Kent Lomont, 44 Magnum, H&G 503, H110 and Magnum Primers

[Don Purcell]

Even though Kent passed away at only 66 years old, he was able to cram 3 lifetimes in it.

[osteodoc08]

Life is an amazing adventure and I’m glad to have shared with my fellow brothers here. An amazing wealth of knowledge and history is available here and wish I had more opportunity to meet some of the “old timers” here in person. I don’t get out and shoot as much as I wish I could, but love hearing the anectdotal stories. We are a very rich bunch, indeed.

[white eagle]

I was in Boise over the week end for the girls state basket ball tournaments (our girls won state!) Of course I had to stop at Cabelas & when I went into the gun library I spotted a very nice Winchester model 63 & bought it for one of my son's. Speaking with the guy who was helping me we got talking about all of Elmer's stuff that use to be in there & I mentioned having several photo's of Elmer when I visited him in Salmon & one of them was Elmer holding his Ruger #1 375. The guy who bought it contacted me & wanted to buy that photo, I told him I would make a copy & I would give him the original & I did. The employee told me that Elmer's son Ted had been in not too long ago & the employee didn't know who he was. Ted ask if the guy would mount a scope for him & the guy says sure, I'll mount it & Ted says, my dad would sure be mad if he knew I was having someone mount a scope for me!! The guy says, who was your dad & Ted said, Elmer Keith!!

Dick

it should be a prerequisite to know who Elmer was and his contributions to shooting

[44MAG#1]

Isnt it funny how such an obnoxious and unpopular person as 44MAG#1 could even start a thread such as this?

[JBinMN]

Isnt it funny how such an obnoxious and unpopular person as 44MAG#1 could even start a thread such as this?

LOL Even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while...



Eta: OOPs forgot the big smile & pulling chain.. Had to come back...


Thanks for posting the topic!

[Drm50]

I thought this was only gun related sight. The guy on the right seems to be showing off fishing
tackle.

[osteodoc08]

Isnt it funny how such an obnoxious and unpopular person as 44MAG#1 could even start a thread such as this?

I’ve found some of the most opinionated, obnoxious old codgers can be some the smartest, real life educated individuals that have a lifetime of knowledge, if people would take the time to listen and absorb the knowledge presented.

I could only imagine Elmer would have fallen in this catergory should he be in the flesh today.

[John Ross]

I’ve found some of the most opinionated, obnoxious old codgers can be some the smartest, real life educated individuals that have a lifetime of knowledge, if people would take the time to listen and absorb the knowledge presented.

I could only imagine Elmer would have fallen in this catergory should he be in the flesh today.

You should have heard Elmer talk about Jack O'Connor when he was in private conversation...

And speaking of Jack O'Connor, in the mid-1970s I was with my GF at the time at an NRA convention dinner. We were with Charlie Askins, who she thought was charming(!) when he looked at me and said "Fine piece of womanflesh you got here, John." However, she would refer to Jack O'Connor only as "That vile old man!"

Not sure what Jack said to her, but it sunk in...

[osteodoc08]

Now that there is funny.

I definitely missed the golden age of shooting and true outdoorsmanship. Best to capitalize on what I can while I’m young enough now.

[Tazman1602]

He ordered that gun from Ron after shooting mine. In 1976 on the way back from Idaho I stopped in Ron Power's shop near Independence, MO. We got to talking .44 mags and Ron said "Want another one?"

He pulled out a 10 1/2" .44 mag Power Custom he had built as a Pin Gun for Ad Clark, but Clark had just broken his shoulder in a motorcycle accident and was both unable to shoot and strapped for cash. I bought it on the spot. The DA pull was so light and smooth that the gun would fire if you spun it!

When Kent saw it a few months later he ordered an 8 3/8" one just like it.

Here's a shot from 1976 with some Auto Mags in the upper right corner...

Attachment 214545

Oh for the days of going to Sheriffs office, paying $1 for your dynamite permit, then going DOWNTOWN to the hardware store to pick it up. Tree stumps didn't stand a chance....

Art

[Don Purcell]

I remember Kent telling me one year what he was taking to Idaho for his yearly camping/blasting trip. If memory serves it came to around 15'000 30.06, 15,000 to 20,000 .45acp, over 10,000 .44mag., and I remember the first time I went shooting with him I helped lug a large 20 m.m. ammo can full to the brim full of .38 Special loaded 173gr. Keith and heavy load of H110/296, so I'm sure that went. Several thousand rounds of .50 cal. He said he was probably going to throw in a Star reloader and several thousand bullets, powder and primers to reload in case they ran out. Perhaps John can expound on this and fill in the gaps I don't remember or know about. Just an ordinary vacation of plinking.

[LAH]

You should have heard Elmer talk about Jack O'Connor when he was in private conversation...

He told me some of that.

[John Ross]

I remember Kent telling me one year what he was taking to Idaho for his yearly camping/blasting trip. If memory serves it came to around 15'000 30.06, 15,000 to 20,000 .45acp, over 10,000 .44mag., and I remember the first time I went shooting with him I helped lug a large 20 m.m. ammo can full to the brim full of .38 Special loaded 173gr. Keith and heavy load of H110/296, so I'm sure that went. Several thousand rounds of .50 cal. He said he was probably going to throw in a Star reloader and several thousand bullets, powder and primers to reload in case they ran out. Perhaps John can expound on this and fill in the gaps I don't remember or know about. Just an ordinary vacation of plinking.

I went with Kent to Idaho on four summer trips in '75, '76, '77, and '78. Ten thousand .44 mag rounds sounds about right; I brought 3,000 in '75 and wished I'd loaded more.

Neither of us owned any MGs back then; Kent got an ANM2 as an individual in '77, and brought about 10,000 rounds of '06 to shoot through it that year and the next.

I can't recall seeing Kent do much shooting with .357s. That was his dad's preferred round, and Allen had a can or two of 173 grain loads with him on the two years he went with us.

He never brought any serious amount of .45ACP ammo in the years I went with him; a friend in Idaho had a Thompson he'd let us shoot and we'd bring one .50 cal can of .45 to run through it. I'm sure that changed after Kent had his own Thompsons.

The only .50 cal ammo he brought was for his bolt gun; Kent didn't own a .50 cal MG until he became an SOT which IIRC was in 1979.

After my last trip to Idaho in the summer of 1978, I only shot with Kent in Indiana or at organized shoots such as Knob Creek. His interest in (and shooting time with) MGs took off into the stratosphere when he got his SOT, and his truck always had 5-10 thousand rounds of .50BMG ammo when he'd show up for a shoot, and similar amounts for each of various smaller belt-feds.

I managed to show him up one year at Knob Creek in the late '80s by bringing 20,000 rounds of solid belted tracer for my 1917A1. That was a memorable shoot...


Kent occasionally talked of bringing a Star loader on a trip, but I always felt it was just talk. It would have been a fair amount of trouble to do, especially with no electricity to run the case feeder and solenoid ejector, and who wants to load ammo on vacation?

Anyway, those are my recollections...

[Don Purcell]

O.K John, thanks. He was giving me the lowdown on ammo amounts around 84' -85' so it's about right because he brought down a Thompson and MAC 10 that we shot a bunch. Once he handed me an M-16 and had an ammo box of magazines. He said "Hold the trigger down and run the mag and I'll slap another in when you empty it then keep doing it". I did and he did. About 6-7 mags later the gun would cook off a round without touching the trigger, the gas tube was glowing orange. It was his ammo and who was I to question? Love the picture.

[nagantguy]

One of the most interesting threads I've read in a long while! Thank you guys for posting your memories and experiences. Though not one of the well known greats I've been lucky enough to for the last 6 or so years to be mentored by a been there done that top tier competitave shooter in multiple disciplines ,reloader, experimentor and instructor . He has definitely brought me out of the dark ages on many many things, in return I've taught him about powder coating and hi-tech. Through him I even have my own browning air and water cooled memories,and quite a bit about tuning revolvers and 1911s.
I will carry the torch when he is gone and pass along the knowledge he gave me, with a smile and a funny story just how I received it.
I sure appreciate you guys sharing and reminiscing here for all of us to see!

[Don Purcell]

John, I remember talking to Kent shortly after he got his first belt fed .50 Browning and he sounded really excited. He seemed concerned about his backstop as it was chewing it to pieces! I remember Kent had a double gun holster rig (Bohlin?) that carried two 8 3/8" Smith Model 27's that he referred to as his jack rabbit gun rig. If I remember correctly one was blued the other was nickel with a blued cylinder. Also if I remember correctly the load data on the inside of the can showed 15 grains? H-110 with 173 grain Keith. Like I said it was a 20m.m. can loaded to the brim. This was Thanksgiving weekend of 1980. But man, that Ron Powers 8 3/8" was a sweetie and I have lusted for one since. A friend of mine had Ron tune up a 5" Ruger Redhawk in .41 Magnum for him and then he loaned it to me to work up some loads for him. It wasn't hard as it would shoot everything I put through it. Speaking of Kent's Ron Powers .44 Mag., I was talking to Ron and mentioned that I had put a bunch of rounds through Kent's gun. I was needing some work done on a 4" Model 29 when Ron said " Yeah, I've got Kent's .44 in the shop, he finally blew it up. Cracked the forcing cone and the frame and the crack went almost half way down the barrel. But after 175,000 rounds I guess it was entitled to break." Another story was, don't clean your gun when your sleepy.

[John Ross]

Speaking of sleep, one of my favorite stories about Kent was when he was camping in the early '70s with his first wife Mary Lou. They were in the tent together and Mary Lou woke him up by having a nightmare.

"Oh, God, Kent! It got in the tent and you've got to get it off me! It's hairy and awful and it's trying to kill me and I can't push it far enough away! Help!"
.
.
.
.
.

She had hold of Kent's head.

"Thank God there wasn't a knife in the tent," Kent would say, shaking his head.

I met Mary Lou at Al's funeral, and introduced myself. "Kent told me about the nightmare you had on the camping trip."

"Oh, God, I'll never live that one down," she said, laughing.

And speaking of Al, Kent loved to tell the story of our trip with his dad in 1975, when I had just turned 18. Al would make himself a sandwich at lunchtime and then proceed to cough and choke as soon as he bit into it. This happened every day. No one ever said anything or acted like Al was in any danger, so I didn't either.

About a week into the trip, after I had just finished humping some heavy stuff out of one of the trucks to where it was needed, Al called me over.

"Here, Ross, stop all that working for a while and eat something." He held out a peanut butter sandwich he had made for me.

"Thanks!" I said, and bit into the sandwich.

I immediately started coughing and choking. When I could finally talk, I blurted out the first thing that came into my mind:

"Jesus, there's a half inch thick layer of peanut butter on this bread! No wonder you're always choking--I thought it was because you were old!"

Kent started laughing so hard he was on the verge of choking himself.

He retold that story many times, including at Al's funeral.

[pmer]

The closest I ever got to an M2 was in the army. I remember a night training exercise when we had a "few" extra belts to go through. The Mortar guys would send up a 4.2" flare then you could see plywood cutouts of vehicles and equipment. It only took a try or two and guys were walking tracers in on target making a mess of those targets.

[dverna]

Great thread

Thanks

[Don Purcell]

The sleepy story was that Kent told me the day he graduated that he and his dad were going to go on a canoe/camping trip later that day after Kent finished taking wedding photos for a couple. So after the graduation ceremonies and photo shoot they piled in and drove to their departure point. A somewhat hectic day no doubt. After canoeing for awhile they made camp, ate and crashed in their tent. Kent was laying back in his sleeping bag and unloaded his 5" Model 29 and was wiping it down while his dad was reading a book. Kent said he closed the cylinder cocked the hammer, drew a bead through the screen opening of the tent and pulled the trigger. Instead of a snap he got a BLAM! He couldn't figure it out, the gun was unloaded he was sure. But his dad said he had loaded the gun and then nodded off a few minutes. Kent had absolutely no recollection of loading the cylinder. He said that full load going off in the tent sure was loud! Along with that story Kent said he was at the Supervel plant and George Nonte was there along with others (John were you there also?) when George wanted to take a look at Kent's 5" Model 29. They were in Lee Jurras' office I believe. George unloaded the gun and placed the rounds on a table and counted them. He then checked the cylinder then looked at the shells on the table again then looked at the cylinder again before closing it and trying the action. Nonte said after two bullet holes in the ceiling of his house he became extremely careful about "unloaded guns".