I'm not sure I have any one question to ask. But after reading the Craig Boddington & Ross Seyfried threads, along with the one on Mule Deer's "controversial" piece in the NRA magazine, it got me to thinking. How fickle is our (gunreaders) love or hate of gunwriters?
Is it because they espouse certain cartridges/concepts that match ours? What if at some point either we or they gain more experience and change viewpoints- even slightly? Would a gunwriter be more
popular if they took a firm stand early on and keep it their whole career come hell or high water, or are they better off if they've never met a gun/cartridge they didn't like? (Some don't like Craig Boddington because they think he's not maintaining the former and some don't like David Fortier/ Clair Rees because they think they fit the latter.)
What if Jack O'Conner later in his career had said that there are better cartridges than the .270 for medium game, or if Elmer Keith started using premium bullets and decided that you really don't need anything bigger than the 30-06 class of cartridges to kill a deer? It seems like I've read an article or two from gunwriters who'd interviewed prominent gunwriters before they died who'd privately admitted something to that effect. Would we have "run them out of town on a rail" or crucify them for "blasphemy" if they'd admitted something like that in print?
I always appreciated how you felt like you were there and could envision the sights, smells, sounds, etc. in a Jack O'Conner or Ross Seyfried hunt. With Mule Deer you can too, but I admire so many other things in his writings besides that, that it's hard to pinpoint one in particular. I love how he simplifies potentially complicated matters <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />, how sacreligious he is when he blows away 25 years of what I "know" from reading other gun writers <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />, and I love his sense of humor <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> He has admitted in print how some of the things he used to use or believe, he has a different opinion on now. I don't like some of it .... but yet, I do <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> There are just some things that I'd rather not have to find out the hard way! I'd rather my gunwriter be "transparent", i.e. just plain open and honest with me, even if I disagree!
