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Jesse's Hunting > Gun Room Articles > The Gun Room > Want to Learn About Reloading? Read a Book!
Want to Learn About Reloading? Read a Book!
Andy Moe - JHO ProStaff
- Frozen Wastes, MT
January 03, 2008
Writing about shooting sports for an Internet magazine has its share of problems, not the least of which is the need to tell folks not to trust everything you read on the Net. Saying, “Trust me. You can’t trust anyone!” is a schizophrenic stance that leaves many readers bewildered if not a little irate. In this line of media, harsh comments and stinging criticisms can follow the electronic slip stream of a controversial article right back to your desk and hit you squarely between the eyes; and I have had my eyebrows singed on several occasions. I still keep at it. As contrary as my stance about internet knowledge seems, it’s based on a life-long love of shooting and shooting books; and a growing frustration with misinformation posted on the Internet.
The books I have read fed my thirst for knowledge about shooting while my field work has allowed me to test the mettle of this information. Some of it has fallen flat but most has not. Other bits of fact and fallacy have been altered by time and new technology. Good or bad, there is one thing you find in a book that you don’t find on your various web boards and chat rooms: Information put out by a person so expert and knowledgeable in their field that someone actually paid for his or her services and went to the great expense of replicating that work for sale to the public. By comparison, the opinions of folks on some web boards are cheaply bought. Not necessarily inaccurate, but not paid for in any way. As the saying goes, “advice is cheap.”
So how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Read a book.
Last month I got an e-mail from a reader who wanted to know who ‘Karamojo’ Bell was. D.W.M. Bell was a great elephant hunter in Africa during the last part of the 19th century. I have read as much of Bell’s exploits as I’ve been able to get my hands on. Not only does reading about Bell’s adventures give you a glimpse of the life and times of the African ivory hunter but it gives an eye opening lesson in ballistics and sectional density. Bell was most famous for hunting bull elephant with a bolt action 256 Mannlicher using 160 grain solid bullets.
The 256 Mannlicher –comparable these days to the 6.5x54 Mannlicher Schoenauer- is a small cartridge that few American hunters today would consider for game tougher than small woodland whitetails. Bell teaches that sectional density and bullet construction -combined with deadly accurate shooting- will overcome diminutive cartridge size. Bell also loved the Lee bolt action rifles in .303 British with 200 grain bullets at 2000 ft/sec.; an anemic round by modern standards. Bell killed the majority of his game animals with light, iron-sighted carbines chambered for cartridges that wouldn’t come close to generating the numbers the Taylor Knockout scale would find suitable for African game. It’s real food for thought when a fellow posts that his custom, .470 Buff-Basher is the only cartridge adequate for tough game. Or when another member posts doubts about using a 30-30 loaded with 170 grain bullets for deer in a Vermont wood lot. Having read Bell, you would know where the truth lies in both instances.
It’s pretty much accepted that few readers who reload can get away from owning a reloading manual but, if the evidence offered on many shooting websites is true, there is a seemingly large and growing population of shooters that seem to have skipped this all-essential bit of reading. Who hasn’t seen a request for a good load using X powder in Y cartridge using Z’s bullets for use in their favorite deer gun? It happens every day. So when Joe Dokes asks for a 45-70 load and gets it, how does he know it’s safe? The load he received from a well intentioned board member may have been for a single shot #1 Ruger, not the 1873 Trapdoor Springfield “single shot” the poster inadequately described in his original plea for loading data. How was he to know that the respondent was a 17 year old who, beyond helping his dad load for his Ruger, was totally unaware of the existence of a vastly weaker rifle chambered for this cartridge?? He doesn’t, unless he’s read a work like Ken Waters’ “Pet Loads” and understands the disparity of breech strength between various models of 45-70 chambered guns. It’s a scary scenario but, well… you get the picture. I personally care enough about the shooting sports to be disturbed by the propensity for injury from such advice. Misinformation is passed at an alarming rate these days and a little easy reading could have spared the poster -and anyone else unfortunate enough to follow the poor advice –a lot of grief.
Ok. This last example may have been a bit dramatic. On a lighter note, A while back I got into a long, drawn out discussion about ballistic coefficients with a board member on a certain web site. He claimed that a 22 Magnum cartridge firing bullet X had a low BC and I claimed it to be higher. When I asked him what velocity was used to calculate his BC he admitted that he didn’t know. He’d gotten his number from the manufacturer so we were both certain it was a correct value. I had calculated my figures in the field and was equally certain of my calculations. This is a good guy and I didn’t want to press my point, but I knew why there were differences in our figures. My velocity question gave him a clue and he did some research on the subject. He eventually found the answer in a book. If he hadn’t we’d have just had to agree to disagree on the subject. Earl Naramore’s fine 1954 tome, “The Principles and Practice of Loading Ammunition” held the answer for me, the Lyman #47 reloading manual for him. The riddle was solved. The answer is, of course, that ballistic coefficient changes with velocity. We were both right in our figures except his were calculated at 3000 ft /sec and mine at 2100 ft /sec. In weeks of banter between us on this particular web site no other members offered a correct solution. Did you know the answer? If you’d read either of these books you’d have known right off.
Some knowledge gleaned from dusty pages is a little less than practical but no less enjoyable or enlightening. Many shooters will have heard of the 257 Roberts cartridge but few know that Ned Roberts, the inventor of the cartridge, wrote a fine book about his experiences spanning the days of muzzloading rifles to those of cartridge weapons. The Muzzle Loading Cap Lock Rifle is a classic.
Have you ever wondered how a muzzleloader would fare at 1100 yards? It’s in there. While reading about it you’ll find reference made to the 1923 book The Kentucky Rifle by Dillon. This book will introduce you to the development of the rifled gun here in the Colonies. At one point the author talks of interviewing a gunmaker who was born in 1788 and who distinctly remembered Daniel Boone. This kind of information would be hard fought from your average Google search and better yet, is first hand information experienced by the author and put down in print by the author -not a third hand, rehashed hunting story web-posted by some bored insomniac.
Of course, not all you read in books is the truth, either. I have read many published accounts of a very famous author / pistolero that I take to be false, based upon my own personal experiences. I achieved that belief however, because I read his book and then tried to put the author’s experiences to the test. If nothing else, I learned quite a bit about pistol shooting while coming to the conclusion that the author had a penchant for exaggeration. This is far better than reading web-posted accounts of this man’s exploits and sucking it in as fact with no basis for a counter opinion.
In another example, a famous outfitting firm’s owner had made claim in print to a specific design of cartridge in which a double shoulder was used. He touted the design and its benefits in the hopes of attracting public attention. When several very good gunsmiths tried to build rifles based on a couple of these cartridges it was found that the designs were flawed and didn’t withstand the pressures the author /inventor claimed they would. The difference in these two works from, say, the fine books written by Phil Sharpe on shooting and shooting sports (The Rifle in America and Practical Reloading) is that these first two fellows were obviously selling something. The first, himself: the second, his product. As in all things shooting, when you get a whiff of sales pitch you better counter with a grain of salt.
You should do likewise, when the info is tabled with little or no supporting data whatsoever. This was one of my favorites: “The practical range for prairiedogs, using the 17HMR is 320 yards. I know this because I shot one that far, once.” A well read shooter will find that many net postings require the shaker to be at hand at all times.
Like I said, it’s hard for me not to sound a little schizoid when I take this stance. Perhaps now I’d better save my job and say something nice about the Internet. Shooters have found that the Internet is a great well of information and community experiences to draw from, and that’s the truth. There are a lot of savvy shooters out there with far more experience than I, who are willing to help out with questions and problems a shooter might have. Much of this knowledge is beyond price and available at your finger tips. Post a question and you’re likely to have half a dozen answers within a day. The trick is to be able to tell when what you’re getting is good, or not so good. There is only one way I know of to do that; take what you’ve learned and use it as a starting point for your research.
If the Net doesn’t hold your answer? Read a book.
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