Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters George C Nonte

Digging through old magazines I found a 1971 Shooting Times. Nonte was heavily represented. I read him a lot as a kid. Decided to do an internet search on him, and was surprised how little is out there. A little on his military service, lots on his books, a statement that he died at his desk at age 51, and a hint that at one time he'd been under some kind of federal investigation but was exonerated. Does anyone know more?

Some years ago. Shooting Times magazine printed a special issue featuring the Winchester model 70 & 94 rifles. It contains 4 articles written by George C Nonte, Jr. The earliest written in 1962, the latest in 1972.. His credit listing both the rank of Captain or Major depending on the article. The photos show him using a mechanical rifle rest of a type alien to me. I've never been able to find out anything about it, but it's why I recalled the name, and was able to find the magazine. I'd post a pic of it, bit I'm tech deficient. The articles are well written, and indicate the author used the rifles for quite a bit more than punching paper for research.

I know, he seems to be one of those writers who delved deep into a topic with research, vs shooting a whitetail as a "test" of a new model rifle. I'm getting into researching the folks whose work I read as a kid. Barsness wrote a great article on Warren Page a while ago, I learned a lot. Just finished the two books on John and Bob Nosler, really enjoyed them

I wasn't much of a George Nonte fan, but did read his material for years, beginning in the early '60s when I read everything I could find about guns. However, he went to work for Wolfe Publishing and was involved in a project around 1970 that was written up in HANDLOADER magazine. Other participants were the editor Neal Knox and Super Vel's Lee Jurras. They tested pressures on the hot factory .38 Special loads of the day, before the +P designation and then duplicated some of them with handloads in a two-part article. Two very interesting and excellent articles with perspectives somewhat different than today's. I think Nonte used the alias "Otto Scofield" in some of his work for Wolfe.

Nonte was about the most prolific writer of my callow youth. He wrote many articles for Shooting Times in their early years, and from what I understand wrote as many under pseudonyms. His articles were of a more technical nature, unlike the "Me and Joe went hunting" genre in Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, and Field and Stream. There were several other fairly technical writers at that time, but they may all have been George.

His magnus opus was on cartridge conversion. It is now pretty much out of date, as a lot of the source cases he used are also long gone.

On reading this, I am impressed by how many fancy words I used. George, however, was pretty plain spoken, sort of the middle of the road. His style would be mistaken for neither O'Connor on the one hand or Keith on the other.

United States.[1] He was the son of George C. Nonte Sr. (b. Dec. 17, 1898 d. Oct. 6, 1959). George Jr. entered the U.S. Army late in World War II and retired 20 years later, in 1964, as an Ordnance Corps Major. He was stationed in Europe, t⁰)he Middle East, and in the United States. Following his retirement from the Army, he sporadically did private contract consulting work for a US Government agency, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, much of it overseas. Nonte authored more than a thousand magazine articles that were published in more than a dozen outdoor and gun magazines, including The American Rifleman, Guns & Ammo, The Handloader, American Handgunner, The Rifle, Guns, and Shooting Times.[2][3][4][5]

He was a recognized expert in the firearms field. In the 1950s he began a long career as a writer on handloading and guns, and was listed in the mastheads of more than ten firearms publications.

Nonte frequently gave court testimony as an expert witness on firearms.

Nonte was peripherally involved in the investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. At the time or Kennedy's death, Nonte was an Ordnance Corps Captain, stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. An investigative report by Ray and Mary La Fontaine, published by the Washington Post in August, 1994 mentioned Nonte, and alluded to him running guns with Jack Ruby, but provided no conclusive evidence. Reports identified Nonte as "cooperative" with the FBI in the Kennedy assassination investigation, and that he assisted the FBI with information about a renegade operation by Cuban exiles that planned to again invade Cuba, following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The same information was repeated in Ray and Mary La Fontaine's book Oswald Talked, published in 1996.

Nonte was a flamboyant character who in later life wore a handlebar mustache.[6] One of his cars was a Chevrolet Corvair that was retrofitted with a powerful engine taken from a Chevrolet Corvette.

Nonte died in his office at work on June 30, 1978.

The Major George C. Nonte Award for Excellence in Firearms Journalism is awarded annually, in Nonte's memory, by American Handgunner magazine. The first recipient of the award was Massad Ayoob.[7]

His wife was Theresa England Nonte.[8]

One of his twin daughters, Yvette, became a US Army Intelligence officer, and retired as a full colonel.[8][dead link]

His eldest son, David Nonte, with the assistance of Edward C. Ezell and Lee Jurras completed the draft manuscript for his final book, Combat Handguns, which was published posthumously

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Nonte

Yeah, he was everywhere when I started reading gun magazines--but while Nonte was obviously techinically knowledgable, the subjects he wrote about (often handguns) didn't interest me as much as rifles. He also obviously didn't have as much field experience with rifles as other writers of the day.

But Nonte also was indeed a very clear writer, and obviously educated on the subjects he wrote about. Which is why I have a couple of his books in my library.

Thanks, all, for the info. Like so many, it sounds like he was an interesting man, with a story to tell.

I have a handful of reloading books with his name on them and I don't know how many articles in other books and magazines. The vast majority of the articles involve reloading though some seem to be more or less repeats of other articles or condensed versions of chapters in his books.

They were pretty much my primers for metallic reloading though I probably should have read them closer. His writings on cartridge conversions were very helpful to get started in loading for obsolete cartridges.

I enjoyed Nonte’s writing.
His Polar Bear hunt with the new Remington 600 in .350 Rem Mag is interesting.
My favorite Nonte article is: Those Un-Loved .32’s in the January 1974 issue of Handloader. A S&W Model 34 re-bored to .32 S&W Long.

At his passing, a mustache wax factory closed its doors.

Sad, but possibly true. Miss those old characters.

I have his book, Modern Handloading. I loaned it to a coworker, then left for another job, had it returned through a mutual friend about ten years later.

I seem to recall an article, probably published right after his death, mentioning an episode at an NRA convention, SHOT Show or something similar, in which an acquaintance kiddingly threatened to take a lighter to one end of his mustache. Nonte drew down on the guy's head with a suddenly-produced pocket pistol of some sort and the laughing abruptly stopped.

These two men got me started.

I think Nonte and John Amber were pretty good friends. I recall reading whimsical "Gun Digest" articles by Amber in the 1960's and 1970's wherein he recounted various hunting trips they took together.

Nonte and Lee Jurras were friends

I would also wager that Nonte was a spook (CIA)

Thats interesting.
I know nothing other than reading some of his articles, why do you say this?
Curious...

Read my post above that is a synopsis of his career

I had a book on Handgun Hunting those two co-wrote together. It mostly featured the Automag pistols, and the SuperVel load they used in a .45 Auto for black bears in Tennessee, and pronghorns, possibly in New Mexico (I read it a long time ago).