Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Gun Press BS...what eats at you?

Forgot who the writer was, and which gun magazine he was visiting �

Out back, a writer held a snubby revolver in both hands while he shot a group on a target on the ground between his feet.

The writer who told me about it just laughed at the time, thinking that the whole thing was a joke.

But in the next issue of the magazine, the article about that snubby showed the target group with no mention of the way that it was fired.

Not overly defending some, but it IS possible to have a change of opinion, especially over the years. How many threads have I read here in which the poster said, "I used to really like this, but..." If that can happen to real, completely honest web posters, I'm sure it could happen to a gun writer.

I do and did.
I reviewed a Mauser .458 with a plastic stock once and I broke the stock in half, took it back to the distributor and got another. Broke that one too. Went back a 3rd time and told the 'smith to fix the problem which was a loose bedding job with a tight friction fit at the tang screw which had a steel tube around the screw that was binding on hte stock and causing a pressure point. It didn't compress well.

They fixed it and the 3rd rifle held up. I reported the stock issues and that the company responded and addressed the issue. Never heard a single complaint ever again and they sold the entire shipment in a matter of weeks.

John

One mroe thing, I was popular with rifle reviews because I actually shot the damn things and hammered them both at the "public" range and in the field culling excess wildlife. The distributors knew this and I was often asked to review particular rifles as other writers were known and observed, finger tightening scopes to a rifle for the photographs and writing the review via the cut and paste method.

Another pinwheel, Rocky!

Anybody with one eye and an ass hole who shoots for years learns new (to him) facts at just about every step along the way. Opinions should evolve accordingly.

One trouble is that many writers tend to be like MDs � "What I know now will continue to be everlastingly true for all time."

A manufacturer sent me a "universal, automatic" shell-holder that was supposed to be magnetized. It was rusty and wouldn't raise steel filings on a sheet of paper that I laid on it.

I sent it back and got another (which could've been the same one � rusty and clearly not the least bit magnetized).

I sent that one back, too, and told the manufacturer that I wasn't interested in seeing another one. Haven't heard from or of him since.

One of our most faithful long-time advertisers had just one product � a fancy belt buckle. Our ad-manager told him up-front that our magazine wasn't an appropriate venue for his ad, but the guy insisted � said that he thought the world of our magazine and would be honored to have his ad in it.

He ran that ad for years and of course got ne'er so much as an inquiry from any of our readers. He complained, so our ad-manager wanted me to run a "ProducTest" review of that belt buckle! ("Everybody who handloads is a shooter, and every shooter has to have something to hold his pants up.")

I refused, of course, but I've been gone from there for nearly thirty years now, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he finally got that "ProducTest" review.

Really? MD said that?

Surely, if you look closer, you'll see the significant difference between "MDs" and "MD."

(Yeah, I know � you just couldn't pass-up an opportunity to be a smart ass! )

Not yet a pet peeve, but could become one, Expert hunter/shooter/reloaders buying magazines, reading articles written for beginners, and being offended at the simplistic material therein.

Sycamore

Sounds like the then Fuller's 458WinMag Zastava's in the RamLine stocks. Broke mine quite quickly after reading your review and buying one. Great rifle when placed into a Butler Creek and bedded properly.

As a follow up to what AGW wrote about his 'tell it like it is' ... having read many of his articles ... he often seemed to actually handload (shock horror!) for the rifles he tested and pushed them to their maximums. I still have some of his reviews and am amazed at the speeds he achieved on occasion. But what that told me was that atleast he'd kept the rifle for more than a few hours to review it.

What eats at me ... magazines with 'dumbed down' articles to appeal to the least knowldgeable reader. There is no harm in technical articles that challenge the reader.
Cheers...
Con

There's a time and a venue for really technical articles, certainly. But not in general-interest magazines like the ones we're mostly discussing here. If we could grade knowledge, most of the articles therein ought to be aimed at the "C" crowd, with a few for the "B+" and perhaps one for the "D+" element. I'd hesitate to rate ANY gun-mag reader lower than that; if there are any, I hope they only picked the magazine up while waiting for a haircut.

RockyRaab,
Absolutely ... a magazine can cater for it however by having a columnist dedicated to presenting material a bit above a C grade. Many years ago we had a magazine (in Australia) that did just that, through a dedicated Handloading column. The writer was very good (still is) and for years was able to present material that was both informative and allowed any level handloader to get something from it.

One of his best columns was an article that took 3 issue to present and dealt simply with 'Headspace'. What it is, why it is, but more importantly 3 different means with which to 'control' it.
Cheers...
Con

One thing that has always annoyed me is when a writer tells how he had some fabulous work done on a firearm by some gunsmith who no longer accepts work, but who did this job especially for the writer.

I hate writers that write for dummies while making it clear what geniuses they themselves are.
The other thing that drives me howling wild are the obvious infomercial-type things. I understand the need to sell ad space to pay for the paper, but sometimes it could be a little more discreet.

1) 30mm scopes "transmit" more light than 1" scopes. This was a lie promoted by an advertising agency promoting a brand of European scope, and even some gun writers still believe it.

2) "Local elk hunters can use smaller cartridges than outfitted hunters because they can afford to pass up marginal shots." BS. Local elk hunters usually don't get to hunt any more during a season than a guided hunter, and most have to hunt on weekends on public land.

3) African plains game is harder to kill than similar-size North American game.

4) A 5-pound rifle trigger is "acceptable."

5) Today's variable scopes are all just as tough as fixed powers.

6) You must "break down" bears by shooting out at least one shoulder. (The two most experienced bear guides I know, on grizzly/browns and black bears, say shoot for the lungs, because they have far too many hunters aim for a shoulder regardless of the angle of the bear.)

7) Synthetic stocks are ALWAYS more stable and "accurate" than wood stocks.

8) "I shot 77 loads in the rifle and the combination of X bullet and Y powder was most accurate"--with no mention if they ever tested the rounds for bullet concentricity.

9) "Uniforming rifle brass results in finer accuracy"--when most of the uniforming we do doesn't make any difference in a typical big game rifle.

10) But the one that eats at me more than any isn't from the gun press, but directed toward it: "All the gun writers keep saying that ----- ------ ------" Please. There is no such thing as a gun writer's uniform code, and if you ever got into a conversation with 3-4 gun writers around real campfire, you'd find their opinions differ just as much as those of gun-magazine readers.

AMEN to #10, JB! (I keep saying we're no different than other shooters, except that we've had a byline.)

After Dave hired me to edit Handloader and Rifle, he asked me how I planned to "position" the magazines. He was satisfied with everything that I said that I wanted to do, and voiced only one rather mildly negative comment when I said that I wanted to run more articles on ballistics � if I could get 'em.

"That might appeal to two or three percent of your readers."

I answered with four points �
� that two or three percent of 35,000 readers was a bunch, especially among the very loyal following that we had at that time
� that many loyal subscribers deserved to have a special bone thrown their way now and then
� that even if they didn't groove on ballistics articles when they first got their magazines, many readers who saved their magazines (over 90% at the time) would later eat 'em up
� that readers who never developed any interest in ballistics would nevertheless respect us highly for running such material

Readers' mail, 'phone calls, and visits thundered approval of every point. I got more enthusiastic expressions of appreciation for the ballistics articles than I got for all the others combined.

Several readers also commented that they'd learned a lot (as beginners) from the other gun magazines, but always learned something new from our magazines.

(May I toot a wee horn here? I have to brag a bit about our writers and readers!)

A couple of our readers told me that either (a) our writers wrote better stuff for our magazines, or (b) their stuff got noticeably better editing when we ran it than it got when the other magazines ran it. (I often saw articles that I'd turned-down appear later in other magazines � with no sign of having been edited.)

One of my major criteria � one admonition to my writers, both staff and free-lance � was "Remember that whatever you write about, some of our readers know more about it than you do. If you're writing an article on the .30-06, say, give me an article that'll give long-time users of the '06 something new."

Another thing � I used-to tell my writers "Send me what you consider your best stuff � especially stuff that other Editors have rejected." Got some of our best stuff that way.

Hated to see that'un go to waste, since I didn't notice anyone giving that grumble its due?

Easy enough to explain: Dr. Ken and Rocky are likely the only other ones here, who even knew what ya meant? ;O)

I didn't put Damascus in my top 10, since so few people even know what it means anymore--but I do know the standard advice is BS!

So what your saying Mule Deer is the one thing you can count on two gun nuts agreeing on is that a certain gun writer doesn't know what he's talking about.

Kinda like a conversation between two consultants, architects, mechanics, farmers, whatever. The only thing they can agree on is that the third ones an idiot and they should be doing the job.

1) That when shooting at an angle, the acceleration of gravity is somehow different from 32 fps/ps.
2) That when shooting at a given distance at an angle, the time of flight is significantly different from horizontal fire.