Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Which gun writer has gotten the wealthiest from trading guns ?

From what I've heard, Clay Harvey would request loaner test guns from manufacturers and then never return them, but sell them instead. Anyone confirm or rebutt this?

Can't say, barrel envy would be my guess though.

1. Which gun writer has gotten the wealthiest from trading guns ?

2.Which one should we all try to emulate ?

According to the data service from the IRS, I am.

*1. I managed to break even three of seven years. I'm not talking bout the other four years. As an aside, Alfred E. Neuman was a close 2nd behind me, he broke even one month out of 7 years data. I contacted him by phone, here is a quote from him: "In retrospect it becomes clear that hindsight is definitely overrated!"

*2. As for emulating, that is only possible if I sell you a franchise for your area, non-warranted of course.

**For any question about being a gun writer, see below:




GUN. Hope I spelled right, !

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Seriously, no one knows the gun industry or specific guns better than gun writers.

Just like stock brokers who study a particular investment market, seems like gun writers would be better investors in guns and know which ones to buy and when to sell better than the average person.

The gun writer would know better how to assess specific guns at a gun show as to their current and potential future value.

Seems to me that a gun writer could actually have a monthly magazine column or an internet blog just like stock brokers have. Even give heads up alerts to premium paying members.

Please don't tell me that gun writers' investment performance in guns is no better than mine.


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I do know some writers who have done well with buying and trading firearms. The late Jim Bashline wasn't really a gun writer, since he mostly wrote about fishing and hunting (he was a staff writer for FIELD & STREAM), but back in the 1950's he once traded the family car for several old Winchester lever-actions. In addition he had to throw in all the cash he had on hand--and so had to call his wife and have her wire him enough money for a train ticket home. Those rifles eventually paid for his oldest kid's college education.

Jim also had a very impressive collection of Ruger No. 1's and Parker shotguns. I assume those turned into a pretty good chunk of change when he died a few years ago.

I do know some gun writers who have done pretty well by NEVER returning a test firearm, instead buying it at the manufacturer's discount (which is usually wholesale) and keeping every gun, then selling the collection when retiring. This is obviously another long-term deal.

Personaly I probably break even on gun investments. I don't buy all that many factory guns, but do buy a lot of used guns and a few new ones from stores when I find a good deal. If you know what used guns are going for, and which ones people look for, then it's hard to lose money on a used firearm. I buy them when I find a good deal, fool with them enought to learn something to write about, then usually sell them for what I have in them. The only "profit" is the money I make writing--and gun writing isn't one of the super-lucrative professions.

Once in a while I luck into something and make a little money. A few years ago I picked up a pre-'64 Model 70 .30-06 in 98-99% condition for $800. I shot it a little, but never hunted with it, and it mostly rested in the back of the safe until prices had gone up some, and I sold it for about a $400 profit. But I probably immediately spent it on another rifle.

Over the long run I probably break even, because I'm not really into buying and selling rifles for a profit. I'm into buying and selling rifles because I like to fool around with a lot of rifles!

Clay Harvey doesn't qualify as a gun trader, because from what I understand all he ever did was borrow guns and then sell them. He didn't trade or buy. The profit margin is a LOT bigger that way....

Seriously for Hammer1:

Wasn't making fun of your question, just a tongue in cheek post before.

Edit: To add in highlight from JB's post, pretty much how it works for me .

Over the long run I probably break even, because I'm not really into buying and selling rifles for a profit. I'm into buying and selling rifles because I like to fool around with a lot of rifles!

one should never use "gunwriter" and "wealth" in the same sentence. it's a living (for some), doing what they enjoy. i'm glad we got em'.

That about sums it up. Even writers like to read decent stuff.

JW

The man who walks S.H.O.T alone

An old cattle trader friend of mine told me many years ago,if you can make a living doing something you enjoy it is better than being rich.

I"ve read "The Last Book" by O'Connor, "Hell I Was There" by Keith, and read a lot about various writers. My impression is that John Jobson died nearly broke, that Keith was comfortable mainly by living within his means, and that none of my favorite authors live in McMansions. And I'm going to hazard a guess that many of you gunwriters foot your own health insurance premium.

But...a day at the office is often a day at the range. That part would be nice! But it is probably very often a day at the computer too.

I certainly live in no mansion.

And, just to add to the glamour, a day at the office often means shooting under the open sky in anywhere from 17 to 107 degree weather, in six inches of snow or two inches of mud.

Denis

Filmore P. Endicott was by far the richest of all gun writers. Endicott wrote for several popular magazines at the turn of the 20th century, including Arms and The Man, The Buffalo Hunter's Gazette, and Frontier Memories. Endicott was also a fancy shooter, exhibiting his uncanny skills to gasping crowds at Wild West shows. He was noted for his never duplicated feat of derailing a speeding 4-4-0 American type steam locomotive with five rapid shots from his favorite Smith and Wesson #1 revolver. Endicott used specially prepared Flobert cartridges to accomplish the feat, which some critics claimed bordered on fraud.

Building on his celebrity, which rivaled such greats as Annie Oakley, Ed Topperwein and others, Endicott authored several popular books on hunting and shooting topics. One book, Hunting the Great Divide, became a instant classic earning him the princely sum (in 1900 Dollars) of $195.93.

Unfortunately, Endicott was discovered to have made most of his substantial fortune selling repeating Winchester rifles to formerly hostile Indian tribes during the Apache wars 1870 - 1883. Worse, it was revealed in secret documents that he also had been a major supplier of Mauser rifles to the Spanish forces in Cuba during the Spanish American War. These documents were discovered by Lt. George S. Patton during the Cuban Pacification 1906-09 while serving with the 15th Cavalry. Endicott was tried for treason in federal court, found guilty in 1910 and quietly hung at Fort Leavenworth Kansas in 1911. Endicott's name has largely been forgotten by history.

I wonder how he has survived doing stuff like that without somebody shooting him?

Wrangler John,

That would be one way to go about it, though obviously not a long-term financial strategy.

Many people are under the impression that writers either are rich or semi-starving. The reality is that probably 99% of writers who actually make a living by writing have middle-class incomes. This includes gun writers. I do know a couple of gun writers who might be considered rich, but they married into money.

Most gun writers don't make much money right away, unlike some MBA's who get hired by a big Wall Street firm right out of graduate school. In fact most "gun writers" don't make all their living from writing. Many do it part-time, having a regular job on the side, or are retired with pension and SS income. My wife and I, however, do make all of our living from freelance writing.

When I first started making a decent living as a freelance writer, at about age 30, I was often approached by younger men (who wanted to hunt and shoot for a living) asking how to go about it. I had a list of suggestions:

1) Live as cheaply as possible, in order not to get a regular job. Another job just drains energy that could be used writing, and takes time away from doing the things that you write about.

2) Don't have kids until you can afford them, for pretty much the same reasons as (1).

3) Marry somebody with a good job, who isn't always after you to get a "real job." It helps if they can get health insurance through their job.

Come to think of it, those are still pretty much my rules of being a freelance writer, though my standard of living cheaply has risen considerably over the years. It helps to live in a small town in Montana that's avoided by wealthy Californians. We also never have to buy meat at the supermarket!

I think I read in * Steps To Trading Guns Successfully *, someone did try to shoot him with Flobert cartridges.

Didn't 'de-rail' him, so figure the shooter didn't use the specially designed locomotive cartridge, .

Thank goodness for the gunwriters we got here!

Mule Deer:

Yes that's a great formula for writing success.

Yet there is another way. Start working for a governmental agency at an early age. By the time you are 60 years old or so, you will have a lifetime pension that after 30-40 years of working will equal your salary. Add your Social Security and you now take in more than you did when working. You get the same health care plan cheap until Medicare kicks in and then the supplement is cheaper too.

While you are working, use vacation and comp time to write - they still pay you your full salary while you write or gain experience. Then there's days off and after hours.

Marry a woman that has a job with a firearms/shooting gear distributor. Keep abreast of the latest developments. After she makes a career move, get her a job in government - triple dip. She gets her own health care at heavy discount when she retires.

Be dink like you said - Double Income No Kids.

Keep the ancestral home, its paid off.

Do not buy a boat or horse - money pits.

But more importantly, keep plugging away and finish something. Submit it and keep going. I have three novels, three gun articles and a major book all on the hard drives, but finishing is difficult when life's happenstance knocks on my office door begging attention. I write because I like to write, its a way of learning, but I haven't published a gun article since 1977 or so. I gotta stop reading these forums - huh oh, the tree company is here to take down those pines, gotta go.

Update: This is what happens when you click on the wrong thread - I thought I was in the Hunter's Campfire forum. Drat.

Don't think you have to know evrything about new products and developments to be a writer. If you do your job correctly, you have to revisit many topics to cater to the new injection of readers that come along, albeit, in ever reducing numbers.

A good instructional beginners guide to handloading can be revisited to include newer powders, tools and tid bits and still make interesting reading to the veterans.

1. You could model the lifespan of a favored bullet and the list of game and circumstances you have used it.
2. A favored cartridge,
3. Hilltop Hunting, covering mountains that wore you out,
4. Personnal Assaults, where you have beaten yourself up with magnumitis.
5. The Age of Wisdom - when you smarten up and rationalize your gunrack or the cartridge selections you now prefer
6. Sweethearts- The rifles you adored because they were wonderful to hold, graceful, and performed to your whims.
7. Boots and Gear - Stuff that pleases you and why

It goes on forever and is interspersed with hunts taken to example your commentary as well as straight out handloading reviews on cartridges you overworked before coming back to reality.

C'Mon, get to it.

JW

Now, this is the classic definition of a "rifle loony". A "super rifle loony" is one who rarely breaks even, but still buys a new rifle.

You have to find him first!