![]() ![]() I don’t see why you keep that g - - damn Brister. Charley was jealous of Bob Brister, and once a year, when I was at Field & Stream, we’d get a letter from him saying, “I’ve killed 100 Cape buffalo. Charley was a national pistol champion early in his career, and his father was, in the 1930s and ’40s, probably the foremost American authority on the shotgun. Charley Askins didn’t hate anyone specifically, but he did like to shoot people for recreation because it cheered him up. Jack O’Connor hated Elmer Keith Elmer Keith detested Jack O’Connor. ![]() Many gun writers of that era were authentically mean and nasty. He was a cowpoke, a packer, a guide, a good enough rifle shot to compete at Camp Perry, and a hugely influential personage, with both readers and the gun industry. For the rest of his days, he carried a six-gun, and I believe he hoped he would run into the man who set the fire. Keith should not have lived, and he describes what he suffered in his autobiography, Hell, I Was There. As a child, he was horribly burned when the building in which his family lived was set ablaze by an arsonist. Ol’ Elmer probably never made it through high school, but he was a master storyteller, and if you pick up one of his books today you won’t be able to put it down. While a few of the old gun writers were only semiliterate (Elmer Keith), most were far better educated than people are today because everyone was far better educated then. There was nothing he could not do, and do at the master-class level. He was an expert shot with rifle, handgun, and shotgun, and a master gunsmith, bamboo-rod maker, flyfisherman, whitetail hunter, and cook. I had the great good fortune to get my start on a small magazine whose main writer was a fellow named Larry Koller. Pete Brown studied naval gunnery at Annapolis Warren Page was a naval gunnery officer Charley Askins was an Army ordnance officer, as was Col. Not only did this give them a certain perspective on the use of firearms, but some formal training in ballistics as well. To start with, they were almost all veterans. And those people were a different breed from today. WHEN I BROKE into the gun writing business in the mid 1960s, I was an editor, not a writer, which meant that I, who did not know what I was talking about, got to meddle with the copy of people who did. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. ![]()
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