Best intentions - professional gun writers.

I’m grateful for all the gun writers I’ve read through the years, hours of entertainment and a starting place to improve my own shooting and hunting. Some writers turned out to be full of stuffing (in my experience) and others were brilliant in their experiments and methods. Bullet casters seem to be a very small subset of shooters and reloaders, but it seems to produce the finest people in the shooting sports. Many of the posters here have shared their work that has assisted me greatly.

Cast bullet information has come to me through a few guys who showed me the basics when I bought used molds when I was a pre teen. I read someone (can’t remember) that said Linotype was the ticket because it was “hard”. I’ve shots tons of it with varying rates of success. Reading the Lyman cast bullet books over the years started me thinking that maybe something softer would shoot better. Closer reading of Elmer Kieth showed me that softer and a lot of lube did work in revolvers, even magnums for accurate non leading shooting, even though a couple hundred rounds would turn your hands black and grease up your revolver. Made it easy to clean them. Soft bullets whether factory swaged or cast out of roofing lead and pipe worked wonderfully in .45 ACP, .45 AR, .45 Colt .44 Spl down to the .32s. An article by Dave Scovill on bullet base upset in an old Reloading Digest was another clue. Lots of good articles in GD and RD over the years on cast bullets.

But the patron of practical bullet casting, utility, and cheap practice with useful accuracy is Ed Harris. Never trying to make a cast bullet do the work of jacketed. “ Making do” with what you have has been another theme. I’ve shot tens of thousands of .30/30 and .30/06 rounds powered by Bullseye and other pistol and shotgun powders. Made lots of shooting affordable when primers were available and cheap.

He’s one of the great gun writers. He teaches and entertains at the same time. I have a binder of his writings that I use as reference and entertainment. I wish he’d publish a book of everything’ he’s written. He’s a prolific writer and I know I don’t have it all. A memoir of his time at Ruger would be a shooting book best seller on its own. The CBA is a wonderful source of information and experimental work. Careful reading and harvesting the information has allowed me to reliably shoot 1 moa from rifles with soft bullets on regular basis after 50 years of trying. The Art and Science casting web site is excellent.

The current crop of panicking first time reloaded/casters will sort themselves out. Many think a cast bullet in .223/5.56 is a cheap substitute for jacketed will learn the hard way.