Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Question for JB

John, When you publish an article about a certain cartridge, is the reloading block of loads that's usually included with the article actual testing done by you or where does it come from ? TIA, Ben

I do the handloading and shooting, which usually requires a minimum of two range sessions.

John

I heard a rumor that you have a large callus on your shoulder.

Speak louder, he might be hard of hearing also.

John need another question answered please in the 1st Gun Gack book about 35 Whelen it says all groups shot at 50 yards . i am in the process of having a Ruger #1 barrel rebored and chambered to a 35 Whelen . so here is the question did you do any 100 yard group shooting ? and if you did could you somehow let me know your thoughts on reloading this fine old cartridge . thank you much ,Pete53

You mis-read the chart:

The line at the bottom which says, "Groups shot at 50 yards" has an asterisk in front of it--indicating only TWO loads were shot at 50 yards, those using handgun bullets, the 140-grain Speer JHP and the 158-grain Midway cast SWC. All the rest were shot at 100 yards.

I also described my thoughts on handloading the .35 Whelen in the 2000 or so words preceeding the load table--where I mention having owned four of 'em over the years.

John

Attention span, it's a thing.

Recently I became curious about how many rounds of centerfire rifle handloads I've been shooting since most of my writing income came from "gun writing," which began around 20 years ago. Before then my career involved writing on a bunch of subjects, including fishing, Western and natural history, and a few others--basically anything some magazine was willing to pay pretty well for. (Since starting to publish in the mid-1970s have had articles appear in over 40 magazines.)

By around 2000 I was handloading and shooting around 5000 rounds of centerfire rifle ammo each year, but when I retired from Handloader and Rifle last December, I'd been averaging around 8000 for several years. That did not include factory centerfire ammo, shotshells and rimfires. I didn't develop a shoulder callus (at least not one large enough to notice) but did grow a little weary of shooting rifles of around .300 Winchester Magnum recoil and up.

Around 15 years ago I also noted that even lighter recoil can grow wearying, if you shoot enough. The occasion was a prairie dog hunt in Nebraska for a number of gun writers, hosted by a major American rifle company, which had just introduced a new bolt-action primarily designed for hunting coyotes.

They didn't have a heavy barrels, but between the mid-weight barrel and the heavy scopes on 'em, the total weight was a little over nine pounds. They were all .22-250s, and we used a then-new factory load from Winchester. The shooting started late in the morning, shortly after we arrived at the ranch, and continued until near sundown. We got out again in the morning around 9:00, and before noon I noticed the .22-250's recoil started feeling harder and harder--and eventually realized I'd started to flinch--because every time the rifle went off it started feeling more and more like a .375 H&H. So switched to one of the .22 rimfires the company also brought along, which soon cured the flinch.

One of the nice things such companies usually do on such shoots is give the fired brass to the shooters. I was putting mine in the empty liter water bottles. They'd brought along in a couple of big coolers full of water and ice--and the high temperature the afternoon before had been around 100, so there were plenty of empty bottles.

After getting home I counted the fired cases, and there were more than 600. So now I know my one-day tolerance level for shooting a 9-pound .22-250....

It's not just recoil, it's the noise. It can be tiring.

Yes, it can be--but I was wearing custom plugs made for my ears, covered by muffs. What I remember most, years later, is the way the rifle came back, both against my shoulder and my cheek....

Something I've wondered about also: do sound waves traveling through stock, skin, and bone into the inner ear contribute to hearing issues even if the outer ears are heavily muffled? (Sorry, this has nothing to do with .35 Whelen's specifically but since we're already off the road into the weeds...)

From the research I've done, they do--but most importantly through openings such as our mouth, nostrils, etc.

Our head is apparently a relatively easily invaded "space." Maybe it would help to stuff compressible ear plugs up both nostrils too....

From JB. when I retired from Handloader and Rifle last December, I'd been averaging around 8000 for several years. That did not include factory centerfire ammo,

Holy Crap! That’s a lot of rounds. I get it, in your case, that’s what put food on the table and money in the bank. My attention span would run dry long before 8000. But as they say, thank you for your service, we’ve all learned a lot from your wonderful writing and enjoyed it also. Gonna miss it.

M721,

Thanks!

But I'm still writing some--a rifle column and feature article in every issue of Sports Afield, and 3-4 articles in every issue of Rifle Loony News.

I was told by a hearing doctor, I forgot what they are called, that shock waves reverberate the skull and so can still damage the ear. I had told him I used ear plugs and wore ear muffs . When he looked at my graph, he asked what rifle I shot. He was a South African.

Have read the same thing, but apparently the other "holes" in our head allow even more of the shock waves to reach our ears.

All of which is partly why my choices in hunting cartridge have generally been down-sized over the past couple decades. But that's also partly because I've found less difference in how well different cartridges kill big game the longer I hunt, as long as the bullets penetrate and expand sufficiently.

Have investigated some of the reasons for that, which I reported on extensively in Chapter 41 of The Big Book of Gun Gack II, "Opinions of Killing Power."

Your article had a rare commodity , common sense. I remember the formulae articles, the cartridge tables that had energy as well as drop.

The company supplied molded ear plugs, which I wore all the time at work ,and Peltor muffs around the really noisy machines. But I found quality foam plugs worked better than the molded ones, so I wore them at the range with the muffs. That's a long ways from the "Swedish Cotton" that the old Swedish carpenter used when he used the Ramset. To a young apprentice, he was really old, 62. I'm well past that now,chuckle. He was funny with that a dry understated humour said with a Swedish accent.

Yep. There isn't anything I hunt that can't be killed by a .260 Rem with a 140 grain partition.

If I'm hunting in open areas where shots may be over 250 yards, I use my .25-06 with 115 grain Partitions.

yes i did i should have put my glasses on " which i hate to where " i did find & read the little hand book too. thanks,Pete53

thanks for the positive comment Pinky .