Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Who was not influenced by Jack or Elmer?

I read O'Connor as soon as I was old enough to read magazines.. He was first a polished writer and second a gunman.. For years I felt he was the greatest.. Then along in my late teens or early twenties, I was visiting with one of the Camp Perry shooters who lived near my home.. I made some comment about Elmer, and his reply was something like, that guy is a real shooter. He knows his stuff... This surprised me, because my pal was a big 7mm fan.. Later I mentioned the .300 H & H was little more than an o6.. This came from JOC.. My pal had shot a .300 H & H quite a bit.. His comment was the H & H has quite a bit over an 06.. This caused me to reconsider Elmer..
I have read the biography of Jack, and autobio.s of Elmer.. To me Elmer contributed much to the shooting world, shotguns, rifles, and of course handguns.. He was a shooter and gunman from the time he was a child.. Jack was a polished writer who wrote about guns.. Of the two, Elmer was far more interesting to me as a man and shooter.. I don't agree with all his ideas, but he was a leader, and innovator.. Jack made his living writing about the .257, .270, and .30-06.. His appeal was to the deer hunting who dreamed about hunting sheep one day..
Both had their points, but to me Elmer was the leader the man to fooled with many wildcats that today are common calibers.. We fail to remember, Elmer also stressed bullet placement, but he hunted enough to know that things do not always turn out as planned when we make a shot.. Since he had been a guide, it was his job to follow up on the screw-ups, Jack usually had a guided hunt..

I was not.

In their own way, each did a lot to educate shooters and hunters. I think both also did a lot to capture the interest of new and inexperienced people, and speaking from experience, both could captivate a 10 year old who was fascinated by hunting and firearms. Each also had a real effect on the arms and cartridges available to us....Elmer may have the nod here, with his involvement in the .357 and .44 magnums, and his influence on Ruger single actions. But I've got a light bolt action with a classic wood stock that I think may have some J O'C ancestry in it's development as well! It's true that from about the age of 40 on, O'Connor went on lots of guided hunts...but that's not how he started out. His early work is about solitary hunts in the southwest and in Mexico, or hunts with another companion and later, his family. "We Shot the Tamales" is a great example of that type of hunt. He spoke of having "museum permits" that enabled him to hunt quite a bit in Mexico. In one early article he talks of selling most of his firearms to pay a medical bill for one of his kids....so I think he paid his proper dues as well. I'm glad to have read them both!

Many of those who weren't as impacted by the grand old authors as me might just be the hands-on type of learner, who just doesn't enjoy reading, regardless of the author. Others of us love reading almost as much as the actual doing, and I'm one of them.

Growing up back east I liked reading Jack & Elmer's stuff but can't say I was influenced by them other than wishing I could hunt out west where you had a better chance of seeing a whole deer.

"Hunting The White Tail Deer" by Tom Hayes, 1960; I've still got the book, was an early influence. Hayes was a Texan and I guess he did a lot of hunting in thick timber and brush. He was big on the .35 Remington and peep sights.

Where I hunted was similar with a lot of thick cover so a 336 Marlin .35 with a receiver sight set up was my first deer rifle. I got a deer with it and the 35 did the job but if I had it to do over I'd have gotten a low powered scope instead of the peep sight.

I read them both later in life, I was influenced by my dad and brothers, started with the 303 lee enfield, then acquired a 270, then eventually got a lot more different calibers.

We are all the sum of what came before us.

Virtually all writers that came after Keith and O'Connor have read their books or articles and absorbed the contents. The older works influenced the younger crowd of writers, and by extension, influenced you.

What? Well, everyone else (like you) has read books and articles written by these younger, up and comers - Barsness, Boddington and Wooters. To some degree, both Keith and O'Connor ( not O'Conner) live on in the newer authors.

The younger writers, like Barsness, Boddington and Wooters, read their works. Based on that, they experimented with or tried the things Keith or O'Connor suggested. They also discovered a few things themselves. This combined knowledge formed the basis of what became their own opinions. In other words, they built on what was already known. This updated stuff is most of you have read.

Okay, so you may not have read or learned from Messrs Keith or O'Connor directly, but their influence is there nonetheless.

We have newer bullets, propellents and other things that Keith and O'Connor never dreamed of. Be happy.

The problem with young people is they tend to forget or downplay the influence of those that came before. Try not to fall into that trap.

I started out mostly as a small bore guy and over the years have been gravitating more and more to bigger bores and larger cases. I guess I'm coming around to Elmers' way of thinking.

That's okay, and completely normal. The others will figure it out and catch up...in time.

This sure isn't a new debate. I read an article once called "Do you shoot or half shoot your game" by Lee Cady. It was from the 1920's and he was making the case that the .38-55 was a better killer than the .30-30 and .30-06. He even felt the .32-40 was more effective than the .30-30 and led to cleaner kills!

I think the 32-40 would be more effective too. The larger bullet diameter and less aerodynamic nose would create a bigger shock wave. Many animals would be toppled by the atmospheric turbulence without actually being struck by it!

The older cartridges worked better because no one knew that they were inferior.

That's funny about the .32-40 observation in the 1920's. In my own experience I've found the .32 Special to be slightly superior to the .30-30 in effectiveness. Makes no sense from the ballistics standpoint, but I have seen over and over a small, but observable, difference in performance.....with the .32 Special coming out on top.

The .38-55 observation is also in line with what I've experienced. The .35 Remington (and later the .375 Winchester even more so) far outperforms the .30-30 and is at least as good (if not better) than the .30-06 at ranges of 100 yards or less (after 100 yards or so the .30-06 leaves the others behind).

Guess there really isn't anything "new" in the hunting world.

i read every outdoor magazine i could find as a kid,,,,

elmer keith was it for me , probably always will be,

iread alot about Hal Waugh, some inlaws spent lots of time with him,,, made me think i could do anythink anywhere with an opensited 375,,,,at 14 yrs old i packed a 375 h&h to idaho on some of our month long out of state deer and elk hunts,,,
wish i still had that rifle,

I read a book or an article (its been years) about the hunters and trappers that worked for the Hudson Bay Company and how they found the .32 Special to be more effective against Moose and Polar bear than the .30-30. I've used them both but have been unable to detect a difference.

Here in New Zealand, like I expect it would be in Australia, hardly anyone has ever even heard of them, except for a couple of real rifle looneys who got US magazines sent over.
Today, I believe the ones that do know them, have become aware of them in the last fifteen years with the preponderance of US-based hunting sites on the net.

Kiwi hunters almost exclusively read their own hunting writers. (Those with an interest in hunting in Africa excepted.)

My father was different. He was born in the US and he initiated me into the cult of JOC at a young age.

FWIW I think I was a lot more influenced by the family members who taught me to shoot and hunt than by any books, at least for the first few years. Of writers it was probably Australians like Col Allison, Vic McCristal and Colin Shadbolt that I first read, and not so much because the US publications weren't available as because the Australian writers were talking about game and gear available here. As well as these I read a lot of Barry Crump, Hemingway, Thoreau and others who wrote about the experience rather than the technical.

In relation to Elmer Keith and Jack O'Connor I do remember as young bloke reading an article about a shoot at Winchester's Nilo Farms and being impressed that Elmer Keith, then 81, was still shooting, but it was not until much later that I read anything he wrote. I have been influenced by the things he developed I guess, but not by his writing - in fact I find it hard to read. I've also read some in its unedited form and kudos must go to whoever had to edit it for publication - writing clearly wasn't the bloke's strong suit. He seems to have been a very knowledgeable and practical fellow though.

O'Connor on the other hand is one whose work I have enjoyed reading, though I first came to it after the man died. I have several of his books, and I would say that they have been of some influence. Now with some 40 years' experience under my belt I still hold much of what he said to be very good advice, or at least consistent with my own views .