Elmer Keith
Born	(1899-03-08)March 8, 1899
Died	February 12, 1984(1984-02-12)
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Rancher, author, Firearms enthusiast
Known for	Creation of .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .41 Magnum rounds
Home town	Salmon, Idaho
Spouse	Lorraine Randall

Elmer Merrifield Keith (March 8, 1899 – February 12, 1984) was an Idaho rancher, firearms enthusiast, and author. Keith was instrumental in the development of the first magnum revolver cartridge, the .357 Magnum, as well as the later .44 Magnum and .41 Magnum cartridges.

Personality and life[link]

Keith's trademarks were his cigars, his ten-gallon Stetson, and his outspoken opinions. Keith was an avid handgun hunter in the earliest days of the sport, and often hunted medium game with a double action Smith and Wesson revolver. In the days when handgun cartridges tended to fire large, slow bullets like the popular .45 Colt, or light, fast bullets like the .30 Mauser, Keith was pushing the limits of existing cartridges, driving large bullets at high velocities.

He was married to Lorraine Randall. Elmer Keith was born in Missouri but was raised in Montana, Idaho, and eastern Oregon. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he had a ranch on the North Fork of the Salmon River near Salmon, Idaho. In the late 1940s, Elmer and Lorraine left the ranch and moved into the town of Salmon. [The ranch is still owned by the Keith family.]

During World War II, Keith served as an inspector at the Ogden, Utah Arsenal. The rifles that he inspected were cartouche stamped with the initials "OGEK" in a rectangular box, on the buttstock. Rifles stamped OGEK without a rectangular box were inspected by Ed Klouser at the same Ogden Arsenal.^[1]

Magnum revolvers[link]

Keith's first major contribution, the .357 Magnum, was the result of handloading the .38 Special cartridge far beyond normally accepted limits, taking full advantage of the greater strength of the revolvers available in the 1920's compared to those of the late 19th century. The .357 Magnum first became available in 1935 and quickly became a favorite among law enforcement and civilian users. The .357 Magnum had a slightly longer case than the .38 Special, but was otherwise identical, so .357 Magnum revolvers could shoot .38 Special or .357 Magnum ammunition, but .38 Special revolvers (most of which are not safe for the pressures generated by the Magnum round) could not chamber .357 Magnum ammunition. Buying a .357 Magnum revolver gave the shooter all the abilities of the well-established .38 Special, with the ability to double the available power by using the Magnum cartridge. Keith's contributions to the commercial development of the .357 Magnum have been questioned by some writers, and Keith subsequently denigrated the .357 Magnum as he had the .38 Special.

The .44 Magnum was developed in much the same way, and was released commercially in 1956. Keith had earlier determined that the thinner chamber walls of the .45 Colt would not comfortably withstand the pressures generated by his own heavy loads. He therefore started experimenting with the .44 Special revolver, and used the same formula of pushing heavy bullets at high velocities that he had used for the .357 Magnum. The resulting ".44 Special Magnum" was a formidable cartridge for handgun hunting, firing a 250 grain bullet at 1,200 ft/s (370 m/s).

Keith encouraged Smith & Wesson and Remington to produce a commercial version of this new high pressure loading, and revolvers chambered for it. While S&W produced the first prototype revolver chambered in .44 Magnum, the famous Model 29, Sturm, Ruger actually beat S&W to market by several months in 1956 with a .44 Magnum version of the single action Blackhawk revolver. In fact Remington delivered a more powerful cartridge than Keith asked for, firing a 240 grain bullet at 1,500 ft/s (460 m/s), and it remained the most powerful production handgun cartridge until the commercial introduction of the .454 Casull (based on the .45 Colt). The .44 Magnum is still far more popular, as the recoil of .454 Casull rounds is considered excessive by most shooters, and revolvers in .454 Casull were rare and expensive until the introduction of .454 Casull models by Sturm, Ruger and Taurus in the late 1990s.

The .41 Magnum, released in 1963, was an attempt to reach a middle ground between the .357 and .44 magnums. The .357 Magnum was adequate for hunting deer-sized game, but the limited power meant it needed to be used by a skilled marksman. The .44 Magnum provided far more power, easily taking deer sized game, but recoil and muzzle blast are substantial, at least in the earliest commercial loadings. The .41 Magnum, inspired by the older, obsolete .41 Long Colt cartridge, was intended to provide more power than the .357 Magnum with less recoil and muzzle blast than the .44 Magnum. The .41 Magnum used a completely new case (unlike the .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum which were based on existing cases), and used a .410" bullet instead of the earlier .41 Colt and .38-40's roughly .400" diameter bullet, while pushing the new .410" bullet to similar velocities as achieved by the .357 and .44 Magnum bullets. However, while there was (and still is) a small community of shooters preferring the .41 Magnum, the round failed to achieve a similar high degree of popularity. Some police, to whom the .41 Magnum was initially marketed, were happy with the .38 Special or .357 Magnum, and many officers had no interest in anything more powerful, and which also delivered greater blast and recoil that could place the shooter at a disadvantage in a gunfight requiring fast, repeat, shots. However, some police departments adopted the 41 Mag with the reduced load designed for police use, and were quite happy the added power required only one hit to put an opponent down. Thus the 41 Magnum saved many officer's lives who were lucky enough to use them. Hunters likewise stayed with the more commonly available .44 Magnum, which could be used with full power factory loads, less powerful handloads, or commercial .44 Special ammunition as needed.

Keith was never a competition pistol shooter.nor a handgun hunter, but regarded the handgun as a weapon of opportunity. He had plenty of opportunities to use his sixgun on game during his life. He was incredibly skilled with handguns. He shot at a rifle-wounded deer and hit it several times at a range of 600-yards using his 6½ inch S&W Model 29.^[2] It is currently part of the Keith collection with the factory standard 4-inch (100 mm) barrel length that he more commonly carried.

Keith is also famous for designing and commissioning his No. 5 revolver, fashioned by R.F. Sedgeley, in 1928.

Keith-style bullets[link]

Keith was also responsible for a number of bullet designs still popular today, and collectively called "Keith style" bullets. These bullets were based on the semiwadcutter design, but using a wider than normal front surface, and convex sides. These changes increased the volume of the bullet outside the case, thus allowing more room inside the case, needed for large loads of slower burning powders (see internal ballistics). These bullets remain popular for both target shooting and hunting. When shooting paper targets, they cut a relatively clean hole in the target, yet provide more case volume and a better ballistic coefficient than a flat front wadcutter. When used for hunting, the heavy bullets provide excellent penetration; they are often used on dangerous game, for which more reliable penetration than is possible with expanding hollow point or soft point bullets is required.

Keith-Style SWC

Originally Keith specified a meplat that was 65% of the bullet caliber, but later increased it to a 70% meplat. The other distinguishing characteristics of a "Keith-style" SWC are a double radius ogive, beveled crimp groove, three equal width driving bands, wide square bottomed grease groove, and a plain base with sharp corners. The wide forward driving band helps keep the bullet aligned as it jumps across the cylinder gap. Because of the three wide equal width driving bands, the total bearing surface is half the length of the bullet. The relatively large bearing surface helps the Keith-style SWC to be an inherently accurate bullet, and minimizes leading from gas blow-by. The wide square bottom grease groove holds ample lubricant.^[3]

Work with rifles[link]

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,^[4] 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.

Published works[link]

Keith was a prolific writer, writing both books and magazine columns. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was especially well-known for his regular monthly columns he wrote for Guns & Ammo magazine, and American Rifleman typically exploring the performance of the latest new gun offerings, especially those firing large, heavy bullets pushed to high velocities. He has influenced modern gun writers such as Mike Venturino and John Taffin.^[5]

• Sixgun Cartridges and Loads. Onslow County, N.C., Small Arms Technical Publishing Co, 1936. [Riling 2200]
• Big Game Rifles and Cartridges. Onslow County, N.C., Small Arms Technical Publishing Co, 1936. [Riling 2199]
• Keith's Rifles for Larger Game Huntington, WV: Standard Publications, 1946. [Riling 2551]
• Elmer Keith's Big Game Hunting. Boston: Little, Brown, 1948. [Riling 2648]
• Shotguns. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole & Heck, 1950. [Riling 2726]
• Sixguns. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole & Heck, 1955.
• Guns and Ammo for Hunting Big Game, with John Lachuk. Los Angeles, Calif. : Petersen Publishing Co.,1965.
• Safari. La Jolla, Calif: Safari Publications, 1968.
• Hell, I Was There (autobiography). Los Angeles, Calif.: Petersen Publishing Co., 1979.

References are to Ray Riling, Guns and Shooting, a Bibliography, New York: Greenberg, 1951.

References[link]

• Taffin, John. Elmer Keith: 1899–1984
• Bowen Classic Arms Gallery: Keith No. 5 Revolver
• The .41 Mag: if only we could do it over, Guns Magazine, April, 2005 by Clint Smith
• The Reload Bench: 333 OKH
• The Reload Bench: 338-378 KT (338-378 Weatherby)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2008)

Keith Sweat (born July 22, 1961)^[1] is an American R&B/soul, singer-songwriter, record producer, radio personality and an innovator of the New Jack Swing.

Music career[link]

1975-1984: with Jamilah[link]

Sweat started his musical career as a member of a Harlem band called "Jamilah" in 1975. With the help of Jamilah, Sweat was able to hone his craft as a lead singer by performing regionally throughout the tri-State area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The group was started by bassist Larry Peoples, guitarist Michael Samuels, and drummer Walter Bradley. Additional members of the group included Peter DaCosta (vocals), Joseph McGeachy (sax), Dwight Banks (trumpet), and Kenneth Varner (keyboards).

1984-1987: Stadium Records[link]

After leaving the group in 1984 to aspire for a solo career, he sang at nightclubs throughout New York City and landed a chance to record for the independent label, Stadium Records. Sweat recorded only one tune for Stadium called "My Mind Is Made Up", which was their third ever release, but on Stadium's first release, he is credited as co-writer and co-producer of "You Are The One For Me", the last recording ever made by the group GQ. One of GQ's original members is his uncle, Keith "Sabu" Crier.

[edit] 1987-1988: Make It Last Forever

Later on in 1987, Keith Sweat was discovered by Vincent Davis and offered a recording contract with his label, Vintertainment Records, which was founded in 1983 on the foundations of early Hip-Hop and otherwise best known for releasing Joeski Love's "Pee Wee Dance" in 1985. Vintertainment was distributed by Elektra Records from 1985 until it ceased operations in 1990, in which case Elektra opted to buy Keith's contract outright and have him record directly for the label.^{[citation needed]}. On November 25, 1987, Sweat released his debut solo album Make It Last Forever, which sold three million copies. The biggest hit from this album was the song that inaugurated the New Jack Swing era "I Want Her" (#1 R&B/#5 Pop), which was nominated for the 1989 Soul Train Best R&B/Urban Contemporary Song of the Year award, while the title track from the album hit #2 on the R&B charts.

[edit] 1990-1991: I'll Give All My Love to You

Sweat reached the charts again with his second album I'll Give All My Love to You (1990) which hit #6 on the Billboard 200 chart. The singles released during this period included "(There You Go) Tellin' Me No Again" (from the film New Jack City).

[edit] 1991-1992: Keep It Comin

He released his third album, Keep It Comin' in 1991 which debuted in the top 20 of the album chart. This album, included the songs, "Why Me Baby" (featuring LL Cool J) and "Keep It Comin'". Sweat then moved from New York to Atlanta, where he founded the Keia Records label that would feature Silk & Kut Klose.

[edit] 1994-1997: Get Up on It and Keith Sweat

Sweat released his fourth album Get Up on It in the summer of 1994, and his self-titled fifth album in 1996. Both albums reached the top ten on the Billboard 200. The single co/produced and written by eRiC McCAiNe "Twisted" hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and "Nobody" hit #3, which made them Sweat's biggest hits to date. The song "Just A Touch", with Traci Hale providing background vocals, has earned a regular spot on radio playlists^{[citation needed]}. "Just A Touch" was a cover of the 1979 song "Just a Touch of Love" by Slave.

[edit] 1998-1999: Still in the Game

Sweat's sixth album, Still in the Game was released in 1998, hitting #6 on the Billboard 200, and #2 on the R&B/Hip Hop albums chart. It featured the singles "Come and Get With Me" (which featured Snoop Dogg) (#12 Hot 100) and "I'm Not Ready" (#16 Hot 100).

[edit] 2000-2001: Didn't See Me Coming

Sweat's success on the charts started to diminish in 2000, when he released the album Didn't See Me Coming. None of the singles from the album reached the top forty. They were moderate hits on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] 2002: Rebirth

On August 13, 2002, Keith Sweat released his eighth album, Rebirth. The single "One on One" reached #75 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #44 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.

[edit] 2007-2008: Just Me

His 2008 album Just Me fared better with its first single, "Love U Better (featuring Keyshia Cole)" being played on Urban radio stations for about a year before the album's release^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] 2010-present: Ridin' Solo and current status

Sweat is currently signed to Kedar Records and released his tenth studio album entitled Ridin' Solo on June 22, 2010. The lead single taken from the album is "Test Drive" and featured label-mate Joe.^[2]

Since 2007, Sweat has been the host of a nationally syndicated radio program based upon the Quiet storm format. The Keith Sweat Hotel (known as The Quiet Storm with Keith Sweat on WBLS in New York City) is syndicated through Premiere Radio Networks.^[3]

Protégés[link]

In 1992, Sweat discovered the group Silk, and helped craft their debut album, Lose Control, which hit #7 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The album's single "Freak Me" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 1, 1993. In 1993, Sweat discovered the Atlanta based female R&B group Kut Klose. Sweat also produced the group's debut album Surrender, which produced the their biggest hit single "I Like", peaking to #8 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart. In the fall of 1997, Sweat discovered the group Ol' Skool and helped with their self-titled debut. He was on their biggest single, "Am I Dreaming," which featured R&B group Xscape.

Sweat also formed the R&B supergroup LSG with Gerald Levert and Johnny Gill, and released their self-titled debut Levert.Sweat.Gill in 1997. That album featured "My Body", which became a hit single. The album was certified double platinum and reached #4 on the U.S. Billboard 200.

Discography[link]

• Make It Last Forever (1987), Vintertainment and Elektra Records
• I'll Give All My Love to You (1990), Vintetainment and Elektra Records
• Keep It Comin' (1991), Elektra Records
• Get Up on It (1994), Elektra Records
• Keith Sweat (1996), Elektra Records
• Still in the Game (1998), Elektra Records
• Didn't See Me Coming (2000), Elektra Records and Rhino Entertainment
• Rebirth (2002), Elektra Records
• Just Me (2008), Keia Records and Atco Records
• Ridin' Solo (2010), Kedar Entertainment and Universal Music Group
• Til the Morning (2011), KDS Entertainment, E1 Music and Universal Music Group

Awards and nominations[link]

• American Music Awards
  • 1998, Favorite Male R&B/Soul Artist [Nominated]
  • 1997, Favorite Male R&B/Soul Artist (Winner)
  • 1997, Favorite R&B/Soul Album: Keith Sweat (Nominated)
  • 1991, Favorite R&B/Soul Male Artist (Nominated)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Biography & booking information
• Keith Sweat artist page at VH1.com
• Keith Sweat artist page at Allmusic
• Keith Sweat at Wenig- LaMonica Associates
• Sweathotel
• IMDb.com
• Keith Sweat's 'SoulRnB.com' group (videos, photos, discussions, etc.) (French)
• Keith Sweat 2010 Audio Interview at Soulinterviews.com

Stephen Hunter (born March 25, 1946) is an American novelist, essayist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic.

Life and career[link]

Stephen Hunter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. His father was Charles Francis Hunter, a Northwestern University speech professor who was killed in 1975.^[1] His mother was Virginia Ricker Hunter, a writer of children's books. After graduating from Northwestern in 1968 with a degree in journalism, he was drafted for two years into the United States Army as a ceremonial soldier in The Old Guard (3rd Infantry Regiment) in Washington, D.C., and later wrote for a military paper, the Pentagon News.^[2]

He joined The Baltimore Sun in 1971, working at the copy desk of the newspaper's Sunday edition for a decade. He became its film critic in 1982, a post he held until moving to The Washington Post in the same function in 1997. In 1998 Hunter won the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award in the criticism category, and in 2003 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.^[2]

Hunter's thriller novels include Point of Impact (filmed as Shooter), Black Light and Time to Hunt, which form a trilogy featuring Vietnam War veteran and sniper Bob "the Nailer" Swagger. The story of Bob Lee Swagger continued with The 47th Samurai (2007), Night of Thunder (2008), I, Sniper (2009) and Dead Zero (2010). The series has led to two spin-off series: Hot Springs, Pale Horse Coming, and Havana form another trilogy centered on Bob Swagger's father, Earl Swagger, while Soft Target (2011) focuses on Bob's long-unknown son, Ray Cruz.

Hunter has written three non-fiction books: Violent Screen: A Critic's 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem (1995), a collection of essays from his time at The Sun; American Gunfight (2005), an examination of the November 1, 1950 assassination attempt on Harry S. Truman at Blair House in Washington, D.C.; and Now Playing at the Valencia (2005), a collection of pieces from The Washington Post. Hunter has also written a number of non-film-related articles for The Post, including one on Afghanistan: "Dressed To Kill—From Kabul to Kandahar, It's Not Who You Are That Matters, but What You Shoot" (2001).^[3]

Hunter fires handguns as a hobby, saying "many people don't understand, shooting a firearm is a sensual pleasure that's rewarding in and of itself."^[4]

In an interview with NPR on February 16, 2011, in relation to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others, Hunter defended the public availability of extended magazines and claimed it was not clear that the 33-round magazine used by the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, played a part in the incident.^[4] He had previously stated in his op-ed piece in The Washington Post that extended magazines are particularly valuable for the self-defense of women and the elderly, who he said could use them effectively as an alternative to semi-automatic rifles or shotguns. He points out that "women generally don't care to put in the training needed to master [rifles and shotguns]. Nor can the elderly handle [long guns] adeptly."^[5]

Works[link]

Novels[link]

Bob Lee Swagger Series[link]

1. Point of Impact (1993)
2. Black Light (1996)
3. Time to Hunt (1998)
4. The 47th Samurai (2007)
5. Night of Thunder (2008)
6. I, Sniper (2009)
7. Dead Zero (2010)

Earl Swagger Series[link]

1. Hot Springs (2000)
2. Pale Horse Coming (2001)
3. Havana (2003)

Ray Cruz[link]

1. Dead Zero (2010)
2. Soft Target (2011)

Other novels[link]

• The Master Sniper (1980)
• The Second Saladin (1982)
• Target (film novelization) (1985)
• The Spanish Gambit (reissued as Tapestry of Spies) (1985)
• The Day Before Midnight (1989)
• Dirty White Boys (1994)

Non-fiction[link]

• 1995 Violent Screen: A Critic's 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem
• 2005 Now Playing at the Valencia: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Essays on Movies
• 2005 American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the Shoot-out that Stopped It

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Unofficial website