Theres really no two ways about it: They dont make them like
Elmer Keith anymore. He was known for wearing big
Stetson hats smoking big cigars and hunting big game with handguns long before anyone else did. In Keiths day handgun rounds were either big and slow or fast and small. Confronted with this kind of ballistics market Keith sought to make bigger rounds go faster. This is how Keith became the father of the magnum cartridges that we use today: the
.357 the
.41 and the
.44.
Keith was perhaps most associated with the
.44 magnum with which he could dispatch a
mule deer at 600 yards. He was also a prolific
wildcatter of both pistol and rifle rounds who was always looking for ways to make big rounds bigger. Indeed Keith was very vocal about his distaste for smaller rounds and would even express it to contemporaries such as Jack OConnor who championed the
270 Winchester.
Keith was born and raised in
Hardin Missouri right on the Western frontier and had the opportunity to meet many gunfighters and
Civil War veterans. He claimed in fact that it was the town barber a former gunfighter who taught him how to shoot using linoleum in back of the shop.
The Hotel Fire That Changed Everything
In 1911 Keith was burned very badly in a fire in
Missoula Montana. These were scars that he wore for the rest of his life and the fire would likely have killed just about any other man. But Keith refused to die. It was so bad that his chin became fused with his right shoulder and his left hand was turned completely upside down. His father contacted several doctors in the area to perform a surgery to fix his hand but they all refused saying that he probably wouldnt even live to see 21 anyway.
Continue reading Elmer Keith: The Forgotten History of the Firearms Author and Father of Big Bore Handgunning at Ammo.com.
