The Grim Reaper has been having a field day lately with my fellow gun writers and doing his damnedest to turn this blog into an obituary column. We learned this week of the death of Wiley Clapp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew the man and liked him, and greatly respected his work. He experienced intense combat in Vietnam and always led his Marines through their fights with minimum casualties. When he returned to the United States he became a deputy sheriff in Orange County, California, dealing with the worst members of his own society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well respected by gun manufacturers, he was one of the most influential in the industry. He thought the hammerless Smith & Wesson Centennial of 1952 was the best and most useful of small-frame .38s, hated that it was discontinued for lack of sales in 1974, and led the charge of consumers that convinced S&W to bring it back circa 1990. It\u2019s now the most popular revolver in S&W\u2019s lineup. Colt made Wiley Clapp signature models custom built for the public to his specifications, like the one he\u2019s pictured with here courtesy of NRA, and Ruger did likewise with Wiley Clapp signature model revolvers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was a big, affable bear of a man, with hands powerful enough to manage the savage recoil of full power 180 grain Magnum loads in the little eleven-ounce S&W Centennial .357 he carried daily. I\u2019ve shot with him: he was a helluva good shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His gun writing career spanned Gun World magazine, Guns & Ammo, and for the last several years NRA\u2019s Shooting Illustrated magazine where he wrote a column called \u201cFighting Iron.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wiley Clapp was a man of integrity. Some years ago, he made a very long drive to a fancy shooting school that was getting a lot of press for teaching self-defense shooting. On arrival he was told he couldn\u2019t bring his own firearms into the facility, but not to worry, they\u2019d issue him one each morning and take it back at the end of each day of shooting. Wiley told them in so many words to stuff it, and turned his truck around and drove home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That school didn\u2019t last. Wiley Clapp damn sure DID last.Condolences to his widow, relatives, and many friends. Wiley fought for his country and fought crime for his fellow citizens, and finished his career teaching those citizens how to protect themselves. May he rest in turn in well-earned peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Grim Reaper has been having a field day lately with my fellow gun writers and doing his damnedest to turn this blog into an obituary column. We learned this week of the death of Wiley Clapp. I knew the man and liked him, and greatly respected his work. He experienced intense combat in Vietnam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8829,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8828\/revisions\/8829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}