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Bob Milek. Larry "Peace is that brief glorious moment in history, when everybody stands around reloading" -- Thomas Jefferson | |||
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Living: Barsness, John Boddington, Craig Seyfried, Ross Waters, Ken Wieland, Terry Dead: Hatcher, Julian Mann, Franklin Sharpe, Phil - probably the best of the old school gun writers Taylor, John Whelen, Townsend NRA Life Member DRSS-Claflin Chapter Mannlicher Collectors Assn KCCA IAA | |||
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Living: Barsness, John Boddingron, Craig Seyfried, Ross Waters, Ken Wieland, Terry Dead: Hatcher, Julian Mann, Franklin Sharpe, Phillip-Probably the best of the old school writers Taylor, John Whelen, Townsend NRA Life Member DRSS-Claflin Chapter Mannlicher Collectors Assn KCCA IAA | |||
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Agree with you. Wayne van Zwol is quite a good writer. | |||
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Seyfried, Barnsness, Taffin, Keith, Whelen, Taylor, Shoemaker and Pearce in no particular order. "...I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprize, and independance to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks." Thomas Jefferson | |||
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John Barsness, hands down! There are a lot of very knowledgeable gun writers out there, but most of them seem to just stand on the shoulders of those who came before and regurgitate the same old information, true or not, about guns, hunting, handloading, etc. Then there are the wealthy world traveling jet set type fellows who have shot a million animals around the world. I find they often exude arrogance and show condescension for such wonderful things as the "common mans" 30-06 (i.e. Writing an article entirely about how bad the 458 Win is and then being offended when another very experienced hunter writes a piece in rebuttal.) I think these guys often get famous because their pocket book allows them to hunt more and in more exotic places than others. In the early 90's, I read a couple of pieces by John Barsness about the Bob and the 7x57 in "Hunting Horizons" magazine. Ever since then, I've been a Barsness devotee. John seems to be a thinker and a "doer", rather than just a regurgitater. His seemingly vast experience as a hunter, hunting guide, reloader, gun and scope tester/tinkerer, has gained him tremendous practical insights into the stuff we all love. No one else seems quite as good at reading between the lines on a given subject he expounds upon. I also love the fact that he doesn't seem to take himself to seriously. Just a straight forward regular dude who likes the stuff we like and made a career out of writing about it. (Yes, I'm a pathetic, shameless, and unapologetic Barsness sycophant) Honourable Mentions: While I always really, really, like Phil Shoemaker's tomes, he doesn't publish enough articles (dadgummit!). It's guys like Phil that have the most no-B.S. pracical knowledge to impart, but lack the time (and perhaps the motivation) to devote to full time gun writing. Finn Aagard is another great one, and "Aagards Africa" is truly wonderful. I wish Harry Selby would write a book like that before he passes. Matt Matt FISH!! Heed the words of Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984: "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right." | |||
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there a lot of names suggested that have very little recognition in terms of circulation. That could be due to the decline in print media sales. | |||
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Off the top of my head: John Barsness Gary Sitton Gregor Woods Don Heath Brian Marsh John Wootters Mike Venturino Harald Wolf Steven Dodd Hughes Ross Seyfried Paul Matthews | |||
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In tribute to him, or to capitalise on brand recognition?... | |||
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Best or Favorite? There is a difference. As this is all opinion here's mine. Over the history of firearms the two best I've read, having no comparison at their time, are W.W. Greener and Phil Sharpe. Once one crosses the divide from best to favorite I don't believe I can choose just one. It depends on the subject at hand. For old and very interesting stuff Sherman Bell and Ross Seyfried are going to be hard to beat. Muzzleloaders, Walter Cline and Ned Roberts still stand above nearly all others. BPC, Paul Matthews and Mike Venturino. Handguns, Skelton, Keith and Jordan, the double stack 9 guys bore me to distraction and upset my digestion. Modern smokeless rifles and hunting...my goodness...that list could be endless as so many have been so good. O'Conner & Keith have both been mentioned and each had their proponents and opponents. Both were right and good a lot of times...perhaps most. I always considered Elmer Keith as barbed wire, rough horses, big guns and good whiskey. O'Conner as fine brandy or cognac, overstuffed leather chairs in a library filled with leather bound books and pipe smoke. Those two would probably be my favorites. How can a man not love both? DRSS: E. M. Reilley 500 BPE E. Goldmann in Erfurt, 11.15 X 60R Those who fail to study history are condemned to repeat it | |||
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Been a lot of really good responses on this topic. I am in the group that grew up with Keith/O'Connor and Page. My favorites in looking back however were Seyfried and Aagaard with Wooters and Dalrymple not far behind. However Keith had more of an effect on me, especially on the calibers of rifles I like for hunting. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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Warren Page and Robert Ruark. Today, none. These internet forums is where the best reading is. Use the search site Board Reader.com to find topics. | |||
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Ross Seyfried. | |||
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PO Ackley, Elmer Keith, JacK O'Connor and the Col. Craig Boddington -- in absolutely no order or set sequence - even rick jamison prior to the patent law suits Throw in Jeff Cooper for fun sake ,,,, opinions vary band of bubbas and STC hunting Club Information on Ammoguide about the416AR, 458AR, 470AR, 500AR What is an AR round? Case Drawings 416-458-470AR and 500AR. 476AR, http://www.weaponsmith.com | |||
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+1 forgot about Paul Matthews | |||
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I don't think Hughes is a bad writer, he's been on these boards before. I just think he's a prick. Not a bad writer though. | |||
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I agree with this, I think Wayne is the best, and the man is as nice a guy as anyone since JC himself. | |||
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I agree with everything you have said. Craig is a fine human being, I met him in 2009, he was very nice to my lady friend and to the kids that were there who didn't know him from anyone. His daughter is an exceptionally nice person as well. I like Barness a lot. I prefer Keith to O'Connor but I think O'Connor was a better writer but not as good of a story teller. Townsend Whelen is amazing. Warren Paige is great. Bob Milek is also wonderful, probably one of the top writers of all time. G. Sitton and Finn Aagard are also wonderful. They have a tortured writer soul, and in my readings about them they struggle internally to produce and always come out with gold. There are great technical writers, and those that suck at it but are good story tellers. There are very few that do both well. I think Warren Paige, Bob Milek, Finn Aagard, John Barness and Wayne Van Zwoll all did or do exactly that. Guys like Craig Boddington, Wieland and O'Connor are good from a literary sense with making the details of a story come alive. Elmer Keith is good at telling a story and does fairly well at getting technical. Honestly I have probably misjudged Terry Wieland based on the few articles I have read by him as being a self important tool. I am sure he is a nice guy, I was really pissed off about the articles I have read by him that have had zero technical information on the product he was reviewing. | |||
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I think Peter Flack is a good writer too, and while I have not read everything he has written Gregor Woods is great! | |||
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For me, Ross Seyfried, hands down. "Ignorance you can correct, you can't fix stupid." JWP If stupidity hurt, a lot of people would be walking around screaming. Semper Fidelis "Building Carpal Tunnel one round at a time" | |||
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the reason I admire Elmer Keith and Craig Boddington so much, is that both could make you feel as if you were sitting around a campfire sharing stories. They both put you in the story. And, having visited both a number of times, they made me feel as if I were important to them. First time I drove up to Salmon to see Keith in 1972, I went to the door with a bit of trepidation. Knocked on the screen door, and he came to the door. I introduced myself, and he did the same. Then he asked me if I were a member of the NRA. I said "yessir, Life". He opens the door, invites me in, turns over his shoulder and says "Mother, we have company. Could you put a pot of coffee on, and are there any of those cookies you made yesterday left...?". He treated everyone that way from what I heard later. Of course, a bottle of "Shy-Vas" was always a nice gift. He would ask if I would share a little nip, then look at the clock. If it were before 4pm, he would say "only a rummy drinks before five. But, I do believe it is after five pm on the East Coast." and grin. I came down from a run across Canada one time, and offered a good Cuban cigar. He gave me that sideways look and grinned. "Damn communists" he says, and then "I am against them. You know young man, we should destroy these. I propose we just burn them". So, we did burn two. I left him a couple, and he assured me he would burn the rest of them when he had the time. It was a couple years later when I moved to Idaho, and he remembered me by name. By contrast, I went from there to Lewiston to see oconnor. Rang his door bell, and he answered the door. I introduced myself, and he asked me what I wanted. Told him I enjoyed his writing, and that since I was in Idaho on vacation, I wanted to meet him, and that I had driven out from Illinois. He looks at me, says "well you've met me. Good day" and closed the door in my face. Never forgot that... | |||
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Craig Boddington Finn Aagaard | |||
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The question is who is the better writer, not the nicer person. Poor Elmer Keith was simply wrong, from a technical point of view, on so many subjects that it makes your head swim. His coarse writing necessitated heavy editing, and he was not above outright prevarication if it helped his story go the way he wanted it to. O'Connor may have been aloof, but his writing needed little editing and his technical information was always dependable. To what degree he embellished his hunting stories will probably never be known, but so far as I know he was never caught in an outright fabrication. But I suppose the O'Connor/Keith argument will continue so long as people who read them are still alive.  | |||
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Surprised no one here thought to mention our very own Shootaway. Even BWW recognizes the value of his contributions...LOL oops not the Humor forum... Doug Wilhelmi NRA Life Member | |||
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I don't know that he and I have ever had a conflict. I agree with what he said about Rigby. Scam! | |||
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Having grown up in Wyoming in the 1970's I knew a lot of people that knew O'Connor from the Lander One Shot Antelope hunt. Dad guided quite a few of those 1970's and 1980's hunters then. He was kind of a local celebrity himself, as he was a one of the original Marlboro Men actors with Darryl Windfield and the Under-Sheriff of Fremont County. This is getting off topic, but as you can imagine you have gun writers, billionaires, movie stars and some gun industry people all at the Lander One Shot. Dad guided someone from Industry almost every year, as he wasn't overly star struck by anyone. He remember standing outside after the hunt was over and a bunch of the guides smoking, out steps Roy Rogers who was tired of the BS inside and joined the guides for a few minutes. Roy was a down to earth genuine guy that didn't care about the BS with the big shots. Roy was once the biggest movie star in the world, here he is hanging out with the guides. So you are telling me the gunwriters have a right to be a asshole, when Roy Rogers himself was genuine and down to earth? Why would we continue to support such behavior? | |||
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Skeeter Skelton & Elmer Keith | |||
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Whoops! I forgot Gary Sitton and P.O. Ackley. I just ran across Gary Sitton's write-up of a 24" 30-30 and his load development for the rifle in an older Handloader. Truly a great and well thought out article. NRA Life Member DRSS-Claflin Chapter Mannlicher Collectors Assn KCCA IAA | |||
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Another vote for John Barsness. A copy of his Optics for Hunters goes with me on every trip 2d Craig Boddington. A well thumbed copy of his Safari Rifles lies on my coffee table. | |||
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Jim Carmichel...great guy and loved everything he wrote in Rifle and HANDLOADER | |||
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I never have met Jim, but his articles in Field and Stream are still great. | |||
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-Aagaard (Could give both an extensive African and USA perspective) -Barsness -Keith -Woods | |||
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I didn't think Aagaard knew much beyond Kenya's borders. He was a wonderful person, I remember as a young kid I wrote a letter to him asking a question and I got a two page hand written reply. | |||
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I could never get enough of Jack Lott's articles in G & A. I enjoyed the magazine when Siatos was the editor. | |||
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IMHO, while I enjoyed reading Kieth & O'Connor both were too opinionated for my tastes. I have numerous books written by both. I read a lot of opinions written by both that I totally disagreed with. I like Craig Boddington better than the others. I have met and talked with him and he is a nice, friendly, down to earth guy. I have quite a few of Boddington's books and have never read anything he wrote that I thought was BS or poor advice. velocity is like a new car, always losing value. BC is like diamonds, holding value forever. | |||
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The trouble with gunwriters is that eventually it all starts sounding like they are desperately trying to come up with something that 90% of the people will agree with, and seem to feel they their purpose in life is to recommend a safe, moderate approach for the hunter who shoots little, at things that are not very big or very far away. That fills most of the magazine, with the remainder being split between an exotic hunt or two with the outfitters name being promoted every second word along with the rifle taken and yet another "never met a rifle I didn't like" article with a full page ad close by. I suppose that how you sell magazines and make a profit but it gets old. There's little for the enthusiast. | |||
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Not very long after sport hunting was shut down in his neck of the woods, Finn and Family moved to south central Texas. I know he wrote for Wolfe publishing for several years before passing. Matt Matt FISH!! Heed the words of Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984: "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right." | |||
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There is only one Boddington book I thought was crap, that was the Hunt Fair Chase North American book he wrote with the Boone and Crocket club. I am a life member of the B&C, and I still think the book was politically correct hunting at it's best. | |||
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Unfortunately that is all too true, but it is mostly the fault of the editors and magazine owners who's job is to turn a profit. Anyone who claims the 30-06 is ineffective has either not tried one, or is unwittingly commenting on their own marksmanship Phil Shoemaker Alaska Master guide FAA Master pilot NRA Benefactor www.grizzlyskinsofalaska.com | |||
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In all fairness, the purpose of a magazine is to sell advertising. From a business perspective, the ads are the magazine and the articles are simply expensive filler material. Like many things in life, it's all about perspective. analog_peninsula ----------------------- It takes character to withstand the rigors of indolence. | |||
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