I bought my first copy of Sixguns in early winter of 1969. I was on my first tour in RVN, attached to a MAC-V SOG Advisory Team in Ly Tin Province, just North of Chu Lai. I just sent a letter to: Elmer Keith, Salmon, Idaho asking how to buy a copy. About two weeks later, a copy showed up in my mail with a note saying "No charge to a Soldier fighting for our country...". It was pretty dogeared in September of 1971 from being passed around the Ranger Company. I gave it to one of my team members.
I moved to SW Idaho in summer of 1978, and was able to visit Keith in Salmon several times. His gunsmith, Don Mihalovic (pronunciation, not correct spelling) lived a couple miles South of Salmon on what was left of an old ranch. Don was from a nearby town in Illinois where I grew up. He would let me stay in the old Bunkhouse when I visited.
Elmer Keith was one of the most fascinating human beings I have ever met. My first visit, I just walked up to his front door and knocked. He came to the door, and I introduced myself. He asked if I were an NRA member, and I told him "yes sir, a life member". He opened the screen door and said "Come in, any member is welcome to my home. He turned to Mrs Keith and said "Mother, we have company. Could we get a few of those cookies (Oatmeal Raisin, iirc) and some Iced Tea?". She had baked cookies just a few minutes earlier, and the smell filled that house. On another visit, he had just acquired a Diamond Jubilee double H&H in .600 NE. It commemorated the 75th Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth. Gold and Silver Inlays, engraved African game, wow. I asked him how the recoil was, and he simply replied "Let's drive out to Don's place and you can shoot it.". We did. Don kept plastic milk jugs, filled them with water and some food dye, and froze them. He had two fence posts set about six foot apart and four feet high. He set a jug atop each one, and Mr Keith uncased that .600. The rounds looked like Churchill cigars. I put one in each barrel, and focused on a jug. The sound is indescribable, and your right shoulder is sending messages to your brain saying "Something Major has just occurred...". Luckily, the jug explodes, and it looks like a snow cone blew up. About ten seconds later, I fire the left barrel. Repeat performance. He had told me I would have to buy the ammunition, but seeing both jugs blow up, he told me "anybody crazy enough to fire the second shot and make both hits, ammo is on me.".
That is when I told him about getting a copy of Sixguns from him in RVN. He just took a big hit off that ever present cigar and said "I remember your name now...". I used to go to Salmon every couple weeks, just to visit and hear his stories for a couple years.
I could go on and on, meeting Bill Jordan at his house one time; and his stories. I watched him shoot at his gunsmith's ranch more than once. I was privileged to meet most of the old timers, Ackley at his shop in Salt Lake city, John buhmiller at his shop in Montana, and watching Bob Munden put on a shooting exhibition at a gunshop in Boise one afternoon. I had just finally saved enough money to buy a Colt SAA. Munden did his "field tune" on it. Smooth as butter 3lb trigger pull.
(side note; my brother and I were in RVN together for about seven months. He was a Triage Medic at 27th Surgical Hospital. He had the ugliest job in Country. When choppers brought wounded in he had to separate them into three groups. Group I, get them into surgery NOW!! to save their lives. Group II, can wait until Group I are operated on. Group III, cannot be saved. They were put in a dimly lit room and spent their last few minutes with a Chaplain and a clerk who could write to their families telling how that Soldier died.). After he got out and returned to the farm he never spoke of that again, even to me.
enough for one long, rambling post.
ISS
