Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A little (hopefully) constructive criticism

You guys in the gun writing business really have your work cut out for you when doing reviews of new guns and/or gun related products. I know and understand that we "moderns" seem to "carry our feelings on our shirtsleeves" as the old folks used to say, and that people are very easily offended, and some seem to go around just LOOKING for something to complain about. That surely must make your jobs a real pain and challenge at times, and kind'a put you "between a rock and a hard place" at times.

Older, more traditional oriented guys like myself really miss some of the old commentators/evaluators like Elmer Keith, who pretty much said what he thought, without more than a passing respect for whose "feelings" may be hurt. He, and others, just cared about the simple truth of what he thought and found.

Many seem to complain that every new gun or product that comes out gets "rave reviews." While that's not always true, I can't help but have come to not fully trust new gun reviews these days, and there are many, many more like me out here in consumer land. That you guys get aspersions cast toward you isn't always fair, but it's just a result of the general "mood" that seems to pervade our country these days, and most critics seem to go too far in discounting what you write. It's a no-win situation for everyone, it seems!

With these facts acknowledged and in mind, I'd like to at least try to provide a little constructive (at least it's intended that way) criticism.

I think John Wooters was one of the old time writers that's now gone from the range, who used to use the old Joe Friday "just the facts ma'am" approach to gun reviews. He gave his opinions, and noted he was prejudiced by his simple preferences where applicable, and let the reader decide what he thought about new guns. I think this approach could, over a little time at least, lead to factories and their reps and lackies being more acceptable of genuine constructive criticism. It's tended to work in the past about as well as any type of criticism can. It just might prove valuable in that regard now.

There's also the old "yes, but" technique, also. Figuring out how best to deliver "bad news" these days is a touchy and very delicate subject, given the touchy and sometimes volatile nature of business, advertisers, etc., but if you don't give us shooters what we need and want, we quit buying your magazines. I now only pick up a Handloader or Rifle magazine, and sometimes a Shooting Times, when I see something in them I want. I don't subscribe to any, and haven't in a long time, and I miss the glossy mags, but just can't see sending my good money in for something that's just not really helpful or even very interesting now.

I offer these comments in hopes that you guys will once again figure out how to give us something more like what we used to have. I know it's a tall order, what with the "social" factors involved in business, commerce and publishing these days, but ... I really miss the old glossies, and would like to find more reason to subscribe again. I usued to subscribe to 4-6 or even more of them. Now it's zero, and like I said, I really miss them.

I'd hate like the dickens to be in your shoes, but to give you a little praise as well, I think you all did the right thing when Rem. recently took over Marlin. When the first Remlins, as they've now come to be called, came out and just flat didn't work, you kept it quiet, and sent them back telling Rem. of the problems, and refused, IIRC, to write them up until the problems were fixed. Rem. also is to be praised for doing the right thing and apparently (so I've heard at least) getting them to work now.

Life's never easy for anyone, but you gunwriters kind'a walk a pretty fine line at times, and it just seems to me that taking the easiest and "safest" way out has rendered your magazines and articles to be something less than fully satisfying in too many cases.

I don't have the expertise to offer real solutions to this, bu the gun and accessory companies can't get the word out unnless buyers subscribe and/or buy the mags, and it seems to me that this is a factor that both some editors and companies and advertisers leave out that they probably shouldn't.

Not casting aspersions here. Everybody needs to respond as best they can and know how in these litigious and volatile times, and publishing ain't an easy way to make a buck, I realize. Just thought it might be useful to submit my thoughts. You guys do an awfully good job sometimes, and those are the articles I now buy individual issues for, but I'd really like to subscribe to a number of magazines again, and just thought I'd let you know. I think there are a lot of us out here like me, too, that just don't show up on polls, and have to be guessed at as to how we affect the almighty "bottom line" that in fact DOES allow you to stay in business and produce some good reading and interesting and/or valuable info.

Thanks for all you do and try to do, but I'd really like to see some more honesty and personal opinion. It sometimes makes the articles worth reading.

Here here! Maybe now these guys will see the light.

I saw the light! I saw the light!
No more darkness. No more night.
Now I'm so happy! No sorrow in sight!
Praise be to Tikkas, I saw the light!

Remingtons suck.
No. Really.

Blessed be those, who having nothing to say, refrain from giving us wordy evidence thereof.

Praise be! Huzzah!

That's the reason I quit buying gun rags. Most of the reviews cannot be trusted.

It's damn hard to make a living as a magazine writer. That was true 15 years ago, and from what those in the industry tell me, "the money's gone out of it". As if there ever was any. The bottom line, the best new talent coming onto any magazine's staff usually find something to do within a few years that allows them to live a much better life.

So you generally have old-timers who surrendered their souls to the ad sales department many moons ago, and possibly the occasional talented young enthusiast who is on his way to bigger and better things. Then you have contract writers. For some of them, writing supplements/leverages/amplifies other activities where their rent is actually paid. They can provide real value to the magazine and to the shooting community, but what you see in print is likely overflow from something else that paid a lot more. Others are hobbyists dabbling in the publishing world to take their fun to another level.

Some are independently wealthy or otherwise retired early and mess around with writing about stuff as a way to have fun (traveling to product intros, going to shows, etc.) on someone else's dime. Simply being available to do "work" that pays maybe $7/hour when you total it up makes them a resource for editors. They don't have to be particularly good or deeply knowledgeable, as long as they produce copy that can be edited to be reasonably readable and represent the magazine reasonably well to the industry when on its business.

There are structural problems, too. A magazine depends on access to items that are not in production yet. If you don't make the manufacturers happy, you won't be on the list. Which means you'll have to wait for it to become available, and will always be last to publish your review by anywhere from a few to many months. If you're always last to market, you're not going to get the readers. And buying one of the first to market of everything you test isn't something any publisher I have heard of is up for.

I could write pages about this topic, but many others already have.

The true professional with integrity, making a living writing about a technical field, is extremely rare, and to be treasured.

The biggest thing that has changed is that the readership is far more tuned in, experienced and critical of what they read.

A writer can "tell it like it is", meaning writing his experience factually and still get challenges because a reader had a differing personal experience.

That is actually ok and realistic, as long as the critic is also "telling it like it is" and not flavoring his version for the purpose of denigration, a hugely popular and growing sport.

John

Denigration can be entirely appropriate in some situations, such as when the writer advises people to practice unsafe load development practices and refuses to ever acknowledge same.

David

Well, I had on my asbestos suit when I posted this, and as to being wordy, I felt I HAD to at least try to explain myself, and that just doesn't lend itself to "sound byte" type posts, so .... I'll take the heat, and gladly, IF I can just make a valid point. I didn't just start reading the glossies yesterday, and I didn't decide to not renew my subscriptions some years back for no reason, either. I do still pick up an occasional copy, but not very often, and have started buying others, like Muzzleloader, that have historical stuff and good and mostly forgotten info that I can actually USE.

When these magazines just don't provide me with anything I can actually USE and TRUST, why should I part with my good dollars to pay for it??? If you don't like what I said, that's fine, and I expected some of that, but unless you can provide a reason for me to spend my money for something of very minimal use to me, then you're whizzing up a rope, and I don't think I'll be guiding my behavior on a basis like that.

The tendency for reviews to be a bit too PC for me to trust them, under the threat of pulled ad money, really inhibits the "free exchange of info" among us shooters, and I see that as something we'll all wind up paying for sooner or later. I do NOT want to see that, so I thought I'd state my case, and win, lose or draw, flames or no flames, whether it's taken as intended or not, it's what I REALLY think, and why I just don't buy the glossies any more.

Like I said, I'd really, really LIKE to, but I just can't do it with what little there is in them these days that I can use and trust. I'm not criticizing, and I tried to make that plain. I'm just appealing to those in a position to make some decisions to bring back some candor, and I really don't think that's too much to ask. Yeah, there are problems attendant to that. There always HAVE been, but the problems were met with intelligence, fairness and determination, and not a little dedication to the simple truth.

So I'm making an appeal here, and whether it falls on fertile ground or deaf ears will be manifest, I think, and maybe not too long in coming, one way or the other.

I really miss subscribing, but I have to have a REASON to reup. I'd just like to have that reason to do so again. That's all, really.

I know a lot of people do not care for Chuck Hawks and Randy Wakeman. I certainly don't agree with everything they write. But I do respect that when they review a product and don't care for it they say so.

Blackwater,

You’re right in some ways, but overall couldn’t be more wrong.

The change in hunting and shooting magazines started in the 1980’s, when a relatively small magazine company in New York City decided they could attract more advertising by promising manufacturers coverage in articles. This worked, and they started selling more ads.

Before this, most magazines sold ads primarily by publishing magazines that attracted a lot of readers. Ads make up a big part of the profit in any commercial magazine, and the more copies any magazine sells, the more they can charge for ads. The old theory of publishing was to produce magazines people wanted to read, and more companies would want to buy ads because lots of people would see the ads.

The small company in New York, however, decided to please advertisers instead. This worked—at least in the short run—and some other magazine publishers noticed. One was a guy who’d made the Fortune 500 list by starting and buying magazines, and though he was already rich beyond the comprehension of most Americans, he even started charging money to companies—including hunting outfitters—for a mere MENTION of their company in an article. (As somebody noted at the time, he didn’t need the few thousand bucks this generated. Instead it was simply another way of keeping score.) Eventually his publishing company even guaranteed “editorial coverage” of any advertiser’s products in magazine columns and feature articles.

Even then there were still some magazines run the old-fashioned way, by trying to attract readers by running stories they wanted to read. But early in 2008 the Great Recession hit, and many advertisers felt the pinch and bought fewer ads. However, by the end of 2008 the shooting industry started recovering, due to the presidential election of the greatest firearms salesman of the 21st century.

Consequently, all of a sudden shooting industry companies didn’t have to buy many ads, because Obama was promoting their business for them. This accelerated after his reelection, and almost every publishing company in the business started trying to attract and keep advertisers by running more articles mentioning various products.

The eventual result of this trend, of course, was advertisers EXPECTING favorable editorial coverage, even if it wasn’t spelled out in their contract. It became almost impossible for any magazine company to operate without some sort of friendly agreement with advertisers. To refuse would only drive advertisers to other magazines.

One side-effect, of course, was readers like you didn’t like to read the magazines much, so dropped their subscriptions. They might buy one off the newsstand now and then, if an article interested them, but some readers aren’t going to subscribe to magazines where many of the articles are essentially ads. This became especially obvious in hunting magazines, where “hunting stories” turned into writers or even magazine editors taking a new gun or scope on a guided hunt.

Now, hunters and shooters aren’t totally without blame for all of this. As Americans become more urban over the last half of the 20th century, more wanted their equipment to handle more of the job, whether shooting tiny groups off a benchrest or killing a deer during their annual hunt. Most Americans don’t get a chance to shoot and hunt as much as we used to, because so many of us live in cities where shooting ranges and hunting country are farther away and more expensive. So we became fixated on buying a new rifle or scope to perform better during our little windows of opportunity, one reason shooting and hunting magazines have become less about technique than gear.

The Internet also had several effects. Information can be published and distributed much cheaper via cyberspace than printing it on paper, and we became used to (supposedly) learning stuff by Googling it, rather than reading long articles and then trying techniques on the range or in the field. We also became used to getting it free. Almost any time some Campfire mentions a good magazine article, somebody posts, “Got a link?”

This is all related to the shorter attention span of modern readers. In theory it should be much cheaper, and hence possible, to publish long, in-depth articles on the Internet. But despite what some old-timers say, most readers do NOT want to wade through the 3000-word articles that used to be published in print magazines.

Instead they want all their answers short and easy, and on a forum like this they often get dozens of one-sentence or even one-word answers. In fact, I bet a bunch of people won’t even read this post, because it’s over 1000 words long, just as many Campfire members don’t read anything other than a thread’s header before responding. In a way it’s like American voting: Everybody gets a say, no matter their level of experience or analytic ability—which is how the country ended up electing the greatest firearms salesman ever.

So yeah, shooting magazines have changed, but not because of the writers. Magazines changed because of the decision of one small magazine company to please advertisers rather than readers. Ironically, that company isn’t doing very well these days, because so many bigger publishing companies followed their lead.

Writers have never had much leverage in this business, partly because so many people can do it part-time. Quite a few publish articles just to see their name in print. (Photography is even worse these days, thanks to all-automatic digital cameras.)

Essentially magazine writers are like workers in a factory. Some get paid more than others, like the engineers at Ford, but telling writers to write totally different types or articles is like telling workers at Ford to build Toyotas. The decisions on what parts and vehicles to produce aren’t made by the workers, but by owners. It’s the same way in the magazine business.

Luckily for writers like me, who’ve been around for a long time, the Internet has made it easier to go directly to readers. While I still do a lot of magazine work, mostly for magazines that care more about readers than advertisers, a lot of my income these days comes from going directly to readers. But if you really want to affect the types of articles you see in many shooting magazines these days, don’t complain to the writers. Complain to the magazine owners, because they make the decisions.

MD, read your article. Thank you very much. Your points, spanning a much greater timeframe of experience than mine, mirrors mine from Europe.

Blackwater, thank you for this interesting topic.

Great explanation John. Thanks, and BTW I read all 1000 words.

Another nugget from MD,

As a compulsive reader I miss the old ways.

Thanks John, always nice to see something written that makes sense,

Geno

What really makes the magazine interesting are the unique characters that are written about...

Article: "Self Promoters of Bozeman"

Good idea for a book...

Amen John.

I used to subscribe to many magazines. The varmint hunters were the best. Many articles written by subscribers, and lots of them. It was as close to the internet forum as you could get. Two things changed with magazines for me.

One, the new gear reviews were not as honest as I like. It was plain to see it was advertising.

Two, the internet is more interesting and relevant in several ways. The biggest being more current, real-time, and varied information available to me. I can get more relevant-to-me-and-my-situation information in minutes than I can filter through an entire year's subscription to any magazine.

For example- Posting here on a Savage 99 .284 Winchester, I asked which hunting bullet would work best for this particular action. 145 gr. Speer BTSP came up several times. I bought some here, tried them, and now have all I need for a lifetime of shooting, all thanks to the internet. How many years of magazine subscriptions could I read that would never yield that information to me? Can you imagine the odds against ever finding that information in any magazine, coupled with the unlikelihood I would happen to read it, when I actually needed it? Staggering odds against me ever finding what I need. Yet, it only took a few minutes on the internet and I had a direction to go and a plan to get there. That's just one example. The application of the internet community to real world issues is endless.

I'm sorry, but in my opinion, printed material is outdated for most modern readers. Most are very content with instant information verified by an entire community of end users rather than a single man's opinion printed a month or more ago in a magazine.

Reading for entertainment is excepted.

Printed a month before but could have been written 1-6 months or more earlier.

Critiquing gunwriters on a gunwriters forum would seem to be a bit of a slippery slope.

BH
Don't worry about it as the common denominator fpr slander is always generalizations rather than factual, provable, repeatable, differences in experiences or opinion.

"Print is dead." -Dr. Egon Spengler, 1984

I'm certainly not a gunwriter, but I'll opine that as MD said above, there are some magazines that you can tell care more about their readers than their advertisers and it's pretty easy to tell. For a great many reasons, mainly because I like to read and stay up on what is going on in the hunting/shooting industry, I subscribe to at least 15 different hunting and gun related magazines and religiously read them all. To me, it is obvious which ones cater to advertisers since I'm usually done with the magazine in an hour. The ones that care about their readers can take me days to finish and I make copies of the articles that I think can help me in the future that I file away for later reference. In these magazines, you will find writers that do make their opinions known and will tell it like it is. The caveat is that I think I can usually tell when these writers have been "assigned" a certain topic or product review and most of the time it is a very short, concise review without much praise. If this is the case, I know the writer didn't like the product much, even though he never said it outright. Unfortunately, that is the PC way most writers must have to operate in today's corporate world. At least that is how I see it.

In summary to Blackwater, pick the right magazine(s) and I think you'll probably find more of what you're looking for.

Unless, of course, the problem is a gun writer advising people to use unsafe loading practices - practices which can, and have been, proven to be unsafe.

David

MD, thanks for the very honest and informative reply. I do, as a matter of fact, understand completely about the change in our country and its mood. Seems like everybody everywhere is fragmenting out in one way or another, and to a very dysfunctional degree. It's sad, but ... it's sure as heck real!

Didn't know about the rest, and I appreciate your candor. It's one of the reasons your articles are over half of the issues I buy on the news stands. Brian Pearce is the other. Few other authors draw enough of my attention enough to make a purchase.

And just in case anyone can get the message to the owners, I hardly ever read the product reviews any more because my experience has been that they just can't be trusted. I've read an article, then found an example on the shelf at the LGS, and found something significantly different than the evaluator in the magazines, so that'll sour a guy over time, even when he really WANTS to buy and subscribe to the magazines.

I like the 'net, obviously or I wouldn't be here, but I used to keep the magazines. Had 15 big boxes of magazines and old Outdoor Life and Field & Stream Book Club books all packed nice and neat and tightly when I left for a stint across the big pond in SE Asia, and when I got back, found my mother in law had BURNED them!!! I had some back to '46 & '48, and I cherished those old mags and books. Just thought since you were so thoughtful in your reply, I'd let you know that I DO enjoy your writing, and Pearce's, and occasionally another writer or two.

For me, at least, there'll never be a substitute for having hard copies of good info. I'll still search back through them occasionally to find some stuff I need to know, or just want to read again. Kind'a like visiting an old friend, really.

So thanks for your reply and candor, and all I can say is that I really hope everything doesn't go "digital" because we'll lose some things then that I don't really think we're going to find very pleasing in the end. With all the talk about control of the internet, it's surely coming, and the "free press" COULD be significantly LESS free when that happens, but I'm just an old, crotchety curmudgeon these days, and don't know spit, so ... I just hope I'm wrong. I have a couple of really great grandsons coming up that I'd really like to see be able to enjoy even half of what I have in my time. Hope you're one of the "old heads" that are around to keep 'em straight when I'm not around any more. Your honesty is one of the things I appreciate most about your writing. It's valued a lot these days.

...edit...major internet issues. When I typed the question, I was actually responding to the comments on the first page!

One of the reasons I care less for many magazines than I used to, and only buy them on the newsstands therefore.

I would actually buy books if magazines would print good excerpts rather than the sometimes shallow articles.

It'll be a sad day when the books disappear. And content over the Internet gets "controlled" because we will have lost some real freedoms.

The techno micro bite articles geared toward the "short information crowd" (is ADD a common social disease today?) are good if you are interested in a certain piece of gear. Otherwise they read like instruction manuals. Utilitarian, but boring and lacking inspiration. They drove me away from most magazines.

There are still outdoor authors like Mule Deer who know how to write;and demonstrate the field experience to be creditworthy.

But a lot of stuff today is like watching an episode of Beevus and Butthead after reading Huckleberry Finn

Now there's some signature line stuff.

Thanks BobinNH,

Geno

There is a larger danger then the internett is controlled. And that is that information are tailor made to your specific views.

Meaning, we could both be reading the same article, in the same newspaper, but its worded differently, by algorithems tailor made to all my previous searches on the net.

If I am weary of X, and you are not, AI-like supercomputers would word the articles, either to raise fear level or lower it, depending on what "the powers that be" whants the population to think.

The changes would be miniscule, but would keep the population in the dark on what its really going on.

When I was ten or so I started reading books that were in my grandfather's library. He was the Dean of the Engineering Dept at Texas A&M and had a room full of books covering many topics.

The first book I read was, "Man Eaters of Kumaon", and it blew me away. I'd rather read a book than a magazine article and a magazine article over an Internet article. It doesn't seem to me that as many books are written today about hunting and most magazine articles on hunting are thinly disguised advertising. So that leaves the Internet for me.

Mr. Deer's writing is a pleasant exception.

Man Eaters is still very high on my list. I re-read it every few years. I have a tattered paperback that's at least 40 years old, but also picked up a 2-volumn hardcover omnibus a few years back. Corbett was an amazing man. RevMike put me onto the books of Kenneth Anderson, a near- contemporary of Corbett. His books can be had fo free in various e- versions, and while not quite up to Corbett's standard, they are excellent reads and give a view of another part of the country.

As for today's magazines, the Wolfe publications still stand out for quality and depth, despite the changes that have taken place over the last few years that so many grouse about. Hopefully, the change of editor won't mess things up.

I often take advantage of the discount offers to new subscibers of the other gun rags, which generally work out to about a buck a copy, but seldom renew. Most issues ain't worth the dollar.

That will certainly be a danger. Quite astute of you to point it out for those not paying attention.

Geno

Interesting thread, indeed. I'm afraid the old style of magazine in our field is, indeed gone. I think one of the big reasons is that reading, for the pure pleasure of it, is far less common. TV, internet, etc. have changed the average "reader" into, as JB pointed out, someone who doesn't want to engage a 3000+ word article.

The "article" that sells is a picture of a hunter with arrows and captions pointing to the gear being used, with a one or two paragraph blurb describing the buck harvested as a result of that gear. Pictures with captions beat out narrative every time.

There are a few writers extant that can still write an article that both informs AND entertains. And that is why I'm anxiously awaiting JB's new book! Sure wish Brian Pearce would write a book one of these days...he has that talent as well.

Great post by Mule Deer. I loved the well written longer articles of earlier days but I agree that many people don't read the way they did due to shorter attention spans. This applies to lots of other areas including music and political discourse. The world keeps changing and not always for the good.

I'm not totally convinced that the new magazine formats are a result of reader taste; more like a case of folks reading what's available. The www is headed in the same direction, bits and pieces of information buried amid ad content. Some news sites have become almost unreadable, even with pop-up blockers enabled. I've taken to also turning off JavaScript, which helps, at least on the iPad. Another issue is advertising disguised as content, especially as "news".

Wonder where we'll turn next, when the web becomes too cluttered with crap.

And just what do you old farts want a writer to write about?

When it comes to rifles and shotguns, new introductions are for the most part throwaway items, not meant to be collector pieces 75plus years from now. I would say the two most significant new rifle additions-over here-would be the Kimber and Forbes, and how many times would you be willing to read another in depth review of their pros/cons? Europe seems to be where the new quality rifles and shotguns are coming from. Unfortunately most here are not all that enthusiastic about quality.

Quality scopes and binoculars are definitely on an upward trend.

Long range shooting is the current craze and those who practice the art spend big dollars to do so. The new guys are into it. The bad knees crowd, not so much.

Most of the old crew are not all that interested in the black rifles, so those write ups usually have little attraction for them. Yet when I go to the range that is pretty much what the current generation is fooling around with.

A good writer can do a historical piece on one of the old time rifles/shotguns and most of the current generation
could care less. What's a publisher to do? What's a writer to do?

So what is current you would be willing to pay for? However for the most part, the demographic that is spending essentially cares less about what most of us old guys are into. They are making their own memories, so in order to have it go into print it best be something that attracts them also.

All excellent points.

Thirty years ago I made 95% of my living writing hunting and fishing stories, either how to do both, or just a story about a particular hunt. There was a market for that sort of STORY back then. Nowadays if you don’t kill a B&C animal there isn’t, and even then there isn’t any story, aside from what special unit you drew your tag in, or the rifle, scope, bullet, length of the shot, etc.

That was long enough ago that when Sporting Classics reprinted one of my hunting stories a year or two ago, a lot of readers asked me when I’d started writing “that sort of story.”

Advertisers can be perverse. A friend of mine who used to write for a pretty good magazine was receiving pressure from the ad sales department to review a product that appeared to be counterproductive. He finally did the review. He did a lengthy test, including double blind subjective evaluations with multiple users, instrumented test bench type measurements, in-service performance tracking. The end results ranged from no difference to negative effect on performance in all the various areas evaluated. All that was published truthfully. Very soon and for quite awhile after, the ad for the product included a "As tested in XXXXX" callout.

***************

As noted elsewhere in this thread, the internet presents a tremendous challenge for a magazine editor/staffer/contributor on a technical subject. If your full-time job is to make a magazine, even if you're really knowledgeable, there is no way you can compete on a wide range of topics with the depth and minutia that someone whose hobby is one particular thing will get into, and will share his experiences on the internet at length. The magazine guy gets hold of the product, tests it, reports his findings. The internet guy makes it his hobby and tries everything he can think of to make it better, working on the one thing for months, tweaking it this way and that, changing the stock, bedding it, getting a trigger job, trying different optics, working up loads, doing what it takes to get the most he can out of it. Then gives away the information for free.

The magazine guy's advantage is perspective, experience, capability. If he's doing it well for awhile, he will get to work with more arms, ammo and accessories under a wider range of conditions than most of us could ever hope to. He should have more resources. Consistent access to good ranges. Accurate chronos. Quality loading equipment. Maybe a chamber pressure rig. Working with some quality trainers. Access to technical industry people - engineers, etc. If his stuff is together, he should be capable of more in-depth, scientifically valid, thorough testing than most people on the internet. Sadly, there's precious little of that approach.

********************

Archival properties: I and most of my friends are old enough to have built magazine collections as we grew up. Held onto them through college. Maybe thinned down by putting the important stuff in binders. That changed with the web. Forums, as mentioned, often had depth and quality of information on a topic so focused that no magazine could duplicate it. The nature of information changed. Instead of trying to remember which old issue of XXXXX magazine that was in, you just searched for it. Five, ten years after the information was originally posted, you could still find it, exactly as you remembered. But we're starting to see that change. People whose lives at one point revolved around a subject move on. They may continue maintaining a site just as a service to the community that they continue to care about, but eventually, it starts to not be worth it. Especially with cars, which wear out, become uncompetitive with new stuff, lose popularity. Traffic on the site slows to a crawl. Maybe the site gets sold to a business that just runs a multitude of sites for profit, and eventually isn't profitable. Whatever the reason, the site eventually goes away. The information isn't there. Maybe it can be found with the Wayback Machine, but Google won't bring it up. It's effectively lost. If you're still interested in the topic, and didn't archive the materials you wanted under your own control, they're gone. Knowledge that was considered common in an interested group of people ten or fifteen years ago is simply gone. But somewhere, there's a magazine back issue...

I would buy magazines with those kind of stories, I miss them.

It's not the bad knees that makes you a geezer, it's the refusal to adapt and change. While my taste in toys remains lodged firmly in the 20th (and 19th) Century, I make good use of innovations in other areas. Those who refuse to learn run the risk of suddenly finding themselves isolated, helpless, and dependent.

The interest in black rifles is fueled somewhat by the recent military experience of many younger shooters, just as acceptance of bolt actions and semi autos was by the two world wars, but also by the current crop of shoot-em-ups being produced for television and the theaters. Interest in, not neccessarily participation in, long-range shooting is similar, as not many have access to ranges over 100 yards. The boys buy the stuff, but their opportunities to use it, in the East anyway, are limited. The interest, and the sales are there, which drives the ads and the content. Many of the new crop of shooters are just that, shooters and not hunters, which also influences magazine content. Opportunities for "stories" and "how-tos" about what are essentially combat and target arms are somewhat limited.

I find plenty of material that satisfies my Reactionary Old Fart taste on YouTube and in books, both electronic and print; podcasts; and to some extent on the various blogs. A tablet of some sort makes viewing this stuff easier and more convenient, and decent ones can be had pretty cheaply. Waiting for publishers to produce magazines that match my tastes and interests is about as productive as standing in line at Walmart waiting for .22s.

We are no different than a Wolf pack. At one time we ruled our little section. Now there is a new alpha pack and they make the rules while we hang on as long as we can. Nothing new.

Thanks for the heads up on Kenneth Anderson. I downloaded three of his books.

Damn Harry. You do what you want, but I'm gonna keep on finding hydrants to piss on. And trash cans to knock over.

Obviously you get it.




Addition: I've gathered more useful rifle info on this site than all of what some think are the good years of outdoor writing. Also, I've come to to vicariously know who actually is doing the doing. These are the good old days.

What was said earlier about the demographics of new shooters. A local gun store owner I dealt with for a long time retired and turned his store over to his late 20s age son about three or four years ago. The original owner carried mostly traditional blue steel/walnut type long guns, a few handguns, some optics, ammo etc.

The son and a couple of his friends turned it into a mostly black rifle, handguns, high end optics, "technical" kind of place. They've had to expand the size of the store twice and it's almost always busy with younger customers who spend what looks to me like some serious money for their age group. A few weeks before Christmas there's damn near a line coming out the door. I'd say more than half of their customers aren't hunters but there's a lot of them.

RevMike is a great source for all kinds of ROF (Reactionary Old Fart) stuff.

Some awfully good comments and points made. With most people's hectic schedules, and the politics and litigiousness of the times, there are fewer and fewer places TO shoot, even when the desire is there, and less and less time to do it anyway. This is a real problem, of course, when we consider the future of our beloved sports.

I have a strong sense that the upcoming election is going to be a very large determinant of that, and I'm honestly not very optimistic about it, based on what all I can see and project forward to where it tends to be leading us, collectively speaking, as a nation.

Every anti-liberal factor I see seems to be self-destructing, and thus, allowing liberalism and its inanities reign. It seems few of us really think more than just superficially these days, maybe because we're too dang busy to really consider things very thoughtfully and seriously, and there seems to be little motivation about for real introspectives. Thus, maybe it's understandable that we're forming our own un-doing, but that kind'a thing is more appropriate for the political forum, so I'll leave it at that, but it really IS affecting where we're going and what we're going to be able to do in the future.

I was just concerned, and need to thank MD again for his very thorough and thoughtful reply. Things don't happen for no reason, and we as a nation are not in decline for no reason, and that the stuff in our beloved shooting magazines isn't what it once was is probably more of a reflection of the readership than it is of the authors, or even the managers/owners/editors, so .... as Sonny and Cher said, "The beat goes on."

I really do miss some of the old stuff and authors, though, and just thought it might be functional to let that be known. It now looks like the forces affecting that are bigger than all of us, and that's actually good news, at least of a sort, anyway.

Most new "hunters" don't really know how to hunt, but just want to know where to go and sit, and see a good animal, and many can't even hit the thing when they DO get a chance because they have nowhere to shoot or practice. And that's not their fault at all!

You'd think that here in SE Ga. where I am, that there'd be plenty of places to shoot, but that's getting harder and harder to find simply because more and more people complain about the noise disturbing their delicate little sensibilities. The "Big Woods" have been broken up, and likely as not, there's houses sprinkled through the whole space, making for a very difficult time to find a place where one can shoot without any attendant problems.

I guess some of us were just born a little too late to really think much of the times we're living in, but as one who nearly died 2 yrs. ago, I appreciate each day and its challenges MUCH more than I used to! Mostly now, it's my son and grandsons that I am concerned about, and what they'll be facing, and what opportunities they'll have ahead of them.

Again, thanks for the reply MD and others who made excellent points and comments. This is the first time I've seen this subject broached quite as honestly and forthrightly as it has been, so I guess that's at least a portion of why I like the internet the way I do today? Lots of good folks here, and lots of knowledge and understanding that many of us do not have. That's no small thing these days, too!

It's not necessarily the medium used, though that can be a factor in what we read (like having to wade through a lot of low level stuff to find the good), bu the contributors that make it what it is. This is one of the few forums I frequent, and that's a complement. Enough people here with good knowledge to keep the less knowledgeable on guard, and relatively controlled, and a fertile ground for some really good info and interesting stories from those who have them to contribute.

Thanks again for the thoughts and replies, all.

Blackwater,

Thank you as well for bringing the subject up. It's been discussed here before, but not as thoroughly and not as thoughtfully by all who participated.

You and me both.

I'd much rather read about a hunt in a place I'll likely never hunt and carrying a rifle I'd likely never carry if it's well written than a product pimp.

A last comment on this, just so it'll be clearer where I'm coming from on this issue. The family and friends I grew up around were awfully good people, and I learned my attitude, and commitment to what REALLY matters in life from them. I was awfully lucky, and probably one of the luckiest people around these days.

My eldest uncle was "de shootin'est ginnamin" as Nash Buckingham termed it, in the family. Back during the depression, people would buy a box of shells and give them to him, asking him to shoot a "mess" of quail for them. Out of a box of 25, he's usually bring home about 30 birds by lining up two birds at a time with the old break open single barrel he used at that time. The last time I hunted with him, he was 81, and he never missed a shot the whole day long on doves!

My Dad was one of the old 3-war Marines, China/WWII/Korea, and taught me at a very early age how to shoot my BB gun, including how to use a sling. I guess it was inevitable that I'd become pretty good with a rifle, and then with a pistol, but I've NEVER been that good with a shotgun. I was shooting for FUN, and didn't learn to hit like my uncle did, so that's still a challenge.

The ethic they followed was one of simple "fair play" and judicious management of the game. Now that game is much more scarce, due to reduction in habitat (mostly taken over by homes these days), the whole game of hunting and shooting has changed, and we're no longer "a nation of riflemen."

The Japanese admiral that had lived here a good while warned the Japanese powers that be then, that if they wanted to invade the mainland of the USA, they'd find "a sniper behind every blade of grass" here, but that's no longer the case. Most people now CAN'T get good because they just don't have the opportunity, and with all the BAD info out there on the internet, there's an increasing trend toward "group think," and just getting quick sound-byte answers to specific problems without regard to any "technicalities," or desire, even, of understanding the principles involved. This is a disturbing trend, and the very people who need better info and understanding the most seem to obe the ones who will listen to it the least.

I have a friend who has some real talent, but being my son's age, he's absorbed the attitude of many of the "young lions" of today, and doesn't really want to hear anything that doesn't serve his pre-conceived notions. For instance, he bought a very expensive custom long range rife with very nice scope, and wanted me to help him with it, and teach him how to shoot better. We went to a nearby 1200 yd. range that we're very lucky to have around, and he set up at 600 yds. I had some loads to try in my sporters and set up at 200. After he'd shot a few groups, he asked me to tell him what I thought. He had generally 8-10" groups at 600, which isn't bad, but I knew that gun and load should be doing much better. When I told him that, he liked what he heard, and proceeded to shoot a group while I watched. I noticed he was shoving the forend hard against the side of the front rest, and told him he couldn't do that and get what the gun was capable of. He said, and I quote, "You're crazy! That couldn't possibly make that much difference!" I just shrugged and told him, "Well, if you're satisfied with the results you're getting, keep on doing it the same way, but if you want to see what your rifle can REALLY do, make sure you don't put any side pressure on it, and see what you get." Then I went back to my shooting, and he to his. A while later, as dusk was falling and my chrono had quit working, I was busily trying to get the remainder of my loads shot up for testing, and he called to me, "Dennis, go look through the spotting scope." I told him I was too busy, and needed to get my loads tested. He again said, "Dennis, go look through the spotter." His voice had a strange ring to it, so I looked over at him, and saw his face was red, and he had a sheepish smile on his face. This got my curiosity up enough that I got up and went to the spotter we'd set up, and there was a very small group on his target, MUCH smaller than he'd been shooting, and obviously a surprise to him. "Wow!" I said, "what did you do?" He responded, "Just what you told me to. You were right. It really DOES make a difference. I just had to see it to believe it." That group, BTW, was 2 1/4" at 600. Not bad for a budding long range shooter! He had the talent. He just didn't know how to use it, and that's the problem with many today. They have great equipkment, but little knowledge of how to use it effectively.

And that's much the same as the responses I now get from so many of the "young lions" who seem to think they can buy a good shot. I've told many how to get the potential their guns have, but few take it in, or even are willing to try it. It's really kind'a frustrating for us old curmudgeons, but it's a growing trend from what I can see. They buy the new glossy mags, and see what someone who can shoot can do with them with tailored loads, and they think if they just BUY one, they'll be able to shoot like that too. It's just not possible, but that's not what they want to hear.

I've tried to teach many how to shoot well whenever they've asked me to, but many if not the majority, after I've explained how to shoot well, will say something like "Well, I do it THIS way," and proceed to ignore every effort I'd just made to teach them what they'd asked for. It's frustratingI, and not being a very PC kind'a guy, I've made some rather mad at me. That's fair. They weren't exactly very pleasing toward me, either, so at least we were even, if a bit crosswise with each other. Sometimes that's as "fair" as one CAN be.

I just see shooting and shooters in decline, and would seriously like to see that trend reversed. t really DOES matter, STILL! And that's my primary motivation in posting what I did, NOT to condemn anyone, but to plea for whatever can be done to make things better. Not being very PC, I can say things sometimes in ways that offend some, and Heaven knows, we all seem to wear our feelings on our sleeves, including me sometimes, but at least I've come by it fairly honestly.

As a group, we shooters really NEED to do better than we have been doing, but that'll involve a whole lot of work, and some degree of risk. Whether we rise to that need will, I have a sense, determine what our future is going to be like. And again, a very sincere thanks to all who've taken my comments as intended.

Not to hijack this thread or anything. Ha!

Where do people get off thinking they can buy a Savage Axis or RAR scope rifle package and expect them to be 600 yard rifles?

And then there are the fathers who buy their kid a deer rifle and tell me they want the cheapest scope possible because that is all that is needed. I'll admit I have nicer glass than my kids, Meopro, Conquest and VX-3, but not by much. Their rifles wear VX-2s, Elites and Elite 4200s.

Remember when you were 16 and a new car was out of the question? You dreamed of owning something cool, but funds wouldn't permit. You probably knew a lot about automobiles generally, and vowed that one day you would own your personal fave. For me, it was a 1965 Mustang. I never got that car, but bought my fair share of VW bugs.



Rifles are a lot like that. People dream of owning a Sako, Kimber or custom rifle, but cannot afford one. They continue to dream, and there's nothing wrong with that! In the meantime, they buy less expensive firearms. You just gotta shoot!

I have always referred to Stevens 200, Axises (Axes?), RARs, etc. as utility rifles. They are the jeeps (or VWs) of the rifle world. Not the best at anything, but fun to play with. You can shoot them as is, tinker with and add to them as funds allow. It's part of the learning curve. (I like building my own rifles using inexpensive Savage actions.)

How do you discover that an inexpensive rifle with a Simmons scope probably won't do well at 600 yds? Well, if there's real estate available, you can try shooting targets with your Walmart prefab rig. There's nothing wrong with that! Any trigger time is good time.

Will that rifle be able to hit a 600 yard target with a cheapy Simmons 3x9 and factory loads? Probably, but the odds are against it. The scope is likely to fail, or not adjust properly. For dependability, you gotta buy quality optics. The trigger will need work. The stock probably won't fit...etc.

The biggest reason though is that most buyers of inexpensive rifles lack the skills necessary to reach out that far. It comes with instruction and practice. But if you don't practice - even with an old milsurp or budget priced cheapy - you'll never improve.

Then there's the group that just wants to hunt once or twice a year. They don't see a need to spend a lot of money on a deer rifle, and they are absolutely right! If they catch the bug, they'll upgrade or fix up what they have. It's all good.

Steve I'm glad the budget rifles are out there because it allows people to get in to shooting that couldn't afford it otherwise. And your car analogy was spot on. My first vehicle in 1975 was a 67 ford short bed stepside with three on the tree and the smallest engine ford used at the time. It had no A/C and the bed was rotted out. But it got me where I was going. It was also painted industrial green because it had been a service vehicle for the power company. My first choice would have been a Chevy C/K Silverado Package with a .454.

What I meant was that people purchase package rifles with the expectation that they will all of the sudden be banging steel at 600 yards. Highly unlikely. My suggestion if asked is to practice and get really good at 100 yards, then move out to 200, 300, etc.

I lot of people also think the rifle is everything and the optic is an afterthought. On Thursday a guy brought in an Interarms Mauser Action 7mm RM and a Mark V in .270 WM.. He purchased and I mounted a Vortex Crossfire on the Interarms and a Bushnell Legend on the Weatherby. I'm not an optics snob, my scopes generally run from $400.00 to $600.00. I would have spent all I had on one scope and saved until I had enough money to put a decent scope on the second rifle.

+1, Thanks MD

MD, nice commentary on the history of the industry magazines.

Another +1.

(One post closer to my next-level merit badge now.)

That's why I chuckle when I see some of the posts here. There are a few posters that can afford a wall full of expensive custom rifles, but most can't. The majority have std rifles - 700s, Savages, assorted Winchesters and Rugers. They might put a Leupold on it, but most folks use Bushnells, Vortexes, Nikons, etc. Some rifles - 700s especially - may have had trigger work done, but as far as improvements are concerned, that"s about it.

The pursuit of cheap rifles has driven 90% of the improvements we've seen in the marketplace. Shooters want more! Better out of the box triggers, better stocks - yes, synthetic is superior to wood - and CNC machining is vital for industry to cheaply and efficiently get rifles into the marketplace.

It is a huge shift. For some reason, most of my shooting friends would rather have a cheap birch stock than a cheap poly one. To each his own, but my plastic stock is more likely to shoot better out of the box than their budget grade wood. If my plastic needs bedding, it's easier to manage than wood.

Some folks crab about poly stocks or funny looking Accu-triggers, but they will get the job done as well or better for less cost. These rifles have aftermarket accessories for poor folks that want to add or improve as funds allow. Yay Axis! Thanks Ruger for the American! It would be nice if Remington could manage to build a decent budget rifle. They tried and failed a few times.

If you can afford it, there are nice rifles available with beautiful wood and a fab metal finish. For the majority, the budget rifle is a welcome, viable avenue to keep the shooting sports from dying.

More people on this board have "cheap" rifles than will admit. It's not cool or socially acceptable to say, "I really like my Axis or American!" So they talk around the subject or "prevaricate".

All hail the econo-rifle!

Hi, my name is Ready and I own and like my Savage Axis. And my Marlin XS7.

There I said it.

I wonder:

When will carpenters start talking more about the tools of their trade then about the cupboards they are making?

I quit reading gun mags when the tactical stuff got put on every other page. I dont mind AR's, just dont want to read about them every friggin month.

And before you call me an AR hater, I own 2 of them.

Steve and others, you make an excellent point about the cheaper rifles. I have another friend who came up poor and tough, and killed his first deer at the age of 6. The first time dark caught him in the Ogeechee River swamp, he was 8. His grandpa was his idol, and he spent nearly every weekend at his home almost on the banks of the river. That was his 2nd home, and the swamp was his 3rd. His grandad hunted, fished and trapped, and did seasonal farm work for a living. He's also been the man most farmers in the area call when their crops are being destroyed by deer, and he's shot more deer than most men and hunters have even SEEN, much less killed, and he's shot them with everything from a .22 LR pistol to a .375 H&H. Almost none ever got away, and that's generally been from 40 to 100 or more a year, depending on the year and deer population. He's also got the best pair of eyes of anyone I've ever met. He once spotted buttons on a small buck at 200 yds. that I hadn't seen with a 5x scope!

This guy was never able to afford a really nice rifle for most of his early years, but he read everything he could on them, and learned some tricks from that and some local 'smiths, on how to "accuraze" a rifle. He learned how to bed a gun and how to adjust and stone a trigger, and many "cheap rifles" shot amazingly well after a few simple ministrations. People began paying him MORE than he'd had in these rifles when he demonstrated subMOA accuracy for 5 shots at 100. This, by saving his $, got him into better guns, but even that didn't always yield better shooting guns, and he didn't cull them except by accuracy. He rarely shot more than once, and that was when there were multiple deer available.

He's old like me now, and darn near on his last good leg, so doesn't get out much any more, but when he does, he's STILL deadly. Now he's shooting a 7/08 that shoots cloverleafs at 200 yds for 3 shots - about all he ever carries with him hunting anyway, and 2 more than he needs most days.

So while "cheap" guns may inspire little confidence or pride in ownership, even THOSE really CAN produce some remarkable accuracy. No, not all of them, but many, these days, with a minimum of tinkering, which he's always done for anyone who asked for free. Now if they'd just take his advice on HOW TO SHOOT, there'd be a lot fewer deer in the woods these days, but most won't. The price of the gun has little to do with a man's success, but what he can DO with it really does, and I've seen some "poor but proud" guys out-shoot many with much higer priced, shiny, and beautiful guns.

It's always the "nut behind the bolt" that matters most. Some could kill a deer with a slingshot. Some can't get one with a nuke! C'est la' vie!

I finally got around to reading this thread. Timing is kind of interesting, cause i just emailed a friend of mine, that has written for numerous mags over the years, and as other well known names as friends. I was venting to him, knowing full well he doesn't set the contents of these mags, and being more of a conventional writer, his output isn't in as much demand by the editors as it once was.
My discussion was basically about well known names shilling for various companies/manufacturers, lack of product knowlege where even i could point out mistakes in the writing, and these younger guys/editors directing articles about stuff meaningless to the average reader.
Example:
a writeup on a 2k turnbull 1911, yes, a nice gun but how many are going to pay that?
Another endless article on a ar15 that with optics cost would be over 3k. Yeppers, just what the average guy is going to buy.
I have taken one major mag for many many years, for among other reasons i knew the family that owned it, not true any longer, and i probably need to quit taking it. Page content is way down, and the articles are more and more supportive of the products/shilling/for some of the major advertisors.
I guess that would be okay if they would just flat state paid propaganda to get you to buy some new product.
I still get the NRA mag which as a life member, doesn't cost me anything, and i take handloader.
Which does have content i am interested in.
Truthfully tho, i would hate to have to make a living writing. I get more information off these forums then i do in any maggazine. And other forums like this.

Which brings up another point. When I first met John Wootters many years ago, one interesting point in his conversation was the point of gun and hunting writing: “It isn’t journalism. I did real journalism for years [John was a reporter on the Houston paper, among other things covering a major hurricane], and gun writing is entertainment.”

And that is indeed what a large part of gun and hunting magazines used to be, entertainment for when we couldn’t be out shooting or hunting. Yes, there was some information, but the writers we remember best from those years entertained us. Today we can indeed get a lot of information from the Internet (and occasionally even some entertainment, though not intentional), but many shooters and hunters get their entertainment from TV and videos, not reading stories by people like Wootters or O’Connor or Skeeter Skelton. A good writer can do things with a story that TV cannot, because he can spark our own imagination and actually make us feel as if we were there. There are very few TV shows that create the same sort of atmosphere, let alone the interior conflicts and emotions we feel when hunting. But TV is great for selling stuff, which is why far fewer magazines runs hunting stories today, a very different situation than 25-30 years ago.

Very true. There used to be a back page for humour, the deer hunting stories that were thin on equipment or load recommendations, but packed with camp happenings - the people, the time of year and what happened in between the stalking. Entertainment and good memories.

Times have indeed changed.

John
This is very interesting, as we all had writers we'd have shared a camp with, but some of the TV guru's, not so much by comparison, in fact, "no thanks" even comes to mind with many of them.
John

MD said, "A good writer can do things with a story that TV cannot, because he can spark our own imagination and actually make us feel as if we were there. There are very few TV shows that create the same sort of atmosphere, let alone the interior conflicts and emotions we feel when hunting."

And MD, you are one of the few out there left that can, even if the word limit is short, give us at least a taste of what it was like being there with your words. Really good stories would be called "wordy" today, in our sound byte oriented world, and largely, I think, because people don't want to spend one second more in reading something than is absolutely necessary to get, like Jack Web used to say, "Just the facts, ma'am."

Most of us hunt for the constantly changing feelings, sensations and questions that are presented to us during the hunt. Real hunting is a very cerebral thing, if done right. A writer, like yourself, who has the talent to put all that in words effectively has always been a pretty rare commodity. Robert Ruark is one of the greats, but there are a good number more.

Now that physical limitations let me get out less than I have traditionally, it'd sure be nice if the editors could at least allow some experimentation in this. With our population getting older, and especially those who'd buy gun mags, it just might enhance sales and subscribership. If you could pass this on to editors without getting your hiney chewed for it, they might be surprised at how many former subscribers would resubscribe.

Just a FWIW, really. All I can do is all I can do, and in this case, that's just to ask. Thanks for a great discussion, all.

Hey, I just tuned-in to this thread, and I'm not sure if that that's a compliment or not!

When I turned 50 one of my parishioners said, "You know, 50 is the new 30." I said, "Well, I wish someone would tell that to both my body and my mind. They're still operating under the old calendar!"

I think you and John put your finger on it right there: the ability of the author to spark the imagination so that the reader feels like he is a part of the story. That is what I appreciate about many of the old-time writers, as well as a few of the contemporary ones.

They also relate their stories in ways that spark memories. For instance, John's article about opening and closing ranch "gates" in the most recent Sports Afield did that for me just last night. His description of the fellow from Back East who closed the gate with himself on the wrong side reminded me of the time I did the exact same thing, fighting a new fence "gate" open and closed only to find myself knee-deep in muck on the wrong side and having to do it all over again. My BIL remarked, "I didn't know ministers knew that kind of language." The only thing I could think to say was, "Yeah, well, I wasn't always a priest."