Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Writer and hunter: Jack Lott?

What do ya'll remember about Jack Lott? He used to write for Peterson's G&A if I remember correctly, mostly African hunting. I know he got thumped by a Cape Buffalo, thus the .458 Lott cartridge. It seems I remember there was some mystery about Jack Lott... maybe he was murdered or something like that?

I still have quite a few old mags with articles of his in them. In fact he is the one who turned me on to Fred Huntington's long necked .300 Winchester Magnum.

If I'm not mistaken he took his own life after finding out he had an incurable cancer. Seems I read that he didn't want to burden his family.

RIP Jack.

I remember reading some of his stories. After an unfortunate experience with the 458 Winchester, he necked the full length 375 H&H to 458 and developed the 458 Lott.

I knew Jack briefly in the 70's. He was a fascinating man and a wealth of information. I got to shoot his 8 bore from a bench rest. I remember that vividly. It was a great loss to the hunting world. I enjoy going back and reading the old articles he wrote.

It seems like biographical info on most of the old writers is hit & miss.


Mike

I always wondered what he did for a living. I mean, where did he get his dirhams to live the life he did?

I actually asked him that at one time. Not quite as blunt as it sounds today. We were talking about the cost of hunting in Africa. He asked me what kind of car I drove. Said to go look at his. Old Chrysler if I remember right. There were lots of people guessing at the time. I really always figured it was between him and the IRS and certainly none of my business.

I remember a Browning autoloader he was converting to .458, he wrote up an article about it in G&A. He never got it running 100%, because of feeding problems, but it was a really interesting exercise to me, for some reason.

I guess that buffalo really made an impression in him.....

I have just had ocassion to dig out an old G&A article about Jacques Lott. In 1971 they ran a piece about Tom Siatos and Jacques Lott developing what they said was the very best 45 cal rifle cartridge and it was the 460 G&A, a 458 on the 404 Jeffery case. One up and three down Jacques considered it the best for all manner of reasons and I think he later went with the what we now call the Lott was the prolifferation of 458 win rifles that could be re-chambered. He did look at the full length 458 Ackerly Magnum but wanted to do away with the belt and decided the 404 case offered the best combinations of desirable characteristics.

Von Gruff.

I remember that exact article.
Showed a picture of him firing it and a ejected shell flying out the action.
IIRC it was in gun digest and he was editing that book at the time?

I read from a reliable source that he worked for the CIA off and on, fact or fiction I do not know, but a very interesting character any way you look at it.

Wasn't the primary advantage of the .460 G&A the ability to clean up the chamber of a .458 built on a non-magnum action?

Stryker60

Sorry, I was thinking of the .450 G&A.

Jack shortened the case just a bit. The full length 375 H&H case necked up to 458 caliber is the 450 Watts,

According to my Feb 1971 issue of Guns and Ammo, the original .460 G & A cartridge was the .404 Jeff necked up to take the .458 bullet and run somewhere between .458 Win and .460 Wea ballistics. Case length was set at 2.86 inches and length to shoulder was 2.248 inches with a 15 degree shoulder. The original idea was Tom Siatos and Lott came up with the dimensions for the new cartridge. The 1st rifle was a Remington 30S built by Walter Abe at 10 1/4 lbs with a 22 3/4 inch barrel. I believe that Tom Siatos rifle was a Magnum Mauser built by George Hoenig. A later cartridge was brought out called the .460 G & A Short set at about 2.5 inches in length to essentially clean up a .458 Win chamber

Written by Boddington on page 552 (preface to 458 Lott reloading data) of "Any Shot You Want" A-Square Reloading Manual: "Legend has it that he worked for the CIA. We never knew that for sure, but I know he was with the anti-castro movement and he spent a lot of time in Rhodesia during the long bush war. With Jack one never knew where fact, legend and myth intertwined- but I actually saw his his Congo Cross awarded to him by Moise Tshombe for his courage in that long forgotten insurgency."
The premier issue of Wolfe's "Hunting Horizons" 1992 (predecessor to "Successful Hunter") page 50 has an article written by Jack Lott on the 458 Win Magnum describing his buffalo mauling and subsequent cover-up of ammunition deficiencies by Winchester which led to Lott's development of the 458 Lott.

I don't know about Siatos' rifle, but Jeff Cooper's 460 was built on a Magnum Mauser by Hoenig. The building of the rifle and its use in Africa was described in Guns magazine in a three-part article beginning in July 1978, titled "A Heavy Rifle Called 'Baby'".

Cooper told the rifle's story again in a chapter from To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth: "Summa Cum Laude - In Unstinting Praise of the World's Finest Rifle". In use, the rifle twice took two Cape Buffalo with a single shot.

--Bob

(Hmm. I see the expletive auto-deleter doesn't like the Latin word for "with".)

Baby was built on a Z602 Czech action, chambered for the .460G&A (the .404 Jeffery opened up to .458). Has a deepened magazine well to hold 6 rounds. A 21 inch barrel, weighs 11.5 pounds loaded.

I worked with Jacque at G&A in the mid-70s, and he was an amazing guy. He pretty much lived on his writing income, plus his ability to access top quality rifles and guns, virtually at a moments notice. It took him all of about three days to find me an Alex Henry .450x3-1/4, 20 rounds of ammunition, fifty rounds of brass and a set of dies.

Jacque said that he was prompted to develop his .458 as a result of the failure of a round of .458 Winchester which nearly cost him his life when hunting Cape Buffalo. As I recall there was a settlement with Winchester, and this, plus Jacque's writing income (along with buying and selling sporting rifles) enabled him to live the life he wanted.

Fascinating stuff! Someone ought to take the time to do some serious research and document as much of this as is possible. It would not make you rich, but it might make a hell of a good read.

As an aside, when I was in graduate school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a handful of "old" African hands (older than us early baby boomers) who had grown up and worked as PHs in various African fields. They were availing themselves of the opportunities in American graduate schools to work on advanced degrees in wildlife ecology and wildlife management.

Almost all had fought as mercenaries in one or more of the "wars of independence" (on the side of the colonials). All were sufficiently notorious that North America, at that time, was a more attractive place to live. They were all knowledgeable riflemen, excellent shots, wonderful horsemen (one of them started a polo team at Texas A&M while in graduate school) and keen observers of the natural world. I was fortunate to share classes, bull sessions and campfires with a few, and I knew several more from professional meetings. They inspired me to try to be more than an ivory tower academic.

I've got a copy of a Guns & Ammo magazine titled Big Bore Rifles from about 1983 I think written entirely by Jack Lott. Pretty interesting reading and he tells of his buffalo mishap in it.