John Woolf O'Connor (January 22, 1902 – January 20, 1978) was a writer and outdoorsman, best known as a writer for ''

Outdoor Life ''Outdoor Life'' is an outdoors magazine about camping, fishing, hunting, and survival. For years, it was a sister magazine of '' Field & Stream''. Together with '' Sports Afield'', they are considered the Big Three of American outdoor publish ...

'' magazine, where he served as Shooting Editor for 31 years.

Early life

Jack O'Connor was born in

Nogales, Arizona Nogales (; English: or ) is a city in and the county seat of Santa Cruz County, Arizona. The population was 20,837 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census and estimated 20,103 in 2019. Nogales forms part of the larger Tucson–Nogales L ...

, a territory he described as the last frontier. His parents divorced when he was a young child and his maternal grandfather, James Woolf, helped raise him and exposed him to the outdoors and hunting. His grandfather was basically a bird hunter, but Jack developed an interest for hunting big game at a young age. In chapter 9 of his book "The Hunting Rifle", he quotes the story of his first buck, a desert mule deer that he took at young age. He also hunted a small subspecies of

whitetail deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North, Central and South America. It is the most widely-distributed mainland ungulate ...

known today as the coues deer (''Oodocileus virginianus couesi''), which inhabits the desert mountains of the southwestern United States and Mexico.

English teacher and writer

O'Connor worked as a college professor of English and journalism at Sul Ross State Normal College (today, Sul Ross State University) in Alpine, Texas until 1945, when he quit teaching to write full-time. According to the introduction written by his son, Bradford, for ''The Lost Classics of Jack O'Connor'' (2004), O'Connor wrote more than 1200 articles for hunting and fishing magazines, and also wrote romantic novellas and articles for ''

Redbook ''Redbook'' is an American women's magazine that is published by the Hearst Communications, Hearst magazine division. It is one of the "Seven Sisters (magazines), Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines. It ceased print publicatio ...

'', '' Mademoiselle'', ''

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...

'', ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Internationalism * World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship * Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community * Cosmopolitan ...

'', ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...

'', the literary magazine ''Midland'', and other magazines popular in the 1930s and 1940s. O'Connor wrote over a dozen non-fiction books including ''Game in the Desert'', ''The Rifle Book'', ''The Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns'', ''The Big Game Animals of North America'', ''The Art of Hunting Big Game in North America'', and ''Sheep and Sheep Hunting''. He also wrote two western novels, ''Conquest'' and ''Boom Town'', and the autobiography of his formative years: ''Horse and Buggy West: A Boyhood on the Last Frontier''. The papers of Jack (John Woolf) O'Connor (1902-1978) of Lewiston, Idaho, were donated to the Washington State University Libraries in November 1978, by his son, Bradford O'Connor, and daughters, Caroline O'Connor McCullam and Catherine O'Connor Baker, all of Seattle. The O'Connor papers (MS 78-50) were enlarged by the addition of an extensive correspondence series (MS 79-17) donated by Margorie E. Poleson, long-time secretary to O'Connor, in May 1979.

.270 Winchester proponent

O'Connor was well known among shooters and hunters as a proponent of various cartridges such as the .30-06 Springfield, 7x57mm Mauser ( .275 Rigby), and for his extensive knowledge of hunting and shooting, but especially for the .270 Winchester with which he collected all sorts of North American big game including the giant

moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

. Jack favored the 130 grain

spitzer bullet A spitzer bullet (from , "point shot") is a munitions term, primarily regarding fully-powered and intermediate small-arms ammunition, describing bullets featuring an aerodynamically pointed nose shape, called a spire point, sometimes combine ...

leaving the muzzle of a 24 inch barrel at 3160 fps. The high velocity, flat trajectory and high sectional density of the cartridge made it a perfect mountain hunting cartridge and through his writings, O'Connor helped place it as one of the most popular big game hunting cartridges worldwide, for medium sized game, up to date.

On hunting

Though Jack O'Connor hunted a wide variety of game in different parts of the world, he was primarily a big game hunter focused on the local species of sheep and deer inhabiting his homeland.

Sheep hunting

For Jack O'Connor, sheep were the most revered and challenging game. Since his first

bighorn sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of Ovis, sheep native to North America. It is named for its large Horn (anatomy), horns. A pair of horns may weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates th ...

hunt, which happened to be unsuccessful, O'Connor got hooked on it, achieving 2 grand slams of sheep hunting before the term existed, which consists of taking the 4 species of North American Sheep, including a Dall ram hunted with a .30-06, during one of his expeditions to the

Yukon Territory Yukon () is a territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s westernmost territory and the smallest ...

1950 with 15 1/2 inch bases and its longest full curled horn falling short of 44 inches, considered one of the best rams of the species ever hunted. He also hunted sheep in Iran and Turkey.

Deer hunting

However he hunted deer extensively, mainly the southwestern

when he lived in Arizona,

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whit ...

and

Elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

, having more opportunity to hunt the later when he moved to Idaho.

On hunting rifles

His experience hunting big game in mountain terrain made him develop the concept of the mountain rifle. The rifle should be light, accurate and balanced; but also pleasant to the eye. His most popular rifles were built by Alvin Biesen around

Winchester Model 70 The Winchester Model 70 is a bolt-action sporting rifle. It has an iconic place in American sporting culture and has been held in high regard by shooters since it was introduced in 1936, earning the moniker "The Rifleman's Rifle". The action has s ...

controlled round feed actions, usually chambered for his favorite cartridge, the .270 Winchester, of which the most renowned one is probably a customized Model 70 named "''No.2"'''':'' "''The wood is quite dense, flawlessly inletted, and rather plain. Biesen left the barrel intact (He turned down the standard-weight Model 70 barrels on which he worked.), tuned the trigger, replaced the loathsome aluminum floorplate with a steel one and converted the floorplate release to a straddle type. Checkering was 26 lpi, in his distinctive fleur-de-lis pattern, and the stock has an embossed grip cap and buttplate. For a scope, Biesen used a 4X Leupold Mountaineer mounted very low and very far forward in a Tilden mount"''. He also praised the

Springfield 1903 The M1903 Springfield, officially the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1903, is an American five-round magazine-fed, bolt-action service repeating rifle, used primarily during the first half of the 20th century. The M1903 was first used in combat ...

and

Mauser 98 The Gewehr 98 (abbreviated ''G98'', Gew 98, or ''M98'') is a bolt-action rifle made by Mauser for the German Empire as its service rifle from 1898 to 1935. The Gewehr 98 action, using a 5-round stripper clip loaded with the 7.92×57mm Mauser ...

actions, and had rifles customized by other renowned gunsmith of the time such as Alvin Linden, who restocked his first model 70 rifle, W.A. Sukalle, and Griffin & Howe. His last rifle was a

Ruger M77 The Ruger M77 is a bolt-action rifle produced by Sturm, Ruger & Co. It was designed by Jim Sullivan during his three years with Ruger. It was designed primarily as a hunting rifle featuring a traditional Mauser K98-style two-lugged bolt with a ...

customized by Al Biesen, chambered in the .280 Remington cartridge to the following specifications: ''“Stock French walnut in a nice grained contrasty piece not so elaborate with Deluxe Fleur-de-lis checkering, ebony forend tip, skeleton grip cap and skeleton butt plate. Old Win. Style swivel studs. Metal work Barrel was recontoured to light weight dimensions. Trigger guard hand made Blackburn style one piece model etc. Bolt handle knob hand checkered in four panel design, trimmed for style and shape. Trigger reworked and tightened with a nice let off. Action trued and hand polished, hand finished inside and polished for smooth working etc. Bolt jeweled. Special scope rings and mounts hand made to lighten them. Leupold 4 power scope. All metal parts blued with a Black Velvet non glare finish. Front swivel stud on barrel. Safety reworked and a Silver letter “S” ahead of safety showing safe position. Al Biesen Gunmaker Spokane Wn And Rem. 280 in Silver on the barrel.”''

List of books

* Game in the Desert - 1939 * Hunting in the Rockies - 1947 * The Rifle Book - 1949 * The Big Game Rifle - 1952 * The Big Game Animals of North America - 1961 * Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns: With a Seven-Lesson Rifle Course - 1961 * The Complete Book of Shooting - 1965 * The Shotgun Book - 1965 * The Art of Big Game Hunting in North America - 1967 * The Hunting Rifle - 1970 * Sheep and Sheep Hunting - 1974 * Jack O'Connor's Gun Book * Hunting on Three Continents with Jack O'Connor Vol.1 * Hunting on Three Continents with Jack O'Connor Vol.2 * Classic O'Connor: 45 Worldwide Hunting Adventures

Jack O'Connor Hunting Heritage Center

In 2006 the Jack O'Connor Hunting Heritage and Education Center opened at

Hells Gate State Park Hells Gate State Park is a public recreation area located on the southern edge of Lewiston, Idaho, at the Snake River's downstream entrance to Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America. The state park was created by the U.S. Army Corps ...

on the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river in the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States. About long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, which is the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. Begin ...

, near

Lewiston, Idaho Lewiston is a city and the county seat of Nez Perce County, Idaho, United States, in the state's North Central Idaho, north central region. It is the third-largest city in the Idaho Panhandle, northern Idaho region, behind Post Falls, Idaho, Pos ...

. Many of his big game trophies are on display there, along with other memorabilia, including his favorite .270 rifle.

References

O'Connor website

* * * * * * *

External links

Jack O'Connor Hunting and Heritage Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oconnor, Jack Gun writers American hunters Writers from Idaho Writers from Arizona 1902 births 1978 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers