"Hell I was there" by Elmer Keith

[rintinglen]

Phil Sharpe and Col D.B. Wesson are responsible for the .357. Keith had only slightly more impact on it than I, and I was born 18 years later.

[JoeJames]

It took me about 30 years to get past the mental picture I had of a little bitty feller in a great big Stetson, and all that implied. But I took a chance on "Hell I was there", and I was pleasantly surprised. He knew what he was talking about, and I pushed all my pre-conceptions aside and enjoyed it. Same for Sixguns.

[Murphy]

A friend and I were discussing Elmer Keith a few weeks back. His book "Hell I was there" is a great read. I never read much of his writings in my formative years as a hand gunner. Then something dawned on me. Given the time period Elmer lived and grew up in, maybe there were a lot of Elmer's? We just never heard of them and the powers that be in the gun rag world decided he was as good as any? Who knows? Just some food for thought.

Murphy

[JoeJames]

A friend and I were discussing Elmer Keith a few weeks back. His book "Hell I was there" is a great read. I never read much of his writings in my formative years as a hand gunner. Then something dawned on me. Given the time period Elmer lived and grew up in, maybe there were a lot of Elmer's? We just never heard of them and the powers that be in the gun rag world decided he was as good as any? Who knows? Just some food for thought.

Murphy

Speaking of good writers - one was Roy Dunlap. I accidentally ran across his book: "Ordnance went up front". His time as a US Army armorer in WW2, extremely interesting - discusses Allied and enemy firearms, and goes into detail over the M1, M1 Carbine, and BAR.

[JSnover]

"A Rifleman Went to War" (Mc Bride) is another good one. He had a lot to say about allied small arms used in the trenches in WW1.

[Bent Ramrod]

That is the issue. You can have all the “experience” in the world, but if you don’t leave a record of it, it’s gone as if it never was.

Elmer was disciplined. He set himself the goal of writing 5000 words per day, IIRC. That was after a full day of guiding, ranching, hunting or whatever. Some Internet authorities don’t do that much in a year, even including the flame wars they get into with other Internet authorities.

And he was modest enough to admit that whatever position he enjoyed in the world of shooting was partly due to the fact that the Chauncey Thomases, the Capt. Crossmans, the Major Askins, the Col. Whelens, the Gen. Hatchers, and all the other leading lights of his own youth had by then left the range.

Dave Brennan, who ramrodded the late, lamented Precision Shooting and Accurate Rifle magazines, was somehow able to get a lot of accuracy gunsmiths and benchrest champions, most of whom likely never wrote down anything more elaborate than a match entry form or a Brownell’s order form, to write lengthy articles on their techniques, processes and their discoveries along the way. There were also a few stalwart souls who cleaned up Elmer’s typing, spelling and grammar and turned it into writing for the ages.

Those were the combinations that left us with the stuff we nitpick over. Nowadays, I’m finding more and more magazine articles, and even some books, seem to be written by ad-men and edited by computer checking algorithms. That, plus the dearth of any really revolutionary arms developments, makes a lot of the modern stuff a thin, pastel version of the old writings.

[Bazoo]

https://www.loc.gov/audio/?fa=partof...r:keith,+elmer

[kreuzlover]

A BIG hand! I read Sharpes handloading opus, and he gives a pretty good account
of developing the 357 Magnum, with help from Douglas Wesson* I never cared much for
Elmer Keith! Thought he was full of bull, and he wasn't one to hide his lamp under a bushel
basket! Saw a pic of him in an old issue of Guns & Ammo, shooting a huge African double rifle,
and both his eyes were CLOSED in recoil! Elmer did his best shooting with his typewriter!

[Tall]

A great and interesting book. Worth reading, I did about 45 years ago.

[huntinlever]

Elmer was disciplined. He set himself the goal of writing 5000 words per day, IIRC. That was after a full day of guiding, ranching, hunting or whatever. Some Internet authorities don’t do that much in a year, even including the flame wars they get into with other Internet authorities.

If so, that's impressive. That's about 20 double-spaced pages a day. Every writer has his own way to keep at it, in spite of the drudgery that often accompanies the empty hours. Do you or anyone else have a source on his writing habits? Interesting.

[alamogunr]

About equal amounts of honesty and prejudice in this thread.

[GONRA]

GONRA remembers how much I enyoyed reading Roy Dunlap's "Ordnance Went Up Front" in 1960's. (?)

[Cast10]

I’ve bought, traded, reloaded, shot, hunted, carried several 44 mags, all S&W’s, in my early days. Very accurate. Very powerful. Very much hard to master. I did, boldly!
In the early days when Elmer Keith roamed the earth, times were much different. I’m sure a fellow had to be tough to be in the crowd he mixed with. I was not amazed one bit to discover he was instructed in handgun shooting by a past gunfighter. Pompous? You bet! He had to be.
He lead me down the path of my first 44mag via his writings in Petersen rags. I was impressionable to say the least at that early age, but I also was a good listener, and his stories and experience intrigued me greatly. Never read the book, but have always wanted to. On my list.

[Bent Ramrod]

If so, that's impressive. That's about 20 double-spaced pages a day. Every writer has his own way to keep at it, in spite of the drudgery that often accompanies the empty hours. Do you or anyone else have a source on his writing habits? Interesting.

I can’t recall now. There’s a book out of vignettes by a friend of Keith’s (The Other Side of a Western Legend); it may be in there somewhere. Safari Press has all his Guns and Ammo columns, as well as some of his letters; it might be somewhere in there.

Way back when, when Ken Howell was on the 24hr Campfire site, he used to write occasional reminiscences about Elmer, who was a fellow writer as well as a close friend. The observation might be somewhere in that stuff.

I remember being impressed as well. Back then I was feeding paper to a Gummint bureaucracy, and the idea that one could do that much writing and still do real work as well seemed pretty superhuman.

I have to say that there was never an assertion Elmer made that I was able to check myself that seemed to be utterly fantastic or impossible. I’ve bent a couple boolits trying to squeeze them through the hole in the handle of the Ideal tong tools, just as he mentioned. I’ve encountered loading dies that were, indeed, “made more to the standards of downspouts made by tinsmiths than those of precision diemakers,” just as he did. I never tried to shoot a deer with a revolver at 600 yards, but I certainly could see the possibility after a session on gongs at 300 yards. I knew (and still know) that I was nowhere near the shot he was, but I did manage to surprise myself on occasion.

[Rockingkj]

Opinions and facts- too serious , me I like Pat McManus for pure make you laugh entertainment. Who has not had a Retch Sweeney they looked up to as a kid.

[uscra112]

There was only one Elmer Keith, wished I could of met Him, ego and all!

About 15 years ago I ran into an old guy who was selling used books at a flea market in Hailey, Idaho. When the subject came around to Elmer, he said "Hell, I knew the guy! Biggest liar west of the Mississippi." And if you read that book of his carefully, you'll find he couldn't even keep his lies straight about that hunter who got shot. He tells two different versions at different places in the same book.