Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Gun Writer's Influence?

The Ross Seyfried thread got me to thinking. There have been a few writers who have influenced me to try a product. O'l Bob Milek influenced me to get me an old Mauser, a 1909 Argentine and I had it redone to my liking and chambered in the venerable .35 Whelen. I did this after reading two articles he penned on that cartridge. As far as I know, it's the only "Gun Writer" induced purchase I've made. I haven't been disappointed.

Dan

Elmer Keith has been the greatest influence on me. My 1st handgun was a Ruger .44 Magnum and I've loved them ever since.

Francis Sell put me on the road to a 25-35 and then a 348 Winchester with a 218 Bee "understudy rifle."

Vernon Megee put me on the 25-20 path.
Megee, Ross Seyfried, and Elis Lea pushed me toward a 32 S&W Long rifle for small game.

Terry Murbach made the "Trail Masterpeice" a must have.

I switched from the 348 to the 356 but other than that I still have all of the firearms and they are all still favorites.

I have a Contender in 30 Herrett and a .25-06 thanks to Bob Milek.

i think the gun writers of old (such as o'connor, keith, milek, and a few others) had tremendous influence for two reasons: first - they wrote in such a way that the common hunter/shooter could identify. you could place yourself in the moment. second - they were quite prolific and anyone interested could always find their writings in the gun/hunting magazines of their day. they appeared once a month, and you couldn't wait for the next issue.

today, information is everywhere, and easy to access. no problem comparing what one writer puts down with not only the manufacturer, but other writers as well.

imo, writers of today are trying to sell you something. writers of yesterday were trying to tell you something.

not a criticism, merely an observation. ymmv.

I don't think our very own JB here is in the selling mode...though the bastid jhas cost me money! Just lately he talked me into a .204....
That said, there are others out there who are VERY transparent in that regard...

I've had a few purchases because of gunwriters. I bought a .35 Whelen because of articles by Milek and Boddington. I also bought a Remington 541-T because of an article that might have been written by John Haviland. I read about the Whelen and the 541 when I was about 14 years old and it was another 10 years before I could find and afford either.

In both of those cases the though the writers were showing off something. The Whelen was newly commercialized and the Remington 541 was newly on the market again. It's also true that the gunwriters were right. The 35 Whelen is and awesome cartridge and the Remington 541-T is a beautiful and extremely accurate .22 rimfire that is worth every penny of its cost to me. I hunted with the 35 Whelen for 10 years and eventually moved onto other things. Going on 12 years later I still have the 541-T and I will never part with it.

AS a kid I grew up reading Jack O'Connor in Outdoor life. Guess what caliber my first rifle was - of course it was a .270 Winchester. It's a Sako Finnbear and I still have it.

JB convinced me to stop cleaning guns which saves me money on cleaning products.

I don't remember which article convinced me to build my 35 Whelen.

I've bought several guns as a result of reading an article. Not that it made me go out and buy, but I started thinking about the gun after reading the article and ended up buying it, if it made sense. But then, how many rifles, rifles and shotguns do not make sense to a gun nut!

An article by Layne Simpson in the July-August '83 Handloader convinced me that I NEEDED a Kimber Super America in .22 hornet. It took a couple of years to convince myself to part with the money but mine was/is just as accurate as his. A copy of the article in the form of a small booklet came with the rifle.

JB wrote an article in Handloader about the 28 gauge....it made me want one bad! I looked for several months, but nothing came up on the used rack at the shop I frequent. I buy and have a small collection of 870's. That was my particular 28 of interest.

Several months later, "Mule Deer" listed a 870 28 gauge in the classifieds. I posted I'll take it as soon as I saw the ad....

As a boy, I eagerly devoured everything written by Jack O'Connor. The .270 & the Model 70 became an integral part of my dream of moving to & hunting the West. The cartridge remains my favorite to this day.

On the other hand, Bob Milek once convinced me not to buy a rifle. I had the hots for Remington"s upcoming 700 Classic in .257 Roberts. Milek tested one,& penned an article. He began with all the excitement of a youngster on Christmas morning, describing the little 25 as the perfect mule deer round, etc.

He then began shooting the rifle, & as I recall, was getting groups of 4 inches or so. His tone changed, & he ended by simply stating that he was sure that the groups would change with some careful load development.

That was many years ago, & my facts may be clouded a bit, but needless to say, I did not buy the rifle.
Jim

Jack O'Connor influenced me to buy rifles chambered in both 257 Roberts and 7x57. After reading H&BW, I contacted his son, Brad, to ask for his grandmother's tamale recipe.

Skeeter Skelton influenced me to buy a S&W 27 with a 5" barrel and to have a S&W 624 cut back to 5", as a 44 Special companion to the 357. I also liked his "Joe & Me" stories.

Elmer Keith convinced me that as good as the 256 Newton is, it is better with today's bullets than it was when Elmer was shooting #129.

Larry Koller influenced me to collect the Savage Model 1920, which led me to meet his son, Paul, who was a fly fishing guide in MT.

Harvey Donaldson has had a lasting influenced me, in that he had specific ideas about cartridge and rifle design, but he never stopped trying different things, 'cause there are almost always more than 1 way to do something and achieve the desired outcome.

John Wooters influenced me by getting me interested in mannlicher stocked rifles and I enjoyed his stories about deer hunting in eastern TX when he was a boy.

Francis Sells influenced me with regard to the 6.5x55 and 25-35AI or 257 Tomcat cartridges and the strength of the Marlin 336 action.

John Barsness reminded me that when fishing before the ice is totally "out", it is always a good idea to make sure that the "sand bar" you're casting from is actually sand, and not windblown dust/sand on top of an ice shelf.

Jeff

For me I would have to say it was just a cartridge introduction in one of the old Nosler manuals. Steve Timm did the little blurb on the 358 win.

Before I read that I thought that I could hunt most everything with 2 rifles, a marlin 30.30 and Bolt .06. I read the little blurb and thought "a 358 win would be the perfect Adirondack deer rifle", Of course at the time no one was making a 358 bolt gun so I had to have it put together myself. Well dozens of rifles later and 10s of thousands of dollars spent on rifles, optics and components I still am not done.

Thanks a lot, Dogzapper

Oh yeah...Steve has cst me a bit pursuing the Holy grail of .223AIs.....

It's not a coincidence that I bought the very first pre-64 M70 270 I ever saw.

Steve Timm's article on the .338-06 was instrumental in my decision to pick up a Ruger No. 1 chambered for that cartridge from a used rifle rack in Cody, WY.

JB's article on his Canadian hunt with a 9.3x62 was pretty much responsible for my now having three rifles chambered for .366 caliber cartridges. I think that he may have been responsible for the .257 AI that I had built, as well.

Although I thought that Jack O'Connor was infallible, I never got around to buying a .270 until years after his passing. At one time, though, I had five of them.

Both John Wootters and Layne Simpson influenced the purchase of a .350 Rem Mag. Actually, I went to my favorite gun store to buy a 35 Whelen, (because of Wootter's and Simpson's influence + a lot of research) but they weren't in yet. The manager had 2 Remington Classic M700s in .350 Rem Mag and persuaded me to purchase one instead. Later it got traded for my first Marlin 1895SS in .45-70, which, ironically, both John and Layne had a hand in influencing me. I did get a .35 Whelen a few years later, and it became one of my favorites. I think with a .35 Whelen and a .45-70, one doesn't need anything else for big game in North America (and most others places).

I was looking for another .35 Whelen in my usual stores and having some difficulty without ordering one and waiting months for delivery -- and the price always seemed on the high end, so I took JB's advice and got a 9.3 X 62 instead, after doing a lot more research, and at a much better price. It's a .35 Whelen+.

So now I say, all one needs is a .45-70 plus a 9.3 X 62 for ALL hunting!!

And I've read thousands of articles by gun writers that have not influenced me one way or another. But Ross S. did influence the re-chambering of a .338 WM to a .340 WBY.

No disappointment was experienced by any of those choices. They are among my favorites today.

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

I'm 30, and starting reading gun magazines regularly when I was about 20-21. Frankly, it was the internet that led me to print gun magazines and books. Boards like this one where the authors post and guys talk about what books and magazines are important to them gave me a road-map to what I should be reading.

My first big influence was John Taffin, and, through his writings, Elmer Keith and Brian Pearce on revolvers; in particular, the 44 Special and 45 Colt.

Through following Pearce's writings I subscribed to "Rifle" and "Handloader" and found John Barsness' articles, which I blame for my owning a whole raft of rifles when I started out thinking I would only own sixguns!

Along the way I've accumulated a library containing most of the classic books by Keith, O'Connor (who writes well but whose influence I don't really detect either in my shooting or in my hunting; I don't even own a .270 anymore), Sell, Page (I am looking for the right 7mm Magnum having recently re-read "One Man's Wilderness"), Larry Kollar, Jeff Cooper, Boddington, Hatcher, Hagel, Sharpe, and the list goes on.

I would say the biggest influence good gun writing has had on me is that it has kept me from buying all the foolish stuff advertised in "Field and Stream," "Ultimate Bucks and Oversized Trucks Monthly," and the rest of the "general interest" hunting magazines out there. No barrel doughnuts or super-camo for me

As far as "I bought it right after I read about it" influence: my Ithaca M37 20ga. I bought that about a week after I read about them in Barsness' "Shotguns for Wingshooting," had I not read that book, I likely would have overlooked it as just anothe "old pumpgun" gathering dust on the used rack.