Lonnie
Spent the morning casting bullets with
Saturday, January 09, 2021, 14:45

a friend. I was casting two different .44 caliber bullets and my friend was casting bullets for his .30-30. He met my dad a few years before he passed away but never had the opportunity to hunt or shoot with him. He heard lots of stories from locals and guys at one of the local gun clubs about him and how well he could shoot....so I spent a chunk of our bullet casting time answering questions about my dad. He was born into your typical big PA Dutch farm family. Food was what you raised and what you shot..... and money was scarce. Back then deer were not very plentiful in our part of PA but small game was plentiful. Unlike today, people didn’t go out and blow through hundreds of rounds practicing....ammunition was used to get rid of vermin and put meat on the table. One of his primary jobs was hunting rabbits with my grandfather. Dad often walked the fence rows and fields with a Remington Model 12 and pocket of .22 shorts....because back then he could buy twice as many and at times three times as many shorts as long rifles. Rabbits were shot in the head too....body shots could mean wasted meat and that brought the ire of my grandfather. So at an early age my dad learned how to stalk and spot game plus place hits shots accurately.
The first gun he owned was a 20 gauge Model 12 Winchester that a farmer my dad worked as a hired hand for bought for him when he was 12 years old in 1934. He took up handguns shortly before he enlisted in WW II and when he returned from the Pacific handguns became his main shooting passion. We had a really nice range on our farm and my dad had a block building behind the handgun benches that was entirely for reloading and bullet casting. I remember him spending the winter months casting and sizing bullets for his K-38 that he shot in matches and for his favorite hunting handgun.....a 6 1/2” .44 Special S&W 1950 Target. Those 2 handguns were involved in most of the stories my friend heard about. I think I was in first grade he shot in a match against a group of the best police shooters as well as the governor’s guards. He won using his K-38 and one of the governor’s guards griped about my dad’s K-38 being customized. So after the match my dad shot against a group of them in each case using each person’s gun....and in each case had the high score. The thing that really made it interesting was my dad lost most of the vision in his left eye during the war. But most of the stories my friend heard were hunting stories. Back in the 50’s and 60’s handgun hunting was not something a lot of people did, but it was pretty much the only way my dad hunted. And he only hunted using that S&W Model 1950. He shot an amazing number of rabbits and squirrels with a .44 Special....as a little boy who grew up knowing nothing else, I had absolutely no idea what it took to be able to do that. I remember someone asking him how he could shoot rabbits and squirrels in the head like he did, and I remember my dad telling him that any time he didn’t shoot a rabbit in the head when he was a boy, my grandfather would chew him out and kick him in the ass. So for my dad it only made sense to fully understand his handgun and his load and never take risky shots at food. Pretty simple isn’t it. I remember him shooting his .44 Special at targets on our range at longer distances, but when he was hunting, he always wanted to see how close he could get in order to make the shot. To him that was the ultimate test of a hunter....or as dad would say “There’s a difference between a game hunter and a game shooter”. To me though the most interesting thing to me was my dad never shot a jacketed bullet in any of his handguns....ever. In his late years I asked him why. His response? Anything he wanted to kill, he could kill with his .44 Special using a cast bullet because an accurately placed shot with a good cast bullet kills things as dead and as quickly as a jacketed one. He never felt the itch to change what worked successfully for him. A 250 grain Keith bullet and 7 grains of Unique. Close to the Skeleton load.
My friend told me that his dad told him about my dad taking him rabbit hunting on our farm in the early 70’s and my dad picked off a pair of rabbits with his handgun....I told Frank that I remember it too because I was the little 8 year old boy who carried their rabbits that day. It was great reminiscing about my dad and happy days while casting bullets with a friend. It’s kind of funny how every time Gary Reeder mentions that speed doesn’t kill.....accuracy does, I can hear my dad’s deep voice slowly making that very comment all those years ago. Memories and companionship....that my friends are the best things about hunting. They live on well after the last shovel full of dirt covers you.