Ed knew his stuff, but his writing is famously dry.
Elmer can tell a story. 'Hell, I Was There' was dictated instead of laboriously typed. It shows. Still a great story of the transition from frontier to nation. And a tough guy, too; just add up all the injuries mentioned.
Patrick McManus is good... in small doses. Don't read one of his like a book, read one episode at a time occasionally as it came out on the back pages of Field and Stream.
Likewise 'The Compleat Just Jim' with similar stories of caricature country folk by Jim Carmichael. Fun one story at a time, but half a dozen get old.
I always liked 'Pistols, a Modern Encyclopedia' and 'Rifles, a Modern Encyclopedia' by Henry Stebbins. Out about 1961 and nothing startling even for their time, but SO well written by an English professor who was also a gun person as to be entertaining. Strange enough then, unimagineable now.
