Spent Cases: Warren Page

Warren Page hunted this heavy-horned Persian ibex in the Elburz range in northern Iran close to the Russian border. As with most of his hunts, Page carried "Old Betsy," a 7mm Mashburn Super Magnum scoped with a Redfield 4X and fed a 175-grain Nosler semi-spitzer bullet.

An accomplished hunter, Page was fascinated by all things related to rifle accuracy and cartridge development. Considered the rifle expert's gunwriter, his master work, "The Accurate Rifle" (1973), remains a classic.

Page founded the National Rifle Benchrest Championships and was a founder of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). After a 24-year career as shooting editor for Field & Stream magazine, Page served as president of the NSSF for six years, a position he held at the time of his death.

Page's "opposite number" at Outdoor Life was Jack O'Connor. Unlike the fierce rivalry between O'Connor and Guns & Ammo's Elmer Keith, Page and O'Connor were friendly competitors with large followings. O'Connor championed the .270, while Page was known as a 7mm advocate. His wildcatting led to the development of the 7mm Remington Magnum introduced in 1962.

In 1958, Page became the third winner of the Weatherby Big Game Trophy, following Herb Klein and Jack O'Connor. Page did not do as much mountain hunting as O'Connor, but he had considerably more international experience. He was among the first to take all nine of Africa's principal spiral-horned antelopes, a feat accomplished by few hunters and only one other gunwriter — Craig Boddington. Page inspired millions of readers, every bit as much as O'Connor. Page was 67 when he died in January 1977.

---