the Road to Pay Dirt - Chapter 12
"The website", as Speedy and Panic referred to it… was to them, not "a" website, it was "the" website. It was a focal point in their lives, as it was for many of the long time core members. Some sort of touchstone for them all, it would seem.
"WWW.RELOADBENCH.NET" had started out life many years back, and spawned out of very small and quite humble beginnings. A man who had not even been into computers hardly at all, was a reloader.
A subset of the gun community was into "reloading". Which was saving the brass after shooting. Knocking out the spent primer that had touched the round off, and resizing the brass to new specs at the same time as knocking out the old primer. Replacing a new primer, and putting in the proper amount and type of powder. Finally, a new projectile was fitted.
The round could be fired again. It was vastly cheaper than buying ammo, because the brass wasn't being bought new every time and thrown away. Reloaders were known to "scrounge brass" that most shooters threw away, and treasured it. Brass was the single most costly component to loaded ammo.
Reloaders came in many different forms, and they were an inner circle, inside the larger fraternity of shooters. Some just reloaded to shoot more for the same money they were going to spend anyways. Some did it just to get ammo that was unavailable for an old treasured family heirloom gun that would otherwise become a "safe queen" or a "wall hanger".
Some did it not to save money, but to have more accurate ammo. If you were serious about shooting accurately, even the highest cost premium ammo couldn't touch properly reloaded ammo for accuracy.
Benchrest shooters were a tiny fraternity of high end target shooters, that shot 100 and 200 yards for their circuit of competitions, with season end yearly champions. To get into benchresting was more than a matter of simply buying the proper gun, that was the easy part.
To even be remotely competitive… you had no other choice than to reload. No one was able to be a benchrester, let alone a competitor of any kind at all, without being steeped in the art and science of reloading. You first and foremost had to be a great shot, and have great bench technique when shooting. This was obtainable. You had to have the right gun and scope and trigger and everything else. This was obtainable. Yet… without excellent skills at reloading? It was all for naught, and your expensive rig sat all but useless without this skill.
Other people bought custom chambered guns, that you could not go out and buy ammo for, at any cost. Wildcat chamberings. Reloading was again, a necessity. You started out with more commonly available brass, and formed your own chambering then reloaded it.
Some very famous and well regarded gun chamberings started out life in this way, and had "caught on". Once enough people were using the chambering, and loved it… a gun company would then with great fanfare unveil a gun you could simply buy, and go buy the ammo and enjoy it.
Other people wanted a specialty round. A number of older black bear hunters, loved the old timers recipe of 220 grain round nouse out of 30-06. You couldn't buy this off the shelf, once again there was no other choice but to "roll your own".
"WWW.RELOADBENCH.NET" had been started by a man simply known as "GREG". He was a reloader, and had gotten a computer and gone around to all the gun sites on the internet, joining the forums, talking about reloading. GREG noticed that all of the gun sites had reloading as a byproduct of hunting, as a sideline of blackpowder shooting, not as the main topic.
GREG started then, his very own forum on the web… it would be mainly all about reloading, and very little else. Separate forum for just talking about BRASS. Separate forum for talking just about POWDER. Separate forum for talking about just SIZING.
It was extensive, it was precise. Within a couple of years, reloaders took notice. It was hard to search for a given topic on other sites, as everything about reloading was all crammed into one overused single forum. On his site… separating all the forums into their own topics made searching easy and fruitful.
"WWW.RELOADBENCH.NET" grew to thousands of members, and quickly became known as the premiere website for reloading information. As big as it ever got, GREG kept it free to join and use. He refused to sell it to any online gun company that wanted to take it off his hands, and turn it into a commercial enterprise to sell their products.
The thousands of members were dedicated. Older men that under normal circumstances would never have bought their own laptop and learned how to get online? Did so, simply because their reloading buddy always had the best info they printed out for them. Info that came from "WWW.RELOADBENCH.NET"
The members had a "core" of important members, that were utterly dedicated to their site. When "the website" was finally given mention in a gun magazine article? It was exciting to them. It attracted more members. One guy noticed that WICKIPEDIA was starting to accept their website, as a valid bibliographical citation to "prove" that a point of argument was answered properly.
One fine day, talk in the "general discussion" forum had yet once again, turned to everyone wanting to get together in real life and have a competition shoot. But on this day, it bore fruit. Instead of a couple guys getting together and posting stories, pictures, and videos of their little get together… a large number of them did so.
It was organized. It happened every year for a number of years. It was always in a different state and at a different range. The members liked camping out and meeting for a weekend or a whole week as much as they enjoyed the shoot itself.
It was a figure of merit to have a T shirt from each year's "RLB-fest"… listing the previous "world tour" years, dates, and locations of bygone RLB-fest happenings. It went to personal prestige, to be seen in a shooting pose on the firing line, by the men taking photos and videos to post online. To have your own gun described in detail in a long article on the site. To perform some feat no one believed was possible in real life in front of a crowd, with video proof it actually happened.
One very non-fine day? GREG all but disappeared. Real life took over. He had twin girls, and they were growing up. GREG took a job that required him to commute 90 minutes one way to work. 90 minutes back. Six days a week, often 12 hour days. GREG had been used to being his own contractor, but had given it up for better regular pay, but more importantly… as a worker at a very expensive college? His twin girls had access to a free Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degree from a prestigious university.
Simple math told the story. 12 hour days, plus 3 hours of total commuting on train time… six days a week… meant that GREG disappeared off of his own website, and that RLB-fests were discontinued.
GREG was the owner, and was the only person able to appoint MODERATORS who could throw out malcontents causing and posting trouble online. Like a town without any police? Moderators drifted away and couldn't be replaced. Long time members disappeared. The site persevered though.
Then one horrible day? WWW.RELOADBENCH.NET went off-line.
This was where Colonel Panic came into the story. Back when the site was running well, as a former programmer that knew nothing of internet programming, he was interested in how to make an online forum. He made his own, and copied as much of the structure of the main site as he could. For fun. As a hobby.
After several iterations, each of which got better and better at imitating the original site… he about nailed it. His site became known as the "official backup site". On the rare occasion the parent site went down, everyone could meet on HIS site under their own screen names they registered on.
Only the dedicated and "core members" naturally cared enough to do so.
So, when the parent site went down and never recovered and came back up, abandoned by the original owner… Colonel Panic found himself the owner of what was the smaller remnants of the world's biggest and most authoritative reloading site available.
It was not without growing pains, naturally. A rift of some kind developed. A small number of members broke off and formed their "own" site. It withered and died, leaving Colonel Panic as the last man standing.
GREG had been their founding father, GREG was their own personal George Washington to them. It was a big deal years later, when GREG quietly showed up and made a few small posts on the website. Colonel panic had always insisted that there was a GREG screen name available, and that it had "owner privileges". In case GREG ever showed up, he would find he could 'reclaim' leadership.
GREG didn't reclaim leadership. Real life had him in its talons and he couldn't let go now. GREG did, however, admit the site was true to his own, and that he approved of it.
The only big change Colonel Panic made in the site he owned, was that GREG had been considered a "benevolent dictator". His word was final on all matters. Only he could ban troublemakers. Only he could appoint forum MODerators and such. Colonel Panic wanted a team to share leadership.
GREG had not taken advice nor free help from one "Doc Henley", who was among other things a website programmer guru. Colonel Panic tapped him for technical expertise, and the site showed the fruit of his choice. Panic gave him "full control" and could do anything he himself could do.
Several other members were tapped as well, and learned how to manage the day to day operations on the site. Banning problem posters. Enforcing squabbling rules. A number of them, all long time core members that knew how "things were supposed to be"… IE, the way GREG had wanted things to be ran. The "right" way.
Instead of an enlightened dictator? Colonel Panic saw to a team of leaders, sitting in council. Voting on the right decisions to make.
In such a manner, WWW.RELOADBENCH.NET was now free to grow, forever. Always free to join and use. No one leader could disappear and bring the famous site down.
