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

One of the first books I had is the 5th edition of the Gun Digest dated 1950. In it are opposing articles by Roy Weatherby and Elmer Keith. Weatherbys is called "Killing Power" and here is the pull quote "In Africa we learned that if we used smaller caliber high velocity bullets, the animal had to be close enough so that the bullet would not lose enough velocity to keep it from disintegrating inside the animals body.....
<br>But if you can get that small caliber to disintegrate inside the animal it will kill anything on the face of the earth"'
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<br>Elmers rebutal piece is called "Pumpkin Rolling" and the pull quote is "Dangerous game is not really dangerous until it's in close proximity to the hunter, and when that is the case he doesn't need high velocity but rather a big caliber with a heavy bullet that will penetrate well and also deliver a knockdown wallop"
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<br>Weatherby has a dozen cartridges named after him and Keith has none. It's not fair.

i was just wondering whether any unfortunate hunters following roy's advice (i.e., small, high velocity calibres) met their demise in africa hunting the big-5.
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<br>this would, of course, pre-date weatherby's introduction in the late 50s/early 60s of his big-bore cartridges.

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr><p>If you got to know Elmer in person, and learned the background and details of his claims, knowledge, and opinions, you came away knowing "Here's a man with unmatched experience, knowledge, and skill with all kinds of hunting guns."<p><hr></blockquote>
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<br>I don't remember the writer, but I remember someone saying in effect "There are individuals that are better then Elmer Keith with a shotgun, rifle or pistol. No one however can use all three like he can."

More from the priest of hyper velocity, Roy Weatherby.
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<br>"I have taken the tiny 48 gr 22 caliber bullet, pushed it along at 5,000 fps, and made holes the size of a hen's egg through one-half inch of the hardest amour steel plate. Now, it is hard for me to believe that this bullet is going to break up on the surface of an animal's hide and not go in deep enough to do damage. I have shot hundreds of head of game and I have never had this experiance. I have seen hundreds of head of game shot and have never seen a bullet that disintegrated on an animal's hide."

Is there any truth in the rumor of Jack O'Conner shooting off one of his toes? If there is there has to be a story in there somewhere.

dempsey,
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<br>i posted the below note on the rifle section of shooters.com.
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<br>according to the publisher's excerpt on the book (which i am about to purchase), uncle jack did indeed shoot off one of his toes. perhaps others who have already read the book could fill in the details.
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<br>cheers,
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<br>te
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<br>SHOOTERS.COM POST
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<br>speaking of 'uncle jack', safari press has a new book out entitled 'jack o'conner, the legendary life of america's greatest gunwriter' (safari press 2002).
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<br>the limited edition is sold out, but trade copies can be purchased directly from the publisher (www.safaripress.com), or at web-tailers such as amazon.com or barnes & noble.com
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<br>cheers and good reading.
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<br>te
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Thomas
<br> Your post must have been where I read that. Hopefully someone will fill in the blanks. Who wrote the book?

dempsey,
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<br>robert m. anderson...a reputed hunter and writer...although i am not familiar with any other books by this author.
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<br>te

I noted from those days that Roy Weatherby started introducing his ammunition loaded with Nosler Partition bullets.
<br> And I do recall a comment by Elmer Keith that the .300 Magnum(s) with the NP bullet was passably adequate for elk.
<br> Both of these inicated to me these two men were open to new ideas that worked.
<br> I well remember the back and forth betwwen Jack and Elmer.
<br> Frankly, I learned alot from both. I miss them. E

Ole Roy Weatherby killed a cape buffalo with his pet 257 Magnum,and lived to tell about it.Wally Taber shot the complete Big 5 and also a very nice Bengal tiger with his 257 Magnum.
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<br>Roy was a smart bussiness man who came up with some pretty snazzy cartridges.He thought highly of Elmer,and Elmer thought highly of Roy,espicaly after Roy standardized Elmer's 334 OKH (340 Weatherby).Elmer owned several Weatherbys and shot many more,and had nothing but praise for them and their cartridges,espically the 340 and 378.
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<br>As for Elmer and Jack-I like em both,but I'll take Elmer any day of the week.After about the third reading,Jack starts getting old.I've read Hell I Was There at least 10 times through,and it just gets more entertaining every time.
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<br>My favorite story about Elmer is from a good friend of mine's father.He was passing through Salmon,Idaho,and decided to try to talk with Elmer.He pulled into a gas station and asked the grease monkey if he knew where Elmer lived.He said yes and gave him directions.
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<br>So,he goes up to Elmer's front door and knocks.Elmer opens the door and my friend says "Howdy,I'm Tom."Elmer just grinned,shook his hand and said "Well,I'm Elmer.Wanna cup of coffee?"They sat in Elmer's front room for several hours,looking over an assortment of Elmer's collection.He said the best part of the visit was when he asked if Elmer had some sort of ultra-rare variation of one of the Colt SAA's.Elmer just grinned and reached under his easy chair and pulled one out,just like that.
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<br>WB.

Bandit - Who's Wally Taber?
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<br>Thanks, sse

Wally Taber was a world famous hunter in the 50's and early '60s.He made a lot of films of his hunts,that were quite popular in theaters.Most of them have made it to video-you should be able to find them on sale on the net quite easily.
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<br>Wally killed the complete Big 5 with a 257 Weatherby.He also did the same thing with a crossbow.
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<br>WB.

I have really enjoyed this thread and in particular the quotes from Ken Howell and others.

Interesting article on Keith and O'Conner in Gray's Sporting Journal.
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<br>"O�Connor vs. Keith: And the Winner Is..."
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<br>In any argument there are two questions: Who was right? And who won?
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<br>by Terry Wieland
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<br>"THE HUNTING world�s longest-running controversy is the battle between velocity and bullet weight. On one side was Jack O�Connor, revered shooting editor of Outdoor Life and godfather of the .270 Winchester. On the other was Elmer Keith�big-game guide, writer and loud proponent of big bores and heavy bullets.
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<br>The arguments went like this:
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<br>O�Connor: �If you can place your bullet right, the 130-grain .270 is all you need on most North American big game.�
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<br>Keith: �Small bullets at high velocities wound more animals than they kill. For clean kills, you need a heavy bullet that will penetrate.�
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<br>It�s impossible to pinpoint exactly when the dispute began, but it dates at least from 1930, when Elmer Keith wrote an article for The American Rifleman. In it, he tells of a sheep hunt in the Rockies in which a hunter, Colonel Harry Snyder, shoots a bighorn ram with a 7x64 and the cartridge fails miserably.
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<br>At that time, the .270 Winchester was only five years old and there were few comparable cartridges around. One of the few was the 7x64, shooting a 139-grain bullet at 3,000 feet per second. Keith�s statements about the inadequacy of the cartridge sparked a response from O�Connor, who knew Snyder personally and asked him about the story. Snyder not only denied it but said Keith was not present when the sheep in question was killed. What�s more, he added, it was a clean, one-shot kill.
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<br>O�Connor and Keith swung into print, other writers chose sides, and soon there was a full-blown controversy over whether light bullets at high velocity were adequate for larger game. The manufacturers got involved, with Roy Weatherby the most vocal proponent of high velocity.
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<br>Most significantly, the debate flared around a thousand campfires. Friendships broke up over it, but it sold literally millions of magazines. Even after Keith and O�Connor died (in 1984 and 1978 respectively), the controversy didn�t end. And hasn�t ended yet.
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<br>A few years ago, on a trip to Zimbabwe, I sat down over a few beers with an expatriate American making his living as a professional hunter. After a couple, he fixed me sternly and demanded, �So who was right? O�Connor or Keith?� Sensing this was a test, I thought for a moment, then said, �They both were.� Ed leapt to his feet, stuck out his hand and shouted, �Right on!�
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<br>If you look at the arguments dispassionately, you quickly realize that there is really no disagreement at all�especially if you read what Keith and O�Connor actually wrote themselves rather than the writings of their legions of imitators, admirers and enemies.
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<br>In later years, Jack O�Connor was always careful to add the proviso, �If you place your shot correctly ...� He even went so far, in a couple of articles, to expound at length on the importance of placing the first shot. And, as he pointed out, a poorly placed bullet is a poorly placed bullet, regardless of caliber.
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<br>For Keith�s part, most of his examples weren�t of a 130-grain bullet that hit the heart or lungs and failed to kill (although he produced such examples in his wilder moments), but bullets that hit bone and expanded too quickly or were too far back, allowing a gut-shot animal to escape.
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<br>On the essential point, the adversaries agree: Place the bullet correctly, and a light, fast bullet will do the job. Place the bullet badly and it won�t.
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<br>Both Jack O�Connor and Elmer Keith were big-game hunters of vast experience. O�Connor, as well, was a tremendous rifle shot, especially in such practical hunting aspects as hitting a running animal at 200 yards. He grew up in Arizona in the years before the First World War, and honed his skills on running jackrabbits and coyotes. His wife, Eleanor, was also an accomplished hunter and marksman, and he often cited her as an example of what a small-bore rifle could do (Eleanor favored the 7x57) in skilled hands.
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<br>All of which proves exactly nothing. Examples abound that support both sides of the argument. In my own experience, severely limited compared to either O�Connor or Keith, I have had spectacular one-shot kills on big animals with a small, fast bullet. I have also had spectacular failures. Last year, I made a six-shot kill on a greater kudu (an African antelope about the size of an elk) with a .450 Ackley, a bona fide elephant rifle, which supports the argument that the first shot must be placed correctly regardless of caliber.
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<br>Unfortunately, bad bullet placement can be due to any number of things: poor shooting, a gust of wind, an animal taking a step just as you pull the trigger. And so Bob Hagel, another guide-turned-gun-writer, came up with this rule: �A hunter should not choose the caliber, cartridge and bullet that will kill an animal when everything is right; rather, he should choose ones that will kill the most efficiently when everything goes wrong.�
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<br>Dick Dietz, longtime public-relations guru for Remington Arms, once opined that as a man gets older he prefers �his meat rarer, his whiskey straighter, and his bullets bigger.� This isn�t because, as a man ages, he grows to enjoy getting pounded by recoil. It�s because, as we become more experienced and witness many of the things that can go wrong hunting big game, we come to realize that one way to minimize problems is to use a bigger caliber and heavier bullets. As Robert Ruark said, �Use enough gun.�
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<br>The argument may not be settled, but a few facts have been amply demonstrated.
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<br>1. Animals are killed by tissue destruction, not by so-called �hydrostatic shock.�
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<br>2. Tissue destruction is accomplished by bullet penetration.
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<br>3. Failure to penetrate is the major complaint about light bullets at high velocity, especially if they hit bone.
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<br>4. A heavy bullet penetrates better than a light bullet, but even a heavy bullet needs to be well-constructed.
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<br>One point O�Connor made repeatedly was that a hard-recoiling
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<br>ifle that causes flinching and bad shooting is more likely to result in a wounded animal than a light-recoiling .270 shot accurately and well. Obviously, if you can�t handle a .375 H&H you should go to something lighter with which you are comfortable. Just because most of us are more comfortable shooting a .22-250 than a .375 H&H, however, doesn�t mean we should hunt grizzly bears with it.
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<br>As you can see, once you go into these arguments in a little detail, so many qualifications pile up it becomes hard to see the original point�which is what made for so many great campfire debates over the years and sold so many millions of magazines.
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<br>To answer the original questions: Who was right? They both were. Who won? Neither one. Will it ever be settled for good? No. Not as long as one campfire is left burning.
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<br>In The Last Book�Confessions of a Gun Editor, Jack O�Connor looked back on his long-running battle with �the big-bore boys,� and suggested there was more to Elmer Keith�s position than met the eye. The �big- bore versus high-velocity� battle was more than just an argument over ballistics and killing power.
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<br>In the late 1930s, O�Connor succeeded Captain Charles Askins as shooting editor of Outdoor Life. Askins, father of the influential gun writer Colonel Charles Askins, wasn�t ready to retire, and Askins the Younger held it against O�Connor until the day he died. He lost no opportunity to slam O�Connor in print, and naturally he took Elmer Keith�s side in the argument.
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<br>Ironically, Jack O�Connor and Elmer Keith never met face to face until many years after the battle had begun, when they attended a writers� seminar hosted by Winchester. There, according to O�Connor, Keith told him that he should have been given the Outdoor Life job instead of O�Connor, and because of it he had been �sucking hind tit� ever since. According to O�Connor, he was then instrumental in Keith moving from Guns to Guns & Ammo, a higher-paying pulpit from which he preached his big-bore gospel for years after.
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<br>By that time, of course, the argument could not be allowed to end. Too many reputations hung on it, and it was selling too many magazines."
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He left out the part where O'Connor turned a loaded shotgun on Elmer,and then proceeded to crank the shells out of it with a smirk on his face with it still pointed at Elmer.Pretty unbeliveable,but he did it in front of a few witnesses,one of which was Tom Siatos if I remember correctly.
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<br>WB.

If that's true...it's inexcusable behavior. And even if Jack is right on the bullet debate, he then loses on all other counts in my book. Is it really true? A guy with this much gun experience?

Tenderfoot,
<br>It wasn't bad gun saftey-he did it on purpose.
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<br>Keith and witnesses went to Winchester,and in the remaining years,Jack was never invited to any more seminars held by Winchester.At least this is how Elmer told it in a letter to his good friend Truman Fowler,who was also friends with O'Connor.
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<br>WB.

I am not sure Fowler and O'Conner were actually friends. Seems to me reading the letters that O'Conner was amused by and tolerated Fowler's big bore fanatacism but they were never really on the same level that friends share.

O'Conner is pretty well known as a advocate of the .270.
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<br>But what caliber did Keith advocate or like best? Specifically, what did he think of the .30-06?
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<br> Leo

Elmer had some bad luck with the '06 and early bullets. His response was to go up to the 333 and 338 caliber.
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<br>He developed three wildcats,
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<br>I think the order is the 333 OKH which is pretty much a 338-06. Next he tried the 375H&H necked down and came up with the 334 OKH (340 Weatherby) Lastly, I think was the 333 Belted OKH which was legalized by Winchester as the 338 Win Mag. After the 338 size bullets became available, he switched over to it and never looked back.
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<br>He routinely hunted pronghorn with his 338s and considered anything smaller a varmint gun.
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<br>FWIW, his favorite bullet weight for pretty well any of the 338s was the 275 grain bullets from Speer or Barnes.
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<br>Joe