I was never lucky enough to have met Roy Weatherby (1910-1988), who died when I was 20, but find it easy to admire a man who had the fortitude and moxie to push forth his dream of the “perfect” rifles and cartridges. Whether or not the shooting public believed such rifles were worthwhile at the time, and many of them did, Weatherby pressed forward and realized his dreams in spite of often going into great debt to procure exactly what he desired – a robust, multi-lug locking system on the bolt that would prove especially strong for his magnum cartridges. This nine-lug pattern first appeared in the mid-1950s when the iconic Mark V rifles began showing up. ...Read More >

More than 30 years ago, Speer Bullets began intense research to advance its bullet plating process that electro-chemically attaches (electrodepositing) pure copper molecules one at a time to a lead core, commonly referred to as bonding. Speer’s production capacity is huge and the process is very precise and impressive. ...Read More >

During a lifetime of rifle shooting, I’ve sent thousands of bullets through paper targets. Now in my senior years, more of my bullets are aimed at steel targets. I see matters as follows: paper targets are for quantifying matters such as shooting groups for load development or sighting-in. Steel targets are for fun and marksmanship practice. Those latter two are synonymous in my book. ...Read More >

Behold the lowly wood screw! Its purpose and use in gun work are obvious. The principle of the spiral thread goes back a long way. Archimedes described its use as a form of edge around 250 BC. The Romans were the first to use wood screws as fasteners, with each one being hand cut. Leonardo da Vinci invented a machine that cut fairly uniform threads in the fifteenth-century. It was further perfected during the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s. ...Read More >