Jack O’Connor and Elmer Keith .... by Craig Boddington

[Hammerhead]

Jack O’Connor and Elmer Keith
by Craig Boddington •

Back in the 1970s we were fortunate to have two of our sport’s all-time superstars working for the old Petersen Publishing Company: Elmer Keith and Jack O’Connor. Keith wrote for Guns & Ammo for many years, while O’Connor wrote for the fledgling Petersen’s Hunting during the last few years of his life. RifleShooter didn’t exist back then, and I don’t know how it would have worked if we’d tried to package both of these strong-willed guys in the same magazine. It actually happened only once in the Petersen era: The inaugural issue of Petersen’s Hunting, November 1973, had a story by each—but it never happened again.

Their war of words last for decades. It wasn’t altogether for show. Correspondence I have from Keith, after Jack’s passing, suggests that he truly hated the ground O’Connor walked on. I didn’t know O’Connor nearly as well, but my impression is he was mildly amused by Keith’s rancor and occasionally stirred things up on purpose.

As we know, Keith was a large caliber/heavy bullet guy. Like the good gun writer he was, he used lots of different rifles and cartridges, but his signature became the .33 caliber with heavy-for-caliber bullets; his preference started at 250 grains and went on up. O’Connor also used more rifles and cartridges than he is given credit for, but his baby was the .270 Winchester, and he generally used plain old 130-grain bullets.

Although Keith was a bit older, the two men were essentially of the same generation, but they came into the gun writing game from different directions, with different experience. In the ‘teens Keith packed and guided in his native Idaho, and he recounted a lot of failures on elk from the early softpoints of the day. As a young man he returned to the large-caliber blackpowder single shot cartridges of the previous generation, and for the rest of his life he remained a strong proponent of frontal area and sectional density.

O’Connor’s early hunting experience was on mule deer and Coues deer in his native Arizona. He didn’t hunt elk until Arizona held their first modern season in the mid-1930s. By then expanding bullets were a bit better.

Despite the animosity, the two weren’t really all that far apart. Elmer’s .33 is a wonderful tool for elk, but thousands upon thousands of hunters, me included (grudgingly), have found Jack’s .270 perfectly adequate, given only good shot placement with a decent bullet.

Keith is also known for his elephant hunting with his .500 Boswell and .476 Westley-Richards. But when O’Connor hunted really big game he left the .270 behind. He used the .375 H&H a great deal, including on tiger, lion and brown bear—perfect game for the caliber. For African thick-skinned game, he used not only the .375 but also the .416 Rigby and wildcat .450 Watts (forerunner to the .458 Lott). These are not the tools of a smallbore man.

In private correspondence, though never in print, they even crossed over. In a letter I’ve seen, Keith grudgingly admitted that the .270, matched with a 150-grain Nosler Partition (the premium bullet of his day) would be perfectly adequate for elk. O’Connor, on his part, conceded that the .30-06 was actually more versatile than his beloved .270.

So, 30 years after Elmer’s death, a bit more after Jack’s, what would they think of the status of our hunting rifle world? Elmer, of course, would be delighted with the continued and seemingly escalating success of the .338 Winchester Magnum. He might even have liked the .338 Federal and .338 Marlin Express.

O’Connor would be equally happy to know that “his” .270 Winchester remains a popular, world-class cartridge. And I think he’d have given the clearly faster and more capable .270 WSM a fair shake, especially with modern bullets that he never saw. I tend to think both of them would scoff at the bewildering plethora of brave new cartridges that have come along in recent years. However, they were both serious gun writers. They would have given most of them a try, if not a fair shake, and they would have told us what they thought.

I’m uncertain what they might have thought of the amazing popularity of the AR-15. Neither saw active service in either world war, but both had military training and experience in service rifle competition. As with my own generation, I’m sure they were horrified by the switch from a “real rifle,” the M14, to the flimsy, pipsqueak M16.

On the other hand, neither had the opportunity to see what that initial platform, with many flaws, developed into. Provided they weren’t throwing stones at each other, both were fair men who knew guns, and it was their job to experiment and evaluate. I think both of them would appreciate the accurate, versatile platform the modern AR has morphed into.

Neither man lived to see the perfection of the variable-power scope. Although both proved themselves capable at long-range shooting when necessary, I think they would be horrified at the purposeful long-range shooting at game touted today.

I tend to think they would have embraced the medium-range variable (3-9X, 3.5-10X, etc.) as wonderful and versatile tools, but I think both would have regarded the very powerful riflescopes so frequently seen today in big game hunting best relegated to varminting—if not purely the work of Satan.

I think both of them, were they with us today, would have agreed that, for big game hunting, the most significant advance has been not in cartridges, scopes or actions but in bullets. If you read their writing carefully, both men had problems with the bullets of their day, as did all other hunters in their day. Both men used the pioneer bonded-core bullet, Bill Steiger’s Bitterroot Bullet, and raved about it. But those bullets were made one at a time. Supply was a horrible challenge, and even Keith and O’Connor couldn’t always get them when they needed them.

Neither lived to see what bonded-core technology has done for “conventional” lead-core bullets, nor the homogenous-alloy expanding bullet. Here I think their opinions might have diverged.

Keith was a heavy-bullet-for-caliber guy, worshipping the shrine of sectional density primarily because bullet weight compensates for deficiencies in bullet design. He wanted penetration. He would love today’s small-opening, deep-penetrating bullets, typified by Barnes’ X-Bullet series. He would love equally the Swift A-Frame. He was hardly unaware of the value of aerodynamics, so, with the right bullet (which we have today) he might well have, grudgingly, recommended dropping down in bullet weight to gain more velocity and flatter trajectory.

O’Connor liked bullet expansion. Sheep and deer were his favorite game, and among his favorite bullets was the quick-opening Remington Bronze Point. For lighter game, I think he would have embraced tipped, lead-core bullet like the AccuPoint and SST. For larger game, he might have shifted toward tipped, bonded-core bullets like AccuBond and Scirocco…and, ultimately, to the A-Frame, GMX and TSX. Bullets such as these would have extended the capabilities of his .270 Winchester far beyond what he saw in his day, and, although we’ll never know, I think this would have pleased him.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2012 issue of RifleShooter magazine.

[timmy]

I've read some of the articles written by both of these two writers. I personally knew a fellow who had had interactions with Keith. Also, I have a 270 and am quite a fan of it, both the cartridge and the gun (Ruger #1). Here are my impressions:

Keith was sort of a loudmouthed guy, a short guy who maybe had a bit of a Napoleon complex. However, it seems to me that, when Keith said he did something, he did do it, and he had many many experiences with guns in a wide range of settings. He was a real Westerner who really was there and did many amazing things. So I can get by the brash talk and his "large bullets only" and "revolvers only" attitudes and learn something.

O'Connor was, as best as I can tell, an arrogant narrow man who had a love for the bottle. I'll never forget the time I read O'Connor downing Philip Sharpe, another writer/handloader/designer who, in my estimation had been there and done that. The more I read about O'Connor, the more I dislike him. O'Connor was a magazine writer, like Keith, but unlike Keith, he did not have the "working man's" experiences that Keith did, nor did he develop cartridges like Keith did, nor did he lend a hand in the design of the classic Winchester Model 70 bolt action rifle, like Keith did, etc, etc, etc.

As some say, there's talkers, and there's doers. Now, O'Connor certainly did hunt, but Keith's experiences qualify him as an expert on many things, where O'Connor's opinions are based on his own much more narrow experiences.

However, I'll also mention that these magazine writers are always ready to exalt their own kind, regardless of whether the truth justifies their admiration. After all, it is not good business for them to denigrate their own kind. These sorts of articles tend to be like the movie awards, where everyone is breaking their arms beating themselves and others on the back. (However, I will note that this line of thinking doesn't say much for O'Connor, either.)

[shooter]

Thanks for the article. I'm afraid I dont know about the two gents but going through the posts, I'm sure it would have been interesting to read the war of words between them. Lot of writers have rivals and at times this rivalry brings out the best in men ; at other makes them ungentlemanly.

I only know Craig Boddington but I admit, the first time I heard of him was as Brittany's father. (after the unfortunate african incidence). Since then I have followed his work on the internet.

[Vikram]

Thanks for the read,Hammerhead, and for your views,Tim.

I did read about the so called 'feud' between these two stalwarts.

Best-
Vikram

[Hammerhead]

You are right timmy ........

http://www.chuckhawks.com/column12_jack_o_connor.htm

Jack O'Connor and the Cult of High Velocity
By Chuck Hawks

The late Jack O'Connor, the Dean of American Gun Writers, seems to be have become stereotyped as the historical proponent of small bore, high velocity rifle cartridges. There is no question that O'Connor wrote extensively about such cartridges; in fact, he wrote about virtually all of the popular rifle cartridges of his day.

However, what many commentators today seem to have forgotten is that Jack O'Connor killed many large and dangerous game animals, including all of the African Big 5, as well as the heavy and dangerous game of India and North America. He used and wrote very highly of the .375 H&H, .416 Rigby and .450 Watts (equivalent of the .458 Lott), among others, for such use. O'Connor was, in fact, almost single-handedly responsible for the popularity of the .416 Rigby and subsequent .416 caliber cartridges in North America.

What differentiated Jack O'Connor from Elmer Keith (aside from the fact that Jack was a literate guy and a fine writer) was that he had enough sense to employ such cannons when required, and used more sensible cartridges such as the .257 Roberts, .270 Winchester, 7x57 and .30-06 for thin-skinned non-dangerous game.

Writers today usually summarize Jack O'Connor as the small bore, high velocity proponent so that they can contrast his accomplishments with Elmer Keith (the big bullet for everything guy). But in reality it just ain't so.

I've read just about everything Jack O'Connor ever wrote and talked to the man. The reality is that he advocated bullet placement first and then choosing a rifle/cartridge that allowed the hunter to place his bullet precisely. Most of the time, for most shooters and most game, that is one of the smaller (.24 to .30) calibers, due to less recoil and muzzle blast. However, for big and dangerous game, he used and recommended rifles and cartridges designed for the purpose.

O'Connor was never a high velocity "true believer" like Roy Weatherby, who went to Africa and knocked off a Cape buffalo with a .257 Wby. Magnum to prove that it could be done. Nor was he particularly a fan of "Magnum" cartridges, although he owned and used some magnum rifles. Jack always recommended appropriate calibers for the job at hand.

He preferred reasonably flat-shooting cartridges, because he hunted a great deal in open country and found that they made accurate bullet placement easier. He did not advocate velocity as the key to killing power. He advocated bullet placement as the key to killing power.

Lastly, the much ballyhooed Elmer Keith vs. Jack O'Connor debate in print was actually pretty one sided: mostly Elmer attacking Jack. Jack seemed to stick in Elmer's craw. For whatever reason, Elmer disliked O'Connor and it was often apparent in his articles.

I have always suspected that envy of a superior writer was at the root of Elmer's antipathy. It is not too well known, but Keith's manuscripts were crude in the extreme. The finished product that appeared in magazines and books was largely the work of his editors. Jack O'Connor, on the other hand, was a former college English professor and a polished writer. He was also more highly paid than Elmer Keith.

For his part, Jack largely ignored Elmer. He tried hard to report accurately, factually, and not to ride hobbies. He wrote the truth as he saw it, based on his vast experience and considerable research, and let the chips fall where they may. As far as I know, O'Connor never publicly expressed a personal opinion about Elmer Keith and he never semed very interested in Elmer's opinions or articles. In reality, I doubt that he thought much about Elmer one way or the other.