By David E. Petzal

(L-R) Jack O'Connor, Warren Page, Elmer Keith, Townsend Whelen, Bob Brister

When I broke into the gun writing business in the mid 1960s, I was an editor, not a writer, which meant that I, who did not know what I was talking about, got to meddle with the copy of people who did. And those people were a different breed from today. To start with, they were almost all veterans. Not only did this give them a certain perspective on the use of firearms, but some formal training in ballistics as well. Pete Brown studied naval gunnery at Annapolis; Warren Page was a naval gunnery officer; Charley Askins was an Army ordnance officer, as was Col. Townsend Whelen.

I had the great good fortune to get my start on a small magazine whose main writer was a fellow named Larry Koller. Koller was a consummate outdoorsman. He was an expert shot with rifle, handgun, and shotgun, and a master gunsmith, bamboo-rod maker, flyfisherman, whitetail hunter, and cook. There was nothing he could not do, and do at the master-class level. While a few of the old gun writers were only semiliterate (Elmer Keith), most were far better educated than people are today because everyone was far better educated then. Ol’ Elmer probably never made it through high school, but he was a master storyteller, and if you pick up one of his books today you won’t be able to put it down. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

About 35 years ago, I bought a trigger pull scale so I could measure trigger pulls. Back then, you could use weights on a rod to do the job, or you could get a spring-style scale with the weights engraved on a brass tube. There was a hook connected to the spring, and you put that on the trigger and pulled carefully until you heard the firing pin fall, and you tried to read where the indicator was at the instant you heard the click.

The scale was by no means perfect. You had to develop a touch with it so you could see what it read at the crucial instant, and every few years you had to polish the thing so you could read it. But it worked. [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

In the spirit of the 100-bladed knife that contained a pinfire revolver, today’s curiosity is a flintlock ring.

It comes from the arms and armor collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and dates to 1650-1670. Set in between two pieces of rock crystal is a miniature flintlock, complete with a tiny flint inside. Parts of the lock are blued. The whole mechanism is carefully made and there’s cutout along the top of the ring so you can cock the hammer. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

This morning, I learned that the politically correct term for “hungry, starving, etc.” is “food insecure.” It will take weeks to get over that, if I ever do. But in any event, I shall now take time out from flinging lead at all points of the compass in the hopes of hitting something to review a pair of standout books.

"It’s Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It" is an odd and unclassifiable book by the odd and unclassifiable Bill Heavey. The publishers of Slow Food offered Mr. Heavey money if he would feed himself by foraging—everything from dandelion greens to persimmons that fell from a Washington, D.C. tree and had lain on the sidewalk for quite some time to things so rank and gross in nature that I cannot list them here, and then write about it.

Bill’s quest took him from Washington to San Francisco to Louisiana, and along the way he met the real subject of the book, which is not so much food as the people who forage as a way of life. No matter what Heavey writes about, he ends up with people, and if you have any literary acumen you’ll recall that this is what Bill Tarrant and Robert Ruark did as well. There is some hunting here, and some fishing, and quite a bit of information on food, and some fine-sounding recipes, but Slow Food is irresistible because it’s very funny and very sad and filled with unforgettable characters. Heavey is a strange and repellant character, but he writes like hell. Oh, and if you want to make a salad out of the stuff that grows in your lawn, watch out for dogs**t. $25, Atlantic Monthly Press.


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By David E. Petzal

Memorial Day is a time to honor bravery, and we have shown plenty of it in the history of our republic. But you wonder, sometimes, who was bravest? The soldiers at Valley Forge, freezing and starving with no hope of victory? The men who survived Bataan? The troops who charged Omaha Beach? Maybe. But here’s my nomination:

At the end of 1863, the enlistments of many of the original Union regiments was coming to an end. These were the men who had put on blue in 1861 when it was assumed the coming war was going to be short and glorious—one or two big battles, and then everyone except for an unfortunate few would march home with their flags to much fanfare. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

Q: What is the most demanding game animal for a rifleman?
—Cole Karsins, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

A: Your question is vague and imprecise. You need to focus. In terms of which North American big-game animal have I seen the most lead flung at in vain, it’s the antelope. That’s because they’re small, and always in the open, and people think you have to shoot at them from a long way off. The highest number of consecutive misses at one goat that I know of is 19, at a yearling buck that was 100 yards away.

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