Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Warren Page

Did any of you know him very well? I always enjoyed his writing, but I know very little about him, like, where was he from, his background, did he do anything else besides write, and things like that. How did he come to write for Field and Stream?

Where did he live?

Can anyone answer some of these questions?

Allow me to add another question. Did he ever publish a book? Don't recall any. Back in his day dad was a JO'C fan we only got OUTDOOR LIFE so I never had an opportunity to read much he wrote. Only recall he was a 7mm advocate. Mashburn, maybe.

Page wrote a book of his hunting experiences, One Man's Wilderness. Some will argue with me, but it's as good as most anything O'Connor wrote, although different styles. He also wrote The Accurate Rifle, an early text on the intricacies of benchrest shooting. Both books are readily available on the used book market.

I recall that Page was a Harvard graduate, and post-WWII was teaching (English?) in a private school, when he applied for a position writing for Field & Stream as angling columnist. The then-editor offered him the position of shooting editor, which he accepted.

Besides being a hunter of very wide experience, he was a record-holding benchrest shooter, who did much to promote the competition.

I've hunted with one of his outfitters, who noted that Page was a pretty quiet person around a campfire, not putting up with a lot of BS.

--Bob

I very much enjoyed his book One Man's Wilderness and really enjoyed his writing style, more than Jack O'Connor. The Accurate Rifle is another good book, but much more technical.
I only wish I had access to more of his writing!

I don't know if it's true or not but I've read that he doidn't know much about guns until he started writing about them. I did enjoy his articles though. I think he had some to do with developing the 7 m/m Rem. mag., .243 Win. and maybe 6 m/m Rem. I could be wrong but, seems like I've read that.

Pretty sure he had a lot to do with promoting the 243/6mm bore size. I had a pre-64 featherweight 243 that was 'improved' to 240 PSP (Page Super Pooper). Essentially a 6 Rem improved or more likely a 6mm-257 at the time he made it. He had another 240 that was an improved 243...this was before the 243 winchester.

I remember reading about him going to NZ and killing a bunch of critters with the 240 PSP.

Page was a great gunwriter.While not as widely acclaimed as O'Connor he was more experimental and technically oriented.VERY experienced and well travelled hunter,who went about everywhere you legally could in those days.

He loved wildcats and his favorite rifle/cartridge combo was a rifle he called,I think,"Old Betsy", a Mauser actioned 7mm Mashburn(long?).He used almost exclusively a 175 gr bullet loaded to a bit over 3000 fps on just about everything. Another was a Remington 721 rebarreled and stocked at Weatherby(by Leonard Mews?) chambered for the 375 Weatherby Mag, a blown-out version of the H&H.Also a 35 Mashburn of some type.

He was a great writer with a different style from O'Connor, but just as interesting, I thought.It would be hard to assemble a better bunch of outdoor writers in one place than the group that wrote for Field&Stream in the 50's. Unlikely you ever see that kind of talent assembled under one cover again.

Page was a great writer, and 'One Man's Wilderness' is one of my all-time favorite big game hunting books.

Today's F&S is a pathetic, far cry from what it was when Warren Page was the gun editor, and it's a far cry from what it was when Bob Brister held that position. Like Page, Brister was one of the truly great, largely unsung shooting/hunting writers, but like Page, he really knew his stuff; he had deep and wide experience, and he was a superb writer.

Today, the shooting column is often a sophmoric, two-page shallow effort, and between the "how-to" and transparent marketing themes, as well as a turning away from anything but hunting whitetails and elk with the lastest off-the-shelf Wunder Gun, the whole magazine has lost most of its former class, depth, glamor, and substance.

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Allen,

My thoughts also. In the 50s as a boy I always read JOC, Warren Page and Pete Brown. I like Dave Petzal and Jim Carmichael but it just isn't the same. Thanks...Bill.

For even a person that only dreams of far flung hunts, One Man's Wilderness is a must read!

I had a book by Page a number of years ago (can't find it now) on benchrest shooting. He was an advid benchrest shooter and heavily influenced the developement of 6mm cartridges (243 Winchester and 244 Remington). His development of the "243 Page Super Pooper" led to the development of the 243 Winchester , while Fred Huntngton of RCBS focused on what became the 244 Remington (Huntington called his cartrdge the 244 Rockchucker).

Page was a big advovate of 7mm cartridges and pushed the reputation of the 7mm Mashburn Magnum, which led to the 7mm Reingtn. He wrote of this cartridges and his rifle ("Old Betsy") in a mid-late 50's Gun Digest. I believed he lived in the Hunson River Valley, north of New York City. He regularly wrote for the gun Digest in the '50's.

My Dad introduced me to Warren Page, Fred Huntington, Mike Walker and other shooting luminaries. Dad was an accomplished benchrest shooter [my son and I counted over a hundred trophies, including a world record] when he passed away] and was friends with many of those fellows. Dad was also a wonderful wingshot and very accomplished deer and elk hunter. I found Page to be more than a little reserved.
jmr

I used to work with a couple of guys in the East Kootenays over 40 years ago, who had worked on a hunt Warren Page had made in B.C.'s Flathead Valley, back in the good old days. He wrote a story about this in F&S, entitled, "The Judas Moose", which I had read just before going to work there.

These guys had also wrangled on an O'Connor hunt and had strong opinions on both men, Page was well liked and J'OC was not popular among the crew. Page was always denigrated by O'Connor, who was a very talented prose stylist, but, seems to have been an arrogant guy in person.

I was an O'Connor fan, then, I started working in the bush in many of the regions in Canada he wrote about and I stopped reading him, when he refered to native-born Albertans as ...slobs in pickup trucks... because they DARED to want to hunt the Smokey River country of THEIR province which he seemed to consider a special playground for him and his rich foreign hunter friends.

Page always seemed far less of that type and was evidently pleasant and just a "regular guy" in camp and treated the local Canadian guides, wranglers and other camp staff politely, to his credit. But, the glory days of hunting mags. are long gone and I seldom even look at one now.

I too enjoyed Page and his books the Accurate rifle and "OMW" is on my bedstand.

Lets see, I used to run a 240 PSP (but now run a 6/06), I also run amuck with a 7 Mashburn Super and a 375 Wby. Ya spose he had some amount of influence on how I go about things....?

He and Hagel were no doubt my favs along with Bowman, man how I wish that Les had written some books. IMO those boys truly knew how to get out and get it done and then write about it.

IMO the 2 best of our day is CB amd JB and they've gotten out and got it done as well!

It's very easy for me to respect those who have formed their opinions from actually getting out and doing it, a lot!

Make it your best day!

Dober

That is why I enjoy reading Phil Shoemaker's writing so much and respect his practical, realistic opinions on guns, hunting and bears. Too many of today's writers and "experts" seem to me to develop opinions based on VERY little field experience and then will often denigrate anyone who differs from said opinions.

I will also say, that for serious hunters, like Dober, it is hard to imagine better cartridges than the 7mm Mashburn and the .375 Weatherby. If, I ever went to wildcat rounds, just for the hell of it, these would be, along with a .416/.404 or maybe a 9.3/.375RUM like the old German 9.3x70, my two first choices.

I have never cared for the 7mmSTW, but, like the Mashburn configuration, some of the old guys KNEW their chit.

Well Kute, I aint an old guy, and I certainly don't know my chit....

Dober


by the way, I'm ordering my 4th tube for my old Mashburn this week....

Nope, you are a young guy and I am not old, I'm just well-seasoned! I don't know my chit, either, keep forgetting it all.......

Going with Schnieder again or maybe trying a Lilja?

Schneider is the best bet for me, but who know's I may even givew PN a go. I sent them an email late last night.

I did just get in a new Lilja for my G33 though, a new #1 06 Imroved tube...(that's 270 for those who don't speak Dober).

As you know I am a bit weird but I like Schneider for Stls tubes and Lilja for when I go CM. Now if Gary made CM tubes I'd just go with his all the time. Chanlyn is another tube that I really like but this is digressing from the original thread a bit, go figure with this group eh.....

Dober

You'll get a grin out of this one of my fav old bullets is the old 175 Semi Nozler. I have a strong stash of them and when ran by 7828 or R25 it really gives game the old Nozler Nap as I like to call it.

I used to read and follow the writings of Page, Brown, O'Connor and Keith.
I wrote a letter once to Page when I was about 16 or 17 yrs. old. I got a very nice response. Not just and quick and short letter, but one that detailed answers to all of my questions.
Because of that letter and his description of "Old Betsy," I got to considering light rifles and Nosler Partition bullets. A set of ideas that have served me well to this day. E

What??? No Patrick McManus??? The last laugh??? I think??? I always looked forward to getting to the last page...