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

I don't own a WSM rifle and don't intend to buy one. But I see the patent issue a bit differently than some here. We have patent law and a government agency to issue patents. Rick Jamison filed for patent and they issued him one. Winchester was happy to work with Jamison as long as they thought he was willing to work for free. Gun companies pay their own designers, why not Jamison?

When Winchester introduced the 300 Mag there was a lot of armchair complaining. Rick Jamison used the caliber, handloaded for it and said the critics were wrong. Rick Jamison did a lot to popularize the 300 win mag. I think Winchester owed him and should have been gracious regarding the WSMs.

Here is what I heard from various "industry sources" about the whole deal. Please note this is just what I heard, not any sort of opinion on the right or wrong of the whole deal:

All Jamison asked for initially was reimbursement for his development costs, which included some technical ballistic equipment not usually used by wildcatters, plus some of his time. Unlike most wildcatters, he didn't just order a new reamer and "guess" at pressures, so some of the real work of developing a commercial cartridge was already done.

At least one of the companies involved flatly refused to pay Jamison anything, apparently because no manufacturer had ever paid a wildcatter before. Usually wildcatters felt honored to have their baby turned into a commercial cartridge.

Jamison felt all his work, plus the patent, took his concept far beyond a mere wildcat, and when the companies went ahead and introduced an incredibly similar round anyway, decided to take them to court. The royalty may or may not have been part of what he originally wanted.

I also heard two very different numbers for what Jamison originally wanted in reimbursement for expenses, one considerably higher than the other. But even the higher number was considerably less than what more than one ammo company has said it typically costs to bring a new round to the market. I suspect the higher number was correct, because the guy who told me the lower number didn't have any connection to the companies involved, is hard of hearing (like a lot of older gun industry people), and often FOS on many subjects.

As I understand it, Rick Jamison has a copyright over the WSM design that Winchester uses. He sued Winchester and there was an "out of Court settlement" between him and whoever owns Winchester-Browning et al... This may include Jamison getting paid royalties.

And what advantage did the 300 WM have over a 30 Newton? Winchester was 50 years late and messed with a 375 H&H case when there was already a 300 H&H "on the shelf." Couldn't they leave well enough alone?

Did I miss it?
What ever happened to Jamison.
I had enjoyed his writing and appreciated his viewpoint on reloading.
Never did hear what happened to him. What is he doing today?