Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Gun writer lists

I assume we all have our own "Gunwriter Mt Rushmores" which likely is made up the writers we grew up with. I never grew up reading Kieth, Skelton, O'Connor etc.

Read snippets here and there.

Curious - who are on your mountain and more importantly, name one book of theirs you think everyone should read, and why.

(I wanna build an Amazon wishlist)

Finn Aagaard, Bob Milek, John Wooters, Jim Carmichael, Rick Jamison, Clay Harvey, Ed Matunas, and Bob Hagel to name a few.

Bob Hagel - Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter
Finn Aagard - Hunting Rifles and Cartridges
Both authors worked as guides and saw more game shot than most of us dream of. Neither saw the bullet technological revolution that we have to day, but they sure were fun and interesting to read. And they were both pragmatists.

Can't even list all of my books.....but these are two of my favorites.

AT my age it's hard to remember them all, so I went in and consulted the "shelf of honor" among the wall of the other titles and authors. The envelope, please:

Pete Brown, Warren Page, Bob Nichols, Jack O'Connor, Bob Brister, Elmer Keith, Clyde Ormond, Havilah Babcock, John Wooters, Robert Ruark, Frances Sell, "Skeeter" Skelton, Bob Hagel, Finn Aagard, and John Jobson.

I am probably missing one or two, whose book(s) got loaned out and never returned.

Dean Grennell - The ABC's of Reloading
Finn Aagard - Hunting Rifles and Cartridges
Mr. Barsness - Obsessions of a Rifle Loony

I've read them all and I hate them all.
Grandad never read gun scribes and he had one hunting rifle. Dad never read them and he had one hunting rifle. I read every article of theirs I could beg, steal, or borrow and I've owned around a hundred freaking deer rifles! I just want to be normal!

Mike, it's too late !!


Guys, there are more than I can remember and I DON'T want to neglect any.

E K was mostly done by the time I got into gun lore but I have "Hell I Was There", anyway.

I never knew Bob Hagel BEFORE I got his "Game Loads and Practical Ballistics...." from O L Book Club.
IIRC (?) it was $ 8.00 AiN'T for sale.

Tip of the Hat to Skeeter, Jordan, Howell, Carmichael, Sundra and OF COURSE..... J B !!

Thanks Guys.

Excellent List!

I would add Archibald Rutledge, Gene Hill, and Jim Corbett.

I will second Archibald Rutledge who was the Poet Laureate of South Carolina and his book "The Woods and Wild Things I Remember" is my favorite. I also like all things JB has written...articles, books, etc.

Hagel’a hunting North American big game is good as well. Bob Brister only published 2-3 books and some of those are fiction but all are really good

Both were favorites of mine as well and both were big fans of Nosler Partition and Bitteroot bonded core bullets and Finn wrote extensively about testing Trophy Bonded , Nosler Partitions, Barnes X, Swift A frames, Speer Grand Slams and even European RWS H-Mantels,

Sucks to be you. Sucks to be me, too.

I read some of Elmer's stuff early on. Maybe that's why I've never owned a 270 of any flavor & lean toward big holes in the end of my muzzles. Even more influential for me were Ken Waters, Bob Hagel, Finn Aagard, & Jim Carmichael. Not really a gunwriter but that McMannis guy is fun to read.

The Rifle by Jim Carmicheal is pretty freaking good. Elmer Keith's Big Game Hunting is also a good book. Sheep and Sheep Hunting by Jack O'Connor is a good book. Those are three books that are good to start with.

Best I can remember Keith was one I read a lot of . Funny thing is I've always had a .270 and still do. I read Keith but mainly for the entertainment. I didn't emulate him and went my own way. I did read Warren Page but he was like Keith in the magazines. What I did read of Page where I really learned from him was some very good bench rest stuff. He had some technical papers he wrote for bench rest shooting that were very informative. I remember Wooters and liked him for his technical knowledge too. Never read Brister, just watched him on TV I really loved his show on Houston TV. Aagard was probably my favorite entertainment wise but when I read his stuff he was already here in Texas and mostly wrote about hunting on his ranch in the Hill Country. I didn't read many books on guns. However, I did read some of Cap Stick and a couple other African writer Including Aagard because I always liked to read of the African adventure.

Bob Hagel and recommend Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter. His hunting experience and insistence on wringing the best out of a rifle/cartridge impressed me.

Warren Page and recommend The Accurate rifle. A statement he said always stuck with me. 'Only accurate rifles are interesting'

Don Zutz and recommend Handloading For Hunters. Zutz was a Wisconsin native and wrote intensely about shotguns and rifles I reloaded for.

Ross Seyfreid.

Living favorite is John Barsness. Deceased favorite is Jack O'Connor. Lots of good writers in between these two men. Both have different styles but both are/were the real deal IMO.

That is actually a Col Townsend Whelen Quote.

I have all the usual suspects...

J.O. ..Sheep and Sheep hunting, it is still the reference guide for the Sheep hunter . I liked Page's ,The Accurate Rifle. No smiley faces needed. Both were aces.

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.