GUNS Magazine April 1957

347 King SiW, NerHximpmn, Man. 1
I
See Your Sporting Goods Deafer
Home For "Biggest Gun
Collection"?
Your "Biggest Gun Collection" story
stirred up quite a rukus down here in Okia-
ioma. From everything I have stored in my
:onscious and subconscious from over ten
rears of trips to Claremore (sometimes three
and four a week) I can never remember Mr.
Davis ever saying he would put the weapons
)n the open market. Mr. Davis told me he
would have preferred the article to have been
left unpublished.
If you care to do a real service for shoot-
irs, the public, gun lovers and so on, you
might start the ball rolling for some real
iction toward the housing of this collection.
[ know not in what way this could be done,
but this state of ours will undoubtedly foul
up again. Texas and Arkansas have already
made overtures for the movement of the col-
lection.
Roy Traband
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Just finished reading about the "Claremore
Gun Collection" and I'm 100 percent in favor
of us powder burners passing the old John B
and collecting enough Texas Kleenex to buy,
beg, borrow, or steal a permanent place for
this collection.
The motion is on the floor-anyone to sec-
ond it?
Tom Horn
Fort Scott. Kansas
Maybe Something Will Be Done
Let me compliment you on a fine maga-
zine. I enjoy almost all of your articles
and read every magazine from cover to cover.
I don't usually take time to write to pub-
lishers, but your magazine is deserving of
praise.
I especially enjoyed the articles, "The
Rawest Racket in Hunting," and "The Case
For Legalized Machine Guns." If more
shooters read them, maybe something will
be done about these matters.
Joe D. Sphar
Wichita, Kansas
Legal Machine Guns
We have just received your February
issue and read Mr. Kvale's thought provok-
ing and informative article, "The Case for
Legalized Machine Guns."
As the largest importers of automatic
weapons into the United States, we feel we
are reasonably qualified to comment affirm-
atively on the positions and conclusions
taken by Mr. Kvale. In summary, we feel
that a sensible modification of the National
Firearms laws, permitting a feasible distri-
bution of automatic weapons among the
citizens, augurs nothing but good if prop-
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
erly handled. We cannot but believe also
that the Federal government would be re-
lieved from an almost incredible amount of
paper work which attends the internal
transfer and import and export of auto-
matic weapons. This paper work arose out
of the obsolete legislation passed decades
ago to help cure a situation which is now
unconstitutional-namely, national prohibi-
tion. In spite of the splendid cooperation
which we receive from the federal authori-
ties, we feel that they cannot help but ex-
perience the same sense of frustration as we
do in the legal handling of automatic
weapons. We would suggest repeal of the
present legislation on this subject and a
new law which would permit qualified par-
ties to own weapons without payment of
fees obviously designed to extinguish any
traffic in the commodity in question. We
can see no basic objection for having such
arms registered, hut such registration, we
submit, should never be attended with pro-
hibitive fees or impossible qualifications.
In any event, we thank you for your fine
article and look forward to seeing more
like it in your own and other publications
purporting to act in the shooters' interest.
Samuel Cummings, Vice-president
International Armament Corporation
Washington, D. C.
Handload Hazards
Your article "Handloading Bench" was
interesting but also misleading.
I have been in the gun business a lot of
years, and am listed in the May 1951 Rec-
ommended Gunsmith list. This was at Hot
Springs, Arkansas. I have sold a lot of
high power rifles and reloading equipment.
I have seen a number of blown up rifles
and every one had been blown up with
hand loads. I have never seen a rifle that
was blown up by factory loads.
It doesn't make sense to me that a person
can buy a set of tools and with no ex-
perience make better ammunition than our
factories. Immature reloaders are more
likely to make mistakes.
I hunt in Colorado and Texas each year
and always use factory ammunition. I hate
to sell a nice rifle and have the owner blow
it up with ammo that he souped up.
Jack Culpepper
Mt. Pleasant, Texas
Help For Left-Handers
Have just finished reading your article in
GUNS about us long suffering left handed
shooters. It was well done and is the first
article I have ever seen in my years as a
target shooter that ever tried to help the
left hander.
William W. Heil
Dumont, N. J.