Col. E.H. Harrison's 'Cast Bullets' Book

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Rum River posted this 08 April 2021

Some months back did a trade at one of the gunshops I'm addicted to. A gentleman had passed who was into black powder cartridge shooting. The main item is a C. Sharps .50-140 complete with an MVA 6 power scope. Other than the rifle, none of the associated collection had reached the sales floor. As I'm standing amongst various piles and size boxes in the kinda dingy back room I see a couple of home made completely full desktop bookshelves. Turns out they contain all his load data, all his notes from the range complete with weather info, chrono readings, etc. Those shelves are now on my desk and I am going through all the priceless contents.

.....and found a first edition of the book in the title of this thread.

This book will never leave my possession, but I had to see what dollar value it has. Wow!! Going by a bunch of google hits it appears it's in the neighborhood of $200!! (There was an Amazon hit that claimed nearly $2000 - but I don't think I'll go by that.)

Haven't felt well the last couple months so have spent that time doing inventory, there have been a few revelations.

"Well hell boys. I'd damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch'a damn strangers."

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 08 April 2021

neato ! ... i suppose we casters are the last of the " book readers " ...  

i just realized that if i opened up that trunk of old gun books i stored about 1978 ... with my old age brain fade it would be all new material !! ... 

ken

... but i do remember that everything Phil Sharpe said about cast bullets was wrong ...  thank you, Col. Harrison ! ...  oh, and CBA ! ....

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Brodie posted this 09 April 2021

I',m with you Ken.  I love to read and I figure that in a few more years all I will need is about three good books.  I'll be able to keep re reading through them and by the time I have read the first two I will have completely forgotten the last one and so on.  Good luck

B.E.Brickey

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Qc Pistolero posted this 09 April 2021

Nice to see some shooters keep notes about their researches.Very useful while you're living and you kinda leave your footprint for future shooters after you're gone to the shooters range up there.

I hope my notes will be useful to somebody else.

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LarryW posted this 09 April 2021

Wouldn't leave my possession either !!! Very nice find..

A day late & a dollar short, story of my life ???

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Rum River posted this 10 April 2021

Another case of my dumb luck overpowering and conquering any skills I may possess.

"Well hell boys. I'd damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch'a damn strangers."

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mashburn posted this 11 April 2021

Hello to all,

Ken posted that we casters may be the only people who read books. I got to thinking about that and I know people who do all their reading and information  gathering off a computer monitor. I myself like old books, and don't read off of a monitor. When I read I want a book in my hand and i want it to be my book. My wife isn't too happy about it, but I go to the book shelves and get 7 or 8 books and stack them by my recliner and go through them when in the mood to do so. Then after a while I will put these books back in the book shelf and get some more to put by my recliner. There is no telling how many times that I have studied these books but I still enjoy them all over and over again. I gave one of my books away and I still regret it.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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RicinYakima posted this 11 April 2021

I buy extra copies of my favorite books and give them to my friends. You can buy leather bound copies of the classic books reprinted for less than $10 at most antique malls. 

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Coydog posted this 11 April 2021

I learn from the manuals before the internet and rather have the manual then all on computer that way I will always have it then depend on the computer or the internet  i just write down what I want or copy and go from there l got the reprints of the Lyman cast manuals  . It works for me . and have it in hand 

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Rum River posted this 11 April 2021

A long time ago (first number of my age was a two) I attended a gunsmithing school in east central Minnesota. Some of the books I acquired for those classes are on a bookshelf in my office where I type this. Since then nearly two hundred others have joined them. Ackley, Sharpe, Nonte, McGivern, Skelton, Brophy, Keith, O'Connor and a whole bunch of others are keeping Colonel Harrison company. Finally decided I should get everything recorded so these items do not turn into someone's sidewalk sale.

Very glad to hear others feel the same as to the printed word.

"Well hell boys. I'd damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch'a damn strangers."

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RicinYakima posted this 11 April 2021

Rum River,

Here is my ready reference, not counting books in boxes in storage.

Sorry

Sorry I can't get pictures to flip over.

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GWarden posted this 12 April 2021

Nothing like sitting down with a good book in hand, reading till it slips out of my hands as I fall asleep. Have lots of books as many of you do. Tried to tell my boys that some day they will have them; neither of them are readers or shooters. Tried to tell them not to put them on a garage sale for $.50 apiece. I have started selling a few off, what brings me real enjoyment is passing them onto friends that have enjoyed them and shared them with their friends. There is just something about the feel of a good book in hand. Have tried the ebook thing once, that was enough. 

bob

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Rum River posted this 12 April 2021

Yakima, is that a butter knife bolt handle on that rifle behind glass?

 

It's only I lately I found the ambition to herd these into a single room.

"Well hell boys. I'd damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch'a damn strangers."

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RicinYakima posted this 12 April 2021

Rum, it is a Savage Model 23 in 22 Hornet, a very early one before Winchester started making Model 54's. It has a unique shape bolt handle that looks like a M-S but has a small round knob on the end. I think that is just the lighting. 

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JeffinNZ posted this 12 April 2021

Ric; you're my new hero!

Cheers from New Zealand

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Rum River posted this 13 April 2021

Rum, it is a Savage Model 23 in 22 Hornet, a very early one before Winchester started making Model 54's. It has a unique shape bolt handle that looks like a M-S but has a small round knob on the end. I think that is just the lighting.

Okay, got it. One of my many firearms addictions are Mannlicher-Schoenauers, so I'm always alert to those butter knife bolt handles.

 

"Well hell boys. I'd damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch'a damn strangers."

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mashburn posted this 13 April 2021

Hello to all of you book readers,

I started to say hello to all of you old book readers, but decided that it would be hard to distinguish if I was calling you readers old or the books you read old.

With that said, if any of you people who like OLD BOOKS decide to rid your self of those problems, I would be glad to take those problems from you. You could at least put me down as an heir.

Just making a joke but aren't old gun and reloading books great reading.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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Antietamgw posted this 15 April 2021

As one with chronic CRS, it doesn't quite work that way.  You only forget the stuff that isn't really that important.  All my Fouling Shot are thin and dog eared from re-reading. My Frank Marshall CD is wore out.  Just started on a stored box of Precision Shooting and Accurate Rifle magazines that were supposed to be duplicates.  Nothing new there either. 

 

Keep your plowshare and your sword. Know how and when to use them.

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Tim Stapp posted this 16 April 2021

I just today received in the mail a "Legacy Reprint" of a Horace Kephart book that I first purchased when I was 14.  That was fifty years ago.  The original was dog eared and the pages were falling out.  I'm not sure whatever happened to the original.

All of my Uncle's reloading notes for the match rifle that I purchased from him were chewed up by my son's dog while we were watching the dog one weekend.  I had to work up "the load" on my own.  Later, when talking with him, the load that I worked up exactly matched his!  As a new shooter and reloader, I was elated.

My grandmother taught me to read at the age of three.  She told me that if you can read, you can do anything that you set your mind to.  Wise woman.

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marktwo posted this 25 November 2021

I've got two book shelves,  8' by 8'.

I never get reading it.

Mark

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Clod Hopper posted this 25 November 2021

There is a supplement to Harrison's "Cast Bullets" that is maybe 20 pages.  These books are interesting, but be careful, many things asserted as fact in these books are no longer thought to be true.  The other book I have to watch our for is the Old 45th edition Lyman.  Loads in the Lyman book are downright dangerous, particularly the .30-40 Krag data.  Even some of the starting loads are too high.  Ed Harris writings appear in both Cast Bullets and the supplement.  His writings have held up well IMO.  Some of these publications used to be available as computer files on Castpics, but I cannot get the site to open.

Dale M. Lock

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