Reading through older handloading manuals recently, roughly from the 1930s to the 1970s, it was apparent that nearly all of the popular writers of the period started out shooting cast bullets in rifles and handguns. That’s understandable to some extent, because there were hardly any jacketed handgun bullets available, save for handmade swaged, and a lot of folks, such as Townsend Whelen, wanted a cast bullet for foraging loads in their favorite hunting rifle. The late Al Miller would be a classic example; most of his handloading projects in military and domestic rifle calibers included a number of cast bullet loads that helped to keep those rifles in the field during the off-season. ...Read More >

The last column Handloader No. 325 (April-May 2020), began with an introduction of rifle cartridge case qualities and concluded with tables of measured brass hardness from the solid web section of cases. Tests for this current issue involve a measure of brass hardness at three regions of fired cases to reveal how much brass progressively hardens with repeated firings and reloadings. For this, I enlisted the services of the accredited and certified Curtiss-Wright IMR Test Labs (no connection to IMR powders) in Portland, Oregon, for independent results. ...Read More >

Q: I enjoyed very much your article about the Ruger Mini-14 and Mini Thirty rifles in Rifle No. 308 (January/February 2020). I have a Mini Thirty that I received as a Christmas gift in 1986 or 1987. I believe it to be one of the first to leave the factory. I have read previously about the .308 inch groove diameter that you mentioned in your article. In slugging the bore it indicates that my rifle does indeed have a .308 inch groove diameter. I am very curious to know where you received your information. Best Regards. ...Read More >

In the last column we looked at the 2- and 2½-inch .410s, the origins of which are a bit murkey. The 3-inch round suffers from no such ambiguity. ...Read More >