Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Major Charles Askins?

I happened across an article on wildcat cartridges that stated Major Charles Askins "blew off a few fingers" with a 7mm-06. Does anyone know the story behind this incident?

Elmer Keith wrote about some of the Major's shotguns in his book on the subject, which led me to read the Major's book American Shotguns years ago; however, I don't recall mentioning of an accident anywhere that resulted in missing digits.

Askins Jr talks in his book about Sr. blowing up
guns a couple of different times, but I don't recall
anything about missing fingers.
The one I recall for sure was when Jr. had dropped
in and Sr. had blown up a gun and had a face full
of wood splinters and metal shards and was fairly
stunned and messed up
I think that was a shotgun, but I'll have to find the
book and look

The Major never had that kind of accident. He was a rough ol cobb, but very astute. He was a good hunter. He was a good soldier and good man. He was abrupt and did not suffer fools very well, ha. I never understood his affinity for the 8mm, but he loved them! He had no use for the 30-06 as I remember. He used the new 7mm Rem Mag on a Polar bear with the 175 Clkt factory load. ( it may have been some of that first batch, they were hot) anyhow, he said he didn't understand why Remington both the 150 and the 175, that "everyone knew the 7mm caliber balances with the 160". His words.

There was a long thread about him here several years ago. IIRC one of the regulars at that time had one of his firearms, pretty sure it was a shotgun. I can't for the life of me recall which poster though and I sure don't remember any comment about loosing his fingers.

Figured it out, Dirtfarmer has one of the Major's shotguns and knows (knew?) his grandson, maybe he will chime in:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...r/Search/true/re-col-askins#Post11304131

It may not have been the Major, but I seem to remember that he was on a troop ship when it was strafed and being on the receiving end of those 8mm bullets, he was impressed with their vicious impacts.

Just possibly, maybe not, there is some confusion between Major Askins father and Colonel Askins son.

The Col. wrote that his father the Major had blown up a 276 Dubeil.. He was away at college, before his military time, and said he drove all night to get to his Dad, the major.

You think?

That appears to be it!

A few years ago Capt. (now Maj.) Chas. Askins and John Dubiel spent much time developing the .276 Magnum. They first worked with the .30-'06 case, but after blowing up two rifles for some unaccountable reason, they adopted the .275 H. & H. Magnum case, John changing the shape of the shoulder and necking the case to 7-mm.

https://archive.org/details/sim_american-rifleman_1934-11_82_11/page/10/mode/2up

You're talking about his son the Colonel

A good man? An awful lot of print about a cold blooded killer, in the words of Ayoob and others. When one answers the question, "How many have you killed?" And he answers something like, "Twenty seven, not counting niqqers and Mexicans.". A good man?

A good study on the Col is his book, “Unrepentant Sinner”, covers lots of Askins info.

There is confusion between the Askins, father and son. In fact when I ended up with the Major’s Superposed, I thought at first it was the Col’s gun. They were very different, the Major more easy going than his son, the Col.

DF

Here's the Shotgunworld link on the Major's Browning Superposed that I ended up with. Lots of Askins info not otherwise published. I hooked up with the Col's son, Bill Askins, in San Antonio. He was very helpful.

Long thread, 164,000+ hits over a decade. https://www.shotgunworld.com/threads/1933-superposed.124719/

DF

That was Al Miller. He recounted the story in Nosler #3 in his intro to the load data for the 8x57. Col Askins did write the intro to the 8 rem mag on the next page, though.

Once again you have the wrong Askins

And it was about the son and not the father. Apparently only a few of us know they were both gunwriters. If you were Elmer Keith readers you would know. He had a lot of admiration for the old man. Even ghost wrote his articles towards the end of the Majors life. The Major wasn't interested in 8mm anything but he was all about 10 and 16 gauge shotguns

If you check the SGW link, you’ll see photos of the Major as a very old man, apparently still with all his fingers.

So pictorial evidence is against the allegations in that article.

DF

Details are a bit fuzzy now, but I think Major Askins was the gun editor for Field and Stream for more than twenty years. He was succeeded by Jack O'Connor. There's a very good article written by Colonel Askins in an old GUN DIGEST about the Major and Son titled something like "My Pappy Was a Pistol".

" I came home one time and the Old Man had put
together a loading that was a mite too hot. The
rifle had blown up. He was in a state of shock, had
bits of metal in his face and hands and it was
plain that he'd lost considerable blood.
. . . . In an attempt to get some improved velocities
he had simply poured in too much DuPont #17 1/2
and the gun had parted at the seams. . . "

" It wasn't the first time he'd had a shooting iron
come to pieces. A year or two before he'd been
reloading for an old 10 gauge lever action pump
gun and the breechbolt did a double flip, the
receiver bulged and cracked, the stock split
and my Old Man suffered a concussion and
took the usual profusion of brass and steel
in his whiskers. "

Colonel Charles Askins Jr. Writing
about Major Askins Sr. from
Unrepentant Sinner