Robert Smythe was a longtime friend
of John Taffin and myself. He was one of the founders of The Shootists. He wrote about shooting and reloading in the 1920's through the 1940's and it was really cool to see how shooters always seem to experiment with things. Robert passed over "the river" in 1988.I miss my visits with him. The following is a sample of some of his writings.
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About this time, on a trip to Denver, I stopped in to visit with Dave Cook, sporting goods dealer. Dave carried a huge stock of guns of all kinds along with reloading components of every kind and description. I spent many an interesting hour with him discussing our grand old game of guns and shooting. On this occasion, I was able to get a Model 1895 Winchester in .30-06 caliber. Learning that Dave had some surplus military .30-06 ammo at a bargain price, I bought 500 rounds of it for some experiments I wanted to make in altering the jacketed bullets for use on game.
Later, I altered the bullets by filing with a thin file, (a jeweler’s hacksaw is better), 3 notches in the nose of the bullet jacket. I made these notches 3/16" back from the point at right angles to the bullet and just short of connecting with each other and just through the jacket at the center of the notch, leaving a little of the jacket solid between the ends of the notches. After testing some 25 loads at the bench rest. I found that they shot as accurately as before and they fed through the magazine good. I shot quite a few coyotes with this altered bullet and found they gave prompt execution. Also using this bullet in the same Model ’95 Win., I shot my first, real good Mule Deer head. All in all, it was a good combination of rifle and load.
Later on he writes:
At one time I experimented with the idea of developing "sub-loads" for my big game rifles for use as grouse and rabbit loads when deer hunting . This was before I learned that when one was hunting deer, he shouldn’t "monkey" with grouse or rabbits. Anyway, taking the Krag .30-40 rifle as an example, I obtained a supplemental chamber to use the .32 S&W cartridge in. This worked good, especially if loaded with a good flat-point bullet for pot shooting grouse, rabbits and similar game. The factory loaded round-point can be greatly improved for game shooting by giving the bullet a flat point, a practice I follow with all round-point factory loads I use in sixguns for game. I do this by filing off 8 or 10 grains of the round nose, making it a plat-point bullet.