The education of a rifleman takes many years and wanders down many paths. Mine began with an old deer hunter named Clare Irwin, who owned a well-worn Winchester 94. Clare was a sophisticate. I knew that because he had fitted out his 94 with a Lyman tang sight. He introduced me to his rifle, took me deer hunting the first time, and we stayed good friends until his death, thirty years later.
Books played a major part in my education—books by men like Jack O’Connor and John Taylor, and the annual Gun Digest, when it was edited by John T. Amber.
Later came conversations with fellow riflemen and hunters: Tony Henley and Robin Hurt, in Africa; Jack Carter in Texas; Tom Turpin, Dave Petzal, John Barsness, Dave Scovill, and John Sundra in America. Jim Carmichel, with his Book of the Rifle, changed some of my ideas as I began writing for magazines, and they stayed changed. Older writers, like O’Connor, were forbidding characters to me, dwelling on some rifle-making Olympus, discussing cartridges with Zeus. When I met Jim Carmichel the first time, I half-expected thunderbolts to spring from his fingertips; instead, I found him to be a gentleman of the old school, and that is the best kind.
Riflemakers contributed a lot, both those I knew personally and those I only read about, or whose creations I had the good fortune to see, handle, and sometimes shoot. There was Siegfried Trillus and Edwin von Atzigen, the former of German extraction, the other Swiss, and both as dedicated to rifles and riflemaking as it is possible to be. Through O’Connor, I learned about Al Biesen, and later owned one of Biesen’s rifles. And a lovely thing it is, too, but the .450 Ackley that Siegfried built for me after my first safari in Africa is every bit as fine as my Biesen, and that is a compliment to both.
As for the rest, well, James Woodward, Henry Holland, and John Rigby, of course I never knew. Nor Paul Mauser, Ferdinand von Mannlicher, John Browning, or Arthur Savage. Would that I had. Not sure about Sir Charles Ross, though.
My education as a rifleman aside, Clare Irwin taught me something invaluable about hunting: One November day, it was blowing and snowing outside, as I recall, and the boat was bumping up against the dock. We were in by the fire, thawing out after a long walk back, and the coffee was just starting to bubble. Clare turned to me and said, “You know, I don’t really care if I get a deer. I just like to be up here, hunting them.”
Clare Irwin had killed a lot of deer out of that cabin over forty years, whereas I had yet to get my first, and so I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. But that was then.
Cape buffalo in Tanzania, with .450 Ackley built by Siegfried Trillus on an FN Supreme Mauser action.