Benchrest History Thread

I believe McCracken bullets were under ten cents apiece back then and I bought Sierras for about 6.50 a box. I still have some Winchester match bullets from around 1980 which cost me 5.60 per hundred. Given inflation, I guess things are not that bad now! Regards, Bill
 
Marcy Lyons' article on T-322 from April 1984. This is the first Precision Shooting piece on T powder, though Walt Berger advertised it earlier in '84. His equipment lists also show he was shooting the stuff in 1982:





Clearly written before Hodgdon pressured Thunderbird to drop the last "2". BTW, does anyone remember when Hodgdon released H322? Was it the late 60's or early 70's? I know it was all surplus until they contracted the Scottish run in the late 70's.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
Lee, like you I never saw an R&M in the flesh. But, it wasn't an action, but a sleeve with integral scope rings to use with a Remington action. My first benchrest rifle was built on a 700 action that I had sent to Hart Rifle Barrels. They trued it, bushed the bolt face and installed a M-16 extractor, installed their full length sleeve, chambered a barrel for the .22 PPC .246" neck and sent a McMillan LV stock blank to me for the grand total of $400. I'm not sure what scope I had on it at the time, probably a Weaver T-16 or a Redfield 20X that I had before I started shooting benchrest. It didn't take long before the rifle was sporting one of the first models of the Leopold 36X that added $205 to the cost of the rifle. That was about the same time as you could buy a 100 bullets for $9. I shot GTB bullets made by Bob Cauterucio, Watson bullets made by Ed Watson and Berger's, of course made by Walt. Of course, at the time, I didn't know any of those guys. I shot my first nationals in 1983 with this rifle and because of it being a .22 only shot the LV and HV classes. I have some of the old books with history a long time before Precision Shooting came into existence. The Wolfe reprint of "Ultimate in Rifle Precision" by Townsend Whelen as some of the originals from a long time ago. The copyright date on Whelen's book is 1958 (about the time Larry Baggett started shooting benchrest (just kidding Larry)). Below is a photo out of the book showing a B&A die set up in a press. Looks almost identical to my Rorschach die set up.

IMG_6007.JPG
 
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Good to know Mike. I wasn't aware the R&M was a sleeve.

Speaking of early BR, here's a 1st Edition "The Ultimate In Rifle Precision" from 1951 (these were produced as annuals between 1949 and 1954). The Sportman's Press, Washington DC, published them and Townsend Whelen did much of the editing.

Col. Whelen presented it to H.L. Culver in '51 and Homer gave it to my dad shortly before his death. Culver hand signed the cover but unfortunately Whelen didn't autograph it.





Culver did have some of his friends sign it - RK Nelson, Al Marciante, Warren Page, Harvey Donaldson, GR Douglas, Ronald Batterson, Gene Hudgins, and Phil Teachout to name a few.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
Here's a photo of two of the original books that I have. Neither one of them are signed or have the history that yours have in the signatures. The Wolfe version that I have in the house is a reprint of the book on the left. It was copyrighted in 1958. The book on the right, the smaller book was copyrighted in June 1949. Note that at the bottom of the cover it states that it's "The 1949 Yearbook of the Benchrest Shooter's Association. A long time before there was a NBRSA or IBS.

Annuals.jpg
 
They may be past their competitive prime but I have a thing for old Unertls. Here's one of their ads from the early 1970s:



We have this model on a few classic varmint rifles (.219 Wasp, .22 Marciante Blue Streak, and so forth).

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
Some more from Ann Brummel...

I received this a while ago and almost forgot about it!
 

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More from Ann Brummel

Here's the files....
 

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More - Ann Brummel

Have to write something or it won't work...!
 

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Unertl

I had a couple of Unertl scopes and they worked pretty good. I was trying to sell my last Remington 22-250 (pretty fancy rifle with a Unertl scope) and had the rifle propped on a door facing, talking and looking thorugh the scope. I spotted a blackbird in the top of a tree way, way far away. Stepped in the apartment, dug a round out of an end table drawer, chambered it and killed that darn blackbird. The guys watching couldn't see the blackbird until he fell but thats all the guy with the money needed to see. Sure, it was a lucky shot but it couldn't have happened at a better time. My neighbor and I laughed about that for years.
 
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