One of the problems in hunting/shooting publishing that hasn't brought up (and I didn't think of until now) is the way those magazines fragmented into what are known as "vertical" (specialized) magazines over the past 30 years.
When a lot of us were growing up (including me) there simply weren't many hunting/shooting magazines. We had what were called the Big Three (FIELD & STREAM, OUTDOOR LIFE and SPORTS AFIELD), which were hunting/shooting/fishing/camping/boating magazines, and a handful of semi-specialized magazines like GUNS & AMMO, GUNS and SHOOTING TIMES.
Today there are hundreds of magazines that might fit into one of those slots. Even gun magazines have fragmented into specialized slots, whether for black rifles, handguns, shotguns, long-range rifles, etc. There are even dozens of specialized hunting magazines, whether for upland birds, waterfowl, elk, whitetails, dangerous game, etc. etc.
Go into a convenience store and look at the magazine rack and there might be a dozen of these hundreds of magazines, dominated by black guns, with maybe 2-3 specialized hunting magazines, along with FIELD & STREAM and OUTDOOR LIFE. (At least that's what's been on the shelf of most convenience and grocery stores in my part of Montana lately.)
No, you're not going to find an upland bird article in any of those, or a squirrel or rabbit-hunting article, or something on pre-'64 Model 70's or still-hunting for whitetails.
Taken a look at FIELD & STREAM or OUTDOOR LIFE lately? They're even skinnier than most other hunting and shooting magazines, because they're still clinging to the idea that one magazine can be everything to hunters and anglers--and the vertical magazines have stolen many of their readers over the past two decades.
SPORTS AFIELD (in the early 1950's the largest of the Big Three) is now a specialized big game magazine, mostly for trophy and traveling hunters. Each issue is thicker than any month's issues of BOTH F&S and OL, because the owner changed it into a specialty magazine, rather than try to be everything to everybody. And it runs a lot of articles on classic rifles, as well as hunting stories.
The complaint that "gun magazines" no longer run certain stories is true. That's because most magazines are specialized now. Unlike the GUNS & AMMO of the 1960's, they don't run a variety of gun and hunting stories. Instead they run strictly gun stories, and if their readers are into defensive handguns or black rifles, that's what they mostly run.
If you want to read upland bird or rabbit-hunting articles, or articles about classic rifles or side-by-side shotguns, or tales about deer or elk hunting, there are complete magazines specializing in those things. You just won't find them on the rack of a supermarket that is also trying to stock something for everybody.
Instead you have to look in specialized bookstores with hundreds of different magazines on a rack 200 feet long, or on the Internet where you can subscribe to magazines specializing in almost anything you want.
Contrary to what old-reliable Savage 99 states, the magazine business is doing pretty well these days. The Internet has complemented it, not destroyed it, and specialization has brought to life magazines on almost every subject hunting and shooting enthusiasts might want. As a result there are MORE articles on many subjects than ever before, published both on the Internet and paper.
One interesting thing is that while its much cheaper to publish articles on the Internet, rather than print them on paper and ship the magazines to people or stores, Internet "articles" are usually much shorter, even shorter than today's shortened magazine articles. Probably this is because the average Internet reader, like Savage 99, has a much shorter attention span.
