Ignorance Rant

[deerslayer]

Most people are experts in their opinion and beliefs. Unfortunately facts sometimes sneak in there and get in the way of a belief or long held opinion.
It is how an individual handles this that makes or breaks them!

[abunaitoo]

We have lots of know-it-all's here.
I think it's somekind of mental disorder.
One guy here knows everything about everything.
Even things he knows nothing about.

I had a guy tell me once that since he had been doing something the same way for over 10 years, he had to be doing it right.
Later he found out he was doing it wrong for the past 10 years.

I always get a kick when people say they have 15 years experiance shooting and know everything.
Must be nice to know everything.
I've been shooting for over 15 years, and I learn someting new almost everytime I shoot or reload.
Either I'm not to smart, or I'm smarter than I think.

[Doc_Stihl]

My biggest gripe is when someone tells me it can't be done the way I'm doing it.

Might not be the best way, might not be the easiest way, but don't tell me it's not possible. I don't even mind if you tell me I'm doing it "wrong". Just don't tell me it ain't possible.

[Jim]

My biggest gripe is when someone tells me it can't be done the way I'm doing it.

Might not be the best way, might not be the easiest way, but don't tell me it's not possible. I don't even mind if you tell me I'm doing it "wrong". Just don't tell me it ain't possible.

Oh, yeah. I LOVE that!

[9.3X62AL]

Perhaps the GREATEST VALUE we provide one another on sites like this is "that other way to do things". The creativity and common sense that dwells here and similar places is awe-inspiring at times.

That's me--reloading since 1971, and still learning. When the time arrives that I know it all, I'll check for a toe tag before running my mouth. Ignorance is 100% curable, and I still reserve the right to be wrong--and to learn my errors.

[mtnman31]

I am mixed when it comes to dealing with know-it-all's. Somedays I ignore them and just walk away smiling to myself and other days I try and enlighten them. I am by no means an expert in all things shooting, but I do my homework and try not to speak or voice my opinion unless it is a subject that I am really familiar with. It can be very rewarding personally, when you take the time to teach someone something and you see the "lightbulb" come on in their head when they suddenly have a much better understanding of something they previously were clueless about.

As some of the others have mentioned, it pays to enlighten some of the ignorant because sooner or later they are going to be the guy that gives a new or student shooter some bad advice that gets them hurt or damages some property. On the other hand, at the end of the day, some people just refuse to learn because in their minds they REALLY DO know it all.

[DLCTEX]

A couple of local guys tell me that cast bullets lead and you just have to expect it and clean it out. I said mine don't. They just look like "oh sure". In questioning them about their loads, they are buying commercially cast bullets for 41 mag and 44 mag and load them to hot magnum jacketed velocities. I wonder why they are having leading. One of them also has a Ruger Blackhawk in 45 Colt. He loads 200 gr. SWC to Rugers hot jacketed loads. When I suggested his loads were too hot, he said if he couldn't shoot them hot he would just not shoot. I hope he enjoys cleaning out lead. He also likes to load rifles hot and has damaged several guns in the past few years. I don't respond to his invitations to go shooting with him. He knows David Tubbs and is always saying that Tubbs doesn't know half as much as he thinks he does. I replied he must know something as he has won enough matches to get a reputation. He said he's just lucky.

[wistlepig1]

A couple of local guys tell me that cast bullets lead and you just have to expect it and clean it out. I said mine don't. They just look like "oh sure". In questioning them about their loads, they are buying commercially cast bullets for 41 mag and 44 mag and load them to hot magnum jacketed velocities. I wonder why they are having leading. One of them also has a Ruger Blackhawk in 45 Colt. He loads 200 gr. SWC to Rugers hot jacketed loads. When I suggested his loads were too hot, he said if he couldn't shoot them hot he would just not shoot. I hope he enjoys cleaning out lead. He also likes to load rifles hot and has damaged several guns in the past few years. I don't respond to his invitations to go shooting with him. He knows David Tubbs and is always saying that Tubbs doesn't know half as much as he thinks he does. I replied he must know something as he has won enough matches to get a reputation. He said he's just lucky.

DLCTEX, sometimes you just can't help some people. With that narrow of views, I would just walk away and smile and hope when he blows up his 44 at the range, no one is killed.

[Bret4207]

One of my worst enemies has opened his mouth and inserted both feet up to his hips on more than one occasion. My enemy is that guy I see in the mirror every morning.

The number one thing most of us could use is a giant sized dose of humility. That only helps us though. The morons, idiots, brain dead and plant life IQ types can't be helped until they open their own minds. People like Felix, Maven, Backasswards, Bruce B, Ben and some others have really opened my eyes here over the years. I came here with pre-conceived notions and a great many of those notions were proven wrong- right after I swallowed my pride and pushed my ego back down where it belonged. After tasting crow on multiple occasions I found that accepting I was, in fact, actually as dumb as a rock and working from there seemed to lead to better results.

Live and learn.

[Doc Highwall]

I like it when I tell somebody about some shooting that I did and they say that it cannot be done because they tried it and could not do it. My response is, don't judge my abilities by the lack of yours. I hear the some of the same comments like other people here about cast bullets ruining the gun or leading never mind the poor accuracy and I just laugh to myself. It is nice when I am shooting cast bullets at the range and somebody looks at my target and has a open mind and asks questions about how I get the accuracy that I do, and then when I tell them how cheap it is after set up cost it just blows their mind.

[MtGun44]

If there seems to be some hope, I offer to help if they are interested. Most are, some are
not. I'll go pretty far out of my way to help someone that is willing to learn and will think.

I agree very much with Bret. I have to make darned sure that I don't wind up telling someone
my opinion, not fact, without very clearly labeling it as such.

I know a few things to be true and will stand by them. Often it is more like, "This has
worked this way for me. Might be different for you, but you might have the same
success or avoid wasting time."

Especially here, I make a real effort not to be set in my ways. I definitely have my
viewpoints (you all know that by now) but I make an effort to point out that there
are almost always different ways to get good results, but here is a way that I have
found that works and has a pretty good chance of working for someone else. I have
really learned a lot by just reading what some of our real experts are writing. I
feel like I have a reasonable handle on pistols, but I know that there is a WHOLE
lot for me to learn on rifles with boolits.

OTOH, I have just about gotten to the "RTFM!!" point with a small number of our newbies.
Computer folks will recognize the abbreviation.

Lots of newbies are really great, search the site and look and buy some books and READ THEM. Eventually ask some good solid questions.

Others seem really just lazy - 'Hey, how about some load data for a .38 Special or a
.308 Win?' Well, Hodgdon has a really great online site with this info and I have a
shelf full of books with that info. Why don't YOU? Haven't done that yet, but I sure
have been tempted a few times. I really value the civility of this site and that is one
of the things that makes me much less likely to say anything.

Bill

[cajun shooter]

Well first I would like to say that I was a POST certified firearms Instructor. In Louisiana that means that you were trained by instructors from the FBI, DEA, State Police, LSU and several different local police departments. It is a 2 week 12 hr days pass fail course. We started with 53 and graduated 22.In other words at different stages people were sent home. The reason I am stating this is that a few posters have grouped all instructors into one group. I have seen schools given where you attended one day and were given a certification the next. Maybe that is where some of your experts have come from. I have seen some of this type come from the NRA also. After a few years I was asked to help with the schools when they had new classes. I told all my students that there are certain rules that you use as a Police firearms instructor. They are
Never shoot in front of your students as in a contest to show how good you are.You can have a bad day and one of them will out shoot you
Never say that you never miss as in live fire you will look like a fool when you do
Never say that " YOUR WAY" is the only way
Give them more than one idea for doing things
Let them know that it is not practice that makes them better but perfect practice
Try to have them shoot a target that is not the standard B-27 but just a human outline
Always remember the old cowboy saying; There is not a horse that can't be rode and there is not a man that can't be throwed.

[RP]

Well thats why I always go with I dont know much but this is the way I do it and ask how do you do it. The best way for me is get alot of people to tell me take from each and come up with a way that works for me. New guy to reloading came to my house seen I had serveral presses and a fair amount of casting stuff and cooking up some lube. So he thinks I know alot about it which after finding this site I have learned I dont know as much as I should. After talking to him a few times and now he has hes press and dies just needing boolits I told him to stop by I give him some to get started. He started asking alot of questions that I myself dont know enough about to tell someone else. Stated serveral times to him that this is the way I do it and its working for me he kept asking like I did not want to tell him. Finally I looked him right in the eyes and said buddy just because I have alot of reloading stuff dont make me a pro it makes me conplusive or a horder not sure which. But I have to say this site has alot of guys that know alot and help alot and a few that just want to talk down to someone instead of picking them up.

[ole 5 hole group]

I told all my students that there are certain rules that you use as a Police firearms instructor. They are
Never shoot in front of your students as in a contest to show how good you are.You can have a bad day and one of them will out shoot you.

I guess I looked at it a little different. Once the skill was developed, never had a bad day, just some days were better than others. I always demonstrated in live fire what I was teaching, because if you didn’t some, if not most students, would wonder after talking the talk whether or not you could actually walk the walk. I showed them right up front what I could do and most were impressed while a few just gave you that smirk, as if to say, Ya, watch me – and we all had a great time and some of those smirky students were well rounded pistoleros just taking the course to get out of Dodge for a week and were certified gun powder junkies. It’s surprising what an instructor can learn from some of those “sleepers” in class. A few of us instructors would attend a couple “high profile” shooting schools just to learn different training methods and how they used their props – and of course during the session you could about guess who among the rest were also attending to learn a few “new” techniques to bring home. We would trade methods and discuss how we could make firearms training better over a case or two of brew every evening, as it just didn’t seem right to start the day off without a blasting headache, because after that, you knew the day just had to get better or you would have to die. Miss those days a lot.

[DIRT Farmer]

I hate to learn something new as it will open a whole area of ingorance I didn't know I had.

I spent a lot of years trying to learn flint shotgun. The part where the ignition needs to be very consistant to hit clay birds. I chased a lot of whirlwinds trying for fast reliable and repeteable results. Every flint shooter seemed to have at least two or more systems that worked. Finaly just started shooting a sensable system, and results improved.
There are a lot of experts, but watch a National Champion long enough and pick up on what they are doing.
I have tough black powder for around forty years. I may have enough backgroung to begin learning.

[SciFiJim]

I may have enough background to begin learning.

True words. I have gotten to the point that I know that there are things that I don't know that I don't know any thing about.

[Bret4207]

I hate to learn something new as it will open a whole area of ingorance I didn't know I had.

Wow, truer words were never spoken! That seems to happen to me nearly daily!

You really want to feel dumb- start looking into Constitutional studies where The Founders were referencing Cicero, Blackstone, the Old Testament, etc. It's not bad when they give you the quote and the context, it's when they speak in general terms of some ancient Greeks theory.......huh?

[casterofboolits]

I've always held the opinon that an expert was some one who didn't have all the facts.

I've been reloading since 1968 and casting since 1973 and have supplied millions of bullets to shooters. I was out of a regular job for nine months one time and my casting hobby allowed me to pay all the bills and no one went with out for that time. So I've had to put up with "experts" during that time. There's just no "win" in trying to change some "experts" concept of reality.

The only time I voice a hard opinion is when the "expert" is doing something that could result in harm to the "expert" or bystanders. A Cop buddy of mine is extremely fond of the phrase "Ya can't cure stoopid".

I just joined this forum and enjoy reading the threads as to how others do thier casting, smelting and acquire thier materials.

[Thumbcocker]

This thread is kind of related to why I quit subscribing to gunzines years ago. The peole who used to write articles actually wrote from experience. Now it seems most of the mainstream writers just regurgitate the same "facts" over and over. Hanloader and this site are my primary sources of information now. Those who post on a topic have done what they speak of, usually for many years, and speak from experience.

[bohokii]

well i have to agree with the moron cause my lead fouls my bore just like my dinner fouls my plate

i just clean it before i put it back in the cabinet