1959 Sports Illustrated Grancel Fitz Rifle Article

[eamyrick]

I have been a big Grancel Fitz fan after reading “North American Head Hunting.” Fitz was one of the first to take a fine head of every North American game animal. For almost ever hunt he used a G&H customized Remington Model 30 in 30-06. I did some poking around on the internet and ordered the back issue of September 1959 Sports Illustrated to get an article he wrote about the rifle. Enjoy.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

There are quite a few missing from his "list".

 

[thinhorn_AK]

There are quite a few missing from his "list".

Those are just the ones he’d used his 30-06 on.

 

[Mtnmilsurp]

If you want to put together a similar rifle you can still get sporterized m1917s pretty cheap for donor actions and CMP has great deals on criterion prefit barrels.

I’ve shot an old 1917 for the last 30 years and it’s been great, especially after I added a Dayton traister speed-lock and recontoured the stock to fit me. It’s the rifle in my avatar.

 

[Axlrod]

Outstanding thanks for posting! He shot a walrus too!

 

[LongWayAround]

The North American 29 | Sports Afield

sportsafield.com

"Today we reckon at least twenty-nine varieties of North American big game. Grancel Fitz, instrumental in developing Boone and Crockett’s measuring system, worked off a different list than we do now. In his day, jaguar hunting was open in Mexico, as were both Atlantic and Pacific walrus hunting. The Central Canada barren ground caribou category did not exist, nor did we recognize Sitka blacktail or the then-protected tule elk."

Looks like he did pretty well to me.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

When JY Jones set out to harvest every species of North American animal with his 30-06, he had to use a tranquilizer on the jaguar since he wasn’t allowed to kill one.

@eamyrick you might check out the book “one man one land one rifle”. It’s a pretty cool book about a guy who took every native species in North America with his Remington 30-06 and a red field 2-7 scope. I dont have the book in front of me but I think the only changes he made for all of that hunting was to use a 220g partition on some of those animals rather than his usual 165g. At some point he damaged the crown on the barrel so he cut a few inches off of it and continued to use it.

 

[Steve O]

He didn’t just take all the NA29.

He put ALL the NA29 into Boone & Crockett.

That is an incredible accomplishment. Especially considering gear and travel in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Boone & Crockett recently had an article on his brown bear from Kodiak. Pretty amazing.

 

[eamyrick]

He didn’t just take all the NA29.

He put ALL the NA29 into Boone & Crockett.

That is an incredible accomplishment. Especially considering gear and travel in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Boone & Crockett recently had an article on his brown bear from Kodiak. Pretty amazing.

This is the most impressive to me. No goretex, no rangefinders, wood stock rifle, 30 days trips, no OnX.