Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters M70 - David Ommanney

He wouldn't be the first to gild the lily a bit. Good reads, true or not.

Thanks, John.

Rusty Annabelle was the Alaskan version of Capstick.
I would say that while both hunted for stories during rounds at the bar and that probably both writers experienced what they wrote about, but they just exaggerated it a bit.

Now, I bet JB has better stories about Clay Harvey and Lee Hoots.
Hoots is on there because he said that the 257 Weatherby was a poor Western Cartridge one year and then said it was the best Western cartridge ever made the next. You just can't find religion like that and expect us to think anything other than he probably relies on the experience of the hunters at the cafe that he frequents.(I am sorry that is a long @ss run-on sentence). Who knows maybe he will get better.

I've just got one Annabelle book, "Horns in the High Country", that I picked up in a little drugstore for a dollar about forty years ago. I need to dig it out and re-read it, as I enjoyed it a lot the first time. Get me off this stupid iPad.

Thanks for the reminder.

It was probably a general statement, but J.O'C certainly had a few individuals in mind when he made it. Capstick was one of them. Frank Hibben was another.

I think he also wrote that if someone was convinced that they were in constant danger of being chomped or stomped, that it just added to the fun.

A modern equivalent might be taking a long plane ride with a bunch of young men of a certain ethnicity.

Pappy,

HORNS IN THE HIGH COUNTRY was written by Andy Russell, who was part of a Canadian outfitting family and the real deal.

I drive by his place most weeks and know Charlie well.

By golly, you're right.

Please don't tell anybody I was wrong about something. It might cause a panic.😱

Actually, I'm relieved. It's a great book, and I'd hate to think it wasn't true.

Yep,I met Andy in 1970 and he was genuine, but, very much of a showman and not shy about self promotion.

This, is not uncommon with the various GOs, etc. that service the foreign hunters who come to BC-AB to collect trophies and seems part of what the dudes expect and pay for.

In contrast, the real bushmen I have known are often shy, but, with strong opinions when you get to know them. These tend to be introverts, which one would certainly never say about Andy!

The prototype PH, even though a fictional character, is Allan Quatermain, the hero of a number of H. Rider Haggard's novels and short stories. He was modest in stature and demeanor, but steady and fearless in a pinch. He also was always respectful to the native people he encountered and employed. He could well have been modeled after Jim Corbett, except he pre-dated Corbett a bit, and of course Corbett wasn't a PH, at least not in India. Based on his articles, I think Finn Aagaard was the same sort. I never met him, but was very sad when he passed.

I'll likely never make it to Africa but if I were going and had to pick from the PHs I've seen on TV, I'd probably go with Ivan Carter. He seems to know his business and looks steady in a pinch.

IIRC Allan Quatemain was modeled after F.C. Selous.

I think Finn Aagaard's .458 was a push feed.

The push feed didn't seem to be an issue with these guys. The rifle had a reputation for breaking at the wrist.

I thought I read somewhere that Finn's .458 was a rebarreled .425 w-r. I could be mistaken though or he could've had more than one .458

You are correct about Finn's .458. It was a rebarreled Mauser. It was Harry Selby that used a push feed .458 while his .416 Rigby was being repaired.

Finn had two .458's, a push-feed M70 and the rebarreled .425 Mauser-actioned rifle.

Well, now you've gone and done it. I went to archive.org and downloaded a bunch of Selous' books. About 100 pages into " A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa", I have to say you're probably right.

The books, free to download, are available in several formats, but I prefer the PDFs, as they are actual copies of real books, with the yellowed pages, bent corners, and flyspecks intact. I tried one on Kindle format, but the OCR resulted in a bunch of annoying text and formatting errors. archive.org is a great resouce for books and audio of all sorts including Old Time Radio and audio versions of classic book for those who like to read with our eyes closed.

Thanks for the tip, ingwe.

I think there is simply no advantage to CRF over push feed or vice versa. While the original post '64 had some issues unrelated to this, Winchester corrected them.

I have killed African dangerous game with both CRF and push feed model 70s (with handloads no less), non-dangerous game with Weatherby MkVs and a Husqvarna (Mauser?) action, and the only failure was with the Husqvarna.

I have also shot thousands of rounds with both types of Model 70s in NRA Highpower matches, using .308 and 30-06 ammo, with nary a problem.

Also, every military rifle designed since 1903 (actually since 1898 as the Springfield was merely a copy of the Mauser) has been push feed.

For the most part, I think you're right, but the fact is that many other experienced and professional hunters prefer the CRF rifles. Some of the CRF "failures" likely are the result of rifles that were built on CRF actions but not tuned properly to the cartridge. And some folks seem to be able to find a way to futz up with almost anything. I tend to like older rifles, and most of them happen to be CRFs, because that's just they way they built them in those days. I also like, and own one example of, the older Sakos, which are push-feeds, albeit with fixed ejectors. What they all have in common is that they were built by people who took the time to make sure they functioned properly before they were sold. Now it seems like the customer is expected to perform the quality control. The number of functional problems reported here involving mid and high-end factory rifles amazes me, as does the cavalier attitude the manufacturers seem to have.