Finn Aagaard, Bob Milek, John Wooters, Jim Carmichael, Rick Jamison, Clay Harvey, Ed Matunas, and Bob Hagel to name a few.
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I'm glad someone else had the stones to mention Clay Harvey first. They'll pelt you instead of me.
Yes, a lot of his stuff was apocryphal. Yes, he generated a lot of personal bad blood on here. However, I kept a copy of
The Hunter's Rifle next to the bed for over a decade. A lot of the rifles he touted are now on my rack, and I have to agree with him. The Hunter's Rifle did a great job of slicing up the myriad of what was out there at the time and giving a framework for what to chose when.
Yes, he stole ideas. Yes, he stole rifles. Yes, he claimed experience where he did not have it. However, before I found this place, I used
The Hunter's Rifle quite a bit as a primary reference and it did not fail me.
So far, there is not a name mentioned I would dispute.
John Wooters is problematic in my mind, but then all the men on Rushmore are as well. He was a great writer, no doubt about that. However, he championed the idea of culling to improve trophy quality. This led to a generation of men wandering about the woods shooting gimpy-looking bucks and thinking they were doing the world a favor.