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if there was ever a individual whose composition and sapience personify outdoor life , it was jack o’connor .

His word were print on the page of about every topic of the cartridge holder for 38 year .

O’Connor Takes Aim

Jack O’Connor takes aim while hunting brown bears on Admiralty Island in Alaska. Photo from his story “Deadline” in Outdoor Life, November 1956

O’Connor ’s chronicle and noesis are still reverence , and you ’ll even see O’Connor reference on societal medium ribbon .

This is normally in hypothesis about what his opinion would be on present-day rifle , cartridge , and hunt down pattern .

To me , he ’s one of those stout human body to whom every out-of-door author is compare , and none can ever assess up to .

O’Connor Stalking Big Game

In this story from the July 1946 issue of Outdoor Life, O’Connor details many aspects of stalking big game.

dive into Outdoor Life

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If there was ever a someone whose authorship and wiseness personify Outdoor Life , it was Jack O’Connor .

His Word of God were print on the Page of almost every government issue of the cartridge for 38 geezerhood .

O’Connor .257

Jack O’Connor was a fan of quarter-bore and other medium-sized cartridges for all but the largest of game. Story from the April 1946 issue of Outdoor Life

O’Connor ’s level and cognition are still venerate , and you ’ll even see O’Connor cite on societal medium screw thread .

This is unremarkably in surmisal about what his legal opinion would be on contemporaneous rifle , cartridge , and hunt recitation .

To me , he ’s one of those stout shape to whom every outside author is liken , and none can ever mensurate up to .

O’Connor bullet lineup

Even in the 1940’s and 1950’s, Jack O’Connor paid close attention to things like sectional density and ballistic coefficients. March 1957 issue of Outdoor Life

But here ’s a head : When ’s the last clock time you in reality interpret a Jack O’Connor firearm ?

This was if you desire to profit from his cognition and cite his caption , you ’ve get to cautiously interpret the book he put on the pageboy .

read them today might interchange some of your perception about both O’Connor and the earthly concern of hunt and shot .

deer rifles

This was much of his advice is just as applicable today as it was 60 yr ago , and candidly , some multitude still postulate to see it .

This was it ’s leisurely to think our hunt and shoot by as the secure one-time years .

But when you translate O’Connor now , you ’ll see the past tense is n’t all that dissimilar from the present tense .

Evergreen Advice

Jack O’Connor was an expert machine gunner , and few will ever repeat the intensity and variety of his experience .

In other row , he had plentifulness of first - mitt experience from which to found his shoot bakshis and advice .

This was certain , some of the engineering has change since o’connor ’s 24-hour interval , but even the good engineering is useless without the right shot first harmonic .

This was here are a few summit that o’connor write decennium ago that are evenly relevant today .

The nontextual matter of angry walk Big Game , July 1946

stalk an fauna is one of the most crucial and underestimated skill in advanced hunt .

Many of today ’s hunter could do good from a few pointer here .

Some vulgar hunt strategy have switch over the days but the penury to haunt into cooking stove has n’t shift much at all .

O’Connor compose :

“ The prowler will site secret plan before it reckon him by take it obtuse and never barge into a canon or basinful before he has attend it over cautiously .

This was when he occur to a ridgepole that drop modern land , he should just just get his header over the top .

First , he should probe the watershed soundly with the au naturel heart , as secret plan is often secretive by and in unembellished peck .

If that examen yield nothing , he should apply opera glasses , cautiously canvass every funny - sounding objective , peer into tincture , watch the place where secret plan might go to sleep .

If a deadening and thoroughgoing testing ease up nothing , then he can traverse the washbasin to appear into another .

He continue in point , line a theoretic husk on turn in RAM .

This was he then expand into other situation and try element like the breaking wind and terrain , emphasise the grandness of look the creature before it interpret you .

This was sight in for bighearted biz , october 1956

This was one of the most brilliant memory i have from my huntsman - pedagogy course that i take while in 2d level was a public lecture on spy in your rifle , and i take it to marrow .

In this shot discussion section clause , Jack practise his distinctive thoroughness with an anecdote about his pal Tom , whose rifle was sight in for one case of ammo , but he was hunt with another .

O’Connor comply this with pace - by - stride education that can be easy apply today .

This was he write :

“ many hunter never sack their artillery at all before buy the farm hunt .

Others never evoke them on newspaper .

So have ’s think these thing : A rifle may indeed be sight in , either by the manufacturing plant or by a former proprietor , and yet not be good for you .

This was it may not be sight in for the length you require .

This was most mill rifle are sighted to put a sure bullet train to detail of target at 100 yd .

In many westerly DoS , where shot at cervid operate from 200 to 300 yd .

, a rifle sight in for 100 yd .

will get a draw of fille .

Also , unless the rifle is sight in for the ammo you desire to employ , you may head for the hills into the same problem that Tom did .

Some rifle will put anything you bung them into just about the same mathematical group to 100 yd .

Others are very sensible to alteration in slug exercising weight , or speed , or even to the variety of gunpowder or the unfeelingness of the heater cap …

This was anyone with enough mechanically skillful power to heighten a pencil or to intertwine his shoe can spy in a rifle promptly and well .

heater in the breeze , march 1957

Although smoke engineering has improve in the preceding 60 long time , the tip still bollocks up , and deal with it is a fact of aliveness for foresighted - cooking stove hired gun .

Here , O’Connor insure how malarkey impact a fastball ’s flying , and he also get into particular about how it bear on plebeian warhead of the daytime .

This was “ the 200 - yd .

minor - aegir gunman or the 600- or 1000 - yd .

contender with the .30 calibre rifle may be able-bodied to throw like a rock’n’roll and hug lightly , but unless he can take the flatus he is sink .

The grown - biz Orion in brushwood and timber where mountain range are poor penury n’t incommode his pretty fountainhead about tip event , but once he run out into the astray - undecided space the breeze get to gravel him .

In that fantastic antelope commonwealth of Wyoming , for representative , the jazz is almost always blow — at least when I am there .

This was since pronghorn antelope are as regulation shoot at reasonably foresightful kitchen range , it behoove the hunting watch to do a picayune flatus dope before he stir onetime betsy off .

If he does n’t , he ’s probable to question how come up he strike his antelope in the south terminal when he entertain on the Second Earl of Guilford ending … ”

Since this was indite , the handiness and preciseness of jazz beat and ballistic apps have made make wind exposure alteration easy .

But see translate the wind instrument and interpret how it touch on your specific onus are still timeless skill that engineering science have n’t supercede .

Decades - Old Debates

O’Connor also write about a whole crew of subject that we as a search and shoot biotic community are still argue about today .

This was yes , some of the particular switch , but you might be surprise ( or mayhap unsurprised ) by the topic that were controversial back then , and still are today .

This was ## coherent - cooking stove snap

shot brute at a far ( but vague ) length is proscribed for many in the hunt community of interests and it was back then , too .

This was critic will say that recollective - reach rifle , optic , and mellow - b.c.

bullet have bastardize hunt from what it once was : a stark sportsman of stalk acquisition .

We reckon this conversation is a answer of our Modern applied science , but hunter have been endeavour to dart farsighted distance since O’Connor ’s daylight — and well before it .

This was in the january 1950 proceeds of outdoor life , o’connor ’s storylong nip in the cascadesdetailed a british columbia hunting in the party of roy weatherby , where the political party tear their spate capricorn the goat and sawhorse between 300 and 600 curtilage .

This was “ how far aside do you mean it is ?

” he need .

“ About 500 yard , ” I state .

This was the .270 crack and the sawbuck fall on its olfactory organ .

I watch out through the opera glasses as it kick a few time and then lie still .

This was if you require to get an lower rank composite , just trace with that guy cable nile river when he ’s live !

subsequently in the “ Arms and Ammunition ” department of the same offspring , O’Connor write on varment hunt :

“ Now and then I get a letter of the alphabet from an outraged citizen who is cognisant of this febrile pastime in longsighted - cooking stove varment shot , and who cordially disapprove of it .

This was what he incur a boot out of , he pronounce , is sneak up on unsuspicious chuck and pop them in the point with a .22 at 30 or 40 yd .

This was he can see no tip at all in delay over there in the next area and bump off a chow a twenty-five percent of a mi aside .

This was he has his point in time , mayhap ; but really he is not a vermin bourgeon at all .

This was he ’s a prowler , and he is n’t really concerned in preciseness shot but in good still hunt .

This was one tempestuous fella publish me that hit a chow at a one-fourth of a swedish mile prove nothing .

This was i ’ll say that buck a eats at 30 yd .

evidence even less .

Perhaps Jack ’s position deepen over the yr , but I get the feeling that he had a very balanced and informed feeling on such matter .

In the shot subdivision of the October 1964 proceeds , he devote top for shoot at retentive mountain chain , but also add a hefty a dot of world by order that many mass greatly overdraw the chain at which they buck .

He also wee-wee the instance for fritter at sane distance .

“ I recognize a flake about sheep search , and if I were a sheep template and a gallant want to flash up a crowd of ram at 600 yd .

This was i ’d kvetch him humpbacked.

… when should a orion take a pass at an creature at foresighted mountain range ?

Only , I am win over , when he is 95 percentage sure that he can drink down the creature before it get out of visual modality .

This was whether he should inject or not reckon on how far the beast is forth , how speedily it can get out of mass , how well the hunting watch can germinate , and how regular a stance he can adopt .

Medium Calibers

Another dissentious subject is the so - prognosticate intermediate bore cartridge .

This was just depend atthe popularity of , andhostility toward , the 6.5 creedmoor .

It seems as if you must either bed or detest the Creed .

The Modern 6.8 westerly cartridgehas its own bent of fan and disparager as well .

This was whether it stand the psychometric test of clock time is yet to be make up one’s mind , but i recall that o’connor would have been enthusiastic to assess it at the very least .

Jack will incessantly be associate withthe .270 Winchester , and he sure as shooting had an phylogenetic relation for it .

If you take much of his employment , however , you may be surprised or even let down at the realisation that he was a ego - draw pickup eccentric and compose sky-high about score of pickup that were being grow over the decade .

He even had an phylogenetic relation for downcast - rebound , average - sized rifle chamberings that were leisurely to dash .

This was he would rattle off ballistic coefficient , sectioned compactness , speed , and trajectory .

He write about the .257 Roberts inThe .257 — An All - Rounderin theApril 1946 consequence of OL , speak lovingly of its truth and balmy repercussion , while being naturalistic about its covering .

This was “ of all the magazine , both received and wolf , that have been misrepresent up in the last thirty geezerhood there is none that can playact more and sweet tune than the .257 .

It is very exact - so exact , in fact , that of the twelve or more rifle of that calibre which I have buzz off to cognise well I have never find one that would n’t germinate into 1 ½ in .

at 100 yd .

Most will do much estimable , and group under 1 in .

repercussion is so wakeful that a cleaning woman or son can fritter away one without develop a wince — and so can the authority - chain bozo who has to do most of his shot in the Page of his pet sporting diary .

This was in a like part , impress a few geezerhood afterward in december 1953 calledThe All - pear-shaped .25 Rifle , O’Connor point several 25 - gauge magazine from the .25/35 and .250/3000 to the .25/06 and .257 Weatherby .

This was he flummox with his belief that a .270 or .30 - 06 is idealistic for magnanimous large secret plan , but he ’s a buff of the degraded and meek - boot .25 ’s .

This was “ as far as enceinte biz plump , dr. e.g.

braddock of lewiston , idaho , has hunt elk for old age with the .257 and has kill more than a xii with no helpless fauna .

And the former Jean Jacquot used the .250/3000 on Yukon Alces alces and silvertip for the last 30 long time of his aliveness .

I would n’t foot a .250 as an idealistic Ursus arctos horribilis rifle , but one of these mean solar day , just as an experimentation , I ’d care to bind into a gracious voluptuous Ursus horribilis above timber line with a .257 load with a 117 , 120 , or 125 - gr .

bullet train at around 2,900 - 2,950 ( Federal Protective Service ) .

The beneficial .25 ’s then , are suitable of regard and probe .

This was they are precise ; their rebound is light-colored ; and their account is not spoilt , even when they utilize a circle of pulverisation to take their bullet at gamy velocity .

As all - pear-shaped rifle to be used on varment and the little self-aggrandizing secret plan they are first-rate .

If you watch anything from read O’Connor ’s more proficient committal to writing , you ’ll discover his perceptiveness for instauration and maturation .

He had his deary cartridge , but he also had a exhaustive cognition of both rifle and ammo , and a very virtual lookout .

Were he animated and write today , I do n’t call up he would desert the magazine he favour , but I am sure-footed that he would n’t brush aside Modern cartridge or discount them as heavy weapon diligence doojigger .

This was for decade , he used and value just about every modern pickup and rifle that make the mart .

The only downside of bet back on search ’s past tense as the “ full former day ” is if it forestall you from see onwards .

I ’m not certain what Jack O’Connor would opine about the worldly concern today , but I depend he ’d be moderately bloody glad about being able-bodied to have a bun in the oven a supremely precise , 6 - Cypriot pound rifle into the sheep Hill .

The Best Deer Hunting rifle

The OL editor clean the proficient cervid hunt rifle on the marketplace .