Favorite & Least Favorite Gun Authors?

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For the greatest African adventure of all time, read "Hunter" by J.A. Hunter. Safari press. If you liked Capstick, you will LOVE this book. All true. J.A. Hunter was born in Scotland and moved to Africa around 1900 to escape domestic entanglements. He began a career as perhaps the greatest "White Hunter" that ever lived. The book is spellbinding, once started it cannot be put down.

Mike Venturino is my favorite gun "Riter" as he puts it. If he writes about something it is from experience. Clint Smith is a hoot. If you don't have an opinion on something he will give you one! Especially on the subject of what is an appropriate self defense caliber for a handgun!

I have met both men briefly at shot shows, glad I did.

I was lucky enough at my last shot show to sit and talk to Peter Kokalis, uninterrupted, for a good half hour. I think that man has forgotten more about NFA weapons than the rest of us will ever know.

I like just about everyone on the staff at Handgunner. It is the only gun mag I buy.
 
wgp said:
Hard to believe no one has mentioned Stephen Hunter, who wrote the Bob Lee Swagger books (although Dirty White Boys is my favorite)
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Good point. So can we include fiction crime gun writers as you and I did?

If so, I will add Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man , Red Harvest and the Continental Op.

He was a Pinkerton Detective for many years, and really knew guns. A guy who was actually down in the trenches of the scummy underworld, that America has known from the very beginning.

It's never been pretty.

And thanks, Blacksmoke! Chandler was cool. ;)
 
Among the currently active, Boddington and Venturino are my favorites.
Among the classics O'Connor, Skelton, and Keith were always interesting.
Askins was fun to read too, but frequently wrote tongue in cheek.

The only real dislike I have is for Clay Harvey who was a total phony, but was quite successful for a time.

gary
 
If we're including fiction, we can't leave out our very own Larry Correia. His books made entertaining reading when I was laid up with surgery.
 
Favorite = Most Respected = Ian Hogg, Blake Stevens, Edward Ezell

Least Favorite = Least Respected = John "Jeff" Cooper, Charles Askins, Evan Marshall, Edwin Sanow
 
Whatever happened to Harvey?
I remember reading his stuff.
Phony?
Denis
 
Iam still with Elmer Keith, Bill Jordan,



My dislike is. The sky is falling Massad Ayoob Who decided a small town reserve cop is a expert. In that case Barney Fife is also a expert

I stopped reading his advice 30 years ago.
 
If I'm only picking one:

Of the living:
Favorite, Brian Pearce
Least favorite: Mas Ayoob

But I also enjoy Layne Simpson, Dave Scovill, Venturino and Taffin, John Barsness, Metcalf. There are a few others I don't recall their names but I perk up when I see them. A couple of the young guys are getting good.

I think it's harder to be a good gunwriter these days then decades back. More pressure from the firearms industry to see it their way. The writing resembles the style and quality of, what's that "women's" mag?...Cosmo, except instead of the best bridal dresses, how to "have it all" and how to have better sex, the gun mags are about the best gun for concealed carry, or the best holster for CC, etc. All in the same prose style. Geared to selling you stuff. A lot more commercial then they used to be and less informative.

tipoc
 
A certain number of gun writers if not a substantial number are spoon feed thus dependent on feeding from the firearms industry. The firearms periodicals are also dependent on advertisement revenue from the firearms industry. Its extremely difficult to be objective about those that you socialize with and their produced products when they are the cash cow you depend on.
 
One thing this question did was bring a lot of the old soldiers out of the wood work. Just goes to show how many there were . Plus, I`m sure some are still un-accounted for.
 
My favorite is probably Ross Seyfried. I think he is the most gifted and technically proficient of those who write what I want to read. The custom Ruger that I have just commissioned was heavily influenced by his #13, as well as Keith's #5. John Taffin has always been a favorite but his work has turned to filler in recent years. Brian Pearce is probably better than Taffin ever was. I also enjoy Dave Scovill, Denis Prisbrey, Dennis Adler and a few others. Of those dead and gone, Elmer Keith will always be without peer. Plus Bob Milek, Skeeter Skelton, Hal Swiggett and others that I'm forgetting. In books, I probably have more R.L. Wilson than any other. Just received his big book on Colt's.

Don't care for Boddington, Ayoob, Clapp, Metcalf, Spangenberger or Cameron Hopkins.


A certain number of gun writers if not a substantial number are spoon feed thus dependent on feeding from the firearms industry. The firearms periodicals are also dependent on advertisement revenue from the firearms industry. Its extremely difficult to be objective about those that you socialize with and their produced products when they are the cash cow you depend on.
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It's very odd, the disconnect between writers and readers. :scrutiny:
 
In reply to DPriss, Clay Harvey entered the gun writer biz with the avowed intention of becoming rich and left it when it was clear that wouldn't happen.
At a sagerat shoot here in Oregon (sponsored by Leupold), he proved incapable of hitting anything beyond 25 yards. He was in the habit of selling guns loaned to him for review by manufacturers. Many other stories are out there.

gary
 
This is a bit more on Harvey. It involves some tales by men who knew him. Some of the stories are third hand. I do not know the man so take the stories for what they are.

Basically they maintain that Harvey misled a lot of people, made up info in his articles and took guns and ammo lent him for review and sold them. He dropped out of sight as a gun writer and burnt bridges behind him.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/247338/Where_is_Clay_Harvey

tipoc
 
You can't possibly last too long in the biz by doing all that.
It'll catch up to you sooner or later.
Denis
 
Hi...

Favorites back in the day were O'connor, Keith, Skelton and Jordan.

Later, it was Taffin, Clapp and Venturino.

About the only ones I read now are Pearce and Scovill. Other than Handloader, I haven't bought a gun magazine in years and years. So, if they ain't writing for Handloader, I ain't reading them.

Back in the day, i read all the mags and all the writers. With some hard-earned experience, I discovered that most writers wrote exactly what the manufacturers told them to write.

The wisest words ever written by a gun writer was ..."Only accurate rifles are interesting".

Pretty much sums up everything one needs to know about guns and shooting.
 
Since everyone went for the low hanging fruit; a few authors of noteworthy contributions so far overlooked:
Burton L Spiller: Grouse Feathers
Francis E Sell: advocate of the 20 gauge; Hunting with Camera & Binocular

Townsend Whelen, I belive wrote a few books worth reading.

kerf
 
Raymond Chandler. He was a combat veteran of World War I. He knew guns and got things right,
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Raymond Chandler didn’t just know his guns, he's one of the all-time great authors of American fiction and the originator of the hard-boiled detective archetype in our culture. Beats me why his novels aren't required reading in high schools.

Plenty of good gun moments in Chandler's books: When he wasn't carrying his Gold Cup, he would pocket a .32 loaded with "flat-point ammunition". At other times he uses a heavy barreled police .38. A homeowner successfully defends his property with a bolt action .22 against multiple gunmen by firing from ambush on a hillside. At one point Marlowe goes up against a dirty cop armed with a .38 built on a .44 frame: a wicked weapon with the punch of a .45 but twice the range.

If we're talking about dedicated gun writers, Skelton is my favorite. His stories about the Border Patrol were fun to read and he always seemed like a decent person.
 
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since all the gun writers i grew up with are all dead and gone, i have no favorites, since most of the new guys don't have the same integrity of the oldies, some seem (to me !) a bit overblown, when it comes to AR-15's and their types i believe i forgot more about them than these newbies will ever know, also i have handled AR-15's longer than most of them have been alive.

i once met Gene Stoner and four or five other guys that day, even got to shoot one of his first rifles, at Sorento Valley Gun Club California. circa: 1962AD.

anyone here remember that shooting range ?
 
Raymond Chandler is on my list of people I would have KILLED to sit down with and have a conversation. Also on that list, Robert Mitchum, John D. MacDonald, John Wayne...okay, I realize this is thread drift. OTOH, last time I was in Hollyweird I was able to have a sit-down-discussion with David Mamet, so there's a name crossed off the list!

Right before he died Col. Cooper and I had a "spirited" conversation on the art and business of writing. It was fascinating...sorry we didn't record it for posterity. Ditto a conversation I had with Peter Capstick on stalking and shooting rats with air rifles....it was pure Capstick and pure crazy. Askins scared the crap out of me in many ways...to borrow phraseology from Mr. Chandler, I always got the feeling that on some level he was measuring me for a coffin. He missed those looney, violent days on the border just a wee bit too much!

To me, the best nonfiction gun writer in the business is Mark Keefe based on both his encyclopedic knowledge and his ability to put words together. Close behind is Richard Mann. The best nonfiction gun/hunting writer to me is hands down Ron Spomer. He is brilliant. Ed Head, writing for us at DOWN RANGE TV, has really come along...his conversational style and depth of knowledge is impressive. In blogs, Kevin Creighton at MISFIRES & LIGHT STRIKES has become my favorite read. Fictionwise, it's Steven Hunter and Brad Thor.

Michael B., who used to be a writer!
 
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