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I thought it was a good read myself.

His worst mistake in my book is leaving out the 270 Winchester.


Nobody’s perfect

I thought it was an excellent article.

Who was the target of his inspirations? He makes the older crowd smile. The younger crowd might be irked (and a few older ones too). It gets people talking.

Errors? No worries. The most glaring one, in my view, was crediting the 30-40 with anything. All it was, after all, was a copy of the 303 British, but with a 308 barrel.



If it ruffled a few feathers, so be it. It livened up a mundane Saturday for some. Well done!

And a tip of the hat goes to Pappy for livening up the newly wed and nearly dead!

Great article and good read for us old farts caught in the past. I shoot a 6.5 Swede in a sportorized 96 Infantry rifle for pronghorn. A 38-55 Winchester 94 /w octagon barrel for close in deer. MY favorite 30-06 load is the old 220 gr rn. I shoot a 1911 Fox Sterlingworth SxS,12 gauge.

I nod to the new technology though as I have an AR and an Inline ML

A lot of younger hunters discount the effectiveness of older rifles and cartridges in the hands of older hunters.

Cutting edge technology is nice to have, but probably significantly useful in a relatively small percentage of the whole.

Or so it seems to me at age 68.

"Luddite" just doesn't come off when your writing for an online magazine. But, I get it and feel the same way sometimes. However, I couldn't help thinking the guy just needs to get laid. And, in the bio, "Some think the best Southern writer alive"? Did he write that? Sheesh. God, save me from being an angry old man (kind of headed in that direction).

Add 1970s VX-ii to the errata.

I'm not a "Luddite" or I wouldn't be typing this, but just because something is supposed to be "new and improved", doesn't mean it is. I'm old enough to have seen many fads come and go. Most of them were touted as the best thing since sliced bread, and many of them fizzle just as soon as the hype dies down. The shooting/hunting world isn't immune.

Technical errors I can overlook in an article that, after all, is not a technical article. I've long since quit trying to correct every distribution of conventional wisdom in the gun world that most here, at least, know is not true...just smile and nod my head.

The guy was just expressing what a number of us here believe: the constant current of latest, greatest technigorical advances in the shooting world improve the bottom line for gun and ammo companies and purveyors of same (not to mention gun writers) much more than they improve the success rate of typical shooters/hunters.

More truth than fiction, IMO. I like his snarky humor, semi pissed off syntax. A fun read at any gate. I'd have liked to have seen the original draft before the editor got a hold of it.

The guy was just expressing what a number of us here believe: the constant current of latest, greatest technigorical advances in the shooting world improve the bottom line for gun and ammo companies and purveyors of same (not to mention gun writers) much more than they improve the success rate of typical shooters/hunters. "

Well said! In fact that goes for most of what comes out in print.

Lost me right there. The man shouldn't even be published if he doesn't know there's a difference between a Vari-X II, a VX-II, and a VX-2. That kind of error destroys the man's credibility, if you ask me.

A few comments:

I am also something of a Luddite, as I own and hunt with both rifles and shotguns made in the 1800s up to the supposed cutting edge of today. Among them is a custom Griffin & Howe 1903 Springfield, made by G&H the same year as Ernest Hemingway's--and which I paid more for than any other firearm in my collection. Have also taken plenty of game with rifles and sights/scopes that were deliberately used because they're considered "handicaps" by many 21st century hunters. Those have included several 99 Savages, in chamberings from .22 Hi-Power on up, including at least half a dozen .250s. The sights have ranged from old apertures to a Noske 7/8" tube scope with a post reticle which took a whitetail at over 250 yards.

As I've mentioned recently here (and elsewhere) I don't own a 6.5 Creedmoor anymore after owning several, and probably never will again. Instead my "Creedmoor equivalent" is a custom 6.5x55, built by me and Charlie Sisk, on an FN Mauser commercial action with a Lilja barrel Charlie installed--and a stock made out of "California English" walnut that I fitted, shaped, finished and checkered myself.

But after writing for quite a few magazines over the decades, including Gray's Sporting Journal (where I also served as editor for a couple years in the 1990s), National Geographic and most American gun and "outdoor" magazines, I know it is also possible to write/publish entertaining articles that are also factually accurate. When I read one that has as many factual errors as this one I start to distrust the writer, even though I might agree with some of his non-technical opinions.

Then you best chastise the editor as well. He should have turned it around with a note to the author to check his facts. It wasn't just Pinckney.

Steve, did you miss this at the end?

Roger Pinckney is a native of the SC Lowcountry, a veteran of twenty-five Northwoods winters and is author of twenty-two books of fiction and non-fiction. He’s been Senior Editor of Sporting Classics for twenty-eight years and has hunted the alphabet, Argentina to Zambia. Many consider him among the greatest living Southern Writers.

If you did see it and and were just poking fun, nevermind! I just woke up from my nap and my sarcasm detector is still a little fuzzy. At any rate, if ol’ Roger wanted to stir the pot, I think it worked.

Or a $50 Weaver V-7

No. In most organizations, there is more than one person who checks articles - proofreaders for grammar, as well as content editors. Sometimes, "editors" are names given to the writing staff and they aren't really editors. Being a "senior editor" doesn't necessarily mean that he's at the top of the food chain. There are editors in chief and managing editors that are higher up than "senior editors". It's a term that is often company specific.

The more appropriate question would be - who checked his work or did his story just get approved without any checks?

He did, Pappy348! And, thanks for sharing it. Good conversation starter even if he's not a great writer, didn't do his homework, etc. He certainly voiced something alot of folks feel.

And, as much as I can be nostalgic and love at least reading about our history, that doesn't mean cutting edge stuff is all nonsense. Most of the stuff we are nostalgic about was the best, modern stuff available at the time. When the first mountain man showed up with the cutting edge invention of the day - the cap lock - and showed it to his mountain man buddy, his buddy turned his flat brim backwards grabbed his private parts and said, "Ohhhh shhhhhi.....!"

No. In most organizations, there is more than one person who checks articles - proofreaders for grammar, as well as content editors. and sometimes "editors" are names given to the writing staff. Being a "senior editor" doesn't necessarily mean that he's at the top of the food chain. There are editors in chief and managing editors that are higher up than "senior editors". It's a term that is often company specific.

The more appropriate question would be - who checked his work or did his story just get approved without any checks?

Unfortunately Steve, it might be more accurate if you'd said, "There are still, in a very few organiations, someone who occassionally checks ...

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Yes, exactly. There have been a few editors I've written for over the years who've been as sloppy, some of whom even edited errors (whether factual or grammatical or spelling) into my work.

I have also have an old history with Sporting Classics. Was asked to write for them back in the 1980s, and did a couple of times. In fact wrote one SC article that was reprinted in a hardcover collection of "best" stories about some subject, because the book's editor thought it was pretty good.

But the money for my first SC article hadn't turned up six months after it was published--which happened to be when Eileen and I did a two-month tour around the U.S. in our pickup & camper, with a canoe on top of the camper. We didn't have much money, but back then had the time to do that--and I wanted to see (and fish in) more of the country east of the Mississippi. (Was also writing about fishing as much as hunting back then.)

Among our stops were several visits to the headquarters of magazines I was writing for, and one was in Columbia, South Carolina, where I met with Sporting Classics' editor John Culler.--who was also at least one owner of the magazine. He turned out to be a slick-talking BS artist, which is why I never wrote for SC again. (Though did eventually get paid....)