Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 7 8 was a land of new promise, of better things to come. A growing economy, vacation time for the average worker, and a car in the driveway resulted in not only a new level of prosperity, but also the opportunity for Americans to enjoy the things they loved to do. And for millions, that meant spending time afield or at the range. Before the war, there were some six million hunters in the U.S. By the early 1950s that number had more than doubled. Growing up hunting and shooting, Joyce Hornady had taken a job as a marksmanship instructor in a National Guard training unit at Nebraska's Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant. After the war, the Hornadys stayed in Grand Island and opened a small sporting goods store. Joyce's passion, however, was in precision accuracy, something, he knew could only be achieved with better bullets. When Speer split off to form his own company (Speer Bullets in Lewiston, Idaho), Joyce found a surplus bullet-assembly press, set up in a rented garage, and began producing his own .30-caliber bullet. From the start he had a winner. More than 60 years later his original .30-caliber, 150-grain Spire Point continues to be one of the The idea behind the Superformance loads came from an employee's suggestion rather than a formal process. company's best sellers. With a good start, Hornady committed to building his business, adding more staff and equipment. The severe shortages caused by the Korean conflict looked to cripple the fledgling company, but Joyce quickly shifted production to new areas, notably a government contract for condenser cans. When peace returned, Hornady was able to utilize the material and technology originally used to make the cans to fabricate ultra-thin copper jackets for his line of varmint bullets—a key advance for the company. By the late '50s Hornady had started construction on a new factory that would grow to include a 200-yard underground testing facility. Always a hands-on engineer, Joyce had previously driven to the Grand Island Rifle Range to test each individual lot of bullets, whether Nebraska's sun was shining or not. In the next several decades Hornady continued to expand beyond the bullet business, first with its line of Frontier Ammunition and later with the acquisition of Pacific Tool Company, a manufacturer of reloading equipment.