Elmer Keith.....

[madcaster]

You know,I think what most of us realize is that when Elmer was in his writing prime,the science of bullets was not in IT'S prime,thus his advocacy of big bores.
Now we have bullets that can do so much better on big game that some of us use smaller calibers than we did previously.Are we losing more animals from it?
I really love the .30/06 rifle I have,it is a tang safety model,and has iron sights to boot.If it did not have the iron sights then I would NOT have bought it.No particular reason,I just like the banded front sight,and I have NEVER have a scope problem to happen during a hunt.
I have 2 boxes of Speer .30 caliber 180 grain Grand Slams and a couple of Barnes X bullets in .30 caliber 110 or 130 grain.No need for them....
But still,I will stick to bigger bores,because most of my hunting will be done with cast,I like to shoot cast.
Now,where was that Uberti 1874 Sharps I saw,the one in .45/70.....:coffee:

[mark348]

very true, in Mr. Keiths day expanding bullets were not awefully reliable, and with out a doubt his conclusions were based on that fact. still i think his ideas and tests are usefull today, and i for one love big bores and cast boolits, and will continue to resist more modern outfits,,, mostly for the history and a plain love for leverguns,,,,, tomorrow i leave for the mountains m71 in hand searching for bears,,, sometimes life is good

[Bret4207]

The hard core detractors of any writer often fail to put themselves in his place at that time. It's hard to do for some things. Karl Marx probably had a real poor day of it and if I could put myself in his shoes I might be able to better grasp his ideas. Fortunately Elmer makes things pretty clear for me. Over expanding or non expanding designs that didn't work like he wished caused him to stick with the reliable designs. Simple as that.

[Junior1942]

Wasn't it in "Hell I was There" that Elmer showed his total dislike of Zane Grey? Didn't he guide for Zane Grey and the guy was an a-sh--e?

[drinks]

I always had a had time deciding who was the biggest windy producer, Elmer or Zane.
Being from S. Texas and being raised up around bunches of Collared Peccary, [ Javalinas ], I had a fit of the giggles when I read Zane's tall one about being treed by a pack of the huge, blood thirsty monsters.

[Char-Gar]

IIRC... Elmer's cheif problem with Zane Gray stems from the fact that Gray stiffed Keith for his guide service.

I don't think Keith was windy. He drew his conclusions based on his experience. His experience came from the formative years of smokless powder and smaller caliber jacketed bullets. The early bullets just don't do as well as the bigger bores did.

Once Keith made up his mind, it was not likely to change. Subsequent experience has shown Keith to be correct in most of his observations/opinions but not all.

He was a very influential figure in early and mid-20th century shooting and hunting. However he was not as influential as he thought he was. That said, he knew more and did more than any of us short horns who make comments on his life and times.

[targetshootr]

I'm working my way through Hell I Was There and even though the stories are incredible there doesn't seem to be much tying them together. It's like reading Joe Friday, just the facts maam. He led an incredible life regardless.

[Bent Ramrod]

The gun writer Lucian Cary once speculated that Elmer Keith might be suffering from "guide's disease." He explained that professional guides who have to trail up game wounded by their clients often think that a hit by a heavier bullet might have made their job a bit less tiresome.

[DonH]

Many, like the late Bill Jordan (whose credentials were impeccable both as a writer and Border Patrol agent), who knew Elmer Keith personally did not hold him in the contempt so many wanna-be readers do. Jordan wrote shortly after Keith's death that Elmer's word could be taken to the bank. If we cannot do a given thing that does not mean he or someone could not. He lived in a time and place where space, low population and abundant game afforded opportunity to develop skills and expeerience things most of us only dream of. I don't believe many of us are qualified to pass judgement. I once heard a very wise gentleman say that it is grossly unfair to judge a person outside the context of his/her time. That truly applies in this instance.
One of the biggest controversies surrounding Keith had to do with his animosity toward Jack O,Connor. Much of this took the form of argument over the large/small bore rifle debate. Even considering the poor bullets of the time Keith probably overstated his argument against the .270 Winchester. As near as I can tell from much reading, this stemmed from what Elmer witnessed in the field as a guide but more from the fact that he considered O'Connor to be not as he put himself forth in his writing. Of course O'Connor ( college professor and journalist) could win any war of words on paper against a man who had very little education. In my youth I too read how O'Connor used the mighty .270 to kill any and all game he ever came up against. The real truth is his gun case hels a Model 70 in .30-06 which was as worn as his vaunted .270. Wonder how it got that way? Maybe Elmer knew something?
I don't have a problem with Keith being opiniated. He may not have been right in every belief but at least hi opinions were formed from real life experience. Many say that I too am hard-headed and opinionated but I say I'll believe what I believe until the evidence proves me wrong. I don't have to change my belief just because someone or the current fashion SAYS I am wrong. Not tooting my own horn - just making a point.

Th, th, th, that's all folks!

[monadnock#5]

I believe it was then Col. Hatcher who was tasked by the Army early in the last century to definitively identify the exact mechanism by which a bullet caused death. Many animals were purchased from a local stock yard and killed with a pressure gun. The pressure gun was used to simulate varying ranges from point blank out to 1000 yds. After killing and autopsying MANY, MANY animals, guess what? Nobody to this day can tell us why a bullet kills. Blood loss, hydraulic effect, shock, all of the above?

I'm with Bro. Keith on this one. Mass times velocity is a mathematical formula that works. The higher the resulting product, the better the killing effect.

An over simplification? I'm sure. But when it comes to pencil and paper vs. main frame computer, I'll take the KISS principle every time.

[ACK450]

Don & Monadoc: Thanks. I thought a lot of old Elmer. He was the real deal in his time. And like you mentioned; most of his thoughts and ideas were right.
Especially concerning cast bullets in Sixguns.
I know people still alive today who knew O'Conner personally. Some of them didn't care for him at all....

I have tried to learn from the both of them (as well as others), and am thankful
for them in each of their own right.
ACK450

[MT Chambers]

Keith was right on in my opinion....his ideas are still valid today, i believe that the bigger the bullet (and heavier) the better the result on game, cast bullet or j-word bullet. Most of the stuff since Keith's time are just marketing gimmicks, the animals are no tougher now than in 1930 or 1870 for that matter!

[Sundogg1911]

I Loved reading Elmers "Hell I was There" He is one of my Heros. It was a little bit tough to read because the book was all over the place, but It was well worth reading. Elmer is one of the reasons that I Hunt White tails with a .44 mag (Dropped 2 last season) :-D even if His theorys don't all stand up today, He wrote about His experience and didn't follows anyone else's lead. He was a true pioneer.
Now....If you ask why I love my 1911's so much we'll have to start anouther thread about Col. Jeff Cooper. and there was also that John Moses Browning Fella. [smilie=1:

[MT Gianni]

Elmer wasn't afraid to write about his mistakes either. A man I would enjoy spending some time around a campfire with. Gianni

[Firebird]

I believe it was then Col. Hatcher who was tasked by the Army early in the last century to definitively identify the exact mechanism by which a bullet caused death. Many animals were purchased from a local stock yard and killed with a pressure gun. The pressure gun was used to simulate varying ranges from point blank out to 1000 yds. After killing and autopsying MANY, MANY animals, guess what? Nobody to this day can tell us why a bullet kills. Blood loss, hydraulic effect, shock, all of the above?


Monadack

No, Hatcher didn't determine what kills, but medical doctors reviewing trauma cases and doing organ transplants have determined that insufficient oxygen to the brain is the actual killer of every creature that has a brain.
Whether this lack of oxygen condition is caused by shock to the central nervous system that turns off the heart or lungs, the destruction of lung tissue and/or destruction of the circulatory system or simple blood loss (even just by dehydration), you die when your brain cells run out of oxygen.
So we shoot for the largest fatal wound producing area - the heart/lung block - and hope that we destroy enough blood vessels and/or lung tissue that the animal can't go very far before it's brain runs out of oxygen. You can try a shot to the brain itself or one to the spine, but a shock that turns off the heart/lungs is something that cannot be certain. Even when a 6 ft. digging bar enters from under your jaw and exits out the top of your head as happened in one famous case where the man survived for decades afterwards.

Bigger bullets simply means bigger, longer holes in the animal, and a better chance of it bleeding out fast before it can hide itself from the hunter. That's why small calibers use expanding bullets, and big calibers go for penetration; to make a big, long hole in the animal so it can bleed out fast and die.

[Ricochet]

I'm still trying to remember the name of that Army officer whose commission shot all the pigs. Wasn't Hatcher in charge, but I'll bet he was involved somehow.

[floodgate]

Ricochet:

My aging memory popped up with "The Thompson - La Garde Tests". The Army officer was John Taliaferro Thompson of "Tommy Gun" fame, and I THINK La Garde was an MD. That's all I can recall now.

floodgate

[Ricochet]

Yeah, that's it!

[Junior1942]

My philosophy is, In one side and out the other side leaves twice as much bleeding and two blood trails.

[Dale53]

I have noticed a couple of things with my experience hunting big game. My experience has not been really extensive but I have been in on the autopsy of probably thirty bears (I only shot one, my self) and a couple of dozen deer. You will never go wrong with a bullet with a wide meplat that goes clear through. For some reason that I have not yet determined exit holes leak much more than entrance holes - even when they are the same size. So-o-o, I give them both an entrance and an exit hole.

You need enough velocity to reduce the trajectory enough to make it easy to hit within your anticipated range and enough velocity to gain total penetration with your bullet of choice FROM ANY ANGLE!

After that, you don't need any more.

Regarding Elmer, I am a believer. I have been reading (again) his little blue book "Sixgun Cartridges and Loads" and the only thing that has changed since he wrote that in 1936 is that the 1911's have been much improved as far as functioning with SWC's is concerned. That revolution was started and finished by our great gunsmiths mostly after WW II. My own pistolsmith was a WIZARD with a 1911 (he was an ex-Marine Gunnery Sgt that did MacMillan's guns). There was none better and I am sure that there are other equally good gunsmiths' out there - I just never saw better. I have two of his guns and they are POSITIVELY reliable with properly loaded SWC's and as a result they are much more effective than with hardball.

FWIW
Dale53

[Scrounger]

Ricochet:

My aging memory popped up with "The Thompson - La Garde Tests". The Army officer was John Taliaferro Thompson of "Tommy Gun" fame, and I THINK La Garde was an MD. That's all I can recall now.

floodgate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson-LaGarde_Tests

[Ricochet]

Well, that settled everything, then!

[1hole]

Brett: "Karl Marx ...if I could put myself in his shoes I might be able to better grasp his ideas. Fortunately Elmer makes things pretty clear for me."

Ol' Elmer had his head on straight, if he said it we could believe it. That doesn't mean there are no alternatives today but what he said 50 years ago remains true.

Karl Marx had his head up his rectum. His premise was that money and its pursuit was the cause of human ills. That thought was and remains wrong, it's the pursuit of POWER that corrupts. Money means power - George Soros, Kennedy, Edwards, etc - in a capitalist society and government guns make power in a socialist dictatorship.

I'll take my chances living with rich guys any day rather than some faceless but powerful govenment agency like the BATF, IRS, EPA, etc.; those people will kill or crush you just to make it clear who is the ruling class!

[leftiye]

+1 for "Kill or crush you." Nobody living can doubt it!

[KCSO]

When I was young I wrote Elmer, as I had gotten the first Marlin 95 in the state. Elmer recommended that I use a 400 grain bullet and 53 grains of IMR 3031 and his only regret was that the Marlin would not work a 500 through the action. He claime that load was just the ticket for close range elk and bears, and it would have been if I could have got one to shoot the gun! Elmer was quite a fellow and I would have loved to know him personally.

[1Shirt]

One of our biggest problems today is that we don't have any longer the Kieths, the Whelans, the Skeltons, and of course John Waynes. We have a lot of promoters however, and some of them are pretty good, but ya have to sort through to find them in the mix.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[2 dogs]

Elmer WAS right about one thing, a 250 grain .338 bullet would cure what ails ya!

[Scrounger]

One of our biggest problems today is that we don't have any longer the Kieths, the Whelans, the Skeltons, and of course John Waynes. We have a lot of promoters however, and some of them are pretty good, but ya have to sort through to find them in the mix.
1Shirt!:coffee:

Also we don't have any Pattons, Audy Murphys, Bull Halseys in the military anymore. Just politicians in uniform.

[1Shirt]

Right Scrounger, and don't forget Ron Reagan!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[ACK450]

KCSO, 1Shirt, --others: Thanks for your thoughts on old Elmer and some of the other "greats" that are no longer with us... Who helped many of us so much back when we were younger, eager, wanting to learn.
May I also add Bob Hagel to the list. He always took the time to help me out.
My sincere "thank you" to them all. God, how I miss them!

I am so grateful for a beer and a gun chat at a little bar one day with Skeeter, and a very special afternoon spent with Elmer when he was in town once.
He signed a couple of his books for me, gave me a "real mans" hand shake when I had to leave, and no, he didn't BS me. Just talked straight elk loads to this kid.
Guess what? They worked! ACK450

[floodgate]

I'd add "Papa" Ackley to the "grand old man" list, too; back in 1946-47, he was very kind and patient with a bunch of my teen-age questions, and continued that way on into the '60's. He, too, left us quite a legacy; particularly the "blowup" tests on the Japanese rifles, and the headspace experiments with the Winchester '94 - and the many, many "improved" cartridges, some of which he was the first to admit were not really practical. I never got even the faintest whiff of arrogance off him.

floodgate