Jack O'Connor

[Mojave Kid]

I have the Best of Jack O'Connor, his hunts in the South West are my favorite reading. I also have The Shotgun Book.

 

[dribeerfeht]

Jack O'Connor 's accomplishments and books are timeless. Much of todays books are rebranded knowledge, concepts, and words with new words, terms and color glossy photos. Much better to go back to the original.

 

[TaperPin]

Many of us enjoy the old books, seeing the world through the eyes of someone living at that time. Jack was a great choice as an influencer for the 270 - made a lot of money for Winchester. Jack was also practical and wrote what would sell and had a well thought out brand. He’s valuable to young hunters, not for what’s trendy, or the latest up to date information, but it’s foundational knowledge and experiences that what we have today is built on. I think of it as what a grandpa or great grandpa figure would have done as a younger man.

Every family has hunters who like different things and the ones I grew up around didn’t like timberline, or sheep, or packing elk on horseback when driving up two track roads for a few weekends put elk in the freezer, and mulies in the foothills are easier to access as well. However, there was an old uncle who loved sheep hunting and the high country during much of the same time period O’Connor wrote of. Well past his prime with even my earliest memories, hard of hearing even with hearing aids, and not real talkative, most of his stories have been lost to time, so reading O’Connor filled in the gaps of what it was like. Many old vets had much more PTSD than they ever admitted to, and the high country was uncle’s happy place.

Today, backpack hunting is trendy and more than half of outdoor writers claim to be into it, but even as recently as the 1980’s it wasn’t a thing, you either packed in on horse back, or hunted from roads, and nobody wrote about it. Writers like O’Connor were what kids read that was the connection with the high country we dreamed about into adulthood.

 

[Steve O]

Just because we don’t ride around on horses and jump shoot Coues deer and Desert sheep doesn’t mean JOC’s writings are not valuable to today’s hunter. That’s pretty narrow minded and 99% incorrect. I’ve hunted many of the same places and his experiences mirror many of mine. Plus, he is an excellent writer, not a paid schill which is what passes for writing today.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

My Pa was a young fella when he met Jack.
Dad's name was also Jack.
They actually hunted together a couple of times.

I have read almost everything he ever wrote.
And I was impressed then and now.
Different era, when Men were MEN!

Of course from that it was preordained that I would become a 270 Win aficionado.
It is still my favorite Go-To today, better than 50 years on...

Cheers

And here we go…..”my dad hunted with him”. Yeah ok.

 

[mtnbiker208]

In 2004 i killed a ram with a 30-06. I became hooked. I ordered a ruger m77 in 270wsm. the 270 was to honor Jack. the wsm was for at that time, todays technology.

I was in Lewiston and had time to kill, so i went by the museum, pretty cool place. go check it out if you are ever in Lewiston. I do also have a few of his books. For some of us, he was always be looked up to.

 

[IronNoggin]

And here we go…..”my dad hunted with him”. Yeah ok.

Always one in every crowd...

 

[buffybr]

Although my family liked to camp and fish in the Colorado Rockies, my Dad didn't hunt, so it wasn't until I was in college in 1965 that I went on my first deer hunt with one of my college roommates and again the next year for my first elk hunt. So, like many other things, I learned to do them from reading books instead of having someone teach me.

As a kid, because I liked the outdoors and fishing, I subscribed to magazines like Outdoor Life and Field and Stream, but mainly for the fishing articles.

I enjoyed some very good hunting in my last years in Colorado, but it wasn't until I moved to Montana in 1975 that my hunting opportunities greatly expanded, and I began reading the hunting stories in those magazines. Jack O'Connor's articles impressed me the most, and as a member of the Outdoor Life Book Club, I bought and read a number of his books:

Sheep and Sheep Hunting
The Rifle Book
Complete book of Shooting
Complete Rifles and Shotguns
Art of Hunting Big Game
And his part of the Outdoor Life Deer Hunting Book

Where I moved to in southwest Montana is about 100 miles from Montana's Unlimited tag Bighorn sheep units, and throughout the '80s and into the '90s, I bought one of those $25 UL ram tags and went sheep hunting for opening weekend every year. Although I only brought 3 rams home from those hunts, reading Jack's book of Sheep and Sheep Hunting was my favorite and actually made me want to go sheep hunting.

 

[ChiefR53]

Grew up reading Jacks books and still have most of them . Always enjoyed the rivalry with Elmer. Definitely two schools of thought re caliber. Don’t read his books much anymore, find I do better with large print Kindle

 

[Blockcaver]

Read everything Jack wrote in Outdoor Life as a kid. Like the poster above got most of his books via the OL book club. Still have ‘em.

I’m sure his writings instigated my pursuit sheep grand slam, Coues deer hunting, plus BC hunting in general. I hunt with a bow but have shot the barrel out of a .270 (prairie dogs).

Jack was a bit older than my father who also read everything he wrote. And Jack hunted with Lew Bulgrin more than once. Lew owned Badger Shooters Supply in Owen, WI. Plenty of photos on the wall in there of the two of them. Bought a lot of reloading supplies there in my teens, plus a 40X Remington .222 Magnum, a Remington 700 in .22-250 and a Winchester Model 52 .22LR and 101 20 gauge.

 

[diamond10x]

And here we go…..”my dad hunted with him”. Yeah ok.

Curious what your beef with Jack O’Connor is?

You’ve made several posts in this thread and even dogged on your own father for wanting to do something a certain way to pay homage to a certain time period and guy he was obviously a fan of.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Curious what your beef with Jack O’Connor is?

You’ve made several posts in this thread and even dogged on your own father for wanting to do something a certain way to pay homage to a certain time period and guy he was obviously a fan of.

I’m not really trying to dog on anybody, I just think Jack O’Connor is a strange one to obsess over. He was a product of his time, most of his stuff dosent seem relevant anymore. Only my opinion.

 

[Gen273]

I’m not really trying to dog on anybody, I just think Jack O’Connor is a strange one to obsess over. He was a product of his time, most of his stuff dosent seem relevant anymore. Only my opinion.

I usually like and often agree with your posts. But I think you are off on this one. But you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I usually like and often agree with your posts. But I think you are off on this one. But you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

I could very well be off on it. I have a pretty big collection of hunting books, old and new and definitely have my preferences in content and writing styles.

 

[Gen273]

It may have been mentioned already, but on a related but side note, this year is the 100th anniversary of the .270 Win.