It's mid-morning several years ago and friend Jeff Loffert and I have let ourselves through the locked gate at Birchwood Shooting Park for a half day of shooting. Mondays and Tuesdays are days the range is closed to the public and it is exclusive members, generally an older crowd, that are there. Jeff works out of town and on the occasions he is in town for a few days we try to shoot.
The 50 yard and 100 yard ranges have people shooting and we drift to the far end of the ranges towards the long range benches looking for an unoccupied range. Jeff looks over at me with a catty look and says "Ah, Petrov is here." A fun day at the range is always transformed into an inordinately interesting and informative day with Michael there. We coast over behind Michael and glancing out the window it is obvious that there are no guns in the vicinity. We get out and Michael with his ear protectors on gives us his usual broad grin and shaking hands we exchange greetings. Michael's ear protectors are irony as his hearing is compromised and I'm not far behind.
Glancing around him, as his noteworthy height does not allow me to look over his shoulder, I see a handful of cartridges scattered on the bench and a string that leads down range about 20 yards to one of those large wooden khaki ammo boxes that has rope handles. By this time both Jeff and I are bursting with curiosity.
Michael picks up one of the cartridges and shows us a deep file cut just ahead of the cartridge web that must nearly pierce the brass and explains that he is trying to get head case separations. We walk with him to the box, he opens it and a beat up 1903 Springfield barreled action is lying in the box. He lifts the rifle up and extracts the case that has ruptured but the head has not separated. He repositions his setup and loads another round.
After we are back at the bench we put our ear protectors on and Michael lets loose another round. At the firing there is a loud thud and the box lurches rearward. We got to witness several more of these rounds before we settled into conversation.
Almost Buddha-like in methodology he believes little that he cannot confirm with his senses and logic. There is no faith in anything that I can detect. His methodologies require questioning and validation through experimentation. The Springfield action is one of the low serial number that are nearly universally held to be dangerous and he is testing this time honored belief that these actions will blow up and should not be shot.
I suggested he should publish his observations and he flatly states no one would publish this. In fact, he says that he once ground the front lug completely off a Springfield 1898 Krag to see if the long safety lug would hold. It did hold and through many rounds. He found that no one would publish this. His erudite investigation of the .400 Whelen headspace mythology is another example of his investigative approach which gave me the confidence to start such a rifle project.
These are traits that brought Michael to all of our attention, that led to the meticulous, detailed investigations that we see in this as well as many other forums. His books the end result of who he was and they are gifts to all of us.
Of great importance to me as a person, he appreciated my work and encouraged my projects. I got an email from him just days ago with a link to a Griffin & Howe Martini that was for sale that he thought I might be interested in. After several days we established that it was in fact marked on the lever with Griffin and Howe's early "Griffin & Howe, Inc. New York" and I bought it. He did not get to see it for it arrived two days before his death.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Friendship" reveals elements of the relationship so many of you have had the good fortune to establish with Michael. For those of you interested, it is a good read. It helps understand what distinguishes some men above so many and allows them to establish the kind of circle of friendship that Michael has. We should all try to be more like him.
