Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Jack O'Connor Commemorative M70

Think I'll wait for the L.H.O commemorative 6.5MM Carcano with cheap azz $5 dollar scope.

Tasteful stickman engraved stock featuring Hawkeye chasing Oswald from the scene with his shillelagh.

I remember reading your P-I columns about a million years ago...WELCOME!

I'm with you guys on this one. JOC loved those Al Biesen stocks, it wouldn't be too much of a commemorative without some type of a duplicate of one: Add this feature and in his favorite chambering the .270 and you'd have something.

+1

For me, commemoratives are worth somewhat less than the standard versions.

I think a M70 Featherweight in .270 Win with a walnut stock IS a Jack O'Connor commemorative rifle. Sans any special logos, etc.

I need another .270 the way Custer needed more arrows. That said, a JO'C rifle may be the siren's call.

O

OK for all you Carmichael/280 mavens.....who built Carmichaels 280?

Gatewood ?

wasn't it Clayton Nelson...?

Clayton Nelson built the 280 on a pre 64 M70 action. The stock has a checkering pattern with both points and fleurs. French walnut from Tessier I believe. He started using 160 Ptn's but then went to the 140's and never looked back.

BlackBart and RinB are winners!

Clayton Nelson it was!


I have a brother in law, who has a friend, whose wife is married to an Admiral in the Navy, who knew Charlie Askins,and they both knew a janitor who worked in the same building where the editorial offices of Outdoor Life were located,and the janitor told a priest in confessional that the Clayton Nelson rifle was originally barreled for the 270 Winchester but that the Editor in Chief of Outdoor Life told Carmichael if he wanted the job, he had to have Nelson rebarrel the rifle to 280 Remington cause JOC already had the "270 thing" covered and they wanted Carmichael to have a different pet caliber that was "clearly superior",so he could con some readers into believing this and increase readership and this is how the whole thing went down........................ I swear it............!

anybody here see the Cabelas anniversary rifle offered in 270 looks nice especially if it comes in grade 5 wood as indicated by the description but not by the picture.Maybe as close as you come to an O'Connor commemorative rifle


gene

What I've always wanted; a Model 70 super grade with a gold wash filled floorplate that says Cabela's for $2199. I just can't wait.

C'mon Bob, ask us a tough one!

Didn't Carmichel and JOC and Nelson, over a healthy number of single malts at a shindig (technical term there) dream up this rifle? Since Carmichel already has a 270 and a 30-06, JOC and Nelson talked him into the 280. JOC in particular was very strong on the idea. Anybody believe this?

Rick the way I recall the conversation(as Carmichael related it) IIRC, Carmichael had already ordered the rifle from Nelson(who was not present during the conversation),but caliber had not been decided( or something like that)and Carmichael says that O'Connor suggested the 280, saying..... "it's a better cartridge"......than the 270.....

Some folks on here mistakenly quote the conversation as having taken place between Page and O'Connor;ifwe are to believe what we read, it was between carmichael and JOC, not Page.

Do I believe it? Let's just say I will afford the story the same probative value it would be given in a Courtroom.....

I'll let JOC's comments on the 280 stand on the record of what he wrote in the Rifle Book Chapter ( "270.280,and 284");and "The Neglected 280 Remington".

The 280 came out in 1956(?);he had ample chance to hunt with one.....near as I can tell from his writings, he never did.

Milliron built two for him; he never mentions hunting with either....

His last custom, a Ruger barreled action in 280,he never hunted with because he was dead before it was finished.....

Adding up all the evidence....it would be funny for a guy who took multiple grand slams of sheep,and game from The West and Canada,to Africa and Asia,with a 270,to speculate on the superiority of a cartridge he had never shot anything with....but who knows?

I think Carmichael was one of the best gunwriters of all times(one of my favorites); very knowledgeable and experienced,and he could write....(his hunting stories were fabulous).But he was also something of a lepraucon...with a dry wit...and I think he sometimes toyed with his readers(he would do an article on BG rifles calling everything under 338 caliber "cocktail-time" cartridges;then in another article talk about 7x57's and 6.5x55 knocking animals noses in the dirt.Condescending references to that peculiar "thing" called the 270 Winchester,then turn up owning pre 64 M70's so chambered). I think he liked to keep readers on their toes.

I honestly think he gravitated to the 280 because he agreed with JOC on that power niche in general purpose BG cartridges,but wanted to distinguish himself from JOC;he couldn't use the 270 because JOC had BTDT....the 280 was the obvious alternative.He did many of the same things with the 280 that JOC did with the 270.

"The Neglected 280 Remington".

Haven't seen that one........Outdoor Life?

I have to think that if he were still alive an 84L Montana would be slung over the shoulder.

I just saw this. Could do without the "Cabelas" floorplate, but otherwise a great looking rifle. Wish they would do away with the awful shnauble(spelling?) forend on the "regular" M70 FWs.

Lou

NY: Yes....got it here somewhere in a pile of old OL.Great article!

IIRC he talks about the Milliron rifles and his handloading for the cartridge,its' history, BG application, etc.But the "on game" experience is purely anecdotal.

BobinNH, I think you got it pretty close and can substantiate that fact. One of my old friends brother in law had a friend who married the daughter of the janitor and he told me about fifteen years ago that he was at a family reunion about 20 years before that and thought he heard something to that effect mentioned by a family member who had overheard it at an earlier reunion. I am getting old now and my memory ain't so good but I am pretty sure he said about the same thing.