A while back there was some discussion about the whereabouts of Ross Seyfried. Wherever he is, he's still plugging away because the 2016 Hodgdon book has an article by him on Olde Eynsford black powder.

There's also a good one by JB on the wonders of 165gr bullets and 4350 in the .30/06.

I have always found Ross Seyfried's writing interesting and well done.

Ross is in Oregon.. He has a place called the Elk Song Ranch.. I gather they sold their place in eastern Colo. He wrote some of the best articles I ever read...

I really enjoyed his writing and style.

He did a Pic about his last hunt at the old Family land, was good, something about the buck dieing near the green of the golf course that was built on the land net to his place!

I always thought his style was a bit flowery, but he knows a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. He got me off to a good start with my Hornet, and also saved my flintlock project with a timely article in Blackpowder. I'd like to see him in print more often.

Ranch is in North East Oregon, just outside of LaGrande

I had read the new article myself and have been hoping he was going to be writing more.
Even when the project he's working on and writing about isn't my thing, I learn by how he approaches it.

I thought he had sold the Elk Song Ranch. I remember quite a long time ago that he had put the ranch up for sale. Does anyone know whether this is correct or not?

Many years ago my wife and I were travelling in the area and paused at a rest stop where I was able to glass a part of his ranch. It looked like the kind of area where a broken down old man could have a hunt for elk. Unfortunately I never followed up on it, then I heard he had quit having hunts there.

Jim

The ranch was sold several years ago. For a while afterward Ross was living in Oklahoma, but don't know if he still is.

I just googled the ranch and there are several listings which indicate the ranch was put up for sale in 2011 for 8.5 million dollars. Then a year later the price was reduced to about 6.9 million dollars. No indication as to whether it ever sold.

Jim

It was sold at the reduced price: www.mirrranchgroup.com/ranches/elk-song-ranch/

He's in Kentucky now and doing well.

That's good to hear. I can't imagine why a guy like him would move back east.

I reckon so; $6.9 million would go a long way on the bills right now.

I still use a Cold Steel Master Hunter after reading a piece in which he extolled its virtues.

Same with my 700 MR .270. Had to trip the .338 WM when times got tough c. '94.

He mighta bought some elk ground in Eastern KY...

I remember reading his articles in Guns&Ammo Magazine. I always enjoyed his stuff.

I very much appreciated that Ross always showed a real respect for the game.

Kentucky elk. Plus some pretty big deer there, and in neighboring Ohio, plus the four archery-only counties in WV.

A few million bucks will get you a pretty big chunk of Kentucky, last I checked.

Always enjoyed his writing even, as someone else said, when the topic itself wasn't one of my interests.

No better writer, ever.

Ahh yes good old Ross, who's this JB fella you talk about?
Some young upstart?

Don't trouble yourself about him. Flash in the pan. Fortunately for him, his wife has had condiderable success.

Plain and simple, Ross was badazz in everything he wrote as he knew it all far more than the rest. Any other writer denying this fact should just, well, you know...

Who cares about what Ross writes when JB's is so full of information and technical expertise. Everyone should read John's 30-06 article...

I enjoyed Ross, though blackpowder single shots would probably cost less were it not for him writing about them.

Ross has an article in about every issue of The Double Gun and Single Shot Journal and has for some time. Still as good as ever......

Dennis.

Already did.....twice.

Ross Seyfreid is one of the "old school" writers, I have always enjoyed his articles. Hope he is doing well and continues writing. For Shrapnel, I remember how he got his name. One does learn from experience.. J.B. is my favorite new "school writer" A different style that appeals to my looneyness.. Both have a lot of good info based on use not prose.

Me too, I especially like the next to last paragraph...

Not only could Seyfried write well, unlike 99.9% of "gunwriters", he could actually shoot, and not just well, but at a world class level. Shotgun, rifle, or pistol.

Concur.

Hopefully you are writing with tongue in cheek!
I agree that Ross was one of the best writers in the industry and I still enjoy reading his articles. There is no doubt he could shoot also but he still has human foibles. He wrote numerous articles with absolutly false or misleading information in them and loved making underhanded comments about other writers
Last time I talked with him at the Wolfe Publishing booth he claimed there were no bears left in Alaska as large as those taken by older Kodiak guides, even though F&G records prove different, and had the audacity to claim that photos of bears my clients had taken were photo shopped !

Ross was also quite pleased with himself and wasn't afraid to admit it. He made a claim that he had designed the rounding of the front of single action revolver cylinders and wasn't aware that Colt had been doing that at least 60 years before he was born.

He also made a pretty bold statement around some of his contemporaries in the writing business about how ignorant the readers are and you could write anything you wanted and without qualification, they would believe it...

Like how the round relief cuts in the sharp corners of English double guns were designed to collect dirt !

Are you familiar with Jan Libourel?

Can't imagine why.

He also made a pretty bold statement around some of his contemporaries in the writing business about how ignorant the readers are and you could write anything you wanted and without qualification, they would believe it...


That may actually be true to some extent. How much bs have you seen authoritatively stated and then swallowed whole here alone, let alone elsewhere on the www and in print. Some is from writers who have the wrong "facts" and some is deliberately misleading. My favorite example of the last is one well-know MSR pusher who claimed the .30 AR was more powerful than some .308 loads. That may have been true about a reduced-recoil .308 load, but was pure crap in relation to standard loads. It was a blatant attempt to deceive readers in order to push his agenda.

I'll withhold judgement on Ross until I read his report on shooting the B29.

I remember this piece and how saddened I was to read it. In the early/mid 80s Ross wrote a lot about hunting revolvers, heavy for caliber cast bullets, large as possible meplats. I remember him sticking hard to a philosophy that you would never get high enough velocities to ensure reliable bullet expansion from a wheel gun. Therefore, the shooter needed to put together a bullet/cartridge combo that would ensure the largest diameter entrance and exit hole; and focus, as always, on proper shot placement.

I was never able to afford a John Linebaugh or Hamilton Bowen custom 5 shot Ruger conversion; but I took away as much as I could from his articles and used my Ruger Super Blackhawk to take my very first heads of North American game… Mule deer buck and a truckload of pronghorn does. Eventually I also used my Ruger to cleanly take a bull elk at 125 yards.

Ross Seyfried was my favorite gun writer at the time and I hope he is doing well in Kentucky.

I've posted this before but some time ago in the last decade I was in email contact with RS, about what I do not precisely remember now.

I invited him to the 'fire and he replied, "too much chaff; not enough wheat." I replied he could be "the wind" and reduce some of the chaff. He declined.

Much earlier, I built a 340 B mainly due to an article of his circa '91 or '92 in G&A extolling that cartridges virtues. Later, after a trip to Australia where he experimented very successfully with the then new Winchester Failsafe bullets loaded in '06, he was the first, IIRC, to publicly conclude that these new premiums lifted each cartridge up a whole level of effectiveness.

He then went on later to argue the 338 over the 340 due to the new bullets. I believe that was what we were communicating about at the time I invited him here.

He certainly was opinionated but a good writer also.

Ross was also the first (that I recollect) to extol mono bullets like the Triple Shock and to state that they punched way above their weight.

He was of the "Elmer" school when it came to elk rifles, but later recanted and said that the proletarian 270/30/06 with good bullets was just as effective.

He was the first to tout the use of a laser rangefinder, before they were even available to the public. He used a three-foot long Swiss Wild optical rangefinder to shoot rocks for fun. John Burns got his start as a young man watching his neighboor, who happened to be Ross.

He was the last IPSC World Champ before the dot sights took over in open class, and before "The Great One" (Leatham) came onto the scene. He was also the last man to do so shooting from a Weaver stance.

He wrote that a few times he'd limited on doves with as many shells. Jeff Cooper used to comment that the average competent rifleman or pistolero usually couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a shotgun . Maybe so but not Ross.

Opinionated or not, few if any gunwriters have near his resume.

FWIW, Ross was one of my favorite writers, and when he left the mags he wrote for, I let my subscription lapse. I still pick one up occasionally on the news stands, but a lot of what I subscribed for went away with Ross.

As to his being opinionated, who among us with a real wealth of experience DOESN'T get opinionated after a while? His opinions weren't based on just an occsional kill, either, but on a pattern of performance over time. This is one thing among the many that made his writing valuable to those of us who still prefer Truth over style. He was the real deal, no matter how you measured him. He just wasn't PC and had no intentions of EVER being so. This too endeared him to me, personally, but that's not so much related to shooting or hunting as to his personal ethics, and he valued Truth above all else, and had little patience about "opinion," and had little patience with it. Some today call that a fault. I like it. This country worked better when more people were like that, but that's a whole 'nother thread, I guess.

I too wish him well, and I suspect that while I'm sure he hated leaving the west, because it was "home" to him, and the land of the big elk, but so much of the wsst is now owned by the US Gov't that may have had a part in his decision, at least possibly. I think I could see that in his overall outlook, but that's just a projection. All I know for sure is that I miss him, and I for one think we are diminished by his absence in print. My 2 cents' worth, anyway.

Ross wrote one time about, "The poor man's Linebaugh" although I forget the title of the article. He said that for those who could not afford a Linebaugh gun, get a Ruger BlackHawk Bisley .45 Colt with 5.5" barrel and load for it. He said, again IIRC, you could go to Linebaugh's web site and get Ruger friendly pressure tested loads. I did find a 5.5" Bisley at a gun show and they sure are hell for stout. It feels a lot heavier than my 7.5" Bisley .44 Mag.
Paul B.

fwiw & imho,
Nice to see some professional courtesy extended where y'all don't sling dirt on one another on the internet... In person maybe. The internet? I would not have expected that of you in a month of Sundays. Even our idols have feet made of clay...

Have heard a few behind the scenes stories, humorous more than sour grapes, ill will, or whatever, on a sacred cow or two but would bet the ranch it will not wind up here in a gun writer fess up...

Regards, Matt.

I did too after reading that article. Found a 5.5" SS Bisley and they are stout.

Yep, it's been a well kept secret about how much gun writers actually get paid. Not only from writing but endorsements as well. Good gun writers are compensated better than stars in the NFL.

This.

Dink

The rest of the story...

Sharpnel

Don't we all wish.

I recall that article, which IIRC was around 2000. Don't remember in what magazine. Interestingly, John Linebaugh tells a good story about driving to Seyfried's house to demonstrate his "heavy" 45 Colt loads, and Seyfried's skepticism. It might still be up on John's website.

As for Ross being "first" with the big flat meplat, I'm not sure if he truly was first, or just first to write about it. Veral Smith and John Linebaugh, among others, were working with such matters a looooong time ago.

This is a major feather in Ross' cap, IMHO. Not taking anything away from Leatham, mind you.



I don't know many guys who are world class with all of them. Our own ltppowell is one, I know... man can he hit doves!

No question that Seyfried's shooting resume was/is superb.

Veral Smith and Ross Seyfried contributed to the Cast bullets Association magazine, The Fouling Shot in the 1980's. They wrote several informative articles on cast bullets.
Seyfried probably wrote the first mainstream media article about LBT bullets for the September 1988 issue of Guns and Ammo titled "The Best New Handgun Bullet Design." A very informative article.

Another good article was "Rifle Handgun Combo for the '80's" in the August '87' issue of Guns and Ammo. This one about the interesting possibilities of the high pressure .32 H&R Magnum cartridge in the Ruger No. 3 and the SSX Bisley. 115-grain cast bullets at 2,000 fps from rifle.

I have never met Ross Seyfried but in print he is able to write interesting articles which occasionally, separate me from modest amounts of money.

Completely false statement. I remember that article and Ross said nothing of the sort.