Cal30 1906
Single-Sixer
Seems like I read something like the bone fragments actually went through the helmet as well. I may have to pull that book out and read it again.
Weird ammo and why.
- Thread starter Joe Chartreuse
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Star43
Buckeye
Now I feel bad for the mules AND the camels....
contender
Ruger Guru
And our wonderful government also slaughtered wild horses.
Them dern invasive non-native species..
GasGuzzler
Hunter
There is no honest question. Look at the title of the topic. It's pure trollese.
I would guess that includes all of us too.
Star43
Buckeye
I feel bad for the mules, camels, and now the wild horses. All slaughtered.......Terrible.
I might also mention some of these calibers back in the day were used in the book "
Alaskan Yukon Trophies Won And Lost by G.O.Young
Fantastic old time true story of early 1900's hunting adventure book that should have been made into a move. I have my own personal copy in my library. One the hunt there was a doctor, a politician, several Indian guides and a host of other interesting people. They were lucky some of them were not killed.
I am currently reading Alaska's Wolf Man: The 1915-55 Wilderness Adventures of Frank Glaser
Another true story that took place in Alaska in the early 1900's which is about a man who lived all alone and hunted in Alaska and knew wolves probably better than most of the scientists of the day. A lot of hair raising hunts and wild and weird people from a time long since lost to history.
protoolman
Service-Sixer
Hmm so based on your 2 stories the .22 is big bear medicine and in .22-250 speed trumps all so we're to be assured that big heavily muscled animals like mule's are fair game for bullets we know won't penetrate very far? I would submit several articles of the time made many outrageous claims when the 22-250 came out. Many hunters and gun writers jumped on the bandwagon including Roy Weatherby to prove speed kills. Meanwhile Elmer Keith kept hunting and observing the opposite. Ill stick with what designers are building rifles and ammo for.
I would suggest you read "Confessions of a Gun Writer" by Jack O'Connor. He devotes an entire chapter on the bold face bullcrap that Elmer Keith wrote. O'Connor even went so far as to interview Keith's companions who refuted many of his outlandish stories. Keith also took credit for many things that he had zero to do with including some of the wildcat calibers he falsely claimed to have developed. In reality Keith was a front man for two Gunsmiths that were pushing their wildcat calibers on the public which did nothing that existing calibers were already doing. Keith's beating the big bore drums and constantly belittling smaller calibers like the .270 History later proved to be complete falsehoods.
Keith once claimed to have shot a mule deer with the .44 special ,again the .44 special not the .44 magnum at 600 yards and it was one of the few times in history fellow gun writers criticized one of their own. Keith took a ribbing and criticism over that magazine article for years after that. Fellow gunwriters published what the "hold over" and the trajectory and penetration of the .44 special would have been at 600 yards proving Keith made the whole story up as to aim the revolver he would have had to aim several feet over the deer's back thereby losing sight of the animal.
Keith even claimed to have guided a client that supposedly shot a mountain goat with a .270 and the bullet was so ineffectual that Keith claimed he held the goats back legs while his client beat the goat to death over the head with his .270 rifle. O'Connor later interviewed the Client who said the whole story was complete bull because Keith was not even there with him as his guide but Keith was back in camp and was actually hired as chief cook and bottle washer on the hunt.
O'Connor was a rather stern and sometimes could be an unfriendly character compared to Keith's friendly banter but O'Connor was an honest gun writer who told it like it was and never kept "test guns" sent to him by the gun companies. It was an unwritten rule back then that test guns were supposed to be bribes so that a gun writer who received one was expected to write up a glowing article about it and the same was true of test ammunition sent to gun writers.
I might add O'Connor was the "only" gun writer who roundly, but politicly, heavily criticized the then new Post 64 Winchester Model 70 rifle. I might add later in time some of its most glaring faults were corrected.
I might add Keith actually had little to do with the development of the .44 magnum pistol or cartridge. He merely badgered Smith & Wesson to come out with a caliber more powerful than the .44 special and it was Remington Engineers who developed and tested the .44 magnum. Keith's hair brained loads hopping up the .44 special were dangerous even back in the day.
Keith's bragging about developing the "duplex rifle loads" again was bull as he had nothing to do with that but merely copied the loads already being experimented in by several other gunsmiths and the idea was to push these hair brained loads on the public so the gunsmiths could sell more custom rifles often in worthless hairbrained wildcat calibers which again did nothing existing calibers were already doing with standard factory ammunition.
Keith was an entertaining gun writer but people who were experienced hunters only read his comments for a good laugh and to see the ongoing arguments between Keith and O'Connor. Keith would write an insult to O'Connor in Sports Afield and O'Connor would reply with an insult in Outdoor Life Magazine. O'Connor deliberately egged Keith on because he knew it would increase magazine subscription rates as this was unique in the publishing world back in the day when there was no instant rebuttals via through a computer.
Keith never got past the 8th grade and had to have all of his articles completely rewritten by the Editor of Sports Afield while O'Connor had been the Dean of the Journalism Department at the University of Arizona. The two gun writers could not have been more different.
I might add if you think smaller calibers are not lethal the .223 in Vietnam often produced horrific wounds despite only being used with FMJ ammo.
I might also add a buddy of mine often shot big and heavy Whitetail Deer out of his kitchen window at a range of 225 yards (the back end of his property) and the deer seldom ran more than a few yards before falling down. Many also did not run at all but just collapsed in a heap. On the side of his barn he had a entire row of antlers nailed up to it.
And as I probably mentioned before W.D.M. Bell shot over 1,000 elephants with the 6.5 mannlicher and the 7x57 cartridges. Stigand used the .303 British, Percival the 6.5mm Mannlicher. There were other African hunters who also used the smaller rifle calibers for decades.
Yaworski
Hunter
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I was shocked when the new owner of my former favorite LGS had never heard of a P-38.
Many people are "into" things but make little effort to delve into the subject, especially subjects whose rudiments can be mastered quickly. Guns, cars, and computers are the ones that I run across most often.
Cal30 1906
Single-Sixer
Very good post. I have read much of both their work and because they both chose my home state as their own I was always reading their articles.
Keith was a pioneer of sorts in the early pistol magnum development but was like you said far kess involved than he claimed. His 600 yard shot... very much possible using the style of holdover such as mentioned using the gold bar front sight. I myself shoot those distances on occasion to show a pistol is a viable option at those distances but I would never attempt it on a big game animal.
Like I said I like you post.
The most uncommon chambering I own is a Steyr M95 in 8x50R. I do not know of any commercial producers but I did get a quantity custom loaded. I like to be able to shoot everything I own even if I never or rarely get around to it. I will say the 8X50R is a lot more pleasant to shoot than its 8X56R brothers.
Keith and someotherguy developed the duplex tube cartridge (we're lighting all this powder from the wrong end! He opined, as he lit another cigar off the redhot knox form of the rifle they were experimenting with), but as the war dept was working on it when he wrote about it, he dident describe it, and his label of duplex loads was SO misunderstood, to the extent that among others the casull loads were stacked layers of different powders, which was NOT keiths idea but has been attributed to him.
bisleyfan41
Blackhawk
If you only read Connor's stuff, you'll believe that's the absolute truth. If you only read Elmer's, you'll believe thats the absolute truth. The real truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
I've read works from both. While I tend to believe parts of both side's stories, their disdain for each other tainted the validity of their criticisms. Connor, the "educated", elitist hunter vs. Elmer, the blue collar, adventurist cowboy.
Given the chance to meet/hunt with one or the other, I would have chosen Elmer hands down. Jack's writings reveal a person I wouldn't care for.
Yaworski
Hunter
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I'd go with Elmer because he wore a cool hat.
Strawdog
Bearcat
My uncle used a 22 Hornet exclusively on his deer hunting in Michigan. Danged if he didn't get a deer every year though. Grandpa had his reliable 44-40 and a 270 that took many deer. Grandpa had a 32-20 revolver that he used for rabbit hunting. He saved the brass and reloaded as needed. Thrifty people found thrifty ways to put game on the table.
I have hunted big game myself. I also have an extensive library on Big Game Hunting from around the world dating back over 150 years and I can tell you the evidence lies wholly with O'Connor. I could give you a page of old time big game hunters who used small bore calibers on big game and their experiences refuted everything that Keith ever wrote.
Strange as it may sound the Big Game Hunter from the early 1900's that I admired the most was Agnes Herbert, a Scotswoman who with her cousin Cecelia hunted on 3 continents and shot more big game than most people could ever hunt today in 20 lifetimes. Like O'connor, she was a product of higher education. As a matter of fact when she first got interested in hunting and studied shooting she rapidly came to the conclusion that most of the gun writers of the day and I quote "Did not know what the hell they were talking about" My how little things have changed in over 125 years. She died about 1962 and she just may have read some of Keith's prose and if she did I am sure she would have thrown any of his prose across the room and hit the wall with it.
I might add Agnes was the first shooting teacher in Britain to teach people to shoot with both eyes open. Again, way ahead of her time.
Agnes wrote 3 books on big game hunting and some children's books and some fiction books as well. I consider her 3 books on big game hunting the finest books on big game hunting ever written. I had to smile at how intelligent she was. Her book on Alaska was so different from her book on the Caucuses that it was readily apparent she had deliberately "dumbed down" the prose because it was directed at an American Readership. One hundred and twenty-five years later it is still in print and still widely read.
Her three big game books were Two Diana's in Alaska, Two Diana's in Africa, and Casuals in the Caucuses. The latter book would be way over the head of most Americans to even fathom today as she wrote it in "Old English" although it can be comprehended even by people with a low level of vocabulary if they are willing to read the book Casuals in the Caucuses while holding it in the left hand and holding a dictionary in the right hand. It is my favorite book of her writings. I have read it at least 3 times. The book is filled with adventure in the Caucuses and also hilarious because she not only had a hilarious dry wit but also could rip a verbal hole in anyone or any group of people without even pausing between sipping her cup of English tea. Few people could outshoot her and even less could win an argument with her. Her knowledge of history and science was phenomenal for the time she lived in.
She rejected her Uncles Big Bore double rifle after doing a lot of hunting with it and switched to the 6.5mm Mannlicher rifle and shot just about every species of big game on the planet with it. She was decades ahead of her time. She was also an expert horseman and one day shamed the Russian Cossacks with her riding skills when they were attempting to show off in front of her. Her tongue was as sharp as her shooting and she took no crap from anyone. She carried a pistol and men knew why she carried it and it was not to shoot animals with but men. Her books are filled with fascinating characters and exotic foreign places from another time and place now long since lost to History and the dead hand of the past. I was lucky enough to catch an episode of Anthony Bourdain when he visited Tifilus ( present day Tbilisi) so I was able to see the town where she first went to in the Caucuses and had to smuggle in enough ammo for her long hunt there in the rugged Caucasus Mountains. Some parts of Tbilisi Agnes probably would still recognize today. That is part of the fascination of going to Europe even today as it can be a step back in time. My own trip to the Transylvanian Mountains was perhaps somewhat similar to Agnes's trip to the Caucuses.
Agnes was a Liberal and a champion for Women's rights even that far back in time and proved that Women could do things as well as men. Her hunting around the world with only her Cousin Cecelia sure proved it. Back then Women hunting alone was akin to encountering Martians that had suddenly made a wrong turn and landed on earth right in front of you. You had better not dare to mess with either Agnes or the Martians.
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I would hafta remember to keep upwind of his see-gars, tho.
Fujicon
Bearcat
Exactly!
I've never owned or even used a 270. Same far as I know for my Dad and brothers. But to call it "weird"?? Ignorance personified.
The problem with ignorance is that it always underscores intolerance. Calling something "weird" is a just a subtle reflection of someone's intolerance.
Intolerance is antithetical to American values where we are blessed, by constitutional design, with a plethora of choices in almost everything.
As my Dad always used to say, there is a reason they make 31 flavors of ice cream for Americans.
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