J. Wayne Fears

Rick Jamison

Clay Harvey

Rick Hacker

?????????

Jeff

Rick Hacker has a column in Shooting Times, I believe...

Here's an old thread about Clay Harvey:

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/247338/Where_is_Clay_Harvey

I was thinking Jamison still wrote for Shooting Times, but I could be wrong.

He also writes for the NRA publication "Shooting Illustrated."

Jamison hasn't written for any gun magazine that I know of since his lawsuit over the WSM rounds.

Is that because he does not need to?

Well, I have heard through the grapevine that he doesn't really need the money, but have also heard from one editor that Rick asked if he could write for him. The editor said sorry, no, because the magazine would lose too many of its advertisers.

Clay Harvey had a not so graceful exit in his gunwriting career.

Followed a link from Ken Howell in one of the old threads and bought Jamison's coyote book. I'd buy any new books. If the magazine market is more or less closed there's the web and book be it eBook or paper.

Sad to see the mechanics that demand a no. One formerly famous gun writer in somewhat - somewhat but far from exactly - the same circumstances was active on the web for a while but seems to have lost interest long ago.

"not so graceful exit" as in, "Run outta town."

I tried to put it nicely.

I guess it is a good thing he does not need the money then.......Wonder if we will ever know the details of the suit?

FWIW � before the Winchester imbroglio, a mutual friend told me that Rick's fourth wife was an heiress worth millions. I don't know any details or confirmation.

Please see if she has a sister that is available.. email me.

He's written at least one article for Shooting TImes in the last 2-3 years. It was about the 22 magnum if my memory is right.

Because advertisers money is the name of the game. God forbid the magazine should actually be invested in the ostensible purpose for which it is written.

What do you think is the ostensible reason a magazine is written?

Unless published by some organization such as the NRA, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation or AARP, or as a hobby, magazines are written to make money. And even the organizational magazines are run to make money, or at least not to lose money. Money is the same reason most stuff is produced, whether magazines, TV shows, cars, lawn sprinklers or pre-torn jeans for teenagers.

Magazines make money in two ways: subscriptions and advertising. The bigger the magazine, more of its money is made by advertising. The biggest magazines, in fact, basically break even on subscriptions, charging only enough to print and mail copies, making their profit by advertising.

Whether a magazine's advertising decides the editorial content is another thing. Some magazines constantly run ad-driven articles, but from what I've seen this eventually affects their circulation, since ad-driven articles drive some readers away. Since advertising rates are based on circulation numbers, in the long run running a lot of ad-driven editorial content loses money.

I know very successful gun writers who left ad-driven magazines because they couldn't stand writing ad-driven articles (or as some people in the business call them, "adverwhorials"). But most gun magazines want to provide real information to their readers, because that keeps readers coming back--and thus keeps advertising rates up.

If you don't like the articles in some magazines, or articles by some writers, then don't read them. But don't assume every article in every gun magazine is an adverwhorials, because they aren't, not by a long shot.

Wait...

Me and about a dozen other guys "invented" the 260 about 2 years before Carmichael did. We found out that high BC bullets in a 6.5 made for a really good "match rifle" chambering

Can I sue him?

Or should I stomp around and pout until somebody tells me to shut the [bleep] up?

There is nothing wrong with anybody in a business making a profit. With out a profit there would be no business. You think we would have computers and internet and this forum to post our thought and all the wonderful sniper rifles, or was young ladies we like? When did making a profit become something sinful? If the people didn't make a profit, then would be no need for me to fly them around.

And IIRC, Ken Waters even earlier.

Yep, Ken developed what I believe was called the .263 Express, as I recall in the 1960's--long before some of the .260's other "inventors" were born.

Guess I missed that event...never been a whizzum fan anyway. I grew up reading Jordan, Skelton, Keith, Swigget and the like. This new guy Barsness shows promise.

No pressure there...

Knew/know 'em all � an admirable crowd well worth your attention.

I was always a fan of John Wooters. He always seemed like a very practical sort of person. That guy John Barsness that you mentioned, he strikes me the same way. Although he's got some strange ideas about 6x scopes.....

John & Ken-
Water's column in Handloader #110 (July 84) describes his first attempt with the .263 all the way back in 1956.

His rifle was 03 Springfield action with a Buhmiller barrel, 1:8" twist, .263 grooves, chambered with a .243 Win reamer, and throated with a straight reamer. Pressure problems developed, particularly when bullet makers changed diameter from .263 to .264. He gave up and rechambered the rifle for the 6.5 Rem Mag.

The earliest description or the .263 of which I'm aware appears on p.150 of the 1957 Gun Digest in an article by Waters. Interestingly, the name was temporarily first attached to a wildcat 6.5/250; he named the version made with the 243 Win case the ".263 Express No. 2". The original impetus for the cartridge was the possibility of use in a lever action like the M99 Savage or M88 Winchester.

--Bob

Jim Dumbo made a somewhat 'rise from the ashes' comeback after his stupid comments cost him his jobs. Jamison is either not so desperate or not so lucky.

Friends,

I was on a prairie dog hunt with Jim Carmichel, Ned Kalbfleish (owner/editor of Varmint Hunter Magazine) and John Larroquette (actor, hunter and GREAT GUY) a year or so before the .260 Remington made it's huge introduction.

Jim Carmichel is the real deal; he is an unreal shooter, superb rifle shot, not a bad hand with a pistol and he surely knows his way around cartridge development.

When working with a 6.5 round, he was trying to develop a GREAT over-the course round. Two cartridges stood out; the 6.5-.308 and the 6.5-.250 Savage. I every way, the 6.5-.250 Savage was the finest shooter.

Remington picked up the 6.5 cartridge, but was sure that the one based on the.308 was marketable ... and the better one, the cartridge basedon the .250 Savage would die at birth.

Jimmy had all of the target data with him on our hunt and the .250-3000-based 6.5 round was BY FAR the finest shooter at all ranges. Slower? Yes, but it was an accurate little bugger.

Jim was very sad that Remington would, without a single doubt, commercialize the 6.5-.308 and he'd be associated with the round ... and for all the wrong reasons. The 6.5-.308 had a greater case capacity, thus shot faster, but it was not nearly as accurate as the 6.5-.250 case.

Jim had an amazing array of data and targets with him on both rounds, and with several differant barrels in each chambering ... make no mistake, the 6.5-.250 Savage round was considerably more accurate.

Did Remington make a mistake? Nope, not really. Billy-Bob, the typical rifle buyer, wants to see performance and an extra fifty fps can tip the scale. And the difference in accuracy of one-tenth inch at 100 yards could not concern Billy-Bob less ... Old Billy-Bob wants to see 3,000 fps muzzle velocity.

Anyway, it was fascinating seeing all of the ballistics work that Jim had done with the two rounds. The more accurate cartridge, the 6.5 Pussycat (or whatever) was a dandy, no doubt about it ... but the round that eventually was to be called the .260 Remington was also no slouch.

As a matter of historical interest, I started working with the 6.5-.308 AND the 7-.308 back in 1965. In all, I had four 6.5s and six 7mms and killed a large number of mule deer and a fair number of elk with the rounds. Surely, I killed enough with both rounds to have an idea of what was going on with them.

My conclusions? The 7mm, which I called the 7X51, was a considerable better killer, although it offered absolutely nothing over the 7X57 I was using, too. For those interested, my 7X57 was a Mannlicher-Schoenauer Carbine with double-sets ... one HELL of a killer.

The 6.5 round offered low recoil, reasonably flat trajectory and evrything that is grand about moderate cartridges.

Anyway, lots and lots of rifle experimentors have worked with the 6.5-308 over the years. Some of us will left history and some of us (like myself) left no history at all.

And in some cases, like the Jim Carmichel/Remington situation, the buying public ends up with a cartridges for some kinda silly reasons.

God Bless,

Steve


PS. By the way, I mentioned hunting for several days with John Larroquette. John, of course, was famous for acting in Night Court and a zillion other television and movies. John is a really, really good guy; John is a hunter and a shooter and I am incredibly happy to be able to count John amongst my friend. Johnny is also a deadly rifle-shot.

Even better, John truly loves his wife, his son, his dogs and his rifles ...... John is recovering alcoholic and has NEVER missed an AA Meeting (in something like 20 years). John is a complete man.

I can affirm Steve's statements about Jim Carmichel and his shooting and research. I've been on several gun-writer deals with Jim over the years (and even once roomed with him on a prairie dog shoot), and he is the real deal--not only an extremely good shot but a tireless and educated researcher.

On one of the occasions I was shooting PD's with Jim he was using a VERY heavy .22-250 built specifically for the purpose by Kenny Jarrett. He let me shoot it a few times, and it was a deadly rifle, not just because of the accuracy but the weight. There wasn't any scale in the field, obviously, but I'd guess it weighed at least 15 pounds and maybe 18, which allowed him to see the bullets hit through the scope, rather than have somebody spot the shots. In my experience that's an iffy deal.

This impressed me so much that I immediately started working toward the same goal. Tried a really heavy .22-250 but eventually decided that smaller cartridges in lighter rifles worked just as well. Went to a 12-pound .223 at first, but still didn't like it, so eventually went even smaller, to the .221 Fireball, .204 Ruger and .17 Fireball. But shooting Jim's Jarrett was the beginning.

He also knows how to tell a tale or two, and has a few!

DZ- Thanks for that information! I found it interesting and am glad to hear of a hunter in Hollywood. I would not have guessed, based on the characters he's played, that Mr. Larroquette was a hunter/shooter.

John Larroquette is an excellent actor. I really enjoyed Night Court and several episodes still make me laugh when I think of them.

John Laroquette is in a handloading intructional video, I think available through VHA. Jim Carmichel, when he first published his 6.5 research (I can't find the copy) stated that he did not claim to be the first to work with these rounds. He just put in a lot of time and research on them and published the results for the benefit of all. Douglas chambers for Jim's .260 Bobcat (on the .250 Savage case) and the 6.5 Panther, aka .260 Remington.

I totally agree with Steve's comments on the 6.5-250 Savage. There are several hi-power rifle silhouette shooters using the 6.5x250 Savage, aka 260 Bobcat. I had one built myself last year and have been developing loads for it since. Yesterday, it grouped five Hornady 95 grain V-Maxes into <0.60" using Ramshot Big Game with an average velocity of 3,250 fps. The rifle also handles the long 140-142 grain bullets just as well. And it's a *pussycat* on the shoulder! I highly recommend it, although if you don't want to play with a wildcat (such rifle looney heresy ), then get yourself a 6.5 Creedmoor.

I just want to mention that MT_DD_FAN is the only other shooter I've ever run into on a public range who also set out wind flags. He knows what he's doing!

A person could almost think of him as cheating with that much magnification, don'tcha think?

and I left out Steve Timm and Jim Carmichael and I was privileged to meet both and shoot sod rats with them. Two more humble, genuine decent people I have never met.

I owe my fascination with rifles and cartridges to Jim Carmichael. My dad would get Outdoor Life every month and when it came in the mail I was interested in three things; Pat Mcmanus humor article on the back page, Jim Carmichael's shooting article, and whatever hunting article Jim Zumbo wrote for that issue. In that order. I must add that JC gave me a desire for a .280 remington from early on and after owning around ten .270's and .30-06's I still don't have one.

It's never too late to see the light!

was going to point out that the creedmoor is basically the same as the 6.5x250...JB beat me to it

I grew up reading JO'C, so Carmichael and Zumbo were a huge disappointment to me when JO'C retired. I quit reading Outdoor Life a couple of years later. Granted, it is hard to replace a legend, but I never have felt that Carmichael and Zumbo were in the same league as Cactus Jack, sort of like 2 utility players being asked to fill Babe Ruth's shoes.

Jeff

It is always easy to criticise, but this article shouldn't have been written, let alone printed. Even the best seem to shoot themselves in the foot...

Shrapnel,

I absolutely agree. Shouldn't have been printed.

Another brain-fart was when Dave Petzal totally dissed the Red Mist Society and the shooting of prairie dogs. He was just at Red Mist a month before (Yep, I was there, just like I was for fourteen straight years) and Dave was whooping it up and having fun.

Literally any of us can screw up ... And gun writers, the best we can do is be totally humble and never forget how much we constantly learn from our readers.

We never attain the status of SHOOTER-GOD, as much as the long-winded amongst us think they have. Gunny writers are simply like the rest of us, except that they can express the sport in words, so that it may be passed on to the next generation.

One day, I will put into words what my simple published writings meant to a young man and his father (who returned from being a prisioner in North Vietnam for four years.) The boy and the daddy did not, could not communicate. Mom had committed suicide, not being able to handle the husband. Only my stupid words, printed in a dip-[bleep] rodent-killing magazine, brought son and father forever together. Every time I look at their letters to me, I cry. It was probably why God placed me upon this earth and gave me the ability to string three words together. That I bonded a needful son and an on-so-[bleep]-up daddy ... well, it make me cry. And it makes me so grateful.

One day, I will write about it. For now, it IS in written form, but only in my Private Writings.

Humble, enjoying shooting and the total sport, and never forgetting to learn .... that's what being a gun writer is about. And then, carefully helping each and every reader to the best of our ability. That's what it's ab out.

OH, I forgot to mention. One of my hunts with John Laroquette was also with Jim Carmichel. When those guys get together, it is a total riot. At dinner, I learned to eat small mouthfuls because in a second, one or the other would crack a funny that might make me launch my streak twenty feet.

We shot prairie dogs and smoked fabulous Hubanas and just had a blast for almost a week. Too soon, it was over.

Great men, good men, both of them.

Blessings, May God Bless All,

Steve

I admit that I liked Night Court because of John Laroquette, a wonderful comic actor.I didn't know about the hunting and shooting part. Nice to know. I never could warm up to Jim Carmichel. And as far as the legend in his own mind Jim Zumbo goes, I will not read or watch anything he is in period. As for the 260 , or 6.5 -308 or 6.5 -250 savage, I shoot a 6.5 x 55 plenty accurate and plenty flat shooting enough for me, to kill just about any herbivore on this or any other planet. If you want more that that, get a 270!