Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters early days of Wolfe Publ.

I've finally opened my digital copy of the June 2016 issue of Handloader and found the reprint of the first issue of the magazine included. Looking at the masthead I was surprised to see the magazine originated in Peoria, IL. Two issues later is a partial reprint of the third issue, and I see they'd moved to the building across the corner from what was my grade school in Peoria.

Does any one know the story of the early days of Wolfe Publishing? The editorial staff on the masthead is quite impressive. Who was Wolfe and how did he come to assemble such a staff?

Karl

I don't know much about the early Wolfe publishing days other than buying the magazines and books.
Dave Wolfe was the Editor of Shooting Times in the 1960's. When Handloader came on the scene he brought Ken Waters and Paul Matthews with him.
Handloader operated at a loss for quite a long while.

2525,

Most of what I know was told to me by the folks who owned and worked at Wolfe when I started writing for them in the early 1990's, after Dave Wolfe retired:

Dave Wolfe started RIFLE and HANDLOADER primarily as a tax write-off for his favorite pastimes, shooting and hunting. (Other businesses provided his real income.) He apparently didn't care if they made money, basically just wanting them to not lose any. As I understand it, paid circulation was never much more than 10,000 copies a month, when around 40,000 is often considered minimum for a magazine to make decent money.

He kept expenses low partly by not paying writers much, the reason many articles were written by readers--and even the staff writers were part-timers, who were retired or (like Dave Wolfe) had other income, or young writers just starting out. The young writers left for more lucrative markets as their careers advanced. Jim Carmichel is perhaps the prime example, who departed to write for OUTDOOR LIFE for a lot more money, but there were several others, including Rick Jamison, Jon Sundra and John Wootters.

Another way Dave Wolfe saved money was by only using color photos on the covers, and black and white inside the magazine. This was common with many smaller magazines up through the 1970's, but in the 1980's even small magazines had to go all-color to compete in the modern market. Dave Wolfe didn't want to spend the money, partly because he was nearing retirement. About 1990 he sold the magazines to the guy who was then its art director, Mark Harris, who did need the magazines to make money--which meant increasing circulation. He started running color photos inside the magazine, and hired more full-time writers. This worked well enough that Harris retired about 10 years ago, selling the magazines to his advertising director.

Thanks, John! That filled in a few holes for me.

I never saw them at a news stand until the mid 90s. They seemed like a gunsmith/dealer only? or was I just in too small a town? subscription only at first?

Sycamore

Sycamore,

Yeah, they weren't on many newstands in the early days, because newstand distributors normally want far more copies to distribute. Otherwise it's not worth their time. The only places I saw RIFLE and HANDLOADER in my part of Montana for a long time were a very few sporting goods stores. When they went modern around 1990, circulation increased enough that newstand distributors would take them on--and that helped considerably.

There was a period when the Wolfe magazines were outselling FIELD & STREAM from newstands, though that's somewhat deceptive. F&S (and other large-circulation magazines) play a different game than smaller-circulation magazines. The big ones make the vast majority of their money on advertising, since advertising is priced on how many readers are likely to see it. Which is why F&S and many other big magazines sell subscriptions for really low prices. Smaller-circulation magazines often charge more for subscriptions, enough to provide a decent part of their income, since they can't change nearly as much for advertising.

I started getting Rifle magazine in the 1970's when I joined the NBRSA and Rifle was printing NBRSA match reports and news..

I may have seen Rifle on the Navy Exchange magazine section in Subic Bay around 1970 - 71. I'm not sure. I do know I started buying it, and Handloader, at a small town newsstand in (about) 1974. I bought it there regularly until I started to subscribe.

My first exposure to Handloader was in the early to mid 1970's when a buddy of mine was a subscriber. A year or so later I saw Rifle but don't recall where.

I have to wonder if many hobby magazines aren't so.

I was surprised the operation was based in the building adjacent to the A&P store where my mom bought groceries: I never knew it was there. My dad didn't shoot after he left for college, so I was oblivious to hunting firearms. The only rifles I knew of were on the WW-II airplanes I was always reading about and building models of.

Karl

From what I've been told, Dave Wolfe ran quite a few ads that were paid for by various companies with stuff like rifles and outfitted hunts. One deal was with a well-known firearms company, which always sent him a fancy version of their most recent rifle introduction. In return they got big ads in each issue.

Some "hobby" magazines are even owned by major publishing companies. For years Hearst Communications, one of the biggest, had a reputation for rarely admitting a mistake. They often started or purchased magazines that lost money, then kept them afloat for years, trying different things until the magazines either started making money died.

One of the hunting magazines I've written for, off and on, for around 30 years was owned by Hearst for at least 20 years. They bought it in the mid-1970's because it was among the most successful outdoor magazines, then decided to change it into a sort of Esquire magazine for hunters. They started a column on high-grade liquor, and ran articles on stuff like custom cowboy boots. That version didn't fly, so they tried to imitate Gray's Sporting Journal, but that didn't work either.

Eventually they hired an editor who decided to turn it into a "green" magazine for backpackers, kayakers and mountain bikers, with no "blood sports" of any kind. Somehow they figured college students would really like it, and spent considerable money on a publicity tour of major universities, trying to sell subscriptions. But most college students don't any spare money, and Hearst ended up giving away a lot of free subscriptions. Plus, most magazine distributors still placed it among the hunting and fishing magazines on store racks, where hunters and anglers would pick it up to see what might be interesting, of course not finding ANYTHING they liked.

Eventually Hearst was forced to sell the magazine at a loss, after having lost money on it for a long time, and it went through two more buyers before finally ending up with somebody who figured out how to make it work again. But during the Hearst years it won a bunch of publishing industry awards for things like editorial content and creative design, all the while leaking money. In comparison, the early Wolfe magazines were pretty profitable.

Thanks for the insights into the business, MD.

I bought my first copy of 'Handloader' some time in 1978 (or maybe late'77) at the Little Professor book store just off campus on Green Street in Champaign, Illinois. I'd never heard of it before, and was surprised to find it there. I'm not sure 'Handloader' was available at the Little Professor for very long.

I first ran into dave when they moved to prescott, as i was working at a bank in town, and basically was their contact banker. It went easy for me in i was one of the few banker's in town that was addicted to the gun trade. wolfe later was partially responsible for ruger moving to town, and J&G Sales. He was a real nice guy, and i spent many an afternoon making business calls on them to talk guns etc. I loved it, getting paid by the bank to do that. Banks had very little experience with financing custom rifles, or related ammunition business. I got loans approved to do exactly that. Dave was behind some of the big names in the business today.
At that time neil knox was executive director of the N.R.A. but also worked for dave. I financed a plane for him to run prescott to virginia.
He was always telling me of the fun shooting he was doing, and me complaining i never got to do that.
One day i came back from lunch to the bank, and everybody started laughing. Neil had shot a maybe 20 pound goose at remington farms, froze it, and carted in back to prescott, to leave it defrosting on my desk.
The family last i know still has a car i financed way back when.
Dave was into a number of business ventures other than publishing but i don't think i want to mention them on here.
One of his writers was a green beanie who chased Che in south america, and he had a bunch of others that had real bonafides. Come to think of it, i think he was the reason jeff cooper moved gunsite to prescott.
That was when i became friends with Dr. Howell and others.
An act of kindness on the part of dave. Being a banker I didn't have much money, and all i had was my grandfathers old sporterized winchester model of 1917. I turned it over to dave, he sent it to some friend who reworked the metal, and a very deep bluing, action work etc. That was my only rifle for years. All the work done free.
I miss those guys to this day.

I have to smile for another reason about dave and his crew. I finally got a little money together to buy ONE rifle, and asked them what should i buy? Uniform answer, i was left handed so a remington 700BDL left hand bolt in 30.06. The answer was it could load real light, real heavy, and kill anything i thought needed killing, wasn't the best for anyone specific job, but would do them all.
I now have a rather large collection of lots of stuff, but still have that first purchased rifle, and yeah, it did it all.

When I first saw Neil Knox who was then editor before he was with the N.R.A.
He drove a Chevy Blazer around Prescott, it had a bumper sticker
that said, "Where Has Gun Law Reduced Crime in America!" I would ask myself "who is that guy?"
My answer came one day when he dropped off his boys Jeff and Chris at school. Jeff was a year ahead of me and
Chris a year behind me. We became friends because of our same interest, basically killing every jack rabbit we could find.
We had some prairie dog shoots near Seligman, AZ too. Lots of burros were up there back then.

Interesting times.

-i think everybody in the prescott area knew about those dogs up to the west of seligman.