Mr. Jack

X-fan said:
I believe it was the lack of reliable bullet performance and meat destruction that turned him off of the 300's.

I believe "California" Roy Weatherby himself turned OConner off of the 300Wby. :D
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He did the same for me, the only stocks that were uglier where from Winslow. I'm embarrassed to admit that there were a couple of Weatherby stocks I liked the look of.

I wonder if the .270 would still be O'Conner's darling if he was around today. Even Elmer pointed to the limitations of the bullets available at that time as reason enough to go big or stay home. With today's mono-metal and bonded core bullets, high velocity has made big game cartridges out of what where previously considered mouse guns. And Jack was definitely of the high velocity school.
 
Boomer said:
I wonder if the .270 would still be O'Conner's darling if he was around today. Even Elmer pointed to the limitations of the bullets available at that time as reason enough to go big or stay home. With today's mono-metal and bonded core bullets, high velocity has made big game cartridges out of what where previously considered mouse guns. And Jack was definitely of the high velocity school.
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He told my father many years ago that he prefered the '06 to the 270.
Dad suspected that it may have been "company pressure" that made O'Connor champion the 270 like he did.
My father knew most the the gunscribes of the day, being in the business that he was, and figured that Francis Sell was likely the best "practical" deer hunter that he ever met, he was a good friend of Mr.Keith's and explained to me that his lack of vertical was the reason he could absorb all that recoil from those big guns!

As an aside, I always thought that Jack O'Connor looked very gaunt and sickly in the last ten or fifteen years of his life, but I never asked dad about it.

Cat
 
X-fan said:
I believe it was the lack of reliable bullet performance and meat destruction that turned him off of the 300's.

I believe "California" Roy Weatherby himself turned OConner off of the 300Wby. :D
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Jack was fond of the classic look in American sporting rifles and considered Roy Weatherby to be the dean of the " California Cathouse ", as he called it, school of stock design.
 
I've read many books/articles by O'Connor, Keith, and Sell. Personally I'd rather have hunted with Sell, Hagel, or Keith. O'Connor always came off as arrogant and above everyone else. He was a fine writer though.
One other writer I really enjoyed, though he did not write technical style articles, was Charlie Waterman. That man could describe the hunt and overall experience very well and his influence helped me a great deal in my early years!
 
A friend who worked in sales for Winchester used to attend a lot of the gunwriters seminars/hunts and had quite a few stories about the various personalities. Seems that the late Warren Page (Field and Stream I recall) was very fond of raw onions and consequently suffered from "windy britches" a lot of the time. No surprise as a lot of these guys were/are full of hot air.

I used to enjoy reading Jack O'Conner,Elmer Keith and their contemporaries,but have'nt bought a hunting magazine for years. Just to many re-heated beans (more hot air)and too much blatant pimping for the latest offerings from the gun makers.
 
Boomer, some of the early made bullets were much better than you may think. In a 1950 OUtdoor Life, Jack O wrote about the 270, on occassion of its 25th anniversary since being brought out. Here is what he wrote about the 130 grain bullet Winchester developed, to go with the rifle.
OC2-1.jpg
 
Goes to prove that some products are ahead of their time. In my experience the Silvertip was a bit of a dud, and certainly not the bullet that the Remington Corelokt was. Few cartridges in those days had the velocity of a 130 gr .270 so there was not a great demand for an expensive bullet when a cheap bullet did just as well. Maybe today's expensive bullets arrived at a time when hunters have become knowledgeable enough to accept that they need to spend a little extra money to get a bullet that will produce reliable terminal performance at high velocity.
 
beretta boy said:
... Both Elmer Keith & Francis E. Sell were his regular "opponents" in print ... it's lots of fun re-reading the potshots they took at each other in their respective magazine columns and writings.
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The controversy sold a lot of magazines and books for O'Connor and Keith, and enhanced their reputations. Best thing they ever did, career-wise, was to have those disagreements. But it makes one wonder how much of it was pure bluster aimed at selling more print.

They were both very advanced hunters and shooters. There is a lot to be learned from their books, as long as you take some of the controversy with a grain of salt.
 
jethunter said:
The controversy sold a lot of magazines and books for O'Connor and Keith, and enhanced their reputations. Best thing they ever did, career-wise, was to have those disagreements. But it makes one wonder how much of it was pure bluster aimed at selling more print.

They were both very advanced hunters and shooters. There is a lot to be learned from their books, as long as you take some of the controversy with a grain of salt.
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I don't know, I think many readers found it to be mean spirited compared to the good natured teasing that went on in print between Skeeter Skelton and Bill Jordan. I liked O'Connor, but it bugged me when he said that Townsend Whelen lacked experience in the field, and that he (O'Conner) was the only scribe whose observations could be trusted. The published letters between O'Conner and John Jobson where good reading as well.
 
Boomer said:
I don't know, I think many readers found it to be mean spirited compared to the good natured teasing that went on in print between Skeeter Skelton and Bill Jordan. I liked O'Connor, but it bugged me when he said that Townsend Whelen lacked experience in the field, and that he (O'Conner) was the only scribe whose observations could be trusted. The published letters between O'Conner and John Jobson where good reading as well.
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I haven't read much of O'Conner yet but of Mr. Whelen I have a small booklet he wrote an article in for the Western Cart. Co. 1932 IIRC. Complete with pictures from one of his trips through Canada for moose and goats and such I found it an interesting read for certain.
To say you are the only scribe to be trusted is pretty bold for sure.
 
Huntin' Gun said:
I've heard some anecdotal stories that Jack held the .280 Rem in high regard.
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Yet I have heard/read/interpreted that when Jim Carmichael took over as shooting editor of Outdoor Life, we wanted to distance himself from Mr. O'Connor and Jim took up the cause of the 280 and slagged the 270?:confused:

Either way, growing up and reading Jack made me believe as a teenager that a Pre-64 Model 70 in 270 was the bolt of lightening from the Gods and any other gun or caliber was merely a rifle. It caused my lifelong love of the caliber and my interest and collection of Pre-64 Model 70's.

All hail Jack!:dancingbanana:
 
Yet I have heard/read/interpreted that when Jim Carmichael took over as shooting editor of Outdoor Life, we wanted to distance himself from Mr. O'Connor and Jim took up the cause of the 280 and slagged the 270?

Joe, I think you are right. I have Jim's book, "The Book of the Rifle," and it has been a long time since I read it all, but as I remember that is what I figured out.
I also figured out that because Jim Carmichael was so much in the shadow of Jack O'Connor, that Jim was never fully appreciated for what he was. There is more actual rifle savy in that book, than any other I know of, including anything by Jack or Elmer Keith.
Jack O left Outdoor Life just as the golden age of shooting was on the way out. Even so, Outdoor Life went so downhill with Jack's leaving, that for as long as two years after he left, they had him putting in the odd feature story in the magazine, to try and bring the readership back.
Imagine how Jim Carmichael felt!
 
The 2nd edition of The Hunters Shooting Guide is probably the most complete book of O'Conners favorite calibers and recommendations on the spec's of a fine hunting rifle. I got my copy from the father of a girl I once dated. I returned her but kept the book.:D
 
Mike Webb said:
Jack was fond of the classic look in American sporting rifles and considered Roy Weatherby to be the dean of the " California Cathouse ", as he called it, school of stock design.
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On this point, O'Connor was abundantly correct.

I personally love reading O'Connor, and Keith as well. Jack is certainly the more literate and polished writer, but the way Elmer could tell a story is still rarely paralleled by today's writers.
 
I've heard some anecdotal stories that Jack held the .280 Rem in high regard.

Even the great Jack O'Connor admitted the 280 Remington was a better cartrige then the 270 win. His favorate rifle caliber was the 30-06--acording to the book I read.

He also stated: we shot a grizz with a 22-250 and when the bullet hit the shoulder blad the bullet exploded- conclution 22-250 is to small for grizz. We shot the grizz a second time and the bullet sliped between the ribs and toke out the heart, the grizz droped in its tracks- conclution 22-250 is big enough for grizz
 
Lots of good reading in & within. I'm sure Jack shilled the .270 just like Elmer did his favourite .333 OKH and 44 Rem Mag and Francis his beloved AyA No. 2, 20 gauges. Col. Askins did the same for the 30-06 and Whelen ... what else ? Carmichael & Page seemed to prefer the wildcats, especially those of their own design ... go figure !

Of the "practical" deer hunters, my vote would go to either Archibald Rutledge or Larry Koller. For a hunting companion, it would have to be either Gordon McQuarrie or Gene Hill ( or even both !)

It doesn't take a lot of reading to determine that Elmer and
Francis could be just as mean-spirited and vitriolic as Jack.

Jack suffered a pretty major car accident that left him in tough shape in his later years. He was always a tall, somewhat gangly
and thin character.

They're all good writers, with a wealth of experiance most of us only wish we could have. Enjoy them for what they are, and remember, all of them at some time or another really need be taken with a grain ...or bucketful, of salt !
 
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beretta boy said:
Carmichael & Page seemed to prefer the wildcats, especially those of their own design ... go figure !
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Yet Carmichael wrote, on more than one occasion, that his favorite big game rifles were chambered respectively in the 7X57, .280 Rem. and the .338 Win Mag. I'm quite certain he had nothing to do with the design of any of them.
 
beretta boy said:
Lots of good reading in & within. I'm sure Jack shilled the .270 just like Elmer did his favourite .333 OKH and 44 Rem Mag and Francis his beloved AyA No. 2, 20 gauges. Col. Askins did the same for the 30-06 and Whelen ... what else ? Carmichael & Page seemed to prefer the wildcats, especially those of their own design ... go figure !

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However, Warren page was in part or wholly responsible for bring the .243, 6mm Remington, 7mm Remington magnum, and a few other cartridges out of the wildcat realm and into the factory mainstream.
The other guy SAYS he designed the 260 Remington, AND the 6.5WSM, and hung his "cat name trademark" on them.
the 6.5 WSM had reamers available for it off the shelf long before he messed with it., as did the 6.5/308.
I put him in the same category as the other idjit who sued Winchester because he figired he designed the WSM line, which he did not IMO, but that is just me.

Page, O'Connor, Keith, Sell ,etc were all good men, many of the later ones these days are not....
Cat
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No argument, all these gents had much to add to the industry and their body of work is very worthwhile... just saying many had their own agendas and preferences. Warren & Jim were just as rabid with some of their prefernces and foibils as Jack & Elmer were with theirs. Francis went on ad-nauseum about the 3" - 20 gauge handloads he developed and how well his AyA's would pattern. All's good ... just whatever you enjoy reading and what you're entertained by. THere are those who dismiss Chuck Hawks at the drop of the hat, just as those that pan Craig Boddington - but both have a ton of practical experiance ... whether you "buy" what they're "selling" is another issue altogether !
 
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