gundigest.com GunDigest the magazine AUGUST 2019 | 55
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tem No. 17 on the auction
list reads, “.44 Hand Ejector
First Model (Triple-Lock) se-
rial number 4325, .44 S&W
Special, 7.5-inch barrel, blue
fi nish, shipped April 7, 1910,
Honeyman Hardware Co.,
Portland, OR.”
This is interesting in its own right
for wheelgun afi cionados, but it’s
even more so when you ponder the
revolver’s journey from Oregon and
its intervening experiences in those
100-plus years between 1910 and
2016, at which time it landed in the
hands of a Nebraska fi rearms collector.
Much of the Smith & Wesson re-
volver’s early history is unrecorded;
and it might have remained unnoted,
perhaps being passed anonymously
from generation to generation, owner
to owner—had it not landed in the
hands of one of the foremost pisto-
leers of the 20th century: Elmer Keith.ABOUT ELMER KEITH
I know you know about Elmer Keith.
But humor me while I briefl y describe
his infl uence as one of the top gun
writers of his day, which is to say a
good portion of the mid-1900s. To
give you an idea of the Elmer Keith
era, he published his fi rst fi rearms
book, Sixgun Cartridges and Loads, in
1936, and his last, Hell, I Was There!
in 1979.
Keith was a rancher in Idaho, as
well as a hunter and fi rearms enthu-
siast. He is perhaps most often asso-
ciated with handguns and handgun
hunting, but he was also an expert
with the rifl e and shotgun and made
signifi cant contributions to all three
of those disciplines.
A man of small physical stature
but a large personality and reputa-
tion, Keith favored a large Stetson
cowboy hat and cigar (sometimes,
a pipe). In addition to books, Keith
wrote popular fi rearms columns and
articles for American Rifl eman and
Guns and Ammo magazines, as well as
other magazines (for one, True maga-
zine). He’s best known, in my mind
anyway, for his affi liation with Guns
and Ammo, even though I have some
1950s-era editions of American Rifl e-
man listing Keith on the masthead.
This included the March 1950 edition,
in which Keith was introduced as a