Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Writers that influenced you the most.

None

I read a lot and like several of the aforementioned writers.
Robert Ruark and Jim Carmichel stand out for me. I met Jim several years ago at the Super Shoot. Jim was on the adjoining shooting bench. Our first words after I shot a very very good 5 shot group, Jim leaned over and said"What a great group , but you shot it on my target"! That was a 5" penalty for me. We share emails almost daily of off color jokes and conservative politics. He has been kind enough to give me sound advise on some of my customs. He no longer recommends engravers as the two he recommended passed away soon after working for me. I hope Roger Kehr doesn't know this.

JOC, Bob Milek, Gary Sitton, Fin Aagard, and JB

GreggH

None.

As a kid, I read a lot of the writers mentioned here. As I learned more, I dismissed many of them as blowhards or liars. The ones that I still consider worth reading know their subjects, and are/were more interested in helping others learn than they are/were in blowing their own horns. They include:

Finn Aagaard—a no-nonsense farm kid who happened to be from Kenya. My favorite Finn Aagaard quote is on refinishing a synthetic stock: “I finished the outside of the stock quickly and easily by leaving it the way it came.” I suspect that my irrational love of ‘98 Mausers comes largely from him.

Jack O’Connor—the best in terms of pure writing. The principles and concepts he laid out are still valid today, even if some of the gear he liked has gotten better.

John Taylor and John A. Hunter for their stories about Africa.

Elmer Keith and Jeff Cooper had to create and maintain a cult of personality to stay employed. Cooper got dogmatic and I had a hard time believing Keith’s writing about long guns, but both brought a new way of thinking to how to use handguns, and that’s enough.

Bob Milek—a lot like Finn Aagaard. I never shared his love for the Colt Python or the TC Contender but I trusted him.

Horace Kephart had a ton of good ideas on clandestine camping. I didn’t read him until after I got out of Special Forces, but a lot of his ideas matched what I learned on active duty.

Ken Waters for his common sense approach to handloading.

I like Ross Seyfried for how he thinks through problems, and for his love of the military Mauser, the 7x57 cartridge, and Weaver rings and bases. He needs to write a book, though.

As a writer, Hamilton Bowen is a very well-kept secret. He combines 19th-century formality and 21st-century humor like Mark Twain writing about guns. His mastery of the English language in “The Custom Revolver” made me laugh out loud on nearly every page. His effortless command of the subject matter doesn’t hurt either.

I feel like John Barnsness and Craig Boddington are the heirs to O’Connor’s crown as the most trustworthy in the business. They’re also among the few writers who have made the leap from print to online.

With all of this in mind, there are posters here and on two other forums who fall firmly in the Aagaard/Milek camp. I pay far more attention to them than I do to anything in print or published online by former print publications. In fact, if I see something in print that doesn't make sense, then I check out what these guys have to say about it. They include Mackay Sagebrush, Allen Day, Ray Atkinson, JJHACK, Brad, Dogzapper, Phil Shoemaker and a couple of others who slip my mind right now.


Okie John

CE Harris, Ken Warner, and probably others already named. I fondly recall reading, and enjoying articles by Skeeter Skelton, but I don't know how much he 'influenced' me.

Jim Carmichael was, maybe still is. But there’s a J.B. AKA Mule Deer that gaining ground.

Also runs: Bob Milek, Craig Boddington, Elmer Keith, Finn Agaard, Craig Boddington, Robert Ruark,

Layne Simpson is a great writer too.

From my perspective, JB' s work is that of an exceedingly gifted experimentalist who also possesses the rare ability to translate important technical details into engaging prose. I pay attention to what he writes, and continue to learn. His work continues to influence me the most.

Bob Milek
Gary Sitton
JB
Finn Aagaard
Had a few chances to talk to Bob Milek on the phone years ago. He was as fine a person as you could imagine. Very helpful in load development for my .22-250. And he loved the fact I was also shooting a .25-'06. Great person. Miss him.

I realize you wrote that in jest, however, his writings, while often impolite, boorish, and cryptic, did prompt me to broaden my experience and understanding of:

Just how handy a Sharpie can be. COAL/land engagement, action and scope base screw tolerance/clearance, bolt-lug engagement, etc, etc, etc. Pretty darned useful <$1 tool.

Turrets, and not being intimidated to use them. I used to be firmly planted in the "I have it sighted in, I'm not screwing that up now." camp. Furthermore, the idea that with the vertical guessing gone, the only thing a person really has to worry about is a steady rest and the wind.

Resizing die setup and more thought about how the case and the rifle/chamber are mechanically interacting with each other.

Seating die setup, or more accurately how a cartridge, chamber/throat, and magazine box can be very right or very wrong.

"Start at the Start" when setting up a rifle. I used to just pull the stock, get the trigger where I wanted it, bolt it back together, add a scope and go to the range. A quick checkup regarding bedding, action and scope-base screw tolerance/clearance, mag-box seating, etc provides me with far fewer unproductive range sessions.

While MANY would've preferred that info provided in a far less gruff fashion, it's certainly true that he provided an awful lot of experience derived information and really trying to help folks shorten up their learning curve.

Rick Jamison’s influence resulted in my 300 WSM’s

Layne Simpson’s influence led to my XP 100’s for hunting

Brian Pearce got me started Squirrel hunting. It is now my first love.

John Barsness introduced me to Precision Reloading. Never go back.

I’ve done a ton of reading, by lots of authors. As far recalling any of it, Elmer Keith’s stuff seems to stick with me.

I called Jack O'Connor about a year before he passed away. His wife answered the phone and he picked it up shortly. I introduced myself to him and told him I had read eleven of his books. He said that that shows I'm not very bright. He has had a profound effect on my hunting life!

Jon Sundra.....and his love for 7mms

Jack O'Connor writing's on the 7X57 which led me to buy a Ruger 77-R in 7X57....my first deer rifle. A .270 was my second rifle.

Finn Aaguard writings which led me to develop reduced woods loads for my .270....A Hornady .270150 gr at 2650........Killed deer fine without all the fuss.

Hagel and Seyfried, as you could probably guess by my 'Campfire alias. However, I don't even own a .338 these days and if I could change my name to some more practical bore size, I would!

As a boy I grew up reading Outdoor Life and Sports Afield from the late 60's and early 70's. I was a member of the Outdoor Life Book Club and one of the books I bought was "Deer Hunting: Tactics and Guns for Hunting All North American Deer" by Norm Strung, copyright 1973. That book was very influential to me, who knows how many hours I spent in that book.
Today it caught my eye in my collection and I began to page through it. I hadn't recalled the dedication page before, but noticed it today, it read.

"This one's for the late Jack Barsness: he was my mentor; he was my friend."

Would this be JB's dad? What's the story behind this?

Thoreau, Archibald Rutledge, Nash Buckingham, James Michener, Hemmingway, Zane Grey and James Kroll.

Always loved Jack O'Connor. He has influenced my big-game hunting more than any other. By far.

While not a "gun writer" per se, for pure writing, it's Ernest Hemingway. The Green Hills of Africa started a never-ending love affair with plains game and Africa.

Robert Ruark, while never quite the writer Hemingway was, could still spin a yarn. Loved him, too.

I like Carmichael, Wootters, Milek, Sundra, Simpson,Wieland, Petzal, Spomer and Boddington as more contemporary gun scribes, with probably Petzal, Carmichael and Wieland being most influential.

ruffcutt,

Yep, my father.

The story is that Norm Strung grew up in New York City, the son of a New York banker, but even when too young to drive loved hunting and fishing (which his family did NOT do) to the point where he hitch-hiked to do both--including to the Catskills with a Savage 99--possible in those days.

His father wanted Norm to go to a "good" college in the East, but Norm decided Montana State University was the place for him, because he wanted to live Out West. My father was an English professor at MSU, and that fall taught the required freshman composition class.

Norm's chosen major was fish and game management, but after he submitted a couple of stories my father asked him what he wanted to do with his degree. Norm said write for a living. My father told him he needed to learn to write, and said he could give him some pretty good advice, since he'd sold articles to various magazines, mostly on Western history. So Norm switched his major to English.

I suspect (but don't know) that part of the deal was Norm would take me hunting, because my father had a bad heart and couldn't go much anymore. I'd been hunting on my own for small game for a while, but Norm took me hunting for everything from ducks to deer. Took a mule deer doe with him the first year I could legally buy a big game license.

Even at that age I wanted to be writer, and after my father passed away when I was 16, managed to publish various kinds of writing here and there, but nothing that paid much. By the time I was 20 Norm was making a decent living writing for hunting and fishing magazines, and he gave me some tips--some of which he'd learned from my father. Sold my first well-paying article to Sports Illustrated the next year, when they still ran fishing and hunting stories, about flyfishing for trout in the winter. Then sold another on elk hunting to a then-new magazine named Gray's Sporting Journal. Both spoiled me for real work.