From John Ross:
The shooting community lost one of its titans last night at about 6:30 Mountain Time when Kent Lomont died at the age of 66. Kent was in a facility in Missoula, Montana where he died of bone cancer, which had been diagnosed about 6 months ago.
Kent, originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, moved to Salmon, Idaho in the 1990s to be where he and his father had spent summer vacations and visited with Elmer Keith starting in 1960.
In recent years, Kent was recognized as this country's most knowledgeable hands-on authority on machine guns and cannons, with more experience at rebuilding and making functional every type of full auto weapon ever made than any other living person. At machine gun shoots such as Knob Creek, Kentucky, it was a common sight to see Kent behind a Browning .30 or .50 cal., a Belgian MAG-58, or an FN Type D BAR, the barrel glowing cherry red as the gun poured round after round downrange without a stoppage.
Prior to his involvement with full auto arms, Kent was instrumental in providing development work for the late Harry Sanford, inventor of the original Auto Mag handgun, and Kent won the Townsend Whelen award for writing by the Gun Digest for an article he penned for that publication, describing his efforts in this area.
Before that, Kent held the distinction of sending more guns back to the Smith & Wesson factory for rebuild than any other customer in the company's history, and was the Indiana distributor for Lakeville Arms (Jim Harvey) products at the age of twelve while he was in the eighth grade.
Kent is survived by his four children, Lane, Jill, Chris, and Molly, stepdaughters Candy and Sherry, and ex-wives Kathy, Shirley, and Mary Lou.
We are diminished.
Some of you may remember Kent from gun shows in this area. He was a fixture of gun shows around here until he moved to Idaho several years ago. He had the tables right inside the door at the 1500 for many years. The shows haven't been the same since he left. Not as colorful anyway.
In the book "Unintended Consequences", the hero Henry Bowman goes on an annual prairie dog hunt out west where he meets a gun show buddy in his Kaiser military truck. I also thought that character had to be at least partially based on Kent.
The Gun Digest articles he refers to above was a two-part series on the Auto Mag, that was in the 1973 and 1974 editions as I recall. They are still the best source I know for technical info of the Auto Mag. Kent worked together with Lee Jurras, the founder of Super Vel ammunition in Shelbyville These two were the Auto Mag experts.
He was a chemist by trade, and I always heard he was good at it and did very well for himself. It was amusing to see his effect on people. He looked like a bum that walked into the gun show to keep warm, with a scruffy beard and holey jeans with the pockets hanging by a thread- yet he would be standing by 20 tables filled with a half million dollars of machineguns he owned.
Kent will be remembered often, and with a smile.
The shooting community lost one of its titans last night at about 6:30 Mountain Time when Kent Lomont died at the age of 66. Kent was in a facility in Missoula, Montana where he died of bone cancer, which had been diagnosed about 6 months ago.
Kent, originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, moved to Salmon, Idaho in the 1990s to be where he and his father had spent summer vacations and visited with Elmer Keith starting in 1960.
In recent years, Kent was recognized as this country's most knowledgeable hands-on authority on machine guns and cannons, with more experience at rebuilding and making functional every type of full auto weapon ever made than any other living person. At machine gun shoots such as Knob Creek, Kentucky, it was a common sight to see Kent behind a Browning .30 or .50 cal., a Belgian MAG-58, or an FN Type D BAR, the barrel glowing cherry red as the gun poured round after round downrange without a stoppage.
Prior to his involvement with full auto arms, Kent was instrumental in providing development work for the late Harry Sanford, inventor of the original Auto Mag handgun, and Kent won the Townsend Whelen award for writing by the Gun Digest for an article he penned for that publication, describing his efforts in this area.
Before that, Kent held the distinction of sending more guns back to the Smith & Wesson factory for rebuild than any other customer in the company's history, and was the Indiana distributor for Lakeville Arms (Jim Harvey) products at the age of twelve while he was in the eighth grade.
Kent is survived by his four children, Lane, Jill, Chris, and Molly, stepdaughters Candy and Sherry, and ex-wives Kathy, Shirley, and Mary Lou.
We are diminished.
Some of you may remember Kent from gun shows in this area. He was a fixture of gun shows around here until he moved to Idaho several years ago. He had the tables right inside the door at the 1500 for many years. The shows haven't been the same since he left. Not as colorful anyway.
In the book "Unintended Consequences", the hero Henry Bowman goes on an annual prairie dog hunt out west where he meets a gun show buddy in his Kaiser military truck. I also thought that character had to be at least partially based on Kent.
The Gun Digest articles he refers to above was a two-part series on the Auto Mag, that was in the 1973 and 1974 editions as I recall. They are still the best source I know for technical info of the Auto Mag. Kent worked together with Lee Jurras, the founder of Super Vel ammunition in Shelbyville These two were the Auto Mag experts.
He was a chemist by trade, and I always heard he was good at it and did very well for himself. It was amusing to see his effect on people. He looked like a bum that walked into the gun show to keep warm, with a scruffy beard and holey jeans with the pockets hanging by a thread- yet he would be standing by 20 tables filled with a half million dollars of machineguns he owned.
Kent will be remembered often, and with a smile.
