Ken and Steve...
Excellent replies (as if my opinion matters).
We have all either known and/or read the old "experts" opinion on loading data, calibers, and firearms. We all know they "stretched" their point of views considerably, and I am able to name names, since I am not one of the "chosen few".
But Keith, Ackley, Capstick, O'Connor, and many others, had many irons in the fire, and their interest in writing about firearms, loading data and their personal triumphs was to generate income.
Where did that income source itself? Why, with the ammunition and firearms manufactures, naturally. (The pay, from what I have seen, for having an article published is minimal.)
I recently read several reviews of new firearms on the market ... none of which were "cheap" items. When you get into the fine print you see where wood to metal finish was poor, checkering was over-run (even with double line borders), and accuracy was around 2-1/2 to 3 MOA.
Yet in the final summary paragraph these writers and evaluators, without exception, all said the same thing ... basically, it is a great firearm and anyone should be proud to have one in his gun cabinet!
What? $1500 and up for a gun that has poor wood to metal fit, poor checkering and miserable accuracy is something I would be proud to have in my gun cabinet, "I don't think so, Tim!"
As for the reloading data I have seen in several recent magazines, hell, it is just a rehash of what was published in the Nosler, Lyman, Hornady and all the rest commercially available manuals. Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing different.
I will give Keith and the others some credit, since in their day they ACTUALLY did sit a a reloading bench, or a design desk, and do some of the work. They may have stretched their results a tad (cough), but at least they ventured into areas "...where no man has gone before..." (or whatever the hell that StarTrek saying is, I never was a Sci-Fi fan).
Today if you open a gun ragazine which has 108 pages you will find about 96 pages of advertisements, and it is amazing that the firearms reviewed are generally the ones with the full-page ads!
I do not spend my money (since I do not get free copies) on a magazine that is supposed to be about handloading to read about ATV "field tests"; or a firearms/hunting magazine to read rave reviews on gold plated triggers and hammers and "lazer etching on the wood and metal" of cheap $400 imports being sold as $4,000 "collector" items.
I had an old music professor who had a couple of favorite sayings:
"You can't put a pig in a cage and expect it to sing like a canary!"
"The object of an orchestra is to start together and to finish together, and to hit as many correct notes as possible in the journey!"
Today's gun writers (evaluators) unfortunately subscribe to selling pigs as songs birds, and don't care how many wrong notes are played as long as the piece ends with a positive finding...
