Gunmakers give back to Jack

Jack O’Connor helped Al Biesen launch a distinguished gunsmithing career.

Now Biesen, 79, and his family are giving a hand to the center named for the famed gun writer.

Biesen, his son Roger Biesen and granddaughter Paula Biesen-Malicki, all of Spokane, recently built a .270 rifle modeled after one that was O’Connor’s favorite gun. The pre-1964 Model 70 featherweight Winchester with a custom stock and engraving will be raffled off by the Jack O’Connor Hunting Heritage and Education Center at Lewiston.

The center houses many of O’Connor’s hunting trophies and memorabilia.

“The workmanship is Biesen workmanship and he is world renowned as one of the best,” said Kent Henderson, center director.

O’Connor was the gun editor for Outdoor Life magazine. In 1948, he moved his family to Lewiston, where he lived until his death in 1978. O’Connor wrote of his globe-trotting hunting adventures for Outdoor Life, served as the magazine’s gun columnist, and frequently dropped Biesen’s name in his writings. The notoriety, combined with talent, helped catapult Biesen to the top rung of the gun-making world.

“He basically helped gain a name for my grandfather,” said Paula Biesen-Malicki. “The promotion through Outdoor Life, without it, I don’t think my grandfather would have been as popular with that many people.”

The raffle gun was built by Roger and Al and engraved by Paula. “It’s a takeoff of the No. 2 sheep rifle he killed a couple of sheep with,” Roger said. “He liked the way the rifle pointed, the workability in the field.”

The stock was crafted from a piece of French walnut and checkered in what the Biesens call the O’Connor fleur de lis pattern. The metal on the gun is exquisitely engraved by Biesen-Malicki. She paid tribute to O’Connor by featuring an Idaho mule deer on the grip cap and his Pilot Mountain ram, a Dall sheep he took and wrote about that scored 176 7/8 points on the Boone and Crocket scoring system.

Both trophies now hang in the center.

The .270 is the first of five guns the Biesens have contracted to make for the center. One gun a year will be auctioned off for the next five years. The proceeds will help fund the center and its mission of promoting O’Connor’s writing as well as passing on the hunting heritage to future generations.

The raffle will be in June. Henderson said a maximum of 1,100 $25 tickets will be sold. They can be purchased at the center.