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The 6.5 Creedmoor would probably have made JOC’s leg tingle a bit.....

This alone sets O'Connor in a class by himself. Most writers actually write about themselves.


Okie John

https://jack-oconnor.org/

A great place to visit, and really get a feel for Jack O’Connor, his life and family, and of course his guns. He continues to move people, and many do this as visitors turned supporters of the center. It should be open again soon.

I hadn't considered that angle so much. Interesting.

I guess Col. Charles Askins, Jr. would definitely be the notable main character in all his writings....

Elmer, although an excellent story teller, his work reportedly needed some editing... Although JOC and Elmer weren't that far apart in age, both great story tellers, seems to me Elmer was more like Col. Askins in that regard. JOC could spin a tale with enough technical stuff to satisfy the Loonies, enough great story telling to draw the reader into the hunt, experience the surrouindings and life at the hunting camp.

I don't think the Col. or Elmer were in his class as master of the written word. JOC was a polished word smith and a great story teller. I doubt his stuff needed major editing...

DF

Jack O'Connor knew more about editing than some of his editors, especially later in his careers when some of the editors were half his age.

John,
I have always thought that it would be almost biblical if you could work with Lee Hoots Jr. on how to write a magazine column well. There is nobody in the business that has the strength of structure and texture when it comes to mixing technical writing and storytelling than you. Is there any chance that it could happen?

You nailed it. Askins was the Commander McBragg of gunwriters.

You must be an older fellow if you cite Commander McBragg!

For sure. Imagine many forum members never heard of Jr's exploits, nor read any of his pieces. His bio was far more interesting than his writing.

That's a good post JWP & I agree, I don't think he would have changed his mind either.

I grew up reading JOC. My first rifle was a 30-40 Krag; my second was a Parker Hale 270, probably in part because of the notariety & good press from JOC.

That gun went down the road in favor of a Browning 308 & then several rifles followed that in '06, 338, 45-70.

It wasn't until several years later that I got another 270, a Sako Fiberclass in a McM stock. Took that rifle everywhere & killed everything up to & including moose. Still have it many years later, although it's now more or less retired.............killed more with that single gun than all else combined.

As for someone's comment about JOC getting a tingle from a 6.5 Creed..............maybe, if he was in his prime today, buy not during his lifetime as there wouldn't have been much for bullets or rifles.

Other than a little less recoil & a shorter action, the 270 will do all & more, than the 6.5, as will a 7-08.

6.5 is good.............other stuff is just as good unless you are able to look through a keyhole with both eyes.

MM

O'Connor is probably one of the few gunwriters that wrote enough mainstream stuff to have made a living at it. Some of the stuff he did like short storeis for The Saturday EVening Post and Esquire was pretty mainstream.
Seems most of the other gun writers of his generation had done other things whether it be the military, guiding, etc and more fell into writing later in life than actually setting out to be a writer.

I suspect O'Connor would have really liked the 6.5 Creedmoor, and here's why: He had a great feel for the "average hunter." In fact he wrote about this specifically in The Last Book: Confessions of a Gun Editor"--though he applied it primarily to the head editors of the various magazines he worked for.

Which is exactly why he liked the .270 Winchester (though not as much as the .30-06). He firmly believed the average hunter shot more accurately with a lighter-recoiling rifle, which was even more true then than it is today--because back then most commercial hunting rifles had steel or hard plastic/rubber buttplates.

Her also knew, from long experience, that bullet PLACEMENT is by far the most important factor in "killing power" on big game--as long as the bullet penetrates and expands sufficiently. He grasped the virtues of the Nosler Partition almost immediately after it appear in 1948, when other gun writers (especially Elmer Keith) never really did--evidenced by Elmer using really poor bullets in his .333 OKH on his first African safari m in 1958, 300-grain steel-jacketed softpoints that sometimes didn't even exit from 50-pound Thompson gazelles. As a result, Keith ended up using solid 300-grain .333s for the rest of the safari--which did not kill quickly on anything, which is largely where the myth of African plains game being super-tough became common in America. Keith would have done much better by using 180-grain Partitions in the .30-06.

I was given the same advice about writing for the average guy by one of my writing mentors, another very successful outdoor writer, who didn't write about guns but fishing and all-around hunting. I found him to be absolutely right--which is why I suspect Jack O'Connor would have liked the 6.5 Creedmoor: The light recoil allows the average hunter to place bullets well, and factory ammo is not only very accurate but available in a wide variety of excellent hunting bullets--and O'Connor also knew the average guy did not handload.

Whether he would have liked the available 6.5 Creedmoor factory rifles is another question, but my first 6.5 Creedmoor was a walnut-stocked Ruger Hawkeye that fit right in with hisideas of a classic rifle. I suspect he would have also liked the 3-position safety, controlled-feed action, and simple trigger as well.

But the major point is that Jack O'Connor, unlike Elmer Keith or Charles Askins Jr. or many other "experts" of the same period, could empathize with the average hunter, and thus write far more appealing hunting stories or technical articles. In fact Charles Askins Sr. had the same gift, which is why I enjoy reading his writing far more than his son's.

Obviously, O'Connor's education as a writer helped a lot, partly because he also taught writing. The major factor in teaching other people to write is not correcting spelling or grammar, but improving the ability to self-edit, increasing the ability of how any writer communicates with readers.

While all writers need editors to correct typos and other mistakes, the ability to self-edit helps enormously, one reason Jack O'Connor stood out from his contemporaries.

Definitely the professor. He could have taught those youngsters in his college classes. If they paid attention, they would have learned something.

He sorta looked and dressed like the professor, was wearing a tweed sports jacket when I saw him in New Orleans. There was an air of distinction about him. Reserved but with a presence. Unforgetable gentleman. And, here we are, still talking about him...

DF

I agree.

The Major was the highest paid gunwriter during that era, had a different temperment than his son. Charlie in his autobiography, Unrepentant Sinner, said his Mom was a cantankerous Irish woman,. Athough he adored his Dad, was estranged from his Mom, seems to me he took more after her..

I learned a lot about the Major when I ended up with his personal Browning Superposed. I worked with the Col's son, Bill Askins in San Antonio. I enjoyed doing that research; Bill was very helpful. I was able to help him sell the Major's Ithaca double. Bill is into horses, the fancy kind, as in dressage, not so much into shooting and guns. He sells real estate and airplanes in San Antonio.

DF

O'Connor did not make a living writing more mainstream stuff. In fact, he confesses in The Last Book that he did not have real "feel" for the mainstream short-story genre, as other stories he submitted were rejected. But it was worth a try! Those magazines paid a LOT back in those days.

In fact Dorothy Johnson, the Montana fiction author who among other things wrote the story "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," was able to buy a house in Missoula, Montana for cash with the pay from four short stories in the The Saturday Evening Post. She was paid $3000 for each story, a LOT of money at the time.

But back then print writing paid better than many other kinds of writing--except, perhaps, for screen writing, the reason many fiction writers (including William Faulkner) wrote screenplays for Hollywood movies.

O'Connor eventually ended up as a gun and hunting writer because it paid more consistently than short stories or novels. Quite a few gun writers have written for mainstream markets, including me. Among others I did an article for National Geographic in the 1990s, when writing for a wide variety of magazines.

But you're right about many gun writers starting out in other careers--and not just of O'Connor's generation. That's still the primary path today.

I've enjoyed all the comments and agree with nearly all. I am probably repeating myself, but my first Outdoor Life issue was the September 1955 copy. I was just 12.
I was more enthralled with the Lee Yeager article on squirrel hunting-"Waiting Them Out" as I was a squirrel hunter at that age. The writer used a Model 61 Winchester. Later, I realized that my favorite O'Connor story was in the same issue. "We Shot the Tamales". A great read as it has all the facets that have been mentioned here. Next favorite is"Santiago and the Lady Hunter".
Was able to attend the O'Connor shindig in Lewiston last June and was looking forward to this year. The virus thing cancelled it.
The highlight of my Ruger No.1 collecting endeavors was acquiring O'Connor's "21 Club" Ruger No.1 from Kathy in 1988.
And yes, I have all his books, etc.. Can tell you that the hardest item to obtain is the pamphlet "Hunting with a Binocular" from about 1947! I've been offered ridiculous $$ for it, bit have only seen one other!
ENU

I've only read one of Sr's books but thought it was very good.

I've enjoyed this thread. When I was 9, in 1969, the barber in the closest town of Lindsay, MT found out I was interested in guns and hunting. He got the "big three" and started dropping off the month old issues in our mailbox for me. What a thrill....seeing his little green car pull up and going out to the mailbox and having three month old magazines at once...all smelling slightly of cigar smoke. Though I liked all the writers, O'Connor stood out for me. When I read Hail and Farewell in the summer of 1972, it was a serious blow. Like Greydog,, I at first didn't give Jim Carmichael much of a chance. Darn upstart! But I learned to appreciate his teachings and writing as well....had I have been 9 when I started reading him, I'd have seen his expertise sooner. I think he was worthy successor, and he made his own way, in his own style. I think he was shooting editor for OL longer than O'Connor was. That said, I still read O'Connor regularly...I have most of his books. I don't read them anymore for the info, I've assimilated that over the past 50 years. I read him because reading Jack O'Connor is a pure pleasure, and a glimpse into a time when the world was simpler and a 30 day pack trip into the Yukon was still a possibility..

My father subscribed to Outdoor Life when I was growing up in the late 50's and early to mid 60's time period. JOC was by far and away my favorite writer, and the only one that I've ever followed. To a boy who was limited to hunting small game, as we had no deer season here back then, the stories of hunting all over the world for big game was absolutely fascinating. It was because of O'Connor that I bought a Remington 700 Classic in 270, and for a good many years it was my only deer rifle. I also used his favorite load of 60 grains of H4831 with a 130 grain bullet to kill several truckloads of whitetails.

I've always been an avid reader, and over the years have build up a nice collection of books by those writers that I like. I've got most every book that O'Connor wrote, and those wrote about him, and I never get tired of reading them. At the age of 70, I still find his hunting stories as riveting to read now, as I did at age 12. Some things never get old, and JOC is one of them.

I'm sure he would have liked the Creedmoor after all O'Conner liked the 7X57 and the 257 Robert's