Mr. Hagel wrote for the Wolfe folks, "Rifle" and "Handloader" magazine in the 70's and 80's. Maybe even earlier I'm not sure.

I discovered his book "Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter" in the late 1970's and found it both informative and thought provoking. i'd just moved from NJ out to Montana and experiencing Western big game hunting for the first time, as a resident.

His book was absolutely a common sense approach to what works, what doesn't and possibly why.

I took a lot of what he wrote to heart and several years later he published "Guns Loads and Hunting Tips". In my opinion an even better book than the first. I thought the book was SO good and such a useful tool for the hunter that I bought several for friends. And at the time as a recently hired Highway Trooper I could ill afford them.

Mr. Hagel wrote for the Wolfe magazines until his death in late 2005.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was visiting a small gun shop in Great Falls and noticed several old cardboard boxes full of old loading manuals, dozens upon dozens of boxes of new or used brass and some OLD loading dies.

I asked the owner "Where did these come from"?
He stated they were left over from a Families estate and someone had come in and sold them all a few days earlier.

I almost fell over when he told me all this had belonged to Bob Hagel.

There were a lot of boxes of Weatherby brass, several of them one of his favorites; the .340 WBY. I wondered WHERE this brass may have been.... and what he'd hunted?
The dies were interesting too. .333 OKH, .240 Page, 7x61 Sharp and Hart to name a few.

I ended up bringing home a box of .460 Wby brass, the old style box from the 70's with the bull elephant on the front.
The brass had been fired. Wonder at what?

Had to say that seeing all of his loading gear thrown into boxes and being picked through like it was a garage sale...was a bit sad.

FN in MT

Sure I remember Bob Hagel. He loved the .338 bore and the 210 Nosler Partition. He also loved loading them "hot." He was a shooter and a hunter and a pretty darned good writer.
Yes it is sad to see what you saw. It meant nobody was there to carry on for Bob. Is there anyone there for you? Me? The rest of the readers here on AR?
We watch our country throw away the freedoms that made us great each day now. This case you cite is but one example, albeit a very sad one. All of us need to find somebody to teach, share and pass it on to folks. I have a boy and I am trying hard to do so.
Best regards fellow Shooters and Hunters,
Fury01

I should have also suggested that he probably got the 333 OKH dies from Elmer Keith or at least the motivation to have them made. Another great pioneer with very little legacy left behind.

The moral of this story is to take your kids and grand kids shooting. Make an effort to leave more of a legacy than some cardboard boxes.

The memories are worth far more than the stuff.

I do, and thoroughly enjoyed his magazine articles and books. I still re-read his books.

Absolutely I remember him. I have every one of his books and really enjoyed his articles in Rifle and Handloader. He was one of the writers who wrote from true experience in hunting and shooting rather than from a typewriter. As Fury mentioned he did however like to spice up his loading to maximum so if you follow any of his loading recipes make sure you drop back by 15-20%. And that is really sad to see that your legacy ends up in a box on the floor. If those tools could talk! He hunted Africa and many other places in the world but was best known for western big game hunting. This story causes one to think about his own legacy…
Thanks for the report.
Paul

Bob Hagel was greatly respected by every rifleman I've known, in particular those from what might be called the early baby-boomer generation, born circa 1950 (+or- a few years).

Funny thing, I was just doing some research through old American Rifleman magazines and came on a Hagel article in the November 1946 issue titled "So You Missed!".

Jack O'Connor in "The Last Book" commented on some of his favorite writers. He wrote, "Bob Hagel lives in a wide spot in an Idaho road called Gibbonsville, Idaho... how far Bob went in school I cannot say, but he must read a great deal as he is highly literate and an excellent writer... he has had a lot of experience and most of his stuff is not only well put together but makes sense."

Never read a Hagel article I didn't enjoy. As my friend Paul Reed has mentioned, his load data tends to the fearless side - I'm more comfortable getting load data from current manuals.

Hagel was one of Americas top gun writers ever. His writings are full of good sense and none of the commercialism and BS which seems so wide-spread any more.

I learned more about rifles and reloading from Bob than anyone else. His articles were a guiding light for me. RIP

Regards, Keith

quote:

Originally posted by Sagebrush Burns:
Hagel was one of Americas top gun writers ever. His writings are full of good sense and none of the commercialism and BS which seems so wide-spread any more.

+1

My boys gave me his book "Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter" for Father's Day in 1979. It was a wealth of information.

His brother Andy (?) owned a taxidermy shop in Salmon, ID. Bob worked there off and on, iirc.

He got a terminal case of migraine headaches, and stopped writing.

Yep, I sure do remember him as one of the best of his time. That's a shame to hear all that stuff went into boxes for anyone to scrounge through.

When I lived in Salmon Idaho in the 70's, I would occasionally visit Bob at his home in Gibbonsville. His home was just down the road from Elmer Keith's old log home along the North Fork of the Salmon River. Bob was a wealth of information on guns and game. If I remember correctly he worked as a forester for the U.S.F.S. before taking up writing for a profession.

465H&H

His book "The Game Rifle" is a classic.

One of my all time favorite writers, from a time you had to have a hunting resume before you became a writer.

I gave a lot of books away or sold them in a yard sale before moving to Wyoming for Alaska and I guess Bob Hagel's work was among those as he's not in the bookcase.

Seems he really liked the 7mm Mashburn and I think he was the one that got me interested in the 338 bore. I remember some loads he posted once for the 375 H&H that called for 84gr of IMR 4350 in a WW case under an original 300 NP. Try to find that in a loading manual or try to get that in a 375 case with an OAL length that will fit a M70 action. I can get 81 gr with a drop tube but I have no idea how he got 84 in that cartridge case.

Mark

I grew up reading Elmer, Jack and Bob. Bob Hagels writings always made a lot more sense to me. I can't buy into Elmer's writing that the 270 is only fit for coyote hunting, or Jacks writing that the 270 is the best elk and moose rifle. Bob Hagel's recommendations were more in the middle and stood me in good stead until I acquired enough experience to form my own opinions. Which still pretty much mirror Bob Hagel's preferences.

I had the pleasure of meeting him and spending a couple days with him in the mid 1980's. Very much a 'straight arrow' guy. I recall that he worked for the USFS and was injured when a piece of equipment he was operating rolled over on him resulting in back issues/chronic pain. I know he constructed a 100 yard shooting tube off his house that allowed for a lot of load testing. He would make up a load and test it a couple feet from his loading bench. That always stuck with me as an ideal set-up.

Game Loads/ Ballistics has been by my night stand since I was about 15 years old. No clue how many times its been read.

..... a definate Weatherby/Mashburn/MRP fan.

I have his books, and have read many articles he had written.

I agree with all the good things said here about Bob Hagel. I have his books, and I have read many of his articles in Rifle and Handloader.

On the 460 WBY fired brass, one of the articles he did for Rifle was on the 460 WBY.

Yep, Bob Hagel was tops. I have all his books too, have read them and still refer to them, and continue to clip and file his articles.
He must be why I started hunting Alaska in 1985 with a 340 weatherby and 210-grain Nosler Partitions.
And remember Bob's story about the bull moose that absorbed a 378 Weatherby killing hit and just continued to graze in the Alaskan pond for another half hour?
Well, that is how I remember it, but will have to go look in the book ...