Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Weight of Jack O'Connor's favorite .270

Thanks for the pictures MD. I would just about pass out if I held one of Jack's or Eleanor's rifles or shotguns.

Maybe ? when pigs FLY









sorry, couldn't help myself.


Jerry

Still a great string, and civil.
I often handle older rifles and wish they could tell me about their history. The JOC 270 does a great job of this, and tying itself to a wonderful legacy. Seems to appeal to the imagination of many of us.
Good job Mr. Barsness.

Under 8lbs. was considered light in those days. The Europeans understood Mt. rifles and were not afraid to slim down barrels more than is customarily done here so some of their carbines are a full pound or even two lighter.

I will have to go to the Museum. I can't believe the number of times I was in range of it and didn't go, it would be like visiting the Taj Mahal or Machu Pichu for me.

He made me a Winchester Model 21 fan in the 1970's.

Sounds like a worthwhile trip to see and get to handle some of JOCs rifles.Did he at one time own a Full Stocked Winchester 7X57?

As I recall it was a full-stocked M70 .270. Believe he wrote up something on the difference in muzzle velocity in the shorter barrel, maybe in THE HUNTING RIFLE. (Now I'll have to try to find it....)

To be clear, I don't think everyday visitors get to handle the rifles. But that is just a guess, nothing more.

You absolutely correct. The display rifles are locked up in glass cases, but you can lean over the cases and look at them pretty closely!

I have leaned over the cases and it was a worthwhile excursion to the museum.

Thanks for sharing the special experience of your day (and Eileen's) with us folks. I'd have loved to have been there, and it would have been great to meet more of the campfire folks too.

Anyone passing through the area, don't miss out. I waited a couple of years after I had moved to within an hour or so drive to visit, and kick myself in the butt for not visiting it earlier and more frequently.

Geno

It caused me to remember the expression on his face from a JOC photo of him being presented a shiny Mark V from Roy Weatherby. He looked a bit disturbed.to touch it.

JOC may have liked a 270 Montana with a Leupold 4X or 6X.

Maybe.....but I do know Bradford wasn't terribly impressed with the looks of my 270 Montana with an SWFA 3-9 and suppressor.

Yep!

But Brad's career was as the general outdoor writer for a major newspaper, not as a gun/hunting writer. He likes what he likes.

Jack was a gun/hunting writer, and not just a journalist but a journalism professor. Back in his day the .270 Winchester was, to a certain extent, a really radical change from the conventions of the day. I have several shelves full of gun magazines and books going back to before 1900, and in many ways the .270 was the 6.5 Creedmoor of its day. The traditionalists preferred the .30-06 (and even bigger rounds) because the bullets of the day sometimes didn't stand up to .270 velocities.

O'Connor, on the other hand, recognized the virtues of the .270, and eventually through actual experience realized it's advantages over the .30-06 for certain purposes--along with the 7x57, often the choice of a "sub-.30" big game cartridge for .30-06 advocates, because its similar velocities worked similarly to the .30-06. He was also among the first gun writers to experience and write about the advantages of the Nosler Partition, and various other innovations, when other gun writers did not.

I suspect Jack O'Connor, being a journalist (who therefore felt it necessary to try a lot of stuff as part of his job) would today try the 6.5 Creedmoor, along with other new cartridges--and rifles, scopes and bullets.

Maybe this helps to explain why his last custom rifle was a push-feed chambered in .280 Rem. I’ve always wondered about that.

Good points, John.
When one looks at what was available in guns and cartridges when Jack was writing, he was using some of the more advanced technology available at the time. Many of the old fogies who didn't get in on WWII were likely still using big bore lever guns, so a scoped 270 bolt action was pretty darned different than what much of the hunting community was used to shooting.

First of all, let me say that I am thoroughly enjoying this thread.
I appreciate the input from those much closer not only to JOC but his family.
Also thanks to those who live close enuff OR who have made the trip to the museum.





M D, I can see the comparison and contrast of the 270 THEN and the C M now.

I certainly don't know * how far * JOC would have taken the C M but I feel sure he would have examined and experimented with it.


Now......whether he would have deviated from 'perfection', I don't know.



Jerry

John

: Did you think to do any dimensioning? Love to hear what the difference between comb and heal was. Circumference of crip, etc.

Youv'e got to remember that most of us will never even ger a chance to look, let alone measure.

From the looks of the scope position in the pics of people holding these rifles, it appears surprisingly the obsolete scopes had a long eye relief.

Low power, fixed magnification scopes with their larger field of view have always offered a longer eye relief.