Huntin' Gun

HUNTIN' GUN is one of those thoroughly satisfying books that prove editors are stupid. For a year Walter Rodgers did his persuasive best to convince us that his book was what hunters pray for. We, being experts, insisted that it wasn't. But Walter, who has been a hunter for better than half a century, doesn't discourage easily. He sent one of his stories to the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN. Published in the January 1948 issue, that story set a record in the number of letters of praise received. All of them wanted more Rodgers stories, even though they might not go in for his kind of shooting. Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Pery Mason, went overboard in hailing Rodgers as a real storyteller and a man with as much feel for words as he had for guns. So we ate the prime coyote Walter picked out for us from the 100-mile trapline he runs for the New Mexico Game Commission. And here in HUNTIN' GUNS are the yards that Rodger has chosen to present his "gun feel" theory. He says that you don't know what you can do with a gun unless you have "gun fell." If you have it you can kill game under conditions that a ballistician would call impossible--and you can get performance from your gun that a manufacturer's sales department wouldn't dare to claim. Rodgers admits it sounds crazy, but he proves the "gun feel" is a real thing by spinning the funniest, most exciting--impossible and yet believable--TRUE stories you've ever had. His yarn about the stuttering owner of a hangfire gun--about the best squirrel gun in the Southwest that just wouldn't kill rabbits--about the famous deerslayer's gun--about Shorty, who couldn't shoot standing still--about Rusty, who shot like a demon, but only when he was drunk--these and a host of other stories will fascinate you into joining the roaring chorus of "We want Rodgers" started by thousands of AMERICAN RIFLEMEN readers.