Sawman passes, R.I.P.

[Kduly]

Only had the pleasure of meeting him once. Great long conversation. Will keep his family in my prayers. RIP SAWMAN. You will be missed here.

 

[Jerry]

I dropped off some .308 Hornady bullets a week and a half ago at his house. He told me he had a doctors appointment, but didn't elaborate and since it was Bill I didn't quiz him.
When I arrived at his house he texted me and said he was not able to come outside and please just leave them on top of the garbage can outside the garage.
I knew something was up because he was always ready to meet and talk.
I texted him a couple times after that and told him to let me know if there was anything I could do for him, but never got a reply.
Mrs. Sawman, if you ever need anything there are a lot of people on here willing to help with anything you need.
Again, so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine. Im praying for you and all of Bills friends.

 

[Snapperjack]

I've met up and bought things from him several times and during our meet-ups we would sometimes be talking for at least an hour or so. With me being relatively new to reloading (only about 3 years now) I always learned something new from him. The last thing I bought from him was some 265gr & 300gr bullets for reloading 44mag and he talked about how he hog hunted with that round with a Ruger. RIP Sawman, you will be missed. My condolences to his family and friends.

 

[flaernurse]

He was a strong presence here but sadly, never met the man. Rest In Peace

 

[Stagman]

He will be missed


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[MarkS]

RIP


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[P4RET]

Bruce, thank you for sharing and honoring SAWMAN by what you have said..I also had the honor to have met him. We had a great time talking about past experiences that we individually had in our own lives. As we get older, we realize more and more how precious our time here is and how important relationships are. Your mutual respect and friendship with Bill is obvious. Your respect, consideration and honor for each other are aspects of the love you had for each other. People are the object of God's love. May we strive to treat others in that way. May Bill rest peacefully.

 

[IronBeard]

We never met, but I enjoyed his "company" here. His memory will live on through those close to him. As it should. You are relieved Chief, we got it.

 

[mtbbrewer74]

Never met him, but had discussions on the forum. RIP


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[Jdcujo]

I've met up and bought things from him several times and during our meet-ups we would sometimes be talking for at least an hour or so. With me being relatively new to reloading (only about 3 years now) I always learned something new from him. The last thing I bought from him was some 265gr & 300gr bullets for reloading 44mag and he talked about how he hog hunted with that round with a Ruger. RIP Sawman, you will be missed. My condolences to his family and friends.

I remember the smile he had when I told him I was buying a 375 h&h encore barrel. He looked like a kid in the candy store telling me how to go from mild to wild. His 458 win mag 300 at 3k fps in a number 1.....

 

[Danielp40]

I’m sorry to hear this! My prayers will be with his family!

 

[Chris1199]

So sad to hear. Many good transactions and conversations were had with Bill. R.I.P. Sir.


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[FrankT]

Miss you Bill, rest easy my Friend

 

[Viking1204]

Very sad to hear, prayers for you and Sawman's family.

 

[kaferhaus]

Very sad to hear this. I’d met him several times over the past 10 years or so made some trades and talked about hunting for hours..

God speed

 

[reel_crazy]

dang ...
rich

 

[AR-AK]

Very sorry to hear about his passing, also very sorry I wasn't fortunate enough to meet him. I have seen and read many of his posts, and it sounds like he was a man of morales and standards. Also from what I'm reading on here now, he was a great guy, and most likely a greater friend that you can count on. My condolences to his friends and family, RIP Sawman.

 

[steveanderson32566]

With great sadness, I make this post. The GCGF's Sawman and my friend, teacher, and hog hunting partner Bill Starke passed last night at 9pm from pancreatic cancer. Bill had told me to keep his cancer confidential except for talking to 2 people about it. I was also to post after his passing, with him telling me I am free to say whatever I want to in my post announcing his death. I know he had several message on his phone of the type "where are you?"...some things he wanted kept personal...that was just Bill...we are all different in our own way.

I met Bill not too long after joining the forum when he had a 2-7x Leupold scope for sale. We met at his home. We got to talking about hunting, my experiences and how I loved going to my brother's Georgia farm every year to deer hunt and how I'd killed a couple of deer on my neighbor's property (with permission) to help feed a needy family. Apparently he liked what he was hearing, as he asked if I had any unmet hunting goals. I said to kill a wild hog, butcher, and eat it. He said there are hogs at his hunting club, and he'd take me hog hunting. That conversation was followed by a week or so in which we discussed and wrote out a set of safety rules for hunting at night. That was followed by daytime orientation at his club. Over the next year we went out 13 times night hunting until I finally got my first hog. OK, now here's how to clean one, preserve the meat, etc, as I did the cutting. Only an eighty pound boar, but it was my trophy! Over the next year or so, I killed 2 more at his club (those 2 were called in with Bill working his hog call). Slowly, over the years, tracking down every hog lead, practicing gentle patience, and befriending property owners, we had permission to hog hunt on 7 properties. We became a well-oiled partnership/machine. 100% trust. We'd take turns at shooting. Success for one person was success for the other. He sorta played the "bad cop" and me the "good cop" in interactions with or about others...we made a good pair and complemented each other. We certainly could and did disagree, but it was never got personal and never interfered with our friendship and trust.

The signs of early pancreatic cancer can be hard to notice so action can be taken early enough to make a difference in outcome. Night time hog hunting often involves walking. I have a leaking aortic heart valve, so my walking, if kept to a mild/moderate pace, is possible to go quite a ways without a break. If I push it, I get to where I just can't go further, so a mild/moderate pace in consultation with my cardiologist and heart surgeon works for me. Bill would have to stop about every 75 or so yards to rest. He decided to get in better shape and lose weight. About that time his appetite began to decrease little, but his goal was to loose weight, so the decrease in appetite was welcome, and the weight was coming off. He was getting his stamina back until the jaundice appeared. The tumor in his pancreas had grown large enough to block the bile duct. The tumor is what had reduced his appetite. Biopsy and tests confirmed the dx.

Last April I was at W. Fl. Hospital for the yearly CT scan of my aortic aneurysm to see if it has increased in size...if/when it gets too big, I have open heart surgery. So I'm sitting in the waiting room across from Bill and his wife. All were masked up for covid. He's looking at me and says Bruce? I didn't recognize him he'd lost so much weight and was so jaundiced. Right there he told me and said who I could only tell. No problem, I kept my promise.

This was followed over the next year with operations, chemo, and radiation, but by the time the cancer was found, he was given a 5% chance of surviving. Treatment shrunk the tumor a little and seemed to stop the spread, but not enough for another operation. We did go hunting a few more times with no walking, with him using his electric buggy when he'd recover from chemo. I was so happy he had some success hunting during this time. In the last hunt, his naked night vision (no lights or thermal) was so poor I had to say you cannot drive your buggy at night with no lights on, I will drive from now on. That was our last hunt as he continued to get weaker and weaker.

Ultimately, he went under home hospice care. A few days ago he went into respite care for a few days to give his wife a short break. He was in respite care when he died last night. He, being a retired Navy Ordnance Chief, will be buried at Barrancas. Any other plans are not firmed up yet. May be a small gathering at his home.

I will be posting and selling some of his things (reloading related, ammo, some shooting related items) on the forum and already brought a car load home. This is per his and Debbie's wishes. I'll set the prices on stuff I'm selling like I did for my other friend's estate, less than retail. I will be discussing pricing with my shooting group this weekend that helped me with pricing before. Powder will be weighed and pro-rated on price. I will be contacting Uber's regarding putting firearms on consignment so his wife doesn't have to deal with strangers in her home. A friend of their family may be buying one firearm. That same friend asked me to look for a particular reloading powder (none of that was there). If a forum member is interested in a particular firearm they remember, let me know, and I may be able to help on an item. Otherwise, I don't want to do firearm selling. I was asked and completed unloading and making safe some handguns Bill had loaded.

Thank you for reading this long post about Sawman. Since everything about Sawman revolved around firearms, I thought general gun talk would be the place to post this, If it is felt it is better moved to another sub forum, please do. I got the phone call last night at 10pm. Even though I knew it was coming at any time, my sleep last night sucked. Bruce

So Sorry For Your Loss, God Bless And God's Speed, ‍♀️ ! ☝️!

 

[RussSurfs]

So sorry to hear this. Prayers going out to his family. I was fortunate to meet him once. Bought some 5.56 from him during one of the recent droughts. I only got to spend a few minutes talking with him, but I was certain I would get a chance to talk with him at length some time. Lesson learned - you never know if you are going to get that next chance. It would be nice to find a way to get together and meet some of you in person while we still can.

 

[TexKev]

RIP
Prayers for his family.