Mad About Hunter

by Ben Small

I started reading Stephen Hunter before I adopted shooting as a hobby and before I realized I'd best learn something about guns if I wanted to include them as part of my plotting. Yes, the old putting a safety on a Detective's Special .38 Special thing again -- they don't have one. Peeling my editor off the wall thing.

And frankly, I didn't have much of a clue what Hunter was writing about. While I found his story intriguing, fast-moving and a page-turner, I skipped many of his gunnery details because I didn't know enough about guns to even fire one.

After my editor's outburst and very long lecture thereafter, I bought a few guns, primarily for their manuals, so I could ensure at least some details would be accurate. Then I took one of them -- an AR-15 -- out to the woods, fired one round -- not realizing I needed hearing protection -- and scared the hell out of myself. I hit the milk carton, I think, but was too busy scrambling back toward the house -- scared to death that my inability to hear would be permanent -- to look.

I should have read more Hunter.

Stephen Hunter is recognized as the best sniper novelist on the planet. His character, Bob Lee Swagger, a retired Marine sniper, is beloved by shooters everywhere -- hunter or paper-popper like me. As a shooter, I learn more about guns and how to use them from Hunter's novels than I do from subscriptions to Guns & Ammo or Shooting Times, magazine staples for most trigger-pullers. Because Stephen Hunter has a nose for details, the minute parts of a complex story that one doesn't realize are important until they're assembled into a slap-the-side-of-your head denouement.

Novel after novel -- one exception, The 47th Samurai, where for some reason Swagger journeys to Japan for a sword-fight with a legendary Japanese Samurai -- Hunter finds gun details (scopes, firing pins, ammo, calibers, sniping artistry, ballistics, accurizing, setups and other variables) that may seem insignificant to most, but are critical to a satisfying, can't-put-down story.

Take Shooter, for instance, the movie starring Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger, which is based upon Hunter's novel Point of Impact. If you watch the movie, you may feel you need not read the book. Au contraire. For while the movie covers the book's premise -- albeit with some differences -- the movie settles for simplicity rather than the careful piecing together of a complex puzzle assembled by Hunter. Yes, the movie has a brilliant denouement, a masterful piece of crafting no doubt supplied by Hunter, but the revelations, settings and step-by-step plotting -- not to mention the finale -- vary by order of magnitude, like comparing a .22lr round to a ..22-250. (Both are .22 caliber bullets. But one is rimfire, the other is center-fire; one for gophers, the other for coyotes or deer; one gives a small pop, the other will deafen you; and finally, one costs $6/100, the other a buck per round.)

You may have heard of Stephen Hunter. He won a Pulitzer Prize...as a film critic. I haven't read one of Hunter's film pieces, but I'm working my way through all of his twenty-two acclaimed books, most of them Bob Lee Swagger novels.

And the funny thing is, Stephen Hunter has never been a sniper. Hunter grew up in a Chicago suburb to academic parents who forbade guns in the house. After becoming hooked on Dragnet, Hunter started sketching out gun designs on notepads and writing gun novels at age ten. Then he attended college, and like most college students, Hunter drifted Left and actually protested for gun bans. Finally, as an adult, Hunter stopped denying his inner voices, and he returned to his first love -- guns.

And Hunter's been firing off highly acclaimed novels ever since.

Writers often ask me about gun details, and I've penned a few blogs about them. Why? Because, like Hunter, I've become fascinated by weaponry in general and guns specifically. And it's a shame so many authors miss plot opportunities associated with their chosen weaponry or get details about the weapon (or its use) flat-out wrong. Yet Stephen Hunter takes me to school, about writing and about how to make details -- in this instance, gun details -- important. He's also taught me that if one is going to make a gun important to a plot, you can bet the book's shooter paid attention to detail. And if we're following the steps of the shooter, we should know how he prepared for what may be the critical book event.

So yes, I'm mad about Stephen Hunter. So much so, I may even read one of his film pieces.

Appreciating Stephen Hunter

by Ben Small

I'll admit I hadn't appreciated Stephen Hunter's talent for the shooting and sniping arts until I became a shooter myself and became obsessed with the pursuit of the one-hole group. For those of you who are non-shooters, the one-hole group is the mythical pursuit of placing five shots in a row through one hole at one hundred yards or better. I've never attained that mythological stature, but then, nobody else has either.

Until now, that is. New to the computer age, are scopes and technology available that guarantee one-hole groups. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer obtaining my marksmanship, or lack thereof, the hard way, through better technique and mechanical adjustments.

Minute of angle ("MOA") is the key term every shooter knows: one inch at one hundred yards. At two hundred yards, a 1 MOA would be two inches, at three hundred yards, three inches, and so forth...

The best shooters manage groups below 1 MOA, but not without effort. To shoot sub-MOA, one must know variables such as humidity, temperature, wind, level (height from barrel level), distance and whether the gun barrel is cold or warm.

Hunter is probably best known for his character Bob Lee Swagger, a sniper of legendary accuracy. Swagger's not educated, he's a Marine sniper, one of the best who's ever lived. And when it comes to gun-smarts, there is no one more knowledgeable. You may wonder where you heard the name Bob Lee Swagger. More likely than not, it's not from reading Hunter's Point of Impact, a brilliant story of shooting technology and the evils of big corporate conspiracy, but from the movie made from this book, titled Shooter, starring Mark Wahlberg and several other well known stars.

Granted, Hunter's last book, a forgettable excursion into the art of the Japanese sword, was a dud. But in I, Sniper, Hunter has once again found his groove. The tale begins with the sniping of four prominent people, a Jane Fonda-ish actress, political traitor and exercise guru, two well-known activists once convicted of numerous terrorist acts, and a comedian, all seemingly unconnected except for one thing: The bullets came from the same gun.

Hunter reunites Bobby Lee Swagger and his FBI buddy from Point of Impact, Nick Memphis, when Memphis calls in an aging Bob "The Nailer" Swagger to consult on the murders. All evidence points to Carl Hitchcock, previous holder of the record for confirmed sniper kills. Seems Hitchcock went off his rocker after his wife died and his record for confirmed kills was beaten. Hitchcock is found, an apparent suicide victim, and his gun is identified as the murder weapon. The only thing left is to determine for media release why HItchcock went off the deep end, release the report and close the file.

Enter Swagger, an expert on sniping and the mind-set of the sniper. Thorough as always, Bob asks to review the evidence, convinced himself that Hitchcock was the shooter. But the more Swagger studies the file, the more he becomes convinced that Hitchcock could not have been the sniper.

Why? The shots were too perfect, striking the exact center of their target. No shooter alive could make those shots, especially when considering that the rifle must have been moved in the three or four seconds between the killing shots of the two activists, husband and wife, sitting in their car. Swagger realizes that while Hitchcock's old  Winchester Model 70 was capable of such shots from a cold bore, his scope, found still attached to the rifle, was not.

Something stinks.

But the FBI won't listen to Swagger and loses confidence in Memphis, resulting in Swagger going rogue and Memphis being put on Administrative Leave pending termination and perhaps charges.

The clock is ticking, and only Swagger can connect the dots and prove beyond doubt that there's a massive conspiracy afoot.

Hunter won the Pulitzer for a reason: He's a damn fine writer. And nobody writes about shooting better than Stephen Hunter. Bob Lee Swagger is an American fiction hero worthy of your attention.