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Elmer was quite a character and I credit him for his books and articles keeping me out of a lot of trouble as a kid. I have all his books (I think) and read everything by him I could find.

I spent an afternoon w/ his good friend Bob Hagel a few years before Bob's death. Elmer was Bob's mentor growing up. I consider Bob to be the best gunwriter of his era. Lacked the entertainment value of Elmer's writing and some of the polemics but his experience and recommendations have never ever failed me. We discussed Elmer and his claims.

What a lot of folks do not realize is that Elmer was a survivor, of a terrible fire as a kid that left him scarred for the rest of his life and a survivor of very hard times. He was a failed rancher/farmer as were many in these sections who gravitated into guiding and gun writing the latter which having done some freelance myself, is and in those days especially, was a very restrictive business. Elmer had to find a niche, and it was in the "big bores" (using the US understanding) he found it and worked it. Worked it hard.

His disparagement of the .30-06 for medium game is a case in point. He ran it down just as it was rising, but read closely, you see his experience involved FMJ's and poor bullets which really, no one today would think of using (and many didn't even then), tho at the time, hard on the heels of Roosevelt's safari, it was thought by many they would perform acceptably. It's absolutely incorrect tho to say that there were no good bullets at the time, as there certainly were, in both 180 and 220 weights for all non-dangerous game from deer to moose. (Elmer's mild praise of the .30-40 Krag exposes his inconsistency.)

No old timers here paid much attention to Elmer's advice about big bores on elk, and the .30-06 and .270 were king until at least the late '90's as I can attest myself. Interestingly the 6.5 Swede had quite a following, too, as folks here were poor and sporterized milsurps could be had cheap. In the '90's, my .375 H&H was a real hen's tooth. Something like "What are you going to do with that?" was the common response from the folks on seeing it. But then for some 10 years or more, wages going up, spendable income with it, the rage was all the Short and proprietary magnums and...folks found out a guy like Elmer could hold them well but most can't. And didn't.

In response, the 6.5 Creedmor rose like a rocket. Then over the last 10 years or so it, too, seems to be sliding, falling from grace to some degree, guys coming to realize that it will kill elk of course, but is not the Hammer of Thor at 750 yards... Lots of clearcuts here in recent decades having given them ample chance to find out.

No, I'm sure Daryl is right, Elmer would NOT have promoted the 6.5 Creedmor except maybe as a varmint round, or for Blacktail deer or small whitetails.

One serious concern I've had as a student of Elmer was, for lack of a better term, his shooting ethics. He took shots at all ranges and read closely, one sees he missed and wounded...a lot. It comes out all thruout his writing as he described cartridges and bullets that "didn't work", "took many shots", etc. His efforts at longer ranges...400 yards and up at times proved to him how the lighter calibers were insufficient, an explanation that involves lots of missing and wounding as he states in his writing.

He survived, tho, and that says a lot. In Salmon, I spoke to folks who knew him well and he was quite a character, on his daily walks to the post office "collaring anyone he could and regaling them with ballistics about big bores". Seems like there used to be characters like that more than now, tho here in small-town Idaho we still have our share.

He knew his stuff, that's for sure, however he may have obtained his knowledge. One statement made about him says a lot: many of his estimates on velocities of the rounds he worked with, in spite of lacking a chronograph, proved to be right on. Especially and remarkably including those on rounds he worked with "in the dark" as it were: like the heavy loaded .44 Special, .45 Colt and later, .44 Magnum.

I asked Bob Hagel about his claims. With a twinkle in his eye he told me "Elmer may have exaggerated just a bit..." but then he added..."But he was the best field shot I have ever known". He then told me of a time he and Elmer were riding together (hayburners, of course, no 4-wheelers in those days!) in the fall and flushed a grouse. It went straight up and then flew out of the timber across a meadow and landed at the edge of the woods on the other side. Bob said he could see where the bird landed but couldn't see the bird. Elmer drew his ever-present .44 4" and...FROM THE SADDLE...aimed and broke the trigger. They then road over to the spot and there, lying on the pine duff, was a dead grouse. Bob said he paced it and the distance was 125 steps. That's the kind of stuff Elmer did and according to Bob, did all the time, shotgun, rifle or sixgun.

I was in college when Elmer died. Broke my heart. Felt like a close friend or favored Uncle passed.

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