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

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.

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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.

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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?