A REAL LONG RANGE OUTFIT

A REAL LONG RANGE OUTFIT

by

Miles Gilbert and Frank Wells

That was the title Jack O’Connor gave to his May 1946 Outdoor Life Arms & Ammunition column. The gun was a 1943 K 98 Mauser battle field trophy that he had P.O. Ackley barrel and chamber for the .270 Ackley Magnum. Stocked in Tessier French walnut by Keith Stegall, hunted in the Yukon where it harvested two caribou bulls at nearly 300 and 325 yards respectively with 140gr Barnes spitzers at about 3200 to 3250 fps, it eventually landed in Albuquerque gun dealer Ron Peterson’s personal collection.

Ron invited me to see if I could make it shoot again, since .270 Ackley Mag ammo is not readily available. Very fortunately semi-retired highly regarded professional gunsmith Frank Wells was interested in the project and set to work. Ackley had access to .275 H&H magnum ammo, a caliber about which Jack O’Connor had written that he was ‘breathless until he got one’. Ackley reduced the case mouth from .287 (yes, H&H used .287 bullets) to .277 and fire formed them to his straighter chamber wall and unique 40 degree shoulder.

In the 10thEdition of Cartridges of the World, (2003:47) Frank Barnes wrote, ”It took American Firearms manufacturers nearly 40 years to realize that the .275 Holland and Holland (made long ago by Western Cartridge Co.) is a first-rate, medium-game long-range cartridge. The long line of 7mm wildcats is much like the old 275 H&H which came out in 1912. Remington chose to ignore the classic 7mm bullet -160 grain spitzer- in its 7mm Magnum loads.” For my custom Sako .275 H&H I hand loaded a 175 gr Sierra BTSP. One shot harvested my very first bull elk, a 7×7 near Two Ocean Pass in Wyoming.

Frank did not have access to .275 H&H cases so he tried .300 H&H, but found that the mouth wall was too thick when the case was shortened. Long story short, he ended up with Remington 7 mag cases run through a series of dies and finally fire formed with 56 gr of H 4350, Federal 215 primers and 130 gr. Sierra BTSP.

O’Connor and Ackley did not have access to modern powders like Reloader 15 or R19, and although Frank experimented with them with very satisfactory results, he wanted to duplicate O’Connor’s data with H 4350, and he came very close. Using 63 gr H 4350 under a 130 gr BTSP he got 3,338 fps through a Chrony chronograph, which we presume was more accurate than what O’Connor had 75 years ago. These data compare favorably with O’Connor’s 3,342fps with a 120 gr bullet over 64 gr H4350.

This gun can hunt again if Ron Peterson chooses to do so. The accompanying three shot bench rest group was made at only 50 yds, but it shows the potential accuracy of this old rifle in the hands of an even older shooter.

I offer this little article to bring O’Connor, Ackley and Stegall to the attention of modern shooters. I have been surprised that many of my acquaintance had not heard of them even though O’Connor was termed ‘America’s Greatest Gunwriter’ by Robert Anderson in his 2002 Safari Press biography. And, there is a very nice homage to O’Connor at the Bass Pro Shop in Mesa, AZ that features many photographs of his hunts. I cut my teeth on O’Connor’s articles in Outdoor Lifewhile in high school study hall, and read his 1945 Hunting in the Southwest soon after I moved to Flagstaff where ‘Cactus Jack’ had taught English at the university. It and all his books are classics in the field of hunting.

Briefly, O’Connor was born in Nogales, AZ in 1902, got his first shotgun at eight, shot his first deer at twelve. He hunted extensively in Mexico, the Canadian Rockies, the Rocky Mountain States, Alaska and the Yukon. He was the fourth man to collect the Grand Slam of North American sheep, and he shot the Big Five of Africa. He was elected to the Hunting Hall of Fame and received the Weatherby Award. He was Shooting Editor ofOutdoor Life from 1941–1972. In addition to 1200 articles for the sporting press, he wrote fourteen hard cover non-fiction books in the field of hunting sports.

He was also among the first hunting writers to stress having really good optics. He found that it was preferable to hunt sheep with your eyes rather than your feet. The subject rifle carried a Litschert 4X Eagle scope and weighed 10.5 lbs when it went to the Yukon. When Ron Peterson acquired it the Litschert had been replaced with a Weaver K4 and weighs 10.25 lbs.

Roy Dunlap with whom O’Connor co-authored the Complete Book of Shootingsaid that O’Connor was the “…best shot on running Jackrabbits….” that he’d ever seen.

Parker Otto Ackley (25 May 1903- 23 August 1989) began fulltime as a gunsmith in Roseburg, Oregon in 1936. He established a new gun shop in Trinidad, Colorado in 1945, where he was also an instructor at Trinidad State Junior College from 1946-1951. He was on the staff of Guns & Ammo and Shooting Times.

He improved a vast array of rifle cartridges, and was the first to develop a .17 caliber center fire. The subject of this article is not sensu stricto an Ackley Improved because the parent .275 cannot be fired in it due to the larger diameter bullet.

Warren Keith Stegall (22 August 1903- 11 February 1999) of Gunnison, Colorado was highly respected as a general gunsmith, but especially so as a gun stocker. It was said that his work transformed the big game rifle into an art form. His checkering and cheek piece patterns are well known trademarks. He imported Tessier French walnut blanks and sold them widely to other custom gun makers.

The rifle that O’Connor had built by Ackley and stocked by Stegall would not be considered ideal today. With the original German military heavy steel trigger guard and floor plate (light weight after market replacements were not available then), unmodified receiver Waffenamt stamped ar,indicating manufacture by Mauser-Werke AG Berlin-Borsigwalde, in medium weight 24 ¼ inch barrel it weighs 9 lbs. three oz without a scope, but it was avant garde for its time. In 1946 the caliber alone made it a real long range outfit.

References cited:

Anderson, Robert and Eldon ‘Buck’ Buckner

2002 Jack O’Connor the Legendary Life of America’s Greatest Gunwriter. Safari Press, Long Beach, Ca.

Barnes, Frank

2003 Cartridges of the World. Krause Publications, Iola, Wi.

O’Connor, Jack

1945 Hunting in the Southwest. Alfred Knopf, New York.

O’Connor, Jack and Roy Dunlap

1965 Complete Book of Shooting. Outdoor Life/Harper & Row, New York.

Turpin, Tom

1997 Modern Custom Guns. Krause Publications, Iola, Wi.

Three shot bench rest group from 50 yards. Courtesy of Miles Gilbert

 

Gunsmith Frank Wells contemplating a new, .270 Ackley Magnum cartridge that he made. Courtesy of Miles Gilbert
The O’Connor/Ackley/Stegall rifle was stocked in Tessier French walnut. Courtesy of Miles Gilbert.

 

Frank Wells SCI .416 Rigby Lion rifle on the cover of Turpin’s book.

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