The firearm industry lost a close friend on July 5.

"Today I salute a friend, a fellow author and a true soldier. Jack Mitchell — John may be correct, but he was Jack to most of us — passed away yesterday following a progressive illness," said Steve Comus, publisher of Safari magazine.

Mitchell, most currently on the advertising sales staff of Safari Club International, personified the shooting sports industry where he was a fixture for decades, and attended every SHOT Show since it began.

A Vietnam War veteran, he was a factor in military surplus arms and gunsmithing for the decades he was with Gun World magazine. But, deep down inside, he was a .22 rimfire kind of guy. Mitchell wrote one of the most successful pistolsmithing books ever, and authored a series of "how to" articles for Hunt Forever Magazine after joining the staff of SCI.

His books included The Gun Digest Book of Pistolsmithing (1980), and The Gun Digest Book of Riflesmithing (1982)

He was also an avid golfer, so while on safari in Botswana, Mitchell pulled a Ping five iron from his gun case and proceeded to hit a golf ball across the Limpopo River from Botswana to South Africa.

He bagged a record-book quality grizzly bear in Alaska with an AR-10 chambered in .338 Fed., and shot the Grand American with his Winchester Model 12 when that event was still in Vandalia, Ohio.

"Jack will be missed." Comus said. "A part of the shooting sports industry passed away yesterday."