Loads From The Intrepid Years

IN RANGE

- Terry Wieland

In the April 2017 issue of Hand- loader (No. 307), loads were published for the .358 Norma Magnum, one of my favorite medium-bore cartridges. Since the .358 Norma is also one of the most versatile of cartridges, the loads were intended to cover a wide range of uses. Some readers evidently expected formulas that would turn the .358 into something as powerful as a big .450 – and that we did not provide. There were a number of reasons.

The most personal reason is that I can’t see any point in trying to make any cartridge into something it is not. This is a basic philosophical belief. There are two types of guys: Those who buy a small engine and then strain it trying to do the work of a larger one and those who buy a larger engine than they really need, then let it comfortably chug along, doing work it finds effortless. I am one of the latter.

The same is true of cartridges. There are shooters who buy a .308 Winchester and try to make it into a .30-06, complete with excessive pressures, riveting recoil and short barrel life, and those who do the reverse. Some handloaders seem to think the whole point of “loading your own” is to pack in as much powder as possible to “realize the potential” of a cartridge they believe the factories under-load, for whatever motives.

Another reason for listing loads that may or may not be lighter, but are unarguably safe, is the modern bugaboo of legal liability. Every load published in Handloader is accompanied by a disclaimer, of course, but legal liability and moral liability are two different things. No one wants to see anyone get into trouble because of something he wrote.