I looked up Phil Sharpe. He died in 1961 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was a Captain in WW2 and was 58 when he died
Which old time gun writer?
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KS25-06
Single-Sixer
I liked almost all of the early writers. Does anybody remember True and Argosy. Don't forget Bob Hagel, Deah Grinnell, Francis Sell, Peter Capstick, Ken Waters, Whelan. So, many others. There was one fellow who was a Pro Hunter in Africa and moved to the US. Can not remember his name, but he wrote good articles. If not mistaken, when he passed, his wife wrote several articles also. Believe he moved to Texas when he came to the US.
Crockett12
Bearcat
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I liked them all but especially the complete honesty of Elmer Keith! For those who might be younger and not know him, do yourself a favor and read his book "Hell, I was there"!
"There was one fellow who was a Pro Hunter in Africa and moved to the US. Can not remember his name, but he wrote good articles."
Ross Seyfried, maybe?
Or:
Finn Aagaard was an African PH who relocated to central Texas. Maybe that's who you're thinking of.
Ross Seyfried, maybe?
Or:
Finn Aagaard was an African PH who relocated to central Texas. Maybe that's who you're thinking of.
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KS25-06
Single-Sixer
I forgot about Ross, however he lived in Colorado. Had a big ranch if I remember correctly. Really liked his writing, quite factual. As I recall, he developed some .577 wildcat that really had a big wallop on both ends.
Skeeter was a favorite writer of mine as well. Oh for the good old days.
Larryburford
Bearcat
Read Col. Askins book The Unrepentant Sinner sometime. He was something else.
Larryburford
Bearcat
I loved reading Coopers Corner in Guns & Ammo for a couple of decades. I love all of Elmer Keith's stuff along with Bill Jordan (pictured with me in my Avatar). Now days John Taffin's got the best stuff I like.
The Colonel was never a LEO, so his "Partner"? I read just about everything Cooper wrote and I don't remember this incident at all. There sure were some great writers in that time frame, Major George Nonte was one of my favorites. They all had something to say. Askins was always "stirring the pot". He and Elner Keith exchanged some really good article's such as "Elmer's Little Mortar" about some four hundred yard shot on an Elk with a .44 Magnum.
Larryburford
Bearcat
It was Bill Jordan that accidently shot someone.
Paul B
Hunter
The was a story many yearsago where it was said Cooper also had a shooting accidect. I don't remember where I was it. I had the pleasure of meeting a few of the lesser remembered gun writers who were perfect gentleman. Sad to say I couldn't say the same about Cooper. AlI will add about that is my late wife was with me. She never swears but after the short encounter with Cooper she said, "I can believe you respect that A-----e. Another was literally passed out at his booth and the fumes of alcohol were strong. This was at the NRA convention in Phoenix back in IIRC about 1981. One representative from a gun company was outraged when I said I'd like to a certain model rifle they made come in .358 Win. It wasn't pleasant.
Paul B.
Paul B.
The Dean of the American Gun Writers was by far Jack O'Connor. He was dean of the Arizona journalism Department. He was a highly educated man. He wrote a scathing report about Elmer Keith in his book "Confessions of a Gun Writer" where he told of the graft among Gun Writers that were often bought off by the Gun Manufacturers.
Jack was perhaps the most honest of all the Gun Writers. His scathing review of the New Model 70 Winchester in 1965 was the only honest evaluation of the rifle at that time. Jack never kept the sample rifles the gun manufactures sent him while most other gun writers never returned them. No wonder they all wrote glorified reports of every gun that they got for free. The Gun Manufactures winked and never asked for their guns back. When Jack wrote that book he consulted with his lawyer to see if he could be sued for exposing the sordid truth about the corrupt world of gun writers and gun magazines.
I would like to give honorable mention to Corey Ford who wrote the monthly column "The Lower Forty" His last article published after he died was perhaps an all time classic never to be equaled. Its called "The Road to Tinkhamtown". You have to have a heart of stone not to be moved to tears when reading this article about a dying man thinking about his bird dog.
And of course there was Ed Zern who wrote the monthly back page column in Field and Stream called "Exit Laughing". His story about hunters trying to fool the Crows was hilarious. You can read many of his best articles in a book he wrote about them. And there was his story about how not to get lost in the woods and being rescued by a troop of girl scouts that left me laughing off of my chair.
Jack was perhaps the most honest of all the Gun Writers. His scathing review of the New Model 70 Winchester in 1965 was the only honest evaluation of the rifle at that time. Jack never kept the sample rifles the gun manufactures sent him while most other gun writers never returned them. No wonder they all wrote glorified reports of every gun that they got for free. The Gun Manufactures winked and never asked for their guns back. When Jack wrote that book he consulted with his lawyer to see if he could be sued for exposing the sordid truth about the corrupt world of gun writers and gun magazines.
I would like to give honorable mention to Corey Ford who wrote the monthly column "The Lower Forty" His last article published after he died was perhaps an all time classic never to be equaled. Its called "The Road to Tinkhamtown". You have to have a heart of stone not to be moved to tears when reading this article about a dying man thinking about his bird dog.
And of course there was Ed Zern who wrote the monthly back page column in Field and Stream called "Exit Laughing". His story about hunters trying to fool the Crows was hilarious. You can read many of his best articles in a book he wrote about them. And there was his story about how not to get lost in the woods and being rescued by a troop of girl scouts that left me laughing off of my chair.
Paul B
Hunter
"Jack was perhaps the most honest of all the Gun Writers. His scathing review of the New Model 70 Winchester in 1965 was the only honest evaluation of the rifle at that time."
I won't comment on jack's honesty because I believe he was straight enough to tell it like it is. However, I didn't and even now don't necessarily agree with his evaluation of the post 64 M70. I've owned a few over the years and still have a couple. One is a .243 and the other a .338 Win. Mag., both of which I got for very low prices. I aven't done a lot with the .243 but I didd work with that .338 Win. mag some. t's more than adequately accurate with the 250 gr. Nosler Partition and a lot more accurate than the M70 Stainless Classic M70, also in .338 Win. Mag. The post 64 actually kicks less than the Classic yet both rifle weigh almost exactly the same.
At one time, I had three pre64 M70s, a .308 Win Featherweight with the long action, a Westerner in .264 Win. Mag and a .375 H&H. They're gone,sold off but I kept the post 64 push feeders. Two of my current favorites are 1980s issue XTR Featherweights, a .257 Roberts and a 7x57. I'm seriously considering selling off all my other rifles except my small Ruger #1 collection and one of my custom Mausers.
Paul B.
I won't comment on jack's honesty because I believe he was straight enough to tell it like it is. However, I didn't and even now don't necessarily agree with his evaluation of the post 64 M70. I've owned a few over the years and still have a couple. One is a .243 and the other a .338 Win. Mag., both of which I got for very low prices. I aven't done a lot with the .243 but I didd work with that .338 Win. mag some. t's more than adequately accurate with the 250 gr. Nosler Partition and a lot more accurate than the M70 Stainless Classic M70, also in .338 Win. Mag. The post 64 actually kicks less than the Classic yet both rifle weigh almost exactly the same.
At one time, I had three pre64 M70s, a .308 Win Featherweight with the long action, a Westerner in .264 Win. Mag and a .375 H&H. They're gone,sold off but I kept the post 64 push feeders. Two of my current favorites are 1980s issue XTR Featherweights, a .257 Roberts and a 7x57. I'm seriously considering selling off all my other rifles except my small Ruger #1 collection and one of my custom Mausers.
Paul B.
Not just gun writers are "bought off" but so are pretty much all gun magazines. Years ago there was an upstart gun magazine that declared they wouldn't be influenced or paid off. They would publish the unvarnished truth about anything they tested. For a few years American Handgunner did just that. They had a few advertisers depart when they didn't like the reviews of their products. But greed eventually took hold and they slowly became just as corrupt as all the rest. Too bad, because it was very refreshing to be able to read a review and take away more than just the specs about a gun as reliable.
Larryburford
Bearcat
I like Capstick's books too.
Winchester has actually made several variants of the Post 64 guns. The 1st change in 1965 was the absolute worst and Winchester received so much bad publicity and customer complaints that in 1968 they changed the M70 once again.
The 1965 had pressed checkering that served no useful function.
The 1965 had an excessively floated barrel that had a barrel gap so wide pine needles would start to fill up the barrel channel.
Although Winchester kept the same trigger and safety the workmanship on the 1965 was atrocious. The Safety was as rough as a corn cob and I was never able to adjust the trigger of the 1965 and later variation models down to 1lb like my pre-64 guns.
The bolt travel was also as rough as a corn cob and the bolt tended to bind heavily when pulled to the rear.
The bottom metal was changed from rugged steel to cheap aluminum.
The switch over to a push feed was a reliability disaster as well. Few dangerous big game hunters would even dare use it. I myself short stroked a 1968 model and mangled two of the loaded cartridges so severely that they were actually twisted together. It took a large machinists screwdriver to pry them out of the gun and I was sweating buckets when doing it hoping one of them did not explode in my face. If I would have had a big beastie coming at me I would have been eaten alive.
Accuracy was not improved either over the pre-64.
In 1968 Winchester did a better job in floating the barrel and they added a slot in the bolt head to slick up the bolt travel which by he way was a copy of one of the ancient German Mauser variants (I am not speaking of the Model 98). It still did not equal the slickness of the original Model 70.
The 1968 model also had a much stiffer barrel and this did increase accuracy.
But the crappy stamped checkering was still kept.
Later in time Winchester went to computer lazer made checkering which did help ones hand from slipping but it was very inferior to the original hand checkering. Laser checkering tended to be soft and shallow and did not last long under rough use.
Later in time Winchester again changed the model 70 simply by cheapening it. The magazine spring was so thin it was totally worthless and it would collapse when one loaded more than a few rounds into it. One angry customer said he fixed the problem by modifying an ancient old 1903 Springfield magazine spring and used that instead and this he had to do on a brand new gun. This was ridiculous.
Later in time Winchester made two other variants. One was a modified push feed that was changed over to be a controlled round feed.
And lastly Winchester went back to the old mauser style controlled feed extractor but cheapened it by making it out of a brittle casting, not the high quality spring steel extractor used on the original M70.
As one can see if one is to hunt dangerous game either the Original Model 70 or a Mauser 98 are still the two guns considered the premier big game rifles, rugged and reliable. Most modern made rifles today are a joke and an insult to the customer. The hunters who use them today are just lucky that most of them only hunt non-dangerous game with them and when they do use them to hunt dangerous game their big game Guide is standing their protecting them with either a Mauser 98 or a pre-64 Winchester.
Finn Aagard, a wonderful writer with real depth of experience and practical knowledge of firearms. I think he left Kenya when they closed it to hunting and relocated to South Texas. I have his book "Selected Works" (of Finn Aagard) and it's very good. He was a a very meticulous reloader and kept records of literally every shot fired through his rifles. Very readable/relatable writing style.
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