As I mentioned in the O'Connor 7x57 article thread, it also appeared in his 1970 The Hunting Rifle, along with a bunch of his other of his classic articles. A pile of the books were printed over the years, including a paperback edition, and you can find them on-line for as little as $20 or so.

Another book I can recommend is the one by the professional hunter pictured in the 7x57 article, Harry Manners, titled Kambaku. Manners started out as an ivory and meat hunter in the 1930s (not always legally), eventually becoming a legal PH after WWII, when among many others he guided the O'Connors. One very interesting thing about Manners is he used the same 1930s Model 70 Winchester .375 H&H for almost all his hunting, using the factory open sights and Winchester factory "solid" ammo. His book is not as "affordable" as The Hunting Rifle, but well worth it to anybody interested in African hunting.

I got my copy of The Hunting Rifle as a birthday gift in either 1970 or 1971. It had a lot of influence on me and was likely the catalyst for my interest in rifles much more than for handguns or shotguns. Of course, growing up in a house with over 1,000 rifles scattered about might have also had something to do with it.

Local library has a copy of The Hunting Rifle. I’ve read it several times now. Good stuff.

I also got a copy of "The Hunting Rifle" in the early 70's.
It's a bit dog eared these days as it's been read and reread many times.

Worked at the Popular Science Publishing Co. Warehouse in the early 1970’s, we shipped out The Hunting Rifle and many, many thousands of other JOC books to Outdoor Life Book Club members

Wow! That is a lot of rifles!

IIRC, I bought my paperback copy in a bookstore in Juneau in 1977 during a stopover of the Alaska Ferry. Read it so many times that it finally had to be taped together to get to keep from falling apart. Well, it did finally go to tatters and within the last year I’ve purchased a used, in great condition, hardback on eBay.

In my mind, Jack’s, I would term practical, approach to firearms and ballistics had a great appeal to me. The Hunting Rifle was packed with what seemed to me to be down to earth, useful information.

I don’t know what it is about JOC, but his writing really appealed to me (as it clearly did for thousands of others of my generation) and I think I’ve acquired nearly all the major works that came from his mind and typewriter. Oddly enough, a non-firearms book, Horse and Buggy West has become a real favorite.

Not as technically oriented as gun literature today, but my oh my, that guy could spin a yarn. I don’t know of any outdoor writer who could paint a scene and make you see that scene like you were there with him as O’Connor. A marvelous story teller.

I’ve chased PA and NY bucks with a 270 for the last 47 years

I learned of his new book and pre-ordered a copy so I have a first edition. It sits by my bedside. I visited him and forgot the book. I wanted him to sign it. Dang.

Still the best advice for a hunter regarding rifles and cartridges.

I joined the Outdoor Life book of the month club, and JOC's The Hunting Rifle was the first book I got. Read it several times.

He proved how petty he could be in the "Choose your expert" chapter. Even slandered Fred Bear and of course he took cheapshots at Uncle Elmer

My Father liked pre-'64 Winchester 70s, pre-WW1 Savage 1899s, o/u shotguns, and European combination guns.

You might also really like The Last Book, Confessions of a Gun Editor, published after he passed away--because that's the way he wanted it. It's the story of his life in the gun-writing business--with nothing held back....

Well, he did write somewhere that gun writers could give female opera singers a run for their money when it came to being self-important prima-donnas.

Yep, you get glimpses, sometimes more than glimpses, of an abrasive personality in his writings. Certainly, men who knew him well in his lifetime alluded to this also.

In my mind, you just have to let that pass. And, if you can, just enjoy his craft for what it is and not get distracted by the possible quirks of his personality. Same thing applies even more to the music industry. Some of my very favorite artists are people I KNOW I wouldn’t want to sit down and have a beer with. I can still enjoy their music though. I will have been alive on this planet eighty years in a few days. Haven’t met any angels yet in those eighty years.

On a very late side note, this thread has prompted me to contemplate just how very lucky I have been in my lifetime to have partaken of, and enjoyed the writings of both O’Connor AND Barsness. Started with one great at his craft and ending with another equally as good. Different eras, different approaches, but each in their own way just darn good in their chosen field. Good fortune, indeed!

Always loved Jack's writing. First thing I read as a kid when Outdoor Life arrived at the house. Guess I'll have to haul That bok out again. It's been a few years.

Well said, M721. We have the same taste in gun writing. And, a bunch of wisdom packed into that post.

At least Jack wasn't constantly complaining that people had stolen his ideas and cheated him out of fortune and fame as Ole Elmer did.

This has been the thing that I never liked about Keith's books. In every instance every bad thing that occurred was someone else's fault.

As mentioned above - if you can get your hands on a copy of The Last Book it is an interesting read.

drover

JOC was a gifted and excellent writer. A master story teller who could paint a word picture that placed the reader on site with him. He was a very good rifle shot and a much better than average hunter.

As in the case of many self-made successful men who had a tough start in life he was acerbic and suffered fools poorly. Not uncommon among intelligent people when engaged in conflict in their area of expertise.

Elmer Keith was clearly knowledgeable in the practical use of guns - especially revolvers - as tools in the traditional frontier life he led. His ability to write clearly and create imagery was not his gift. Not being a particularly good writer doesn’t negate his personal experience with revolvers. I never thought his opinions about rifles denoted technical expertise because he seemed to value his personal experience to such a great degree that he engaged in significant confirmatory bias.

Whether the Keith-O’Connor feud was as personally intense as portrayed I can’t say as I didn’t know either man personally but it was clearly based on very different philosophies about rifles and approach to their use in hunting. Their conflict was clearly advantageous to both in promoting their public personas and writing careers so they fueled it.

I have always thought JOC brought a more reasoned, logically persuasive and modern approach to the positions he espoused about rifles and cartridge selection for hunting. His strength was the ability to present otherwise dry technical content in a style which engaged average rifle hunters and shooters.

I have read his books since I was quite young and learned quite a bit from JOC which has proven useful and shaping my initial opinions and biases about rifles and cartridges. He was a memorable writer and imperfect as are we all.

I never noticed him mentioning about Fred Bear in that chapter, and just read it again twice. Could you point me where he did?

I also have owned a copy of Elmer's book Safari, about the first of his two safaris, and agree with O'Connor on all points. Elmer brought as his "light" rifle a .333 OKH with handloaded Kynoch 300-grain solids and "softs", which he'd apparently never used before on anything, whether game or some sort of test media. Among other failures the softs blew up so badly that one failed to exit a Thompson's gazelle about the size of a coyote, so Elmer ended up using the round-nosed solids for the rest of the safari--which generally don't (and didn't then) kill plains game very well unless hit in the some part of the central nervous system. From this he concluded that "all African game is as tough as an old gum boot" and requires even bigger cartridges.

At that time (1958) the Nosler Partition had been around for a decade, and his results would have been fine with a .30-06 and 180 Partitions. I know this from killing a bunch of African plains game with that combination. But whatever....

Exactly, Elmer was full of it on some things. Just like when he claimed that a 7X57 wasn't adequate for muke deer.

As you know when you're not being facetious, he didn't mention anybody by name in his hit piece chapter. But there was only one nationally prominent bow hunter in the 1960's that people really knew. And when we had a thread here on this subject some years back BobinNH said it was definitely Fred Bear. And you didn't argue with him

I have a copy of the The Hunting Rifle book. I have read book that many times and the chapters on the 3006 and 7x57 are my favorites.

Yes, I know O'Connor never mentioned anybody's in "Picking Your Expert." I just reread it again the third time in two days, trying to find the reference to a "prominent bow hunter" and could not. Maybe it was in a different edition? My copy is is the second edition, printed in 1975.

After reading H&BW, I didn't get the impression that JOC had a very tough start in life. JOC portrayed his maternal Grandfather as being quite well off and that was the household that he grew up in. In order to escape Tempe's summer heat, his family spent their summers on the California coast. JOC did come from a broken home, something that he blamed on his Father, Mother, and maternal Grandmother. JOC earned both baccalaureate and masters degrees at a time when the number of college graduates was much lower than it has been since the end of WW2.

M721
I completely agree. Very few could tell a story as well as he. As far as technical information is concerned, most if not all of what he said is better than the crap being written today about the latest and greatest (and most grotesque) soldier wannbe gun. My opinion-unsolicited and completely biased- is that O'Connor was and is the best gun writer ever; JB is the only modern writer that approaches him.

Living in a tent with his sister and mother after the divorce for a year or two, while his mother tried to continue teaching school to make ends meet wasn't tough for a young kid? At that time his grandfather apparently wasn't as well off as later on....

MD, you have to forgive 260Rem. He can't even figure out where the voting booth is.

I doubt JO'C's editors had to labor very much when prepping his writings for publication. Other writings of that time period leave me with the sense that editors labored hard to translate the raw material that they were presented with and it shows in the finished works. Keith's stories come to mind immediately as an example, but he wasn't alone in that regard.

50+ years ago I came away with that gut feeling regarding those two writers (but couldn't then verbalize it), and I still find myself judging gun writers that way, including the maunderings "published" on the internet by everyman. Good solid information often has to be choked down due to poor grammar which clouds presentation. Thanks be to the internet which enables anyone with a digital device and at least one typing finger to put ideas forth to the whole world to read - the most revolutionary communication tool since the Gutenberg press, but the most glaring spotlight on the failings of our school systems in teaching basic grammar (and failure of students to learn - it is after all a two-way street).

The published works on gunnery that we absorbed as kids were presented to us by professionals who filtered out grammatical errors and polished the syntax. Lacking that, I bet readers of Elmer Keith would've thrown their hands up in despair and quickly lost interest in the messages he conveyed. Cactus Jack's unedited stuff would've captivated us regardless of a lack of editing. Therein lies his appeal, conscious or subconscious, to those of us who thrive(d) on his writing. At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I think our own JB's writing exhibits the same traits, and I've caught glimmers of why that is from his description of his father's influence.

I've read a few comments about Jack not holding anything back in The Last Book but I honestly didn't think he got close to doing that myself. It did show he reserved some things when he was working for Outdoor Life and mentioned them in the book later but he could have told more and I'm sure there was plenty of details he did leave out. What I admire the most is that he lived, worked and hunted in what to me was the golden age of hunting and shooting. To this day if I pick up a magazine and Jack has an article in it, whether and old copy or a reprint in a new addition of some sort I read it first. And yes I have a copy of The Hunting Rifle and several others of his. I was fortunate enough as a kid to have several of Jack's books given to me.

Read somewhere I don’t recall that the banker grandfather lost just about everything in a bank panic

My father's copy of The Hunting Rifle was the first gun book I can remember reading, at about age 10 or 11. Soon after that I read dad's copy of Sixguns by Keith. I found the differences between the two men notable but enjoyed and learned from both, and it's been that way ever since. So much so that when I moved out on my own I very quickly acquired these books for myself, along with my own reloading gear. I recall fondly that by age 12 I'd decided a man must have a .270 and a .44 special or life just wouldn't be complete!

I regret that it wasn't until much later in life that I discovered Francis Sell, as his hunting and writing lines up with my own experiences and hunting style very well, and he was a good writer. It's interesting to me how these guys sniped at each other just a bit. In the portion of American Deer Hunter where Sell discusses the shooting of running game he disparages an unnamed writer who spoke of killing deer on the run at long range. He had to be referring to O'Connor. While my experience makes me agree with Sell's techniques and perspective about woods shooting, I also think old Jack knew what he was talking about given all the practical experience he had practicing on jackrabbits.

We see this sort of interaction on here all the time, playing out rapid-fire, minute by minute. Dudes argue over dumb stuff based on their specific interest or experiences convinced they're right and the other guy is wrong when really, both sides are kinda right with both parties being idiotic trying to apply their interest or experience way too broadly.

Yep, on both counts!

I enjoy reading Elmer too, one reason I have all his books. Especially enjoy Hell, I Was There!, I suspect partly because he dictated it instead of writing it, which makes it read smoother than some of his other stuff.

But I also learned to shoot running game by shooting lots of jackrabbits, after reading O'Connor, a skill that's remained with me over the years.

I voted for all of the relevant candidates on my 2020 ballot except for POTUS. i didn't feel that either candidate for POTUS was worthy of holding the office, so I voted my conscience by not voting for either of them. If DJT and JRB, Jr. are the candidates for POTUS in 2024 they will receive the same level of support from me.

I don't recall the specifics about living in a tent, but I recall that JOC had hoped to inherit a expensive English shotgun from one of the big name gun houses, maybe Purdy, from his Grandfather and that his Grandfather built a large house on an entire city block that he owned. I don't recall all of events that JOC wrote about in H&BW, just bits and pieces, but I haven't reread H&BW for several years.

Thanks for sharing these excerpts. "Santiago and the Lady," an article written by O'Connor, is some of the finest writing one will read anywhere.

Inreresting that Keith didn't use partitions more than he did. In an article in the July 1963 G & A titled "Big Game Bullets," he praises them as "some of the best bullets extant for high velocity rifles with two cavities for the core in the jacket." His criticism was the front half disintegrating as only "the solid jacketed rear half carries on through the animal." Perhaps he wanted the front half to merely mushroom a bit?

There's considerable evidence that Elmer never really "got" the Partition concept, especially in the two-volume collection of his Guns & Ammo columns. As an example, he thought the .338 Partition should have weighed 300 grains, not 250.

I have those two books and will look and see what he said. I don't think he could make himself use a bullet designed to lose the front half, even if it was engineered that way and worked well. Or, he might have thought they were too expensive. I'm occasionally guilty of false economies as are most of us, and I think Elmer's early years made him a bit frugal.

I was fortunate and was able to visit both JOC and EK in their homes.

Mr Keith was not very well schooled but his wife was a schoolteacher. He dictated and she revised most of his writings.

On the issue of conflict between the two, I had the distinct impression that they got along much better in person than they did in print. They each had a “lane” and their failure to agree actually benefited both. Rivalries create that dynamic. The endless Yankees v Red Sox rivalry benefits both.

RinB, I think you're right to a degree. The letters in the back of Gunnotes I and II, which I dug out after Mule Deer mentioned them, show that. I do think they enjoyed taking literary pot shots at each other, and vehemently disagreed on rifles for larger game. In a letter to Keith in Gunnotes I dated 1969, O'Connor wrote after reading "Safari," "you like bigger guns than I do, but that's neither here nor there. What I was thinking of is why in the hell don't you start writing your autobiography? You're a good story teller and you have had a hell of an interesting life--a kind of life that will never be seen again." Keith replied others had suggested the same thing, then noted he would be at the "NRA clambake" coming up. I think as they grew older they mellowed a bit towards each other.

I always enjoyed O’Connor’s writing. His writing was a little before my time but I have most of his books now. Elmer used to bug me for some of the reasons folks already mentioned, but I now overlook that and just enjoy the story telling side of his writing. Simply outstanding

Craig Boddington has written a few times that the feud side of things was more on Elmer’s side. Apparently, Elmer really didn’t like Jack, but Jack seemed to like to poke the bear but did not really have ill will.

I still remember when I bought one of the editions of Gun Notes at a second hand book store. It had a picture of Elmer on the cover drawing a six gun I think. The girl at the counter was like … “that guy takes himself too seriously”. I kind of feel the same thing came through more in Elmer’s writing than O’Connor’s regardless of how the men were in person

Lou

Interesting enough is that I found a copy, first edition, of O’Conners the rifle book at a local bookshop. The tag on it was $10 and I snapped it up. Now, my neighbor is a longtime Jack fan and I had another copy so I gave him the. $10 book. My gosh, you have thought I was giving him a bar to f gold. We swap books, reloading information and stories. MTG

Thanks MD for starting this thread, aside from OL when I was a kid I’ve never read JOC. About a year ago an older family friend gave my college age son several boxes of hunting/gun books that ended up being stored away. I just dug them out and sure enough “The Hunting Rifle” happened to be one of them. Started it last night, looking forward to working my way through the rest of the box.

We’ve fortunate to enjoy a few really good writers.

Elmer Keith didn’t ring the bell for me. He seemed like a grouchy old know-it-all.

Just ordered "KAMBAKU" by Harry Manners on Ebay.

He was a marketing genius...

If Lorraine "revised" (and maybe typed?) most of his writings, then she was a poor typist, and possibly poor proofreader.

Have noted before that I know several editors who worked with Elmer's copy. More than one made the comment that his manuscripts were rough--and the word "shot" (which of course appeared frequently) often used an "i" instead of the "o," which is of course a typing mistake, since they're next to each other on the standard keyboard. Perhaps she edited his dictation, and Elmer typed the manuscript.

Have letters from both Keith and O'Connor on the wall of my office. Wrote them both in the late 1970s--Keith to ask about handloads for the .338-06, and O'Connor to tell him what an influence he'd had on my writing "career" (which at that point consisted of two article sales, one on flyfishing for trout in the Wyoming winter to Sports Illustrated, and one to Gray's Sporting Journal about an elk hunt).

Both wrote back immediately. Responded to O'Connor's letter, but he passed away before it reached him.

That you never received a reply makes me sad! My claim to fame, as it were, is I'm friends with the two cowboys who drove deer past Jack O'Connor in the story about his last hunt for whitetail. He had a shot opportunity as I remember but chose not to take it. I forget the author. I've talked to them about it and they remember the hunt, but had no idea of who he was, other than he was a nice old man.

It was Jack Atcheson.

Thank you, Pathfinder. I believe he leased the hunting rights on the Gentry ranch where Mr. O'Connor made that hunt. I am pretty sure I was hunting on my folk's ranch 40 miles away that day.

Here is an interesting letter. I bought a copy of Horse and Buggy West and this was inside of it. Have no idea how it got there, but it was there.

That's pretty cool! I wonder if you have Ben East's copy of H&BW

Jon Sundra’s book ,Hell, I’m Still Here, has some interesting commentary on both men.

Thought about that, but there was nothing in the book that would indicate that. I got it off Amazon, and no telling where it came from.

Everyone knows that Jack and Elmer couldn't stand each other and wouldn't even think of hunting with each other let alone stand side by side. I've posted this picture before to prove it.

Just a FYI, Elmer actually did two autobiographies. I heard that he wasn't happy with the first (Elmer) so did Hell. Both a good read.

That first one is hard to find

Edited, I take that back. A few used copies online are available.

So, I have Hell I Was There, would Keith: An Autobiography be enough different to want to buy a copy? Interested in opinions from those who have read both.

I don't know if the bowhunter O'Connor alluded to was Fred Bear or not, or whether he talked about it in "The Hunting Rifle" (I don't have my copy handy). What I do know is that O'Connor discussed some less-than-complimentary shenanigans regarding "a famous bowhunter" in a 1975 or 1977 Gun Digest article called "Hanky Panky in the Boondocks".

While O'Connor's "The Last Book" does dish out some dirt on the gunwriting business, it is short on naming names, probably to avoid lawsuits. It's not too hard to figure out who Jack was talking about in most cases, though.

My impression of the O'Connor-Keith relationship was that it started off cordially enough (they apparently had not actually met until a Winchester promo in 1960) , but deteriorated considerably over time.

My copy of The Hunting Rifle definitely included a well known bowhunter who was shooting animals with a gun and sticking arrows in them after the fact. Fred Bear at that time was head and shoulders above any other bow hunter in popularity and if Jack didn't mean him it would've been incumbent upon Jack to come right out and say he didn't mean Fred Bear. Because that was instantly the conclusion everyone else came to. There was really only one Rockstar bowhunter in the 60's

You missed my comment on "lawsuits". And Fred wasn't the only notable bowhunter back then. The guy who did the shooting in Errol Flynn's Robin Hood movie was writing bowhunting articles 20 years before Fred Bear got started.

Howard Hill was a few decades before Fred Bear. In the decade leading up to O'Connors Hunting Rifle book there was no one in Fred Bears stratosphere

moosemike,

Do you have that copy of The Hunting Rifle still?

As I alluded to, am wondering if the comment was deleted in the second edition, which is what I have.

I wish I did. I sold it on here a few years ago

I have a copy, copyright 1970, no edition noted. Just reread "Picking Your Expert." No mention of Fred Bear or any bowhunter that I can find.

Interesting. I started a thread some years ago about the "Picking Your Expert" part of the book and asked who he was talking about. BobinNH rattled off every one even naming Fred Bear as the bowhunter in question

It sounds like some editions had the bowhunter reference and some did not.

I am guessing that the "bowhunter" comment instead appeared where Hanky Panky mentions in his post: "What I do know is that O'Connor discussed some less-than-complimentary shenanigans regarding 'a famous bowhunter' in a 1975 or 1977 Gun Digest article called "Hanky Panky in the Boondocks."

I remember that article, and have a not-quite-complete collection of Gun Digest annuals going back the first 1944 issue. Will see if I can find it.

The books (I believe there were three) Jack mentions by Ben East are very good books. East could really write and reading the ‘it happened to me’ stories in ‘Narrow Escapes’, ‘Danger!’ And ‘Survival’ were a real treat. Another writer that I respect a lot (and have mentioned in other threads) is Ted Trueblood. Both men were incredibly gifted writers that did a lot to promote the outdoors lifestyle.

"Hanky-Panky in the Boondocks" is on page 65 of the 1977 Gun Digest. The actual description of the bowhunter is: "A famous American hunter does his stuff with a bow and arrow."

If anybody's interested in the rest of the story they can probably find it on the Internet.

I think you're probably right and my memory is failing me on this one

That happens as we get older!

Now what was I looking for in this room?.....

😆

I enjoyed this Jack O book. Especially his disdain for "dinky little 6-48 screws inherited from receiver sights". He was referring to the rubbish that holds scope bases to rifles.

Tried to sell the book here on campfire, it wouldn't sell. I simply lumped it into a package deal with other reloading goodies.

Then my Elmer Keith "Hell I was There" book sold for $200.

Thanks MD, the wife has all three headed our way for my birthday next month.