Elmer Keith's wealth of experience as an outdoorsman and rancher was remarkable, and his opinion was respected. Much of what we now take for granted in handgun hunting, bullet design and magnum handgun cartridge development stemmed from his wisdom and experience. He lived modestly and passed away at age 85 in Boise, Idaho, in February 1984. If memory serves, his health deteriorated after a stroke.
Jack O'Connor was born in Arizona in 1902 and passed away in 1978, carrying a wealth of outdoor experience with him. As a writer, he is usually associated with Outdoor Life but he also wrote for Peterson Publications in the last several years of his life. An English professor, he was a polished writer. He relocated to Idaho from Arizona after WWII because postwar land development changed the Arizona environment he loved, and he spent 30 years (the rest of his life) in Lewiston, Idaho. He passed away in January, 1978, due to a "cardiac event", carrying a wealth of outdoor experience with him.
Both Keith and O'Connor were strongly opinionated men who formed their unequivocal opinions by experience and shared them with readers. In their time, they developed a very loyal readership. Enjoy their books; they were both extraordinary outdoorsmen.

I have some of both of there books and enjoy them very much they are reputedly the Two best Shooting writers of all.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, why don't you read the books and make your own decision?

Kieth was a big bore fan while O,Conner loved light and fast bullets both are ledgions in the gun world and knew thier stuff they should both provide a wealth of knowledge and some good reads.

Ontario Hunter,
I show the O'Connor house in Lewiston, at the intersection of Prospect and 7th, close to the Snake River, but I suppose I could be wrong.
I still have Elmer Keith's Boise mailing address in my address book, which tells you how old that address book may be. We weren't pen pals; I met him at a show and thereafter sent a Christmas card every year.

My mistake. It was Elmer Keith's ranch that was on the Salmon River. Keith was raised in Helena, MT when it was wild and wooly. His book has some interesting stories about it. Wikipedia says that the Keiths sold the ranch in the 1940s but I was told otherwise. Interesting that these two giants lived so close to each other. But, as I understand it, they were not personally very close.

We've seen some fine writers, haven't we? Elmer Keith and Jack O'Connor were born at the turn of the last 20th Century and came up in a world or environment that most of us can't identify with, but they had a great deal to say and to teach, and they did. A new crop of writers has come along, and continues to come along. We have volumes to look back upon, and lots to look forward to, because it hasn't all been said and done. When I think of Skeeter Skelton, Bill Jordan, Jim Carmichael, Al Miller, and many others whose writing I've enjoyed (and continue to enjoy), I know we'll never run out of good reading material.

Does that mean I can't read them?