Taipan Bullets in memory of Malcolm Bone

Firearm Friday Is celebrating the life of Bullet Maker and Lock Stock and Barrel journalist Malcolm Bone. If you click on the link to our website you will be able to read the full obituary written by Ron. But for those of you short on time he was a passionate, intelligent, kind, generous man who fought for the rights of firearm owners and made fantastic projectiles. A lot of you will be familiar with Taipan Bullets. The factory closed some time ago but we have been selling surplus since and still have some on the shelf.

Malcolm D Bone. His Life.

This is sad duty for more than one reason, firstly, the shock that I am doing this for Malcolm, secondly funerals always remind me, of my own mortality. I always saw Malcolm D Bone as a Peter Pan, some one that would never age. Always, super fit, active and healthy. That is the way that I have known him for 44 years.

When I came to Gympie, before I found a permanent place to live, I was camping out in my Nissen Patrol, at that time and had just found an empty shop in Mary Street.

I went to visit Malcolm as he was the resident Gun Dealer in town.

 I eventually found him at 4 Nash Rd, the Number  4 shot in with bullet holes. He was sitting on his broken steps, ‘in all the years I new him I never saw the steps in good condition’. He was cleaning a .45 1911 Colt and enjoying the sunshine.  I introduced my self and explained that I intended to open a gunshop in Mary St. He as always the perfect gentlemen, in more ways than one, as he was a gentle person and polite. He said that he would welcome that as he was tired of people driving out, disturbing him because they wanted to buy a rifle and rifle ammo which he never stocked except for his own needs. He was interested to see what rifles I had under the false floor in my Nissen and after showing him we became life long friends.

I remembered that day a few weeks ago when together we stood leaning on the front of my Nissen enjoying the spring sunshine and admiring the view of Goomburian. Then I was shocked when visiting him the next day in the Gympie Hospital,

Malcolm sort perfection, not in the clothes that he wore, or the cars that he drove, or the house that he lived in, but in everything he produced, or in everything that he bought and valued. I can remember when he was editing Lock Stock and Barrel that we would work until 11 pm at night and then we would knock off and go home. Then the next day I would find him back there as he had got up in the middle of the night, as he had remembered a mistake that had to be corrected. He was a great inspiration to me in later years of Lock Stock and Barrel on the “importance of getting it right.”

Malcolm seemed to me, to be able to quickly change his direction, overnight he would change his future goals, his ambitions, his passion for perfection, a huge part of his life, he would leave and it would replaced by another passion.

 Malcolm appeared to look into a clear pool of water, that at its bottom has lots of perfectly same sized white pebbles with one black one. Each pebble was a different, full on, life style for Malcolm, as he was blessed with the passion, persistence perfection and good fortune that each white pebble could bring him, but cursed with the fact that he could only get one pebble out of the pool, at one time, so before he could hold his hand down and pick out another life style change or  another career, or another huge challenge, he had to put the old one back in. For example, he began life, in the Land of the Long White Cloud and after realising that his first career as a Fitter & Turner apprenticeship had no more to teach him, as he was a naturally gifted, brilliant mechanical  engineer, he plunged his hand into the pool of life and pulled out another pebble. This led him to begin travelling the world, working his way, learning skills, buying and selling, guns, motor bikes, cars. His time in the USA gave him an interest in firearms, large American cars, and freedom from government interference.

He found himself in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963 but was NOT in the Texas Book Repository building when President Kennedy was shot. He flew to England and then back to New Zealand with his Ruger pistol tucked into his belt. No one said a word in those days when we lived in a free society.

 Apparently, travelling on route to Canada, from New Zealand he called in to see his sister who lived in Marybourgh Queensland and as  it was a sunny winters day, Malcolm said “If this is how warm it is in winter, Queensland is the place for me”, and another pebble came out of the pool.

Another early white pebble that created a new chapter in Malcolm’s early days was when he was travelling to Brisbane, many will remember how fast he used to drive in those old cars. He got to the Federal Hall and the early morning sun was in his eyes so he missed the road works signs and ended up in Middle Crk as they had removed the decking of the wooden bridge. Max Krogh related how in the early hours of the morning he met a wet beshevelled Malcolm with a little blood showing where the bark was missing for the first time. He wanted to borrow a tractor from Max to pull his car out of the Creek. That day began a friendship which lasted until Max died in 2019. This partnership took Malcolm into Gold Mining, Digging shafts, underground, using explosives, using a shadow to guide the cuts, 100s of metres without a deviation. Then the partnership went into Earth moving, Road and Dam building.

They both shared a passion for photography and Max who had won many prizes in the Camera Club always said that of all the professional photographers that he knew Malcolm took the very best. Yet Malcolm seemed to take particular care not to be photographed himself. Max shared Malcolms interest of Pistol Shooting and helped Malcolm build the current Pistol Club building after its move from Smerdon Road.

In the mid 1970s Malcolm took another pebble out of the pool and bought the Groves farm at Nash Rd and at one time owned the land where our house on Groves Road is now. He cleared the paddocks and started to grow grass seed. (Lawn Grass Not Hemp grass) Malcolm grew many types of grass seed and exported them all over  the world, but the marvel was the sorting machine that he made to sort the grass seed out. His header machine would collect the seed and his sorting machine would sort them into the different seed species and then Malcolm would bag them and export them. How he found the international customers before the internet, I cannot guess, but that business was highly profitable. In 1976 he began dealing with pistols and importing pistols and reloading gear and like another pebble out of the pool this was taken out and the pebble for grass seed was dropped back in the pool. The seed sorting machine just filled a back corner of the  huge shed that he had built himself.

 Malcolm bought a plane a Hornet Moth Biplane, he also got his earth moving machines going and built two runways on the Nash Road property to land his plane on. Then one day another pebble went into the pool and other came out this time it was to be the Editor of Lock Stock and Barrel and this kept him busy. He could see that the current shooting magazines of the early 1980s were part of the problem, they were oblivious to the creeping government anti gun coalition that was mounting against all firearm owners. First of all, we, Malcolm and myself wrote to every retailer, distributor and importer of firearms in Australia asking and volunteering to donate half a percentage of our sales to a fighting fund, directed by all of the donators to use in advertising  to combat firearm legislation. Pistol shooters said that they had to have a licence and each pistol registered so none of the new legislation would affect them the shotgun shooters said that they did not care about the rifle shooters. Only Malcolm D Bone and Owen Guns donated. This led to the idea that Malcolm and I would be partners in a shooting magazine, my Dad thought of the name Lock Stock and Barrel, at first Malcolm employed a professional photographer to take photographs but after much frustration and dollars he was sacked and Malcolm took the job. Malcolm had his own dark room for developments and took Brilliant photos. At first we employed a type setting company in Harvey Bay to set the 96 pages then when it was supposed to be ready for printing we drove over that night to collect it. All the articles that we had written, all the photos that we had sent them, were still un touched in the box, so we had to wait while they generated the 96 pages of type and images to come out of their typesetting printer then we had to stick all the bits on to the  camera layout sheets. We worked all night as the printing presses in Gympie were booked. We drove away at daylight got the product their on time, and then we went back to work in our day jobs. The first edition was out, we thought we had a hit, but had disappointments that we never knew about to come. We began by buying our own typsetting machine, renting a floor above an accountants office and started laying out the next edition. The incoming mail was magnificent we had lots of subscribers, we had articles sent in, (most not good enough for publication) it was a full time job answering the letters to the editor. Malcolm was the editor, I was the advertising manager. We both wrote articles under other names to make sure it did not look all in house. I had written to every conceivable gun business in Australia but its hard to sell advertising in a magazine that was unknown.

 About the time of this photograph Malcolm had this muddy well under the roof of his very large shed, he usually had his gold Cadillac car parked over it, so people would not unexpectedly drop in. When we were firing revolvers without barrels into the well for an article, I took this photo of him, and as his friend Mandy had been, on an on, at him to put a photograph of himself in the Magazine, finally he gave in and let me take this one which was eventually printed. A few days later Malcolm was working at the back of his shed and he heard and then saw two people shouting out to him. Malcolm shouted back warning them stay where they were, but they just kept coming and both ended up side by side in his muddy well. Malcolm got a rope and slid them out over the muddy sides, looked after them and dried them off, but the Jehovah Witnesses never came round to his place ever again.   

 Only friends would advertise in Lock Stock & Barrel, then when the larger distributors saw that we were political they would not advertise as they thought the Police or government would take a set against them as being a part of it. Then other shops would not advertise as they knew that I, was a competitor. So too with Malcolm’s importing and sales that meant that our only advertising income was from what we could both advertise and sell from our own businesses.

The distributors had sent the magazine to just about every newsagent in Australia, but of course they had not yet been paid yet by the newsagents so the distributors would not pay us for months. So we had to fund the first three editions before we got a payment back from the sale of the magazines, then we found that news agents only paid for the magazines, that they admitted selling and then supposedly destroyed the rest. As we had not paid to have the returns sent back to us we could not prove how many had been sold. We changed that quickly, three editions had gone out already, but when the distributor had to pay for the fourth edition the payments were over double our previous ones. We knew we had been cheated.  Each Edition grew in sales and Incoming advertising and we were nearing the ‘draw even’ on the production costs, by the 6th Edition. It was still not paying Malcolm’s and my time for wages but Malcolm had a graph on the statistics in growth and we were looking good.

 However, Malcolm for not very much bought two lots of bullet making machinery. I helped both times unload the tailers into Malcolm’s massive shed.

It was old machinery and I thought of Rudyard Kipling’s poem IF at that time

“Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn out tools.”

As they were all worn out.

Malcolm then announced that he could’nt do Taipan bullets and the magazine so the LS&B pebble went back into the pool and the Bullet maker pebble came out. Of course, he could not just make the old bullets that the worn out machines had made. This was 1982 and he had advanced through scientific calculators to even though small highly advanced computers for the age. With these he could find optimum bullet ogives, bullet weight to jacket thickness, draw lengths of copper, external ballistics charts. As usual Malcolm had to have perfection and he had the persistence and talent to make that happen. He designed and manufactured the machines, sometimes using the old rattle trap presses that he had bought but manufactured the dies, punches and production line machinery himself. Yes, he had another tradesman Garth and some other helpers, but Malcolm was the force who worked at night as well as day designing and printing boxes, making lead wire, casting bullets, and selling them, paying his taxes and doing his accounts. He created computer programs for all of his accounts prior to Windows or Microsoft.

In 1986 Malcolm joined Andi and I on a week trip to China, I had business buying guns and needed to buy a wedding and engagement ring at a good price. Malcolm was interested in the Chinese pistols and .22 ammunition as the Chinese had been winning medals in the Olympics. We were flying economically China Airlines, CAAC we never realised at the time why the flight was so empty until later. What CAAC stands for is China Airlines Always Crash. The Hotel we stayed in was palatial but economical. When we left Gympie Malcolm had a tiny free flight bag. I asked him where his spare clothes were or his camera he said he would buy them on the way all that was in his bag was loaf of fresh bread that he had made himself. He did everything himself he grew the wheat in his Nash Rd paddock and he headed the wheat ground it himself into flour and baked the bread. His bread again was perfection he shared the bread at times and it lasted him for nearly the whole week.

 One day the three of us were up at 5 am to drive to Hong Kong, shopping we had hired a car which took us to the border 4 hour drive and then 2 hours queuing to get into Hong Kong and then after some hours very tired we came back again. In mainline China at that time everything was carried on a bike, watching things like that were a culture shock. Every day we saw something different on a bike, but coming into Guangzhou about 6 pm we got stuck in traffic, just in the next lane to us was some motor bikes and Malcolm said I have just seen a large pig fall off a motorbike. Andi had already seen it, I turned and this great big white domestic pig, had fallen off the motorbike when he had to stop at the traffic lights. Well the driver of the motorbike had stopped, the pig had fallen off the pillion seat. As we were in fits laughing the driver of the motor bike put the motor bike on its stand and lifting the very large pig so it sat behind him, with its front legs on his shoulders for balance. The pig was bigger than the driver, however the Pig must have been well trained and did  not knowing he was not going on a holiday to the abattoir so managed to get going and the traffic lane freed up and off went the pig with his ears flapping in the wind. As we were tired we could not stop laughing until we got back to the hotel. 

Of course everyday he was relentless shopping for jade, carpets, ivory anything that took his fancy and when we went to leave he had four huge square bags, and a carpet under his arm. Andi and I carried an extra one each and it was a miracle there was no formality of the air line when we flew out of Guangzhou so no excess luggage charge.    

   Every December  Malcolm organised the Gympie Combined Shoots where each of the Gympie shooting clubs put in their best team plus the Army and the Queensland Police. It ran for 8 years, Malcolm top scored himself twice and the Gympie Pistol club won it twice the real competition was always as to which team would come last the Army or the Queensland Police.

 In 1988 the National Party packed off Joe Belke Petersen and a new Police Minister Bill Gunn wanted to introduce licencing and registration. Malcolm and I and many other shooters joined the National Party and attended their meeting and found that the rank and file did not support the new Gun laws, nor the new Police Minister Bill Gunn, but no matter what they did they could not influence the elected politicians who voted on legislation in the party room. So we all wrote letters of resignation and Malcolm suggested that we form another party and stand candidates against them. I thought of the name. The New Country Party and Malcolm wrote out the Party rules and the platform, of course very anti socialist, with a set up that gave much more input to the party members and supported referenda. Shortly after Joe Petersen retired from his seat, it was announced that there was to be a By election in Kingaroy. So we found a candidate, and with a dozen helpers from Gympie and maybe six in Kingaroy we mounted a campaign. The Taipan printing press that did the bullet boxes was turned over into printing Election posters, at every available time, Terry and I were over in Kingaroy wall papering them. We took out adverts in the papers, I wrote the script and Malcolm was interviewed for a TV advert that was shown on the Kingaroy TV channels. The replacement for Joe by the National Party was supposed to be Warren Truss he received 30% of the vote, Trevor Perrett for the Citizens Electoral Council, (another pro-gun group) had 23 % ,our Candidate Trevor Polzin for the New Country Party had 11% with all its preferences going to Citizens Electoral Council. So the Big shock happened, the safest National party seat in the country was lost, firearm owners had won, even though our candidate did not have a first time win, which was never really possible, everyone new we had changed the outcome. The National Party Room had thrown out the proposed Gunn Gun law legislation that Saturday night after hearing the election results.  A few of us tried to persuade Malcolm to keep it going he was the President of the party but the white pebble went back into the pool and Malcolm finished with politics.

Then the years went by and every shooter in Australia knew Taipan bullets, every Australian reloader wanted them and there was very little advertising the demand was all on reputation. In about 2004 we build a special projectile cabinet to suit all the sizes of the different packets of Taipan projectiles, made in Gympie.

Then one day Malcolm phoned me and said that he was closing Taipan Bullets down and would we put a party on for his retiring staff and he would pay for the catering. Of course we sadly organised a good party. Meggy was doing catering at that time and it all went very well.

 The Taipan pebble went back into the pool and Malcolm took up growing mandarins, bananas and nuts, this was the next white pebble. Not being a fruit and nut man I could not comment but Im sure they were as perfect as his lady finger bananas, as everything he turned his mind too was always first rate. These last few years he seemed to be a recluse as he would not return an emails, or a phone calls and we rarely saw him, I presumed maybe wrongly that he wanted it that way, until on a Monday a few weeks ago he phoned me and asked me to visit him in Webster Road. It seemed that the black pebble had come out of the pool as Malcolm explained that he had poor eyesight and could not drive and he had been sick and was more than likely going to hospital and he would not be able to live there anymore. Terry and I tried to convince him that he should have his cataracts done and if he had a health problem get it fixed and pay someone to look after him in his home. Of course we offered to help him with anything he wanted to do, we spent a few hours and drove back into Gympie not suspecting that I would be visiting him next day in hospital. During his decline over the next few weeks, I have to thank Karl and Wendy, especially Karl for going beyond the call of duty, nursing him, where he wanted to be with his friends in

Gympie. On his last few days Karl was there doing the hospitals job brilliantly. I have never felt so useless, I could do nothing to help Malcolm, it was so very sad. A mind with so much to offer, with so much talent and experience has been lost to the world and to all of us. He will be remembered.