Arizona born writer/professor/big game hunter Jack O'Connor was, in my opinion, the best firearms author the country has ever produced, and certainly the best one on the topic of North American big game rifles.
Born in Arizona in 1902, he was partially raised by a bird hunting maternal grandfather, due to his parent's divorce when he was five years old, which influenced him heavily. His paternal grandfather was a judge who also ranched, which also influenced him a great deal. His mother became a university professor after that, at the University of Arizona, which he ultimately would as well. As a very young man, he'd briefly worked as a market hunter for an uncle's saw mill.
O'Connor served in the military twice. He joined the Army at age 15 during World War One, but was discharged due to tuberculosis. He later joined the Navy in 1919, serving as a hospital corpsman until discharged in 1921.
He took to big game early on. By profession, he was a writer, as noted first being a college professor. He was the first journalism professor at the University of Arizona, a position he left to write in sporting journals full time in 1945. In that role, he became famously associated with the .270 Winchester and Mountain Sheep hunting. Not too surprisingly, he moved to Idaho in 1948, where sheep are indigenous, although he stated that this was in part as he felt Arizona had become overpopulated following World War Two.
While associated particularly with sheep, O'Connor was the class western North American hunter, and hunted every big game animal native to the region, frequently with his wife. He was a noted conservationist as well.
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