Mel had very little personal knowledge of his subject. He got his info from my old friend, Mike Harries, of the SWPL, and smiths at Pachmayr's gun works and King's Guns. Mel was a 300 lb paraplegic diabetic in a wheelchair, and his disability was not recent when he wrote the book. I personally know a great many of the instructors and writers in the gun field, like Bill Wilson, John Farnum, Ken Hackathorn, Mike Dalton. I knew many who are gone, too, like Jeff Cooper, Milt Sparks, Bruce Nelson, Mike H. I have exchanged a few letters with Ragnar Benson. In one of them, he said that a 223 softpoint will pulp the skull of a tree black bear, with just one shot.
