I suppose that I opened the gate in this thread for discussing Keith.I did not do it out of malice towards the man.I have a copy of sixguns and it was his writing that inspired me to begin shooting and handloading for the 44 magnum which is my favorite to this day.

My reason for bringing him into a thread about O'Conner was the reason for their feud.I have no doubt that Keith was likeable to many.As an aside,I have known a great many people in my life who were extremely likeable but yet were reckless in their dealing with facts.

The comments that Keith was not known to this person or that to ever tell falsehoods is pretty easy to dispute.Keith was famous for telling stories that were grossly inaccurate in order to advance his theory about anything.

Nitpicking over this or that among rifle calibers is boorish and shallow in my estimation and so I don't have any intention of opening that door but I can give a couple of examples.

In one story,Keith related how a medium size black bear was treed and the hunters were armed with lowly rifles of less than .338 caliber.As I recall,one was a 300 weatherby and the other a 270 winchester,in his telling.The bear was shot about 8 times or so without any apparent effect at all.He didn't even seem to notice until by chance one of the shots from the 300 weatherby just happened to hit his spine.It was only then that the bear fell and died.

In another story,a mountain sheep had been hit with a lowly 7 mm rifle and the sheep was hit several times through the lungs with no effect whatsoever.The guide who was present at the event stated later that the sheep was hit once,dropped dead and Keith was actually several miles away at the time.

I could go on but what's the point?If another thread about Keith ever starts and I add anything,I will not bring any of this up.I only brought it up to begin with because I thought it was relevant about O'Conner.

I don't put any man on a pedestal which certainly includes O'Conner.All human beings have flaws....period.