Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Comments re: Elmer Keith and Jack O'Connor

Ken,
<br>
<br>Did you know, or have you used, the word "calumny" before, or did you need to consult your thesaurus?
<br>
<br>I learn so much new stuff here!
<br>
<br>Sincerely,
<br>
<br>Bearrr264

I've known what calumny is (and have used the word) for several decades. And I use my several thesauri rarely (and then only to remind me of a word that I KNOW but have trouble getting past the tip of my tongue -- NEVER to "learn" a new word).
<br>
<br>Did you look-up "calumny" in your dictionary? The unabridged American Heritage Dictionary, CD version, offers this (some of the symbols don't come across the cybergap unscathed, but enough does):
<br>
<br>cal�um�ny (k�l��m-n�) n., pl. cal�um�nies. 1. A false statement maliciously made to injure another's reputation. 2. The utterance of maliciously false statements; slander. [Middle English calumnie, from Old French calomnie, from Latin calumnia, from calv�, to deceive.]
<br>

I admit it, I had to look it up!
<br>
<br>Now that I know what it means: well said!

Ken,
<br>
<br>I had never heard, or seen that word, used before, that I recall, so I did need to toggle over to MS-WORD and use the thesaurus to look for a synonym that I understood the meaning of.
<br>
<br>Since you have been an editor, I'd expect a professional wordsmith to have a wider vocabulary than a broken down old fellow like me who doesn't hold a BA in English or an MS in Journalism.
<br>
<br>That said, it appears that Don doesn't believe the stories about P.O. Ackley trying to harm Elmer Keith. Its difficult for me to believe the stories either, both about Ackley and JO'C, but I wasn't there and I didn't hear it from EK's lips, so I'll think about it for awhile. If a corroberating witness to the events stepped forward and told the same basic, "Hell, I Was There!", story, it would be less of a stretch for me.
<br>
<br>Sincerely,
<br>
<br>Bearrr264

I am just disapointed.

What a great read. Excellent stories.

True or not they make for great reading.

I'm really surprised that O'Conner wasn't ostracized for pointing a loaded firearm at a person. As soon as it was empty I would have beat him severely.

Tom

Calumny? Didn't he play football for the Sooners on those great teams in the early fifties? Went by Gene Dan, I think.

O'Connor is the one who got me interested in hunting big game. I picked up a copy of Outdoor Life in the school library when I was in the 7th grade. (It was a much better magazine than now.) O'Connor had an article about the big bore vs. small bore controversy. He wrote something like, "If the proponents of either side ever take over the country, I'll be among the first to be executed." I never thought he was a "small bore no matter what" guy.

Keith impressed me as sort of a bombastic and active popinjay type(in a good sense). I seem to remember that when he was very old he had a stroke, and was paralyzed and in a hospital for many many months. I remember thinking how awful that would be, especially for one so active as Keith.

Someone mentioned that O'Connor was a very good shot. So far as I know, Keith was just about the only gun writer who ever shot in the national matches at Camp Perry. He was a good shot. George Nonte shot there too, but he was not a very good shot.

Someone really ought to write a book about Keith, O'Connor, Weatherby, and how our views of rifles and cartridges got that way.

I also remember the 1960-1961 Weatherby catalog, where Roy tells about the .257 Magnum and the Cape Buffalo, and recommends that anyone going for Alaska Brown Bear should use an 87 grain bullet at 3900 fps.

Give me a .300 Weatherby Mk V stocked with rosewood tip and white line spacers, some 180 grain Nosler Partitions, a time machine to take me back to 1958, and a lot of money and I'll do all the dangerous game in Africa, India, and North America to boot. And never worry about global warming, the price of gasoline, credit swap derivatives, or cholesterol. Those people were all giants.

Ken;
Thanks for your time and insight. The one man I know who knew Elmer used to play penny-ante poker with him. More of an excuse for both to talk. I got to call the guy and go see him. Has the best stories. The best gunwriter stories, most would not beleive.

It is like when the veterinarian James Herriot first brought out the book"All creatures Great And Small". Most thought it was fiction, REALLY tall tales, except for other veterinarians..........

Again, many thanks.

What a great thread. Had it not been revived I probably would have never seen it. Thanks Ken for your insight.

As a guy who loves the science and practicality sides of anything, I have a deep respect for both Keith and O'Connor. Accordingly, I have a .44 and a .270 and I use them about equally here in WI.

Either one could kill you equally dead, one like a hard swung bowling ball and one like a well placed golf ball off the tee.

I could see the loaded shotgun thing happening, I love O'Connor and understand Keiths views on big bores. My best gun loony friend is a big bore fanatic who doesnt leave home with anything short of a 44 magnum and I love small, fast, flat shooting rounds. The two of us are great friends but have many intellectually driven heated debates and the symbology of unloading a shotgun and pointing it at someone is pretty clear. An action that is merely careless or well thought out but completely left to the others perspective.

Someone posted that they never get tired of reading Keith...I am just the opposite. I read Hell I Was There, and only under the threat of death will I read it again.

I truly hated his writing and I love to read. Besides rifle hunting, bowhunting is a favorite pastime and I always wished that O'Connor had been a bowhunter, as I enjoy his writing about gun hunting so much.

In everything I've read by O'Connor, I never read that he shot deer with a .270, because he liked them to run off and suffer, as I read in a previous post.

Like always, everyone that has posted, likes either Keith or O'Connor because one or the other supports their own
prejudices, but O'Connor was simply a much better writer, whether you agreed with his conclusions or not. And he never seemed to constantly brag about himself in every story and article.

I found this a while ago on another site. The guys goes by CJ and claims to have known both O'Connor & Keith:

That does not mean that they were best buddies or that they always agreed with each other. If one had more animosity than the other it was probably Elmer for Jack dearly loved to pull his chain. And, was good at it. And, Elmer knew it. Especially when they were both attending group get together for writers at someplace like Nilo (Olin spelled backwards) Farms for a Winchester (Olin owned Winchester at that time) get together.

One year Elmer came home from one of those trips, where they did some bird hunting, as a group, and claimed: "That damn O'Connor tried to kill me." I couldn't respond but from the look on my face he followed that comment up with: "Blew my damned hat clear off my head".

Well, next time I saw Jack, about a month later, I asked him if he had tried to shoot Elmer at the Nilo Farms get together. He laughed. Deep. Long. And, loud. Finally, Jack said: "Elmer tell you that?" He knew I also visited Elmer on a regular basis and often times used me, without me knowing it, to help pull Elmer's chain. Jack was a very smart man and loved to have fun with his pals.

Anyway, it turns out, Jack was walking up on a roadway, he had been in a serious auto accident and didn't get around as well as he once did, and Elmer was walking below him in the tall brush of a ditch. A rooster flushed wild and Jack shot and killed it. The sound of the shot startled Elmer for he hadn't seen or heard the rooster flush. As he ducked, pure old time habit kicking in, his hat (he wore a huge special made Stetson) came off. That got Jack, who was above him, to laughing. That, in turn, got Elmer mad.

Jack asked me if Elmer had told me what he, Elmer, had said to him, Jack, next. He read my expression and continued, leaning forward in his living room chair, imitating Elmer's voice: "You do that again and I'll kill you." Well, Jack damn near fell out of his chair laughing at that memory. He told me that he had the same reaction when Elmer said those words to him out there at the farm and that even Elmer, he could see, was starting to smile as he picked up his hat, placed it just so on his head and walked away from him.

Here is another one from Fred Well's:
�Jack O�Connor and I never went hunting together, but I built a lot of guns for him and he and I spent a lot of time just like you and I sitting here jawing. I built him a .458 to take to Africa and he said, �Don�t you tell anybody you built me a big old .458.� Jack was quite a guy, great big booming voice and very opinionated. This was in the �50s, when Jack was both a journalist and a professor at Tucson.

�I first met Elmer Keith in Missoula, Montana in 1938. He did love the big bores, but I built him a little 35-caliber rifle he liked more than he told anybody. Elmer was always entertaining.

�I remember at one big gun show, Jack O�Connor and I were standing there when Elmer Keith came down the aisle. Jack looked up and said, �Here comes Mr. Bullshit.� He stepped out there and he hollered, �Draw!� Elmer came up and said, �You big sonofabitch, you�re gonna get somebody shot doing that someday.�

�Of course, Keith�s reputation was built on throwing cannons and O�Connor�s on stretching the .270, but their feud was really a put-up job for the press.

Lou

I am generally not somebody who likes to rep up my post count but I sure like the fact that I can drop no 500 on this one.

I just re-read the Rifle book by Cactus Jack. It sure is a great read. He really provides his rationale for the 270 Win. It was related to loads, pressure and an interest in shot effect on animals. He actually liked many different larger caliber guns like the 450 Watts. He actually also shoots a 470 Nitro double and notes the great ability of the 465 no. 2.

He also really likes the 375 HH and makes an argument for it as a one rifle one world gun.

I gauge that Jack seriously felt that moderation and shooting skill needed to be developed by the general public and he conveyed this in his writing. Elmer was more of an innovator. He noted what he liked and passed it on to Remington and Winchester. Jack would take a product and send it off to somebody to fix it up so it was set just for him.

Elmer was very much influenced by his first major trip to Alaska where many bears were wounded with 06 guns with poor bullets. He kind of argued for the 33 caliber version of 06. Not really much for different in the total of things.

The article that Elmer wrote about the Big Five is one of the best that I have read on Africa. You kind of get a feeling that Elmer is loading all of his chips on this trip and spend quite some time making it memorable.

This stuff sure is fun.

Sincerely,
Thomas

Wow,this thread has been brought back from the dead.Reading a post I made 8 years ago is surreal,considering I had totally forgotten that PO Ackley was the donk who was trying to put the kybosh on Elmer at the armory back in the day.

Brian.

<br>Also, Why would anybody think that the Outdoor life
<br>position is so hot?
<br> [/quote]

In the 1960's and later OD was in every barbershop, kids got subscriptions to it at Christmas, adults same.

Outdoor Life shooting columns provided a LOT of shooting and especially actual reloading & shooting information that you could not get elsewhere.

Warren Page held a similar position at Field and Stream, Pete Brown at Sports Afield.

A lot of the shooting classics had not been written.

Guys wanting to know specifics on sighting in, varmint rifle selection, H4831
application, etc learned it from the monthly columns.

At least to me, OD held the lead position and shooting editor was a very prestigious position to have. A lot of people read and hung onto your every word.

Townsend Whelen also was pretty good both as a competitive marksman at Perry and as a writer. There exists a frequently published photo of Phil Sharpe talking with Harry Pope at Perry, but I don't know whether Phil shot in the matches there.

Jim Carmichel has shot very well at the Camp Perry matches. Neal Knox shot there also, although I don't think he did as well as Carmichel. David Tubb, who has done better at Perry than most anybody, has written a couple of books, and writes regularly for RifleShooter magazine. There are several persons who write for Precision Shooting who also regularly shoot at Perry.

--Bob

In the 1960's and later OD was in every barbershop, kids got subscriptions to it at Christmas, adults same.

Outdoor Life shooting columns provided a LOT of shooting and especially actual reloading & shooting information that you could not get elsewhere.

Warren Page held a similar position at Field and Stream, Pete Brown at Sports Afield.

A lot of the shooting classics had not been written.

Guys wanting to know specifics on sighting in, varmint rifle selection, H4831
application, etc learned it from the monthly columns.

At least to me, OD held the lead position and shooting editor was a very prestigious position to have. A lot of people read and hung onto your every word.

[/quote]

This is a good point. In the 1950's, there were really no gun magazines. I remember my first "Guns" magazine in 1956. Outdoor Life (Jack O'Connor), Field and Stream (Warren Page) and, Sports Afield (Pete???) were the principal sources of firearms information and stories.

I certainly didn't know either man, but from the age of 9 read their respective columns/articles and learned much of what I know, or think I know, from them.

I have copies of Gunnotes Volume I and II. In the back of each are letters, mostly from Jack O'Connor to/from Truman Fowler and Elmer Keith to/from Truman Fowler. A lot of rancor is exhibited in these letters between O'Connor and Keith. But only one letter is actually FROM O'Connor to Keith, and only one from Keith to O'Connor.

In O'Connor's letter to Keith, written in I believe around 1970 or 1971, O'Connor says something to the effect of "You like bigger guns than I do, but that's neither here nor there. You ought to write your life story, Elmer. You've led an interesting life and one that will never be lived by anyone again." Keith replied that O'Connor wasn't the first one to suggest that and he just might do so.

In another letter to Truman Fowler, O'Connor writes that "Keith ought to be able to help you get published; he wields enormous influence and was important in the development of the pre-64 M70, the .44 magnum, and the .338 Win." He then said that he didn't truly dislike Elmer and was rather disappointed that Elmer hated him so much.

I think that their feud may have lost some of it's vitriol as the men grew older. Then again, both may have recognized the value in their printed sparring. I wonder how many times one or the other used the battle to help get an article flowing!

I miss them both, have many of their books, and consider each influential in teaching me about firearms.

Some more observations. Keith used guns regularly while working as a younger man. As a rancher he had the opportunity to use his guns as tools...and experience like that is rare, both back then and today. O'Connor hit the field a lot, but his use of guns was always as a sportsman, and not as an outdoor person in his everyday working life. O'Connor however, was the better wordsmith by far. He used words like an artist uses a paintbrush. Keith's style, though interesting to me, did lack the finesse of O'Connor. He told a story like he was talking to you, and it worked well for him. But that's the difference between a a man who spent his formative years as a cowboy in Montana and one who spend them in college earning an English degree, albeit hunting whenever possible.