Elmer Keith - Work With Rifles

Work With Rifles

Keith was instrumental in the development of various wildcat cartridges, a few of which were later adopted as factory rounds. The .333 OKH ("O'Neil-Keith-Hopkins"), developed in conjunction with Charlie O'Neil and Don Hopkins, was made from .30-06 Springfield brass necked up to take the .333" 250 and 300-grain bullets of the .333 Jeffery. There was also a .334 OKH, based on the shortened .300 H&H Magnum case. The .333 OKH, necked up slightly to take the more common .338" sized bullets of the older .33 Winchester, led to the creation of the popular Wildcat cartridge the .338-06, also known as the 338 OKH, and was the inspiration for the 1958 commercial introduction of the .338 Winchester Magnum based on the larger belted .458 Winchester Magnum case. The .334 OKH, likewise necked up to accept .338" bullets and given the distinctive Weatherby "double-radius" shoulder, was introduced by Weatherby in 1963 as the .340 Weatherby Magnum. The .338-378 Weatherby Magnum, introduced in 1998, was developed based on another one of Keith's wildcats, the .338-378 KT(Keith-Thomson), which he developed in the 1960s with Bob Thomson.

An admirer of the old British double rifles, Keith had numerous examples in his collection. He used two of these doubles, a .476 Westley Richards and a .500 Nitro Express, to take dangerous game in Africa on two different safaris. Keith documented the first of these hunts in his 1968 tome, Safari.

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