Elmer's return

[358156 hp]

Off hand, I can't think of anything that's appeared in the last 50 years that I either got excited about, or I can't live without.


Well, then, I'll wear it with honor.

There's a lot of things I've accumulated gunwise that I wouldn't have if life in this country wasn't getting so.... challenging anymore.

Damn it, I was happy with revolvers and lever-actions!!

 

[358156 hp]

Yet Elmer worked with a number of custom rifle builders with calibers like the 35 Whelen, although he seemed to prefer the .40 Whelen, 333 OKH, later the updated .338 version whos name escapes me, now it's the 338-06. I think Elmer simply thought of 30 caliber anything as a dandy target cartridge. He used to refer to Jack O'Connors pet .270 as a "pest gun", or a "needle gun". I think a lot of that was simply to piss Jack off.

 

[Joshua]

He apparently said that the .270 was a "damned adequate coyote rifle." -Elmer Keith

Elmer was a bit of a smack talker.

Josh

 

[CZ93X62]

Curmudgeon. Yeah, probably.

I do like both the 40 Short & Weak and the 10mm Auto. The Glock 23 is a Colt Single Action in 38/40, just with 3X as many cartridges on board. The 10mm is a holster-carried 1873 Winchester in the same caliber, with the rifle's same mag capacity. I think Elmer might like the calibers, though he would abhor the pistols.

 

[RicinYakima]

They were opposite men; Keith was literally a laborer's son and animal herder, O'Conner's family owned banks in AZ, he had a BS in Finance and a BA in Literature. O'Conner was constantly employed and never lacked money. Keith could do anything but write and spell; O'Conner could write and spell and spend money. O'Conner hired guides and "the help"; Keith was usually his own guide after the first trip into an area.

 

[L Ross]

And I loved reading them both. By 2nd grade I was reading Jack O'Connor in Outdoor Life and I attribute much of my love for an enhanced vocabulary to Jack. He was an, "Avis of the rara sort." Very different from Elmer's curriculum vitae. Elmer's writings were no less entertaining nor informative.

 

[Ian]

Some of my favorite people have been all kinds, in person and in print. Sophisticate to simple as dirt, good people are good people. I didn't know O'Conner personally but from what has been recorded by and about him in print, I don't think we would have liked each other very much.

 

[RicinYakima]

The people that I know in Lewiston, ID, didn't like him much, as a person. The way they tell it, his only "chums" were Fred Huntington, Dick Speer and Joyce Hornady that would take him hunting and fishing with them on their dime. He was a snob. But he could sure string words together!

 

[Missionary]

My problem is not new stuff but all the old that keeps chasing me down the road.
The 44 Wesson is one fine ground hog /racoon basher.

 

[fiver]

part of the O'Conner Keith thing was they both were smart enough to know that a good rivalry sold books and made names.
the Earnhardt-Gordon rivalry in Nascar was fostered by both of them to the tune of around an extra million or so a year.

 

[358156 hp]

They were opposite men; Keith was literally a laborer's son and animal herder, O'Conner's family owned banks in AZ, he had a BS in Finance and a BA in Literature. O'Conner was constantly employed and never lacked money. Keith could do anything but write and spell; O'Conner could write and spell and spend money. O'Conner hired guides and "the help"; Keith was usually his own guide after the first trip into an area.

I think Keith got a lot of heat over his writing skills at times. I once saw a copy of a letter he wrote to a corespondent that was one really long, run-on sentence, around a half page. At the end of it was something like this- .....,,,''':!??

There, he punctuated it!

 

[358156 hp]

part of the O'Conner Keith thing was they both were smart enough to know that a good rivalry sold books and made names.
the Earnhardt-Gordon rivalry in Nascar was fostered by both of them to the tune of around an extra million or so a year.

Kind of like the 40 year long breakup between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham?

 

[Ian]

Kind of like the 40 year long breakup between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham?

That and the McVie's split produced their best songs. After all that what did they have, that Jumanji-esque album?

 

[fiver]

I never really appreciated Christine's voice until it was gone.

 

[358156 hp]

Or Stevie. She seems to have lost her top end ranges. I can't believe she's 72!
This is what I still remember:

 

[RicinYakima]

We were all a lot younger 50 years ago!

 

[Mowgli Terry]

Writing Skills: We had a wonderfully skilled gunsmith in the day. He spoke of a communication with Elmer. My gunsmith's estimate was that Elmer was illiterate.
Gunsmith: He made his screws on a vintage Atlas lathe. He could hand make parts. The last he made for me was the little bracket on the end of a Remington 141 magazine tube.

 

[Rockydoc]

I read an article by Craig Boddington in which he described a time when he first started out in the gun magazine business and he was working for a magazine as Elmer's editor. He said the he had to practically rewrite every article. Elmer wrote handwritten and Craig had to take those notes and turn them into a readable article.

Elmer had some good stories to tell and he knew some stuff about guns and hunting. He just wasn't very articulate with the written word.

 

[Creeker]

Mr. Keith told me O'Conner was a writer & he was a reporter.

 

[Creeker]

Elmer wrote handwritten and Craig had to take those notes and turn them into a readable article.

He just wasn't very articulate with the written word.

When Mr. Keith typed a letter it was what it was, he never corrected a mistake. Everyone with a letter from him knows of what I speak.