Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Am I the only one to read a Dave Scovill article.

I remember an article in RIFLE about the 375/338 Magnum wildcat cartridge. Impressed me enough that I had one made up and the comments and data were correct. However, the drawing of the cartridge was for the .375 Epstein, not the cartridge in the article. I wrote in questioning this because my .338 brass necked up to .375 was noticeably shorter than the drawing. Mr. Scovill answer was a bit terse saying something on the order that there was no difference in the cartridges. Oh really? I'd have to dig up the two magazines to figure out the difference but I thought it was significant. A case that much longer would never fit in my rifle. It gave me the feeling he didn't like people catching what they felt were errors.
Paul B.

I have enjoyed the Handloader magazine under Mr. Scovill's editor time. He is interested (on the handguns side of things) in revolvers and loading for them, which is what I like too. Other shooting magazines seem to have largely become devoted to autoloading handguns; I can only enjoy a very limited amount of reading about these. I hope that Mr. Pearce and Mr. Venturino continue providing articles to Handloader under the new editor.

375 Epstein in based on the 300 Win Mag case (2.6" long) while the .338 is 2.5" long. I see why most think Scovill is an azzhat . . .
when you're a know-it-all, there's just no way in heck you can be wrong.



While mislabeled 375 Epson in the photo below, I believe it a an Esptein case formed from a 300 WM. Shoulder is forward of a 338 case.

Hmmm, I've never been bothered by his work and feel I've learned from his writings. I'm glad he still has a column.

I have Handloader and Rifle magazines going back to when Al Miller was editor. Through to years I feel that after Scovill took over quality has diminished considerable. I actually dropped them for a while but re upped as there really isn't another magazine with the quality of writers such as Venturino, Pearce, and Barsness although some of these writers also write for other magazines. Maybe you should start your own magazine John Hint Hint
Scovill makes a big deal about growing up poor. Him and I are about the same age and grew up in the same area about 40 miles apart. Most people were logger/mill workers or Farmers/ranchers or all of the above such as my grandfather but if you were to ask them they didn't consider themselves poor as they all had jobs, food on the table and a roof over their heads. This was another time back in the 50's and 60's where opening day of deer season was a family event and more important than any ball game is today.
As a gun writer I rate Scovill just below Clay Harvey and there is also the BS factor. There has been a couple of time where he has told the story of where he outran a black bear in the woods . As for his RCBS 45 bullet it is nothing but a Keith design with a little extra weight. if you have a fixed sighted 45 colt it will probably shoot high with this bullet.
I can't understand this retirement thing. Looks like his wife Roberta was just put in his place. Maybe she was doing the work all along as she has also been with the magazines for a long time even before they married.
I just got a notice the other day that it was time to re up my subscription. I probably will and just put Scovill on ignore.

I do not know how old Mr. Scovill is ,but I read an article today he had wrote as a .44 special review. The article reminded of discussions I have with my father ( 80 years old with ever increasing dementia) anymore. It seemed to go off track from the beginning and wander a bit about this and that, then repeat it's self. Then I drew to some sort of a conclusion that was not nearly what was anticipated. The article left me no more or less informed and generally was more of a remembrance of him and a couple of guns he may or may not have owned.
One part I do think was interesting is his quote " The real test for those loads was ,of course, at 100 yards, where they managed nice round 4-to -5 inch five shot groups and at least three of the five shots were inside 3 inches.

Who here judges the accuracy of a .44 special revolver or any iron sighted handgun on the basis of 100 yard groups, especially with cast bullets at 950 fps?????

DocFoster,

I did start my own magazine. Actually Eileen did, seven years ago, the notorious on-line quarterly RIFLE LOONY NEWS, but she assigns me a few essays in each issue:-)

Actually, several writers have used long-range shooting to test the stability of bullet designs and accuracy; Brian Pearce is one that comes immediately to mind, along with Seyfried. Pearce tests at much greater distances. Scovill is (was?) apparently blessed with really excellent vision, one reason he gets such good results with iron sights.

I've played with handguns at 100 yards, but never had the skill to actually try it in the field. Red dots and scopes help a good bit with the aiming part, but holding and squeezing are pretty tough.

Not a reply to anyone, just a general observation.

My dad, who was involved back in the 50/60's when super markets chains were innovating stuff we now take for granted, always told me "retail was for gentiles". I was involved with him in a wholesale biz at the time he was mumbling that mantra, and so the wisdom of it took a few years or more to sink in.

My hat is off to anyone who is serious about research in their career, while exposing themselves to the retail public--particularly with the internet exponentially increasing "feedback". Expressing an opinion outside the beltway can result in hellfire raining down. It has to be thick skin, as I doubt that he is getting fabulously wealthy off the job.

There is good reason for the lion's share of the shooting industry's retail reading being fluff.

I just signed up.

Thanks!

Dunno if you already noticed, but new subscribers also get access to all the back issues.

Here's my take on Dave Scoville:

Yes, he has started to wander in his columns, particularly in the last few years. As Mule Deer has reminded us more than once, when gunwriters move beyond their peak years, they tend to write more about themselves than they do guns. It appears that Dave can't decide what story he wants to tell, starting off in one direction and meandering into several others, leaving us wondering what point he was trying to make. One recent column appeared to be dedicated to the memory of his step-father Lester, but actually drifted off course and never seemed to come back.

The truth is, there have been many times where Dave's writing has made me yell, even out loud. One time in the space of three or four columns he appeared to contradict himself several times and I wanted to pull my hair out.

Other times, he has offered up some stuff that's hard to swallow, with an apparent straight face. A few years ago, when defending a John Haviland article about handguns for bear defense, Dave made the incredible claim that he could he draw his .44 Magnum and hit targets of various sizes out to 20 yards in some fraction of a second, "or a shade under." Perhaps he really can, but I find that hard to believe.

Even at his best, Dave tends to write in paragraph-length sentences, and overuses such phrases as "select powders" and "calibers of interest" or "accurate enough to hit a jackrabbit at 80 yards, or whatever." His accuracy tests for handguns and lever-action rifles appear to occur at arbitrary distances ranging from 30, 40, 60 or 70 yards or some other unusual distance, rather than the standard 25, 50 or 100. All that's okay, of course, I just find it rather odd. He certainly has a peculiar writing style.

Still, after years of being a staunch critic, I could not actually bring myself to stop reading his columns. Eventually, I came to peace with his occasional misfires and realized that, when it comes right down to it, ol' Dave is just as much of a handloading looney as any of the rest of us, and most importantly he's on our side.

I've decided that in some areas, Dave has a savant level of understanding about guns and handloading and his information can be taken to the bank. In others, I believe he is a little out of his element and I take him with a grain of salt. Fortunately for us readers, if you read him very much it isn't hard to tell which is which.

Scovill's columns always reminded me of an old adage: only the editor doesn't get edited.

I don't subscribe anymore, but I keep a few old issues around to dip into. It's kinda like buttermilk, a quart every few months goes a long way.

The recent piece he wrote about his stepfather and the family guns may be the best thing he's done. Very enjoyable.

Funny to see this topic here about Daves' "ramblings".
Midway has/had the newest Nosler manual on sale for $16 so thought I'd get a copy as I was ordering some other stuff anyway.
I enjoy reading the "forward" before each cartridge as I always look up some of my favorites to see what others have to say about them....then there it was....I looked up the 300 H&H and the prelude is by Mr Scoville.
The 300 H&H is mentioned twice on the page in 2 different sentences. Daves story is about how John Nosler invented the partition and about growing up in Oregon, and Dave still having a few original bullets in an original box..gee Dave thanks.

I will say he stayed on track pretty well in his latest Rifle article.

I'm a fan of his column and other writing, especially his 30W.C.F. in Rifle .30s Special Edition (2010). Some of his columns get to technical for me since I don't handload but I like reading about lever actions, iron sights and stuff generally older than me. Rifle is the only magazine I buy every issue because it has a diverse range of subjects. I'm in my mid thirties and have no interest in WSM's,AR/MSR, Extreme long range shooting/fancy specialized scopes, etc.... Obviously others do, that's why I like Rifle, there's something in it for everybody each issue. As a side note, I enjoy JOC BUT enjoy the likes of Hagel, Ormond, Koller, Larry Benoit,Van Zwoll, Scovill, Barsness, Pearce and Wieland a little better. To each their own!

Dave knows his stuff and in person, he's a heck of a good guy.

Al Miller was my editor at Wolfe for several years and he was a total pleasure to work with. Al knew more about militaria and obscure European rifles/cartridges than about anyone ... his article on the 6.5 Mannlicher is a classic. I was really saddened when my friend Al Miller retired.

I found Dave to be more of the same, except that he had more technical handloading knowledge.

Dave is married to Ruby Montgomery, who is a darling, and she does most of the proofing.

One thing about Dave, if you start a phone conversation with him, you'd better be ready for a full-hour or more.

Something most folks don't know is that Dave owned a jewelry store in Klamath Falls, OR for quite a while. In fact, he bought an antique diamond scale from me. When I delivered it, we found that we had more in common than fine karat jewelry and gemstones ... we both killed stuff, lots of stuff.

I've hunted with Dave several times. He is a superb rifleman ... simply a dead shot ... and a great guy to have in camp and by your side in the field.

The highest compliment I can EVER give a man (or lady) is, "He's a person I would trust and enjoy when we had a bad elk in the bottom of a awful canyon." In my guiding years, I had some horrible elk situations and having a trustworthy companion, one you can count on, simply makes all the difference ... Dave is just such a person.

Johnny B is another, as is his wife, Eileen.

As Johnny Buffalo mentioned, Dave kinda wanders when he's talking ... hey, we're old farts; we ALL wander some. Besides, there's other cool stuff than what we're actually talking about. Sh1t, y'all might learn something that was unscheduled

Anyway, Dave is one of the good guys and I'm proud to call him my friend.

Blessings,

Steve