Met and talked with mr. Jamison at SCI. Seemed like a decent and personable individual. Haven't seen much in the way of written pubs lately. Wondering if because of the WSM stuff he might be an unmentionable?

I always liked his writings and saved several old magazines that I read now and then. I am sure it has something to do with his silence.

Do a search. There are volumes of posts on this topic in the archives.

I never trust a man that keeps such a perfectly manicured mustache as he.

I don't trust men OR women who have wild hairs growing everywhichaway...under their noses, IN their noses, ON their noses, inside and outside their ears OR anywhere else on their faces...shows poor personal hygiene and probably other BAD habits.

What has facial hair have to do with what's between your ears?

He is always welcome. The trouble is, he's hanging out with Elvis in Reno and has no time for us.

Good Post Steve! I've been wondering about E.

De nada, Se�or Marea Carmes�.

Rick lives locally, I met him in one of the local gun shops a few months ago, I also found him decent and personable, I told him I missed his articles an asked him if he would have more in the future?, he said "they" want him to come back and write but he said he didn't know weather he would or not?
I didn't ask him why?, I would like to see his writings in the future.

Rick was one of the more important technical influences on my early hobby career in shooting and handloading. Others have more than made up for the void he left, but I'd gladly read his stuff again if it came around.

Well stated.

Allways enjoyed him as well,he wrote well and easily read. Magnum man

One thing I always remember about Rick is he was a huge proponet of the 22-250. I was too at the time, until I discovered the 220 Swift! Ha!

Anyway, I really miss Rick's articles. Would love to have a collection of some of his more popular writings. Hope he returns to writing.

He was never arrogant which has become all too common with gun scribes these days. "I have hunted them X many times", "I have been shoitng the YYY for XX many years", "I have been doing that for X many years". Who gives a [bleep]? Just write.

yep

The whole lawsuit against Winchester over the WSM's would have made it pretty hard for the Major shooting magazines to employee him. He got bashed pretty bad here for it as well.


I read quite a bit of his stuff and liked it.

Rick did a good deal for the industry itself in my opinion.

He was the guy I read the most of when I was starting in shooting, and I'd be reading again if he starts again.

Either that or he should go to work for Hornady - hell they've made more new cartridges than any rifle maker... and ya I know that Hornady made them with a gun maker or two, but not all of them.

Especially that JB guy, always going on and on about himself, cant even figure out what the article is about half the time!

and you are a "smoothie"

'Ya think..Some writers think there holier than and it is totally impossible anyone else knows what there talking about,regardless of experiences.

Rick Jamison and Brian Pierce remain at the top of my book.Brian is not afraid to write about an old timer that just does it and don't brag as in his Sourdough Ed article ending it with:

It's hard to argue with success.

Jayco

Never forgave him for suing WW over the WSM stuff...he was totally worthless in my eyes after that stunt. Before that he had his contest to name his line of short mags and decided to name them Jamison this and Jamison that...I thought "Aww hell...come on!"

Not really Mannlicher...just a "tongue in cheek" ignorant response to the other ignorant response. In the old days I had hair down to my waist and a beard/'tash half way down my chest, hair sticking out all over the place including my own warm furry everything else. That remark just struck me as too stupid for words.

Rick Jamison and Layne Simpson at least produced excellent, well designed, testable data when the rest of the garbage coming out of the gun rags wasn't worth dog wallop.

Jamison had good reason to be "arrogant". He KNEW his sh**...which is much more than can be said for all the anti-Jamisons I've read so far. Anyone who DIDN'T learn from his work must have sh** for brains because they totally missed all the excellent information he presented, but that's pretty much par for the course.

EVERYONE had the choice to read or NOT TO READ Jamisons articles.

If WW did that to ME, I would have sued them too...He should have dropped a dime and collected it himself at the same time...Jezzzz...maybe YOU like to lay down and take it in the ... but I'm not built that way.

What's so great about WW...they're no different than any other company...or person...they will screw you to death if they can get away with it.

Damn, People, how long ago did that lawsuit happen???...this is a new day...GET OVER IT AND GET A NEW LIFE.

Why in the hell does Rick Jamison have any LESS of a right to name a cartridge or series of cartidges with his own name than Winchester or Remington does? Or Ned Roberts , Townsend Whelen or Art Mashburn? Or protect his own intellectual property?

Jamison got s settlement in his case against Winchester for some very valid reasons.

Get a clue and stop being such an envious, hateful moron.

he took a concept pioneered by the likes of Lazeroni and calls it his own?

opportunist at best, parasite may be more accurate.

Lazerorni did not "pioneer" anything. The short /fat cartridge case design concept had been around for ages.

If Jamison is a parasite, then what the [bleep] does that make Remington and Winchester? Outright theives?

Most of the concepts for ammunition they have introduced have been stolen from others.

Winchester legal dept screwed up bigtime when they assumed that the Short Magnums were totally public domain AND that they had the right to use others development work. Rick Jamison merely protected his own designs.

Lazoroni and anyone else could have done the same. The PPC cartridges were similarly protected for many years.

so in your world, Colt should sue everybody that ever chambered a gun in .45 Long Colt?

S&W should sue everybody that ever chambered a gun in .38 S&W Special?

Winchester should sue for all of the .308 Win. guns out there?

that would be really serve all those 'thieves' right...

I recently heard through the gun-writer grapevine that Rick did not patent the concept of short-fat magnums. Instead he patented a process to mass-produce the cases, which is a different thing entirely.

I can believe that JB.

The concept of the short fat mag precedes Jamison or Lazzeroni.

Folks were getting magnum velocities out of the 348 Win necked down to various sizes. The 348 is a 2 1/4" case BTW


Mike

That would explain a lot.

And also explain that most of Jamison's critics who are accusing him of protecting the unpatentable don't know what the hell they are talking about.

Companies the size of Olin -Winchester do not settle out of court unless they have to.

Jamison's claim was not some baseless nuisance lawsuit.

6mm250,

Yeah, before the case lawyers contacted about every gun writer in the business, asking what we knew about the history of the short-fat concept--and if we'd testify about it. I told the guy who called me about the Gradle (and other cartridges) based on the .348, and heard from other writers who got similar calls. I never heard from the guy again.

That does make a lot more sense. Seems there are too many eager to jump on the bandwagon to criticize Rick, when he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

We owe him that much. After all the years of reading and enjoying his writings, we shouldn't be so quick to throw him under the bus...

DF

it really isn't that tough...

Jamison vs Olin/Winchester

Aw, c'mon. He had a legitimate patent. The court said so. Why should he let some giant corporation--a foreign owned one at that--steal his intellectual property?

Why are you taking sides with FN Herstal (Winchester) against the little guy?

Reading the court docket it sounds like Rick some agreement when he started working with them (breach language) and had brought in some ideas that he had covered in patents that Pre dated what the makers where doing.

If they broke an agreement to pay him for his contribution, and he had patent coverage them they really got nailed for changing their promise more so than the patents.

With an out of court settlement, we may never know if it was a "serious" settlement or a cost of litigation settlement.

DF

I don't know about that. I read the actual patent not that many years ago, and my recollection is that he was basically patenting a certain cartridge length to width ratio that he claimed produced some kind of magical performance. And he was also claiming his research covered all bore diameters from .22 to .416. My impression on reading the patent was he was basically setting himself up to sue somebody down the road.

SAAMI is among other things a cross-licensing organization sort of like the SAE. Compare Alexander Arms which recently had a proprietary cartridge go SAAMI with J.D. Jones.

A good idea where there is prior art is to first assert prior use or obvious to invalidate claims of ownership then go ahead. It's a bad idea to go ahead and infringe then try to invalidate.

IMHO Mr. Jamison has something to say and I'd buy a book if he chose to self publish as others do more or less these days. There seems to be a delicate balance indeed between popular appeal and technical and narrow focus. Some fine writers with a narrow or technical focus - some who once appeared in Wolfe publications frex - can't get published in a newstand magazine these days. Others obviously walk that balance beautifully.

Exactly.

If somebody is smart enough, and worked hard enough, to create something unique enough to be patented, and determined enough to make it stick against a company the size of Winchester......

I'm thinking if this happened to many of Jamison's critics, they would either be crying in their beer, or they would've done exactly what Jamison did.

More power to Rick Jamison.


Casey

Dude patents only cover 20 years... After that anyone can replicate it

FN Herstal owns Winchester firearms. The ammo business is owned by Olin Chemical, an American company.

All patents expire eventually and become public domain.

It really isn't that tough, you're right.

Jamison patented a design and entered into negotiations with Olin and Ruger to implement his design. Ruger was willing but Olin wanted use Jamison's patent without paying royalties. The letters from Olin acknowledge that they were using Jamison's design and acknowledged him as the designer.

Seems like a pretty clear-cut legal issue to me.

I would guess that Olin decided the designs would be very profitable well into the future and their attorney's advised them on "efficient breach" of the contract. In other words, Olin took the gamble that it would be more efficient to refuse royalty payments and settle with Jamison outside of court than it would be to pay him the actual royalties from future rifle sales.

Olin is the dirtbag here, not Jamison.

I think Winchester should have sued Jamison or Winchester should have patented their idea.



"1964 Gun Digest page 299.
American Bulleted Cartridges by Kenneth L. Waters

284 Winchester

"An entirely new short-cased cartridge designed to give short action rifles ballistics fully equal to the longer 270 Winchester and 280 Remington rounds.

Case Length of the new round is 1/2-inch less than a 270, but a larger body diameter with decreased taper and sharper shoulder provided the same powder capacity. (same concept for the wsm)

This increase in body diameter introduced somewhat of a problem; it was necessary to keep rim diameter the the "standard" size (common to such caliber as the 308, 270, and 30-06) in order to permit use of the 284 with the existing bolt-face dimensions.
This sub-diameter rim is founded on the 425 Westley Richards cartridge, and was also used in the past in various German calibers."


There is nothing original about Jamison's cartridges. He copied or used the same idea from Winchester who borrowed it from Westley Richards long before Jamison ever did.

Also the origin of the 22-250 some versions used as early as 1925 by the likes of Donaldson, Wotkyns and Gebby.

Jamison is an opportunist. He patented a concept that had evolved many years before and nobody else had thought to patent for over 75 years. He probably did that as a precaution before the negotiations and offers for the cartridges to be loaded by one of the biggies. His only originality was in patenting the concept of the short fat cartridges and using it as a hole card.

That's not my problem with him. He 'sold' his line of cartridges to suckers like me in the articles he wrote touting them in the early and mid 90's. He claimed the 338 Jamison was the equal of the 338 Win Mag. In spite of knowing there is truly no magic in velocity (less propellant and case capacity will NEVER give you equal velocity and pressure,) I trusted his sales pitch and I'm angry at myself more than him. After building a couple of rifles for that cartridge I felt pretty dumb and have resented him ever since. I'd NEVER buy a magazine that would publish any of his articles in the future. I don't trust him.

Nothing new under the sun Bob. It's been done before like Fred Barnes making all copper bullets back in the 1940's (WW2) because lead was expensive but don't tell Randy Brooks that.

Let me get this straight Bob...you're mad at him because you didn't know a case that holds 75gr of powder would outshoot one that holds 70gr. Boy I hope I never make you mad, even if I'm right. powdr

Another who agrees with you.

A gunsmith in Colorado by the name if Jim Busha had a line of cartridges named the Heavy Express Magnums which were the 348 Win with the rims turned down body blown out before Jamison did it. These are essentially the WSMs.
This is kinda like some people a while back were trying to patent the wheel.

You're right and the frogs were making monometal (bronze and gildind metal) bullets before first world war (military). They stopped during 1stWW because bronze was most needed metal for other purposes.

And the 348Winch case was wilcatted in more form than the 30-06 or H&H and was used with or without rim, sort of short mag before time.

About cases and bullets an old gentleman friend of me, portugese, who lived years in Angola and Mozambique was turning bronze bullets before and after WW2 for his elephant slayer. Randy and Connie Brooks were not in business yet...

He made some cases same as Alphin did but 25 years before him(500/460Weatherby for exemple). There is not a lot of really new things in our game. But some knows how to protect their ideas. That's OK with me.

Dom

I'm certain that whoever was in charge of the WSM project twenty years ago was extremely unhappy about paying Royalties or a pay off to Rick Jamison. But that was twenty years ago...

So why assume that he can't sell an article to a magazine now? Maybe he isn't inclined to do so anymore?

Maybe he doesn't need to work anymore to put food on the table.

Good for him if that's the case.

Geez, some of you are a hard crowd!

I would say since no one here has the inside track on what happened, any comments would be pure speculation. Possibly unfair to him or Winchester.

It's been in front of a judge and the results are confidential. Unless Mr Jamison was specifically ordered not to release any details, we'll have to wait.

Some of you will have to hope for a juicy, tell all book down the road.

Nay... I don't care about the lawsuit. But It'd be great if Rick Jamison would publish again.

I have read his patents (my wife is a patent agent) and they have to do with case shape. Now he may have other patents on manufacturing that I did not read, so cannot say for 100% certain that the grapevine is wrong.

My guess is that the manufacturing stuff would be a different patent. And my source is a pretty good one.

At the time, I too was angry with him for the WW suit, but he did do a lot of scientifically valid development and patented the results (just like pharmaceutical companies and software companies). He presented the findings to WW and offered to license them (again, within his rights, just like other patent holders), and they refused. His patents (as I understand it) included case diameter to length ratio, shoulder angles, etc. and WW just copied his results and he sued. It was the only recourse he had as WW wouldn't negotiate.

He did sue, he did demonstrate the validity of his patents, he won and WW paid. Shame on WW for infringing on the patents.

I'd like to see him back and writing.

The concept of short and fat originated before Lazeroni, but Jamison developed his own flavor of short and fat and patented it. (I believe Lazeroni also patented his designs, but only offered them in his own rifles.) WW just infringed on Jamison's valid patents.

Huh?

[quote=Steve Redgwell ...
I would say since no one here has the inside track on what happened, any comments would be pure speculation. Possibly unfair to him or Winchester...

It's been in front of a judge and the results are confidential. Unless Mr Jamison was specifically ordered not to release any details, we'll have to wait. [/quote]

All very true - I maintain that as long as the facts are not forthcoming, people will speculate, and they have the right to do so. If speculation is not wanted, provide the facts.

As I recall, it didn't "go before a judge". The case was settled with a provision of secrecy. If it had gone before a judge it would be a matter of public record and everyone would know.

And then there would be no basis or need for speculation.

I'm thinking of that document. If there is a gag order attached to the settlement, we may never know. In that case, the facts cannot be revealed.

I always liked his articles. Whatever happened between him and Winchester isn't any of my business and I don't care either. I have a 7mm WSM and if he had anything to do with it, along with Winchester, I'd like to thank them both. If he starts writing again, provided it is in the right magazines, I'll look forward to reading his articles.

Is your source the Patent and Trademark Office? Here's what you get by searching the PTO website for Inventor Name--Jamison, John R:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...amp;Query=IN%2FJamison-John-R&d=PTXT

Almost looks like he's been patenting the concepts and ideas of others. The short/fat aren't the only ones. Opportunist.

You can also put your patent in someone else's name...children, wife or whoever.

Sure can. Most patents these days seem to be assigned by the inventor to their employer.

In the case where I work, upon coming to work here, I signed a document stating that anything I developed while employed here was first subject to the employers property, then to me. Although textiles is not at first thought to be gun related, we are now making the scent wipes for Realtree and also a line of gun-lube wipes for an undisclosed company, so I guess I can see that

For people who have a problem with Rick Jamison, I think you nailed the reason they have a problem with him. Patenting ideas that have been in the public domain for a long time rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

I can understand and support patenting the knowledge (intellectual property) that you yourself develop, even if you're building on what others have done, but patenting ideas that other people developed doesn't seem quite right to me. Might be able to get away with it, but getting away with something isn't the same as being on the right side of right and wrong.

Of course if Winchester had gone about things in the right way, there probably would have never been a scandal because Winchester would either (1) have based their designs on work that predated Jamison's, and taken the appropriate steps to document and prove that, or (2) otherwise had gotten around Jamison's patents (or part of the patents) on cartridge dimensions because they showed the work wasn't original to him. I can't blame somebody for protecting his patents, but whether some of those ideas should have been patented by him is a different issue.

Winchester plainly chose to settle out of court, probably so that they wouldn't flat out lose the case. Unless you think the court system did an injustice here, obviously Rick had more than a leg to stand on and Winchester was trying to cover their tracks.

How does that make Rick the bad guy? If a person has a patent, they have the right to protect their intellectual property. That is a basic principle of capitalist liberty, which insures continued opportunity for development/discovery to be economically stimulating. Those who are so critical of Rick's court case seem quite like communists to me.

While certainly not privy to the details, I strongly suspect that if Winchester had gone about things in the right way (using work that predated Jamison's and documenting properly), justice might have been served and Jamison's patents that used the work of others might have been nullified. I suspect that the patent attorney who advised Jamison to protect his own work by patenting work that other people might have done could have been savvier than Winchester's attorneys who may have thought they could take a shortcut.

Of course since the settlement is sealed, for all we know, Winchester may have just paid some of Jamison's legal fees and told him to pound sand because they had the documentation they needed to show they were basing their cartridges on work that predated his, so he could keep his short magnum patents and go away quietly or stand a very high risk of losing his short magnum patents.

Again we don't know the details because the settlement is sealed.

One thing that seems to be generally accepted regardless of whose side one comes down on is that Jamison's patented cartridges look an awful lot like cartridges that others had developed years before.

Jamison learned a valuable lesson... do not bite the hand that feeds you, or better yet..in his case, do not steal from the hand that feeds you.

If his chamberings were worth a shlt maybe they would have been adopted and named after him, the egotistical SOB.

And you have the audacity to call some else "an envious, hateful moron"?

GFY

I have 3 questions.

Did Winchester pay in settlement?

What does that tell you?

If Rick was in error or fault why would WW pay?

If you think companies only pay settlements when they are in the wrong, you are spectacularly misinformed.

It's interesting to me when "conservatives" who supposedly believe in the free enterprise system , capitalism and the rule of law call Jamison an "opportunist".

It's the very definition of hypocracy.

If Jamison is an "opportunist," then every other major corporation on the planet is a criminal enterprise of the first order.

Jealously takes many forms and your post above shows you are a jeaolus little man, bought and paid for by his corporate masters.

Apparently, you bend over for them daily. You seem used to it.

The Court's ruling was based on the contract negotiations between Winchester and Jamison. The legitamcy of the patent was not part of this lawsuit. The Court held that Jamison at least had a legal argument that Winchester entered into a contract for the production of the short mag and then breached.
Winchester botched their legal maneuvering and ultimately settled for whatever.
Jamison's patent is a separate argument. People appear to be confusing the issues.
1. Winchester fdup a business deal. They signed documents saying they would not misuse the information provided by Jamison and then did just that. Ruger was collateral damage because they were involved.

2. I would be curious to learn if the Jamison patent was ever contested or the extent of Remington's involvement. Looks to be just a contract battle in Court that scared the rest off.

Good points, KRAKMT, and Jamison certainly was entitled to some type of compensation for the development work he did if a commercial venture was going use his data and potentially profit from his work.

The patent issue is somewhat of a separate issue, and as you point out, the issue of whether Jamison's patents for the short magnums are valid and defensible (or whatever the legal terms are) may not have ever been resolved. From what I understand, getting the Patent Office to issue a patent isn't necessarily the difficult part - protecting your patent, regardless of whether it should have been issued in the first place, can be the difficult part.

The second sentence of the document you link mentions patent infringement. Is it possible this is only one of several judgements in the case?

I have 2 more to add:

How much did Winchester pay?

How much would it have cost Winchester to litigate the case fully?

A settlement of $1,000 tells a whole different story than million dollar settlement.

Just so everyone understands- Jamison sued Winchester. Jamison had numerous claims why he believed Winchester owed $.
1. Patent infringement.
2. Misappropriation of trade secrets
3. breach of express contract
4. breach of implied contract
5. breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing
6. tortious breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing
7. intentional interference with economic relations
8. breach of quasi-contract

Winchester moved to dismiss 3 through 8 claiming as a matter of law that the claims by Jamison should be dismissed. In this round, the patent was not challenged.

The Court said Jamison had a right to go forward on some of the claims, mostly because there were disputes over the facts.

This ruling did not challenge the patent. Other rulings might have, or the parties might have settled without addressing the issue. The majority of the claims were because Winchester fdup the dealings and they settled because they might have been found liable no matter what the patent said.

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!
.
.
.
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.

I have plenty of clues. One of them is that too many dimwits equate criticism of Jameson with supporting what Winchester did.

Wait a minute - are you saying that a person knows his own thoughts and what he is saying better than someone else does?

I would never be so bold. Especially in a "Jameson" thread.

As I understand it, That's why so many guns in the Old west were chambered for the 44-40, 38-40, and 44S&W. Colt wouldn't allow other gun makers to chamber their 45 Colt cartridge.

I also find it interesting that Winchester has a history of disagreements with gun designers and cartridge designers. IIRC, didn't Winchester try to s crew John Browning too? That's why he stopped selling them designs and went out on his own.

Not exactly so, but they refused to pay him royalties on each rifle sold. Only a fixed sum for the brevet and design. He left went to Europe, in Li�ge/Herstal Fabrique Nationale. The rest is history. Rifle was the Auto 5.

FN, JM and Remington made an agreement, Remington made it in the US of A...Winchester spent lot of time and money to come back with a design and never really succeeded.

Bean counter can, sometime, be incredible!

Dom

What intrigues me is how so many seem to bash certain gunwriters and I have seen so many saying they don't give a damn what Boddington says and now I guess it is Jamisons turn to get the shaft on an internet forum...

Easy to do when someone can't or won't answer..I see why only a small/very small proportion of them even post on the net..They like have two choices,argue there case or just call you names and not answer.

How can anyone judge Rick without knowing everything that went down as a fact????Makes no sense other than chest thumping on a keyboard.

Jayco

It was not just a "bean counter" who refused John Brownings demands for royalties, it was WG Bennett, who owned Winchester at the time. Even though they had made millions off of Browning's designs up to that point, the greedy bastard refused and Browning went straight to Remington. Marcelous Hartley, the Rem president had a heart attack before Browning could meet with him, so Browning sailed to Belgium to talk to FN.The rest is history.

And Winchester never had a Semi Auto Shotgun that was long lived or sold as well as the Browning A-5 since that time. Serves them right.

My experience in Civil Lawsuits is unless either Party to the Case REALLY wants to go to Trial then the two Parties will Settle.

Neither side will completely like the outcome but both Parties can live with the agreed compromise.

Hi Jim,

I know it was Bennett who decided but it's not because you're boss that you can't be bean counter too...
In this deal Bennett was totaly absurd, unbelievely dumb!!

Dom

Intellectual Property?

What's with all the "fuss & dust" at this point in time anyway? Time has shown that the WSM line of cartridges are about as dead as a 10 gauge shot rabbit! Who really cares about the WSM's other than someone who bought one? Most aren't even made anymore!
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I liked R. Jamison's writings aand articles better than most any of the other so-called gun writers and would like to see him back in print, too! I wish some of the current ones would just "go away".
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Without more solid evidence and information, this sounds like a bunch of old women gabbing at a hen party about juicy gossip with no basis behind it; it's a waste of time and too much speculation.

Pretty much how I feel about it. I have no irons in this fire, no WSMs, RSAUMs, RCMs or any other similar cartridges. Don't need 'em for what I hunt.

Most all of his articles were pretty good technically, from what I recall of them, and I enjoyed his writing style (especially when writing about coyote hunting).

If the WSM calibers were dead as you claim there would be little demand for the ammo. One only needs to look at the offerings of major ammo manufactures (other than Winchester) to know there must be a lot of people using WSM cartridges. For example, in their 2012 catalog Federal offers 24 different cartridges for these three calibers: .270 WSM, 7mm WSM, and .300 WSM. That's twice as many cartridges as they offer in RUM and Weatherby Mag calibers combined.

+1

I don't believe that the shooting community benefits from the ostracism.