Sporting Classics Digital

Jan/Feb 2017

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S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 11 This 'N That A SALUTE TO ROBERT M. LEE By Anne Brockinton When one thinks of the late Robert M. Lee, many professions come to mind: real estate builder and developer, engineer, safari outfitter and professional hunter, designer and manufacturer, fly fisherman and fly tier, explorer, adventurer, conservationist, author, car and arms collector . . . the accomplishments go on and on. Bob was a Fellow of Exploration in The Explorers Club, a member of Boone & Crockett Club, Shikar Safari Club, and a life member of Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association. He was also a member of the Visiting Committee of the Arms and Armor Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he endowed the American Arms Wing. He was a research associate in mammalogy for the Museum of Natural History at the University of Kansas, and an affiliate professor of Wildlife Management at the University of Montana. There are far too many accolades to mention them all. Bob was truly one of a kind. His passing on January 28, 2016, was the end of a golden era rooted in the Victorian and Edwardian past. They don't make men like Robert M. Lee anymore. One of Bob's special passions was collecting antique arms and armor and modern sporting guns, an interest that started when he was only 8 years old. The family had inherited an antique pistol from his maternal great-grandfather who lived in Hartford, Connecticut, home of the fabled Sam Colt and Colt's Patent Firearms, Inc. The handgun was a cased Model 1855 Pocket Sidehammer, with his great-grandfather's name, E.B. Huntington, inscribed on the backstrap. At age 12 Bob was given access to the gun, and it immediately became his most prized possession. This cherished revolver proved to be the foundation for Bob's keen interest in firearms, hunting, and the out-of-doors. That acquisition was followed by Bob's first Winchester, a Model 69A .22 rimfire bolt-action rifle. Unbeknownst to his parents, Bob sold enough subscriptions in an Outdoor Life magazine contest to win the rifle. When it arrived in the mail, his surprised parents allowed him to keep it, on one condition: that he take shooting and safety lessons from Captain Jack Steiner, the commander of the local American Legion Post, in its basement shooting range. For years Bob corresponded with gun writers Jack O'Connor and Elmer Keith, with whom he became lifelong friends. Bob was always asking these experts about rifles and cartridges, determined to learn everything he could. And he did. Bob could discuss ballistic performance for most any rifle made anywhere in the world. Bob even designed a line of wildcat cartridges based on the .425 Westley Richards. The .358 Lee Magnum and .424 Lee Magnum were good enough to be featured in Volume I of P.O. Ackley's Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders. Bob would go on to collect many spectacular firearms. One of the earliest was a Griffin & Howe Mauser Sporting Rifle in 7x57 with a 22-inch barrel, Serial No. 2219, engraved and gold inlaid by the accomplished Austrian-American Josef Fugger. FoRest suNRise by Albert bierstAdt A hunting song By W. TyLER OLcOTT The yachtsman sings of the bounding waves And a life on the deep blue sea— Of a bark that bows to the crested surge, And the breath of the ocean free. But give me a dog that is keen of scent, And a gun that is tried and true, An autumn day when the dawn wind stirs, And the woods that are steeped in dew. There is the sport that is best of all, ln the light of the forest gray; For what can excel the keen delight Of hunting at break of day. Let others sing of the trout that leap From the pools in the rippling brook, And the thrill of joy as the click-reel hums When the "good ones" rise to the hook. But sing me the song of the sylvan glades, And the echoing rifle call, As it rings out clear on the frosty air, From brush by the old stone wall. Ah, that is the song that I love the best, And a song that is sweet alway— The song that breathes of the autumn woods— Of hunting at break of day. Editor's Note: From Outing, November 1899 Continued on page 12

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