Fred, A Fine Shootin’ Partner James Leahy of James Calhoon Manufacturing
found mine more than 20 years ago when a customer named Fred Heil came to visit our bullet manufacturing business. Fred’s “Happy as a Clam” smile
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was as infectious as it was genuine. Whenever you were with Fred, you were his partner and you knew you were on an adventure. Maybe his hitch with the U.S. Marines gave him that spirit. As the shortest guy in his squad, of course, he was made the B.A.R. machine gunner! Fred says the guys in his squad didn’t like cleaning their guns and wouldn’t want to shoot their required amount of practice. Fred said, “Just gimme your ammo. I’ll burn it!” Fred would have one of the boys send a 55-gallon drum rollin’ down a hill, and with his trusty B.A.R. he would pepper the drum full of holes. Same went for pistol ammo. Fred was real fond of just about any pistol and he loved to burn up the ammo. In his col- lection were models from Ruger Mark IIs, Smith .44 mags, and even a Wildie .45 Win. Mag. Fred said, “That Wildie had quite a reverse gear!” Maybe his spirit was because of
his terrific wife, Winnie. At 39 years old, Fred decided to race Enduro motor- cycles. A Bultaco, or Bull as Fred called it, was Fred’s favorite bike. Fred’s Bull took him to the tough Michigan 500. Busting through rough trail, which included strip coal mines, he clipped a tree with his little fi nger and broke it. Fred rode into the pits and told his loving wife and pit manager, “I gotta quit. I broke my fi n- ger!” Winnie dug out a roll of duct tape, grabbed Fred’s hand, taped his little fi nger to the next fi nger, and drowned out Fred’s whining with, “We didn’t come all this way to turn around and go home just because you broke a fi nger!” That year Fred fi nished 11th overall in the U.S. Enduros. Not bad for a guy supposedly 20 years past his prime for bike racing. Fred liked things that made noise and went fast. He favored Dodge trucks with big engines. His fastest was a ’76 Dodge with a hopped-up 440. He said you did have to be cautious “get- ting your foot into it” as it had a habit
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great shooting partner is bet- ter than gold to a varminter. I
of swapping ends. When it came to shooting, Fred had
an uncanny ability of judging distance and wind. Just ask him where to hold. He would study a moment and say, “Better give it a couple of dogs left, Jimmy.” I’d place the cross hair as Fred said and, as sure as Acme, kawop, dead dog! Fred acquired the handle “The Long Ranger” because of his exceptional long-range shooting abilities. He credited me, as I “… always took the close ones.” Fred was a real people’s person.
The thing that made him happy was to put a smile on someone’s face, and every- one who met him sure never forgot him. I remember one hot 90-degree day when Fred and I were in the middle of nowhere on the Montana prairie looking for a mythical dog town that someone had told us about. Suddenly, Fred stopped the truck beside a lone, sweat-soaked, red-faced rancher fi xing his fence. With- out a word, Fred stepped out of his truck, dropped the tailgate, and reached into the cooler. With a dashing, magician-like twist of his wrist, Fred presented that old cowboy with an ice cold Coors Light. He grinned and said, “You look like a man who could use a beer!” Well, I’m sure that old cowboy thought a thick necked, curly-headed angel had appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed that can and fi n- ished it in one long swallow. Fred offered him another and that one disappeared almost as quickly. When that crusty old rancher had his fi ll, we had the run of his ranch with a guide thrown in. Back in the late 1990s we met Ron
Coburn, president of Savage Arms, at the SHOT Show. After some glad-handing, Fred “charmed” Ron into coming west for a dog shoot with us in Montana. Shortly after arriving, Ron gave Fred his then-new Striker pistol to test. Fred felt the trigger, gave a little frown, dis- appeared, and reappeared with his gun box. Fred’s gun box is kind of like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag – it has ev- erything in it. Fred tossed a grubby towel down on the pool table and commenced stripping down that Striker! “What are ye doing to my new pistol?” Ron blurted in his Irish brogue.
“I paid engineers thousands of dollars to design that pistol!” Well, coincidence maybe, but it wasn’t much later that Savage came out with the AccuTrigger. Meanwhile, in a dog town the next
day, Ron was set up on a shooting bench and was happily blazing away, using up a lot of Fred’s ammo, but not often con- necting. It was all Fred could stand and he stomped over, grabbed Ron’s rifl e, and said, “Get out of the way ….head. I’ll show you how to do this!” Well, now, Fred’s brother-in-law
Roger and I were leaning on Big Noel’s Chevy (with Big Noel in it). We all looked at each other. Fred had a way of saying outrageous things, and people for some reason liked him for it, but this was the president of Savage Arms, after all! There was a silent pause in dog town. “That’s Mister ….head to you!” Ron responded in fi ne form. And then Fred proceeded to teach Ron Coburn, the president of Savage Rifl es, how to shoot long-range dogs. That evening Ron needed a place
to sleep, and as there was room for only two in the bunkhouse, Roger cheerfully said he would sleep on the sofa and volunteered his bed to Ron. Ron was grateful. The next morning, however, he looked a well-rested Roger in the eye and blurted out, “You @#$%^&*)!” It was common knowledge to the rest of us, especially Roger, that when Fred snores it sounds like a BNSF freight train is going by. The whole house vibrates! Several times during the night, when Fred rolled over and quit snoring, Ron had, and this is a quote, “…hoped he’d died!” Ron spent his wakeful hours de- veloping a plan. He would go over, kiss Fred full on the lips, and Ron would get some sleep while Fred lay awake doing some serious worrying. Ron got a hotel room for the next night. A local friend and fellow var-
minter, Andy Waritz, wanted to meet Fred and take him out on a shoot. We all ended up in Andy’s ’Burban, Andy driv- ing, Fred in the front passenger seat, and I in the back. Now Andy may have been a little deaf, a little stubborn, but prob- ably a combination of both, and I never
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