About a year or two ago, Rick Jamison suddenly disappeared from the pages of Shooting Times Magazine, with no explanation. He had been the Reloading Guru there for at least 30 years.

For those in the know of the classic guys, such as Phil Sharpe, Townsend Whelen, Elmer Keith, etc., Rick was the modern incarnation of them. He was extremely scientific in his experiments, and did not rely on old myths about reloading. He debunked the old theories about checking for high pressure, such as loose primer pockets, primer cratering, etc. He used a real pressure tester from Oehler, and determined that some of the old "early" signs of high pressure were actually signs of being WAY over maximum!

I was hoping that some day he would put all his best articles together in a book, but maybe that material is now the property of Primedia Corp., and not available for copying. Too bad.

If anyone out there knows him personally, I'd love the chance to contact him.

Al Dash

This question has been raised before. Here's a link that might help:

http://outdoorsbest.zeroforum.com/zerothread?id=642448

He committed career suicide.

He's been spotted in Oregon.

Is this the same Jamison of Jamison brass?

Internet rumor is that Jamison Brass is not connected the career suicidal Rick Jamison.

I wonder if he regrets pursuit of the patent that he should not have gotten for nothing new and unique. Maybe he thinks principal is worth more than money or reputation.

I happened upon his patent on the US patent office website and thought it to be problematical before it was discussed on forums. I wondered if he would attempt holding manufacturers to it, but thought he most likely wouldn't. He deserves what he gets, be it riches or being exiled by the firearms community.

I would have thought him familiar enough with the firearms community to know this crap wouldn't fly.

If I have misconstrued his rights regarding cartridge ratios and they were indeed his new ideas, I apologize. I didn't read it that way. Wildcats not commercialized seem to remove his notion that he invented short fat cartridges.

He might be right and just hit patenting the right idea, like people who register domain names in hopes of them becoming popular.

Yeah, here is his patent and I don't see anything in it that is novel or unique. The pressure minimums listed are to remove a lot of old cartridges like the 416 Rigby etc from being "prior art" and invalidating the patent. IIRC Winchester did end up paying him off for the WSM and WSSM cartridges, I don't know if Remington did for the RSUM line or not. He may have excluded them when he added the clause about no rebated rim that was necessary to remove the old 425 WR case from being prior art. Don't know if Lazzaroni was affected or not as I don't believe they have registered their cartridge designs with SAAMI so there is no OEM pressure limit for their designs.

If the idea wasn't his then why did the court find in his favor? I don't blame him for suing them.

Smitty

I would have to agree with Smitty. The patent was issued and the courts ruled in his favor, which seems to vindicate Rick from wrong doing. The same can't be said about those who think they can use the intellectual property of someone else with impunity.

I think he should not have gotten the patent. It appears they made an error.

Read the patent and decide for yourself.

Regardless of what any of us think, he got the patent and he won the court decision.

I have no problem with him having a patent and not much of a problem with him going after those that he thought should pay him for it, however he should have known and probably did that it would effectively end his career.
Sort of like an equal and opposite reaction think ya know.
I enjoyed his writing and also miss him but time doesn't go backward. He's probably persona non grata in many circles now.

Personally, I would suspect he was ready to retire and the "black balling" wouldn't/doesn't hurt that venture one bit.

quote:

Originally posted by Smitty500Mag:
If the idea wasn't his then why did the court find in his favor? I don't blame him for suing them.

Smitty

The little blurb says he settled, it appears, with the defendants. It's a common misconception that anyone "wins" or that there is any court finding in a settlement. The defendant has just bought its way out of some risk. I have no opinion on the patent issues, but if the patent did in fact get issued, his chances of winning were likely quite good. Too bad about the career move, though...

Over the past decade or more the U.S. Patent Office has issued many questionable patents. The office is backed up and they actually give b
bonuses for those who issue the most patents in an effort to reduce the backlog. The most outrageous patent imho is the issuing of patents for companies who's researchers discover a trait of a human gene - so the human gene is patented - so it stifles further research in the scientific community by other
companies.

DOn't get me started about copyright changes that basically means they can now be renewed perpetually. I went to the Gutenburg project where the goal is to get all books with
expired copywright on-line and free to download. I was surprized when I tried to find Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy since it's been over 56 years since first published. Nope, it isn't there because the copyright was renewed again.

Follow the money

Randall