well on deer

He is also mistaken about using 100-grain round-nose bullets in the .250. The original Savage bullet was a spitzer, though not as pointy as many today. I have an original box of Savage factory ammo which featured a 100-grain spitzer.

Karamojo Bell did not switch to the 7x57 due to being "wearied of searching for ammo for his 6.5x54." Instead the Austrian 6.5x54 ammo he ordered in large lots started splitting cases upon firing.

"Most modern chamberings of 7x57 use the standard American twist-rate of 1:10." I have yet to measure the twist on any of the several commercial American 7x57s I've owned, both military and commercial, and found a 1:10 twist. Most American sporters feature a twist around 1:9, the same as for most other American 7mm cartridges. 1:10 is the standard American twist-rate for .30 caliber rounds.

I've not cracked open an issue of that magazine in years, but recall that such errors were more common there than in other magazines.

I made it through paragraph 3.

there's not been a significant advance in firearms technology since the 1930's

Oh, please. Movin' on.

Oh wait, he did do me a favor. Just one more writer I can skip.

Good article, thanks. If you look at it from a hunter's perspective what he uses and writes about will still work for a lot of hunting. Got to admit I like and shoot the old rifles, Best deer I ever shot was with a 7x57. I guess he never tried the 30-06. That ones been in continuous production for 120 years and still popular today.

Nice article. I enjoyed reading it on this rainy morning.
PJ

Not at all uncommon, both in print, and especially from YouTubers, even some of my favorites. Saw one just yesterday that said Kimber’s been making 1911s for “40 years”.

Can’t say I’ve ever caught you in error, but I live in hope😛

For subscribers, Petzal’s got a great one in the latest issue of Gray’s on one of my favorite subjects: Lunch.


That one contains an error of omission, he neglected the leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwich, a staple of us in the East during deer season.

I hope to have ours gone so to start over at Christmas. Thanksgiving dinner for 8 - 11 with rug-rats - would have fed 50, at least. Walked in, and there were two tables of food set up, food stacked in the hall, food stacked out on the deck. (dogs never even tried it!). I then made 4 trips from our car bringing in more food, and got reamed the next day after finding the buns still in the car, under some cloth grocery bags...

So my wife invited a neighbor couple over last night and made a whole new complete Thanksgiving dinner for about 8.... Turkey and all. The only leftovers from the day before served was some bean dish.

I'd go "ice" my tendonitis, but no way I'm opening that fridge/freezer!

I thought it was a good read myself.

His worst mistake in my book is leaving out the 270 Winchester.


Nobody’s perfect

I thought it was an excellent article.

Who was the target of his inspirations? He makes the older crowd smile. The younger crowd might be irked (and a few older ones too). It gets people talking.

Errors? No worries. The most glaring one, in my view, was crediting the 30-40 with anything. All it was, after all, was a copy of the 303 British, but with a 308 barrel.



If it ruffled a few feathers, so be it. It livened up a mundane Saturday for some. Well done!

And a tip of the hat goes to Pappy for livening up the newly wed and nearly dead!

Great article and good read for us old farts caught in the past. I shoot a 6.5 Swede in a sportorized 96 Infantry rifle for pronghorn. A 38-55 Winchester 94 /w octagon barrel for close in deer. MY favorite 30-06 load is the old 220 gr rn. I shoot a 1911 Fox Sterlingworth SxS,12 gauge.

I nod to the new technology though as I have an AR and an Inline ML

A lot of younger hunters discount the effectiveness of older rifles and cartridges in the hands of older hunters.

Cutting edge technology is nice to have, but probably significantly useful in a relatively small percentage of the whole.

Or so it seems to me at age 68.

"Luddite" just doesn't come off when your writing for an online magazine. But, I get it and feel the same way sometimes. However, I couldn't help thinking the guy just needs to get laid. And, in the bio, "Some think the best Southern writer alive"? Did he write that? Sheesh. God, save me from being an angry old man (kind of headed in that direction).

Add 1970s VX-ii to the errata.

I'm not a "Luddite" or I wouldn't be typing this, but just because something is supposed to be "new and improved", doesn't mean it is. I'm old enough to have seen many fads come and go. Most of them were touted as the best thing since sliced bread, and many of them fizzle just as soon as the hype dies down. The shooting/hunting world isn't immune.

Technical errors I can overlook in an article that, after all, is not a technical article. I've long since quit trying to correct every distribution of conventional wisdom in the gun world that most here, at least, know is not true...just smile and nod my head.

The guy was just expressing what a number of us here believe: the constant current of latest, greatest technigorical advances in the shooting world improve the bottom line for gun and ammo companies and purveyors of same (not to mention gun writers) much more than they improve the success rate of typical shooters/hunters.

More truth than fiction, IMO. I like his snarky humor, semi pissed off syntax. A fun read at any gate. I'd have liked to have seen the original draft before the editor got a hold of it.

The guy was just expressing what a number of us here believe: the constant current of latest, greatest technigorical advances in the shooting world improve the bottom line for gun and ammo companies and purveyors of same (not to mention gun writers) much more than they improve the success rate of typical shooters/hunters. "

Well said! In fact that goes for most of what comes out in print.

Lost me right there. The man shouldn't even be published if he doesn't know there's a difference between a Vari-X II, a VX-II, and a VX-2. That kind of error destroys the man's credibility, if you ask me.

A few comments:

I am also something of a Luddite, as I own and hunt with both rifles and shotguns made in the 1800s up to the supposed cutting edge of today. Among them is a custom Griffin & Howe 1903 Springfield, made by G&H the same year as Ernest Hemingway's--and which I paid more for than any other firearm in my collection. Have also taken plenty of game with rifles and sights/scopes that were deliberately used because they're considered "handicaps" by many 21st century hunters. Those have included several 99 Savages, in chamberings from .22 Hi-Power on up, including at least half a dozen .250s. The sights have ranged from old apertures to a Noske 7/8" tube scope with a post reticle which took a whitetail at over 250 yards.

As I've mentioned recently here (and elsewhere) I don't own a 6.5 Creedmoor anymore after owning several, and probably never will again. Instead my "Creedmoor equivalent" is a custom 6.5x55, built by me and Charlie Sisk, on an FN Mauser commercial action with a Lilja barrel Charlie installed--and a stock made out of "California English" walnut that I fitted, shaped, finished and checkered myself.

But after writing for quite a few magazines over the decades, including Gray's Sporting Journal (where I also served as editor for a couple years in the 1990s), National Geographic and most American gun and "outdoor" magazines, I know it is also possible to write/publish entertaining articles that are also factually accurate. When I read one that has as many factual errors as this one I start to distrust the writer, even though I might agree with some of his non-technical opinions.

Then you best chastise the editor as well. He should have turned it around with a note to the author to check his facts. It wasn't just Pinckney.

Steve, did you miss this at the end?

Roger Pinckney is a native of the SC Lowcountry, a veteran of twenty-five Northwoods winters and is author of twenty-two books of fiction and non-fiction. He’s been Senior Editor of Sporting Classics for twenty-eight years and has hunted the alphabet, Argentina to Zambia. Many consider him among the greatest living Southern Writers.

If you did see it and and were just poking fun, nevermind! I just woke up from my nap and my sarcasm detector is still a little fuzzy. At any rate, if ol’ Roger wanted to stir the pot, I think it worked.

Or a $50 Weaver V-7

No. In most organizations, there is more than one person who checks articles - proofreaders for grammar, as well as content editors. Sometimes, "editors" are names given to the writing staff and they aren't really editors. Being a "senior editor" doesn't necessarily mean that he's at the top of the food chain. There are editors in chief and managing editors that are higher up than "senior editors". It's a term that is often company specific.

The more appropriate question would be - who checked his work or did his story just get approved without any checks?

He did, Pappy348! And, thanks for sharing it. Good conversation starter even if he's not a great writer, didn't do his homework, etc. He certainly voiced something alot of folks feel.

And, as much as I can be nostalgic and love at least reading about our history, that doesn't mean cutting edge stuff is all nonsense. Most of the stuff we are nostalgic about was the best, modern stuff available at the time. When the first mountain man showed up with the cutting edge invention of the day - the cap lock - and showed it to his mountain man buddy, his buddy turned his flat brim backwards grabbed his private parts and said, "Ohhhh shhhhhi.....!"

No. In most organizations, there is more than one person who checks articles - proofreaders for grammar, as well as content editors. and sometimes "editors" are names given to the writing staff. Being a "senior editor" doesn't necessarily mean that he's at the top of the food chain. There are editors in chief and managing editors that are higher up than "senior editors". It's a term that is often company specific.

The more appropriate question would be - who checked his work or did his story just get approved without any checks?

Unfortunately Steve, it might be more accurate if you'd said, "There are still, in a very few organiations, someone who occassionally checks ...

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Yes, exactly. There have been a few editors I've written for over the years who've been as sloppy, some of whom even edited errors (whether factual or grammatical or spelling) into my work.

I have also have an old history with Sporting Classics. Was asked to write for them back in the 1980s, and did a couple of times. In fact wrote one SC article that was reprinted in a hardcover collection of "best" stories about some subject, because the book's editor thought it was pretty good.

But the money for my first SC article hadn't turned up six months after it was published--which happened to be when Eileen and I did a two-month tour around the U.S. in our pickup & camper, with a canoe on top of the camper. We didn't have much money, but back then had the time to do that--and I wanted to see (and fish in) more of the country east of the Mississippi. (Was also writing about fishing as much as hunting back then.)

Among our stops were several visits to the headquarters of magazines I was writing for, and one was in Columbia, South Carolina, where I met with Sporting Classics' editor John Culler.--who was also at least one owner of the magazine. He turned out to be a slick-talking BS artist, which is why I never wrote for SC again. (Though did eventually get paid....)

I’m a big fan of Ross Seyfried. That article read like a plagiarism hodgepodge of Seyfried articles. With the plagiarist being a little bit mentally retarded.

Actually no, both were based on the Swiss Rubin rounds. In the case of the .30-40 Frankford Arsenal received samples via the US military attache in Paris on 29 April 1890, and was asked to make 100,000 rounds based on these. There was a good deal of development and testing done by the US Ordnance too, and this included consideration of rimless designs including the 7.65 mm Mauser, before the .30 Ball service cartridge was adopted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-40_Krag

Though the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps had adopted limited numbers of smokeless powder and bolt-action rifles, the .30-40 was the first cartridge adopted by the US Army that was designed from the outset for smokeless powder. It was patterned after .303 British, to which it is very similar geometrically.[7] After a brief experiment with a 230-grain bullet loading, the .30 Army loading was standardized in 1894 using a 220-grain (14 g) metal-jacketed round-nose bullet with 40 gr (2.6 g) of nitrocellulose powder. This loading developed a maximum velocity of 2,000 ft/s (610 m/s) in the 30-inch (760 mm) barrel of the Krag rifle,[8] and 1,960 ft/s (600 m/s) in the 22-inch (560 mm) barrel of the Krag carbine.

Wikipedia once again proves to be an unreliable source.

Removed from facts the article was enjoyed Pappy. Thanks for posting it.
And as for the rest of you who snapped us all back to reality that’s likely just as important.
There is plenty of new stuff that just works. It may not be rubbed with hand finish work or have the nostalgia of crispy cardboard boxes from the years of storage, but to the practical it serves the need.
It’s enjoyable to hear the back and forth after the third day of Turkey sandwiches, soup and mashed potatoes with gravy!

"What if I told you more white-tailed deer have been taken with an 1894 30-30 Winchester than all the other sundry deer hunting cartridges combined?"

Not important one way or another but just out of curiosity, is there anything to back this up? I remember reading this as a kid and thinking it was probably true at one time but may not be any more. Hard to imagine it would still be the case all these years later when lever gun and 30-30 ammo sales have been a small percentage of total sales for so long.

He is quite ignorant. What does he go by on the “fire”?

Nobody likes old guns and cartridges more than I. But his opening comment about killing everything with old cartridges, makes me pause to realize I could get to New York from Montana in a 1964 Corvair, but I would still rather do it in a 2023 Chevy Silverado…

The first commercial cartridge to exceed a MV of 3000 fps was the 280 Ross, not the 250-3000. Terry Wieland noted this in Handloader magazine of Oct-Nov 2020: "The .280 Ross saw the light of day around 1910, in England. It launched a 140-grain bullet at 3,047 feet per second, making it the first factory cartridge ever to do that. (Savage’s .250-3000, which came along five years later, was the first American factory cartridge to do so.)"
.
.A spark photo of a bullet at 3000 fps appears on page 215 of the book, The Ross Rifle Story by R. F. Phillips, et al, 1984.

--Bob

I have also doubted that statement, even when I started hunting big game in the mid-1960s. Even then lever-action .30-30s were disappearing--though I killed my first deer with one, my father's, but it was a Marlin, not a Winchester.

Have taken some deer since with the .30-30, but never with a Winchester 94. The last one taken with the .30-30 was with an outside-hammer drilling made by Sauer, with 12-gauge shotgun barrels. The original Charles Daly importing company commissioned Sauer to make them in several "American" combinations around 1900. Others I know for certain about were chambered in the .25-35 and .45-70, and if I recall correctly the .45-70 model had 10-gauge shotgun barrels.

Have, however, taken deer with Winchester 94s in .25-35 and .32 Special--but far more with other lever-actions, including Savage 99s (one a .30-30) and other Marlins.

So true, just in sheer numbers I would think the 243, 270, 308 and 30-06 might have all eclipsed the 30-30. I’ve bought a number of really fine conditioned 30-30s from the East that had been long stored away, replaced by a fancier cartridge years ago.

Hah! My grandparents and their two best friends made a cross-country odyssey from PA to CA and back in 1963, in a new Corvair. (You should've seen their faces when the "new Chevy" purchased by their buddy for the trip pulled into the driveway.) They lived to tell about it, and tell they did, and the trip went off without a hitch (albeit with many stops to utilize laundromats as luggage space was, er, minimal). The point is it's not the trip necessarily or how one does it (or the hunt and the equipment used, to keep it in context), rather the mindset - how open minded one is, how adaptable one is, and how much one is predisposed to adventure. Mind you, everyone involved in that escapade could've afforded a new Cadillac and done it in comfort and style but it wouldn't have made for a half as good story!

Thanks Pappy for sharing this whimsical thought provoking (pot stirring?) article. I proudly wear my Luddite badge* and can relate/agree with the points made - technical details be damned. I don't let individual trees spoil my view of the forest.

*All the guns currently in my "collection" (of more than 50 but less than 100 specimens in case the ATF is monitoring), with the exception of a couple recently built single shot repros of vintage design, can easily be covered by my C&R license. My mobile device has a multitude of apps that I'm aware of but have no clue how to employ, not to mention the apps available/hidden that I'm not even aware of let alone would know how to employ. I drive a 23 year old Saab as my daily driver (low mileage, manual transmission, spirited performance, excellent gas mileage) and a 53 year old car as my fun car (1970 MGBGT restored to near perfection) because, well, it's fun and reminds me of my mis-spent youth every time I get behind its wheel. I made/make my living building wooden sail boats and reproductions of archaic 19th century scientific apparatuses - mostly with hand tools and ancient machine tools. It's how I maintain my sanity in this nasty rat race we live in.

Mule Deer;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope that the Thanksgiving weekend has been going well for you and Eileen.

Thanks for your take on that statement, it's something I've wondered about more than once.

One reason I'm not entirely sure about that is my late father relating how rare a whitetail was in our area of Saskatchewan during his youth. To the best of my memory, he said until the late '50's or early '60's, seeing a deer was a rare sight.

That might have been due to a combination of a bunch of factors such as changing habitat, specifically more food and more bush growing in and hunting regulations being adhered to as rural people became somewhat less hand to mouth in their day to day lives.

While I do remember a fair pile of Winchester 94 carbines being for sale in the hardware stores, as well as seeing them along with various surplus .303 rifles in coat closets, etc., I'm not confident they killed a whole pile of deer.

We certainly never imagined having enough whitetail that some of the southern states do nowadays either.

As a final thought on the matter, if I was to make a guess, where I grew up was likely rolling prairie grass and sloughs before the land was settled and the prairie fires weren't an annual event.

Then after the bush was allowed to grow in, it took however many years for whitetails to move in, but I'm wondering if they were common back in the prairie grass era?

Perhaps, but perhaps not either.

My elder brother is still on the land where our late Dad grew up and he mentioned to me that he's been seeing the odd mule deer now in the past handful of years, which was something I never ever saw.

All the best to you and Eileen, thanks again for your thoughts and good hunting.

Dwayne

Whitetail deer populations have grown over the years across much of the country for a bunch of reasons, some of which include encroachment on mule deer territory, increases in farmland to provide more feed, and use of hunting seasons to keep killing in check during certain times of the year (i.e. not shooting does in the spring when they're pregnant or have young fawns which wouldn't yet survive on their own). There are something like an estimated 6 million whitetail killed in the US every year. So the 30-30 killing the most deer comment seems, at best, to be a far outdated truth.

prairie goat;
Good morning to you, I hope your part of Montana is getting seasonally tolerable weather and that the Thanksgiving holiday has been a good one for you.

Thanks for your thoughts on the whitetail topic, it mirrors what I've read on their populations and migrations as well.

Where we were in Saskatchewan on the east side just off the Yellowhead Highway so about a quarter of the way up the province more or less, the old timers talked about moose hunting near where we farmed. That would have been the very early 1900's time frame.

They never mentioned elk being there, but they could have been shot out by that time too.

We've been gone from there nearly 40 years and as mentioned there are now some mule deer showing up, as well as moose, black bears and the occasional elk.

I believe your thoughts on the farming making more feed is a big factor there. Likely there's a bit more large predator control down in the farm lands, but that's a guess on my part.

As an aside, when we were in the Yukon last summer, we saw a mulie buck just outside of Whitehorse and there's reports of them as far north as Stewart Crossing.

We've heard there are whitetail up in the southwest corner of the Yukon now too.

Thanks again and all the best.

Dwayne

The article has been nit-picked to death but my take on it is that it was entertaining, something that is rare with most hunting and firearms articles today.

I enjoyed it even though it was not factual. At least it was not another article about - "I grabbed my Remichester with my Leupell scope, read the wind velocity on my windgauge forwarded the info to my cell phone to compute, then dialed up 72 clicks and sent the shot".

Every outdoor writer I have read has complained about editor changes, technical errors, etc. For goodness sake sometimes its nice to read an article just to enjoy it.

drover

Perhaps one could say that the ubiquitous .30-30 (Winchester, Marlin, and Savage) was used during the first 100 years of its existence to effect the highest ratio of deer killed compared to other cartridges, and not the most deer killed to date. At the end of the day I gotta say that a hunter mooching around and loafing in the classic short range whitetail deer woods is still admirably armed with the venerable .30-30. Perhaps not in the wide open spaces so many here haunt (or that the wannabe's wish to haunt) rather the deep woods, tangled brush, mixed-use environments so common to we who live east of the Mississippi. Personally I choose other cartridge/rifle combos for this work, but invariably they are such that would fit nicely into the narrative of the author of the subject article. (To whit, .30-40 Krag, 6.5x55, .30-06, Savage .22 High Power and/or .303 Savage, and yes even a .30-30 occasionally in the form of a Winchester M54.) Again, it's about the adventure not the embracing of technology, IMO, and the technology that existed 90 years ago for these pursuits still works just fine leaving one free to pursue that adventure.

This Geezer/Boomer/Luddite enjoyed the article immensely - I often share much the same feelings.
I have wondered, for decades, when the 30-06 passed the 30-30 in kills, however. I'd bet it was a long time ago.

Dwayne,
Good morning to you as well. It's very interesting to hear about the changes in game dynamics in Saskatchewan. We used to fish up north of Prince Albert, so may have passed by your old stomping grounds!
My dad talks about when the first whitetail were seen around our ranch in SE Montana when he was young, believe it was sometime in the 1950s. Today the alfalfa fields are inundated with whitetail, and they're moving slowly further and further into the hills, into places which once held only mule deer. Elk are also encroaching into the area; more every year. We've even had a few moose sightings - a few years back a young bull moose trotted by the high school football field while the team was practicing! The closest viable moose population is in the Bighorn Mountains, around 100 miles away in straightline distance.
Your comment on predators brings up an interesting conundrum, as expansion of mountain lions, wolves, and bears in the hinterlands certainly provides changes in game habits and populations, and predator control methods are likely to take place closer to people and agriculture. Yet it wasn't terribly long ago that control methods like 1080 were used, which killed pretty much everything that came in contact with it. After the use of such compounds went away, as well as trapping becoming less of a pursuit and the elimination of predator bounties, predator populations in general expanded.
Billy

From the Ross Rifles brochure:

Its velocity is 3150 foot seconds with 150 grain bullet, or 3300 foot seconds if one desires to use a bullet as deficient in sectional density as our New 'Springfield.

At Bisley, 1908, 15 shots at 900 and 1000 yards, possible at 900, 72 out of 75 at 1000. Edge Match Rifle Competition, 15 shots at 1000 and 1100 yards. Ross won, score 73 and 73. User finally won the long range championship of England for 1908.

https://archive.org/details/rossrifles00ross/page/2/mode/2up

I love old rifles and cartridges, and for me, if a bolt rifle isn't CRF it's not a "real" rifle. But I'm not trying to live in a long gone past. Purely as a tool, something like, say, a Tikka T3X with a suppressor and a reliable dialing scope (or BDC scope) is probably far superior to anything I currently own. That article sort of reminded me of commercial aircraft development - the Lockheed Constellation was a beautiful plane, and the apex of piston powered transport aircraft design by the 1950's. It absolutely carried passengers across the Atlantic, but development didn't stop in the 1950's, even though I think "real" airplanes have propellers. I'd always rather fly a 747 (or whatever jet) across the pond equipped with current technology.

I liked article, he was entertaining. I really care if he missed a scope number or thinks one cartridge evolved from another incorrectly. I have never read his writings before. As far as the 30-30 and deer numbers, no one knows the real facts. I would bet the 30-06 surpassed the 30-30 years ago. Just enjoying the article, and not caring if a fact was incorrect,. I can always fact check for myself.

I am guessing here, but I suspect the article was a "mission accomplished" piece. It stirred debate and got people talking about both new and old technology. In that regard, it was a success. It got the grumpy old men talking. The young were amused and likely talking about it as well

This was an op-ed. Should you wish to express your opinion of the article to SCD, scroll to the bottom and you can write it there. As of right now, nothing seems to have been sent, or been put up in response.

https://sportingclassicsdaily.com/confessions-of-a-lead-slinging-luddite/

You're no doubt right, because such articles are a long-time tradition magazine (and now Internet) publishing.

But that brings up other questions. Did he deliberately stick mistakes in the piece to get people "talking?" Or were his mistakes real? One seems extremely manipulative, while the other isn't something I'd prefer reading.

Would much rather read such an article if written by, say, Ross Seyfried--or several other firearms authors who actually know their stuff....

I believe he wrote it with mistakes because of this sentence,

"Speaking of truth, these things I tell you might stretch it, but they will never “rend it asunder,” which is Good Book lingo for “tore all to hell."

He must have known that by "stretching the truth" he was going to illicit a strong reaction. Whether you liked the piece or not, it suggests that the editor was in on it as well. I say that because most editors would have noticed the mistakes and not left them in. I am not saying that he was part of the decision making process, but Scott Mayer would be the one to ask.

Just a WAG.

Had anyone heard of this guy before you read this piece?

I hadn't.

I doubt that any writer, or anyone posting on sites like this, has a perfect score, never having made an error in something he/she wrote, but I do lose faith/respect when a "professional" writer fails to do their research of the details of their piece. Maybe this piece was written with a little tongue in cheek, maybe not.

Great read, especially for another 79 year old picture who believes that walnut and blued steel are for real people and stainless is for cookware, synthetics for making needy Kardashian's curvy, and anything Creedmoor is for man buns.

I could align myself there as well. I call it the weird tic, but I hasn’t hurt me much thus far.

My thoughts exactly.

Dangit! We were in full scolding mode there!


Hahahaha! Thanks for ruining it.


Anyway...I shoots all my deer with a 270 loaded with IMR 4350 and a Speer HotCor.


Pretty cutting edge if I do say so.

Entertaining article, made me smile

One problem with hunting using bullets and calibers that are described as superlatives is that you are left with no option to enjoy life. Example, bullet(s) with the highest BC

When I was a kid, Remington offered a 100 grain RNCL factory load in the 250 Savage, but discontinued them around 1970.

Jeff,

Am sure that happened, as I mentioned in my PM to you.

But also mentioned that I have a box (actually it turned out to be two) of original 100-grain .250 ammo from soon after it was introduced that are both spitzers. One is the Savage brand, the other Western ammunition--long before Winchester took over Western.

Charles Newton was not a ballistic dummy--and neither was Arthur Savage....

John,

I never doubted your words in that PM and my post wasn't intended to catch you posting an error. I posted my comment about the 100 grain Remington RNCL bullets so that the folks reading this post would know that the bullet that the author cited actually existed as a factory load, and probably as a component bullet, half a century ago. A lot of people on this site aren't as old as we are and have never experienced some of the things that we were exposed to before their time.

I've been shooting the 250-3000 since around 1970 and recall that Remington and Winchester cataloged 4 factory loads at that time. Remington cataloged 2 100 grain loads, the PSP and RNCL. Winchester cataloged an 87 grain PSP and a 100 grain Silvertip. I don't recall Federal offering a factory loaded ammo in 250-3000. CIL/Dominion might have, but I don't recall any of the retailers who I frequented carrying any CIL/Dominion ammo that American companies cataloged. They carried the CIL/Dominion ammo for cartridges that the American manufacturers had discontinued or never made, cartridges like the 22 HP, 6.5x54 MS, 32-40, 38-55, and 11mm/43cal Mauser.

I know that Charles Newton was a well known ballistician during the early years of the 20th Century, you may recall that I'm a fan of the 256 Newton cartridge, a cartridge that produced approximately the same ballistic performance as the 260 REM and 6.5 CM do today. I don't know if Arthur Savage was much of a ballistician, but he was a good designer and promoter of the firearms and cartridges tagged with his name. I have read that he settled on the 87 grain bullet because it was the heaviest bullet that would make 3,000 fps with the components available at that time. Naming the cartridge that Newton designed the 250-3000 instead of the 250 Savage reminded everyone who read the cartridge's name how fast it was at a time when 3,000 fps was uncommonly fast.

No disrespect intended, that's not the way I roll.

CIL loaded .250 Savage ammunition with 100 GR PSP bullet at 2820 FPS for many years, possibly right up until they closed. I actually used some of that brass to make 22-250 ammo.

I know that, Jeff. I just wanted to post on the thread about my original box of 100-grain spitzer .250 Savage factory ammo.

Apparently Savage waited a little bit before introducing the 100-grain load, to allow the publicity of the 87 @ 3000 to take hold. Western Ammunition loaded a 100-grain spitzer starting around 1914. (That was before Winchester and Western merged.)

I know that, Jeff. I just wanted to post on the thread about my original box of 100-grain spitzer .250 Savage factory ammo.

Apparently Savage waited a little bit before introducing the 100-grain load, to allow the publicity of the 87 @ 3000 to take hold. Western Ammunition also loaded a 100-grain spitzer, starting around 1914. (That was before Winchester acquired Western.)[/quote

I had read, maybe in COTW, that the 100 grain bullet wasn't introduced until sometime in the 1920s. I don't have many pre-WW2 cartridge catalogs in the library for reference.

COTW says Peters ammunition introduced their 100-grain load in 1932, but that isn't Savage ammo. One of my other references states that Western introduced their 100-grain load in 1914.

I'll take a look at others in my library and see what else I can find.

Practical engineers vs marketing wankers is what steers the wagon in my opinion. Younger generations feel a need to fix stuff that ain’t broke, and do it for all product lines.

One of my favorites is a .45 flintlock with a (OMG!) 42” barrel. Such rifles are still putting meat on the table. Don’t tell anyone it only weighs 7# 3 oz., without the bayonet of course.

Jeff,

I did some more digging in my library and reference, and the more I dug the more complex it got--including partly involving my correspondence with Doug Murray, author of The Ninety-Nine, A History of the Savage Model 99 Rifle. Doug passed away in 2008, so this was a while ago.

Dunno if I have your e-mail address, but it would probably easier to do it that way rather than here.

Seems like DigitalDan is a bit of a misnomer. Maybe AnalogDan would be a better fit?

😂😂😂

I had a subscription in the early years of Sporting Classics. I allways read Robert Jones first he could really tell a story without fugging up the facts as applicable. His untimely passing made me realize he was the attraction to SC mag and when my sub expired I didn't re up it. Pinckney was there and his writing didn't get it for me. Even back then I had no use for the msm slant on everything. Inaccurate facts and bullchit lines just don't fly for me. You can get that in less that a second turning on the TV. You guys like him it's OK by me . I like people with credibility not enough time in life left for bullchit period . Laughs yes bs no..mb

Well that was certainly why I started this thread😜

Seems it worked.

No. I think Practical Dan is a better fit. Form follows function.

It certainly did.

One more time!

Thanks for posting. Interesting reading.

I usually ignore technical errors because everybody makes them (some seldom; some often). If I never made a mistake, I might be more critical.
I am fond of early to mid-20th century technology; in firearms, motorcycles and cars. Even my more modern rifles were cutting edge in 1975. If I could buy a brand new '56 Chevy, that's what I would be driving. My new car won't even let me flash someone the bright lights!
All in all, not a great article but containing some truths. GD

Roger has written some good books about living in the Lowcountry, he’s a hoot in person. I’m not too upset by his mistake.

Yes, everybody makes mistakes, but one of the things I learned early on about being a professional writer is to make an effort to keep them to a minimum.

I would not be upset by "his mistake," if there were only one--not several in a relatively short article.

That's in the same vein as fiction writers who make wild mistakes concerning gun stuff. Female mystery writers are the worst, in general, which is why I've been avoiding them. Probably a somewhat misogynistic attitude, but it's my attitude and I'm sticking with it!

Great article. But I'm a little longer in the tooth age wise.

You’ve got to love the campfire. An article whose claim is that nothing SIGNIFICANT has changed in many decades, if not a century is followed by a discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, lol.

A statement about the lack of available ammo is attacked for being inaccurate because ammo was available, just not reliable?

Did Ken Howell just re-incarnate?

Yep!

There's not only been significant advances in rifles, bullets and powders, but optics. Before WWII no rifle scopes were sealed against moisture--the reason many if not most scoped rifles before the war were equipped with detachable scope mounts, often high enough to allowing aiming with irons even without removing the scope.

Plus, very few scopes featured coated lenses, because Zeiss came up with coatings during the 1930s.

One thing I have noticed frequently over the decades is how many hunters form their notions of perfect rifles (and scopes, cartridges, etc.) by around 40 years of age--and then never change 'em.

One of my local friends in Montana, who I lost track of maybe a decade ago, decided by 40 that pre-'64 Model 70 Winchesters and the Weaver steel-tube scopes made in El Paso, Texas were the finest ever made. He was so certain of this that he often offered to loan friends his Model 70s with Texas Weavers so they could experience all that excellence themselves.

That’s probably true about a wide variety of things, not just those items.

I think this forum is living proof - it would be interesting if everyone's actual age were posted under their "Join Date."

I'm 74 and pretty comfortable with that Model 70/El Paso Weaver concept! It's one of those cases where logic says otherwise but it's just comfortable. GD

I will be 72 in just under two weeks.




In the 90's and mid 2000's if anyone predicted that that I'd be owning anything but heavy barreled magnums and repeaters, I'd have said they were nutz.

I would never thought I would be acquiring




Quarter-Bores




Sako's



Cooper Single-Shot Bolt Actions



Mannlicher Stocked Rifles



Straight pull European Bolt guns



Double Rifles

and as of late, O/U Combinations,



223 Rem/30-06 Springfield



12 gauge/308 Win w/ 222 Insert (Einstecklauf)

I even have my eye on a Drieling (Drilling).

I still consider myself to be an un-reconstructed red-neck, so I don't whether I have evolved or just have gone nutz.


Quien Sabe,


GWB

I'd like to think the 30-30 still holds that record. I still see a good number of them in the Woods. I know I was prowling the snow filled landscape with Winchester 94 in tow today.

I think most of us get to a point where appearance, feel and familiarity win over what is the most accurate or the latest and greatest. I'm 67 and am having more fun now than at any time in the past. Guys who like old cars for example, probably like the older rifle designs that they either owned or lusted after as young men.



My wife bought this for me on our first anniversary in 1983. It's a 222 Rem and the first brand new rifle I ever owned. I like the fit and it has sentimental value. I own three 222s, two Tikkas and this 788. The Tikkas are more accurate, but not enough to matter. I don't shoot this particular rifle much anymore, but still take it out for a run a couple of times a year. I just put a Burris FF 2-7 on it.

I almost always use a HB Tikka 222 at my club for local shoots. I was told my 222 couldn't win anything, and that I should buy a 6mm of some iteration. But they miss the point. This cartridge is fun to shoot. And despite having a rifle that cannot win anything, I've managed a few top five scores. Not bad for a 222 shot from a stock rifle.



Based on their advice, I bought a 6BR barrel from MGM and placed 4th out of 32 with a clunky single shot. It's not about winning. It's about the fun, the nostalgia and memories. And the chat afterwards when people tell me it was luck and nothing else. Some don't get it.

But next to my 303s, I have shot the 222 the most.