Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters definitive Seyfried thread

Growing up, I was big into guns, and while there are many writers who have stuck with me through the decades, none stick with me quite like Ross Seyfried. As others have said on this forum, he has an ability to make me want firearms I have no business wanting. If the guy can write a writeup of a Taurus Raging Hornet and make me want one, he must have a gift!

I know he may or may not be difficult to work with, and may or may not be full of himself, but of all the gunwriters out there, he is the one I feel most responsible for my development as a shooter. Something about him and his style imprinted on me when I was an adolescent in the late 80s, and it has stuck with me well into my early 30s where I sit now.

Again, there are many very competent writers out there, but none that seem to have quite the breadth of experience as Ross (IPSC world champion, white hunter, double gun guy, elk guide, Elmer Keith's boy, etc.) and I feel compelled to study him in as great a detail as possible. Now that I have more time and money than I used to, I think the first step for me is to assemble a complete collection / bibliography of all his known writings, and for that, I ask your help. Below are what I know he has written, and if you know of anything else, I would greatly appreciate your input. I already hold many back issues of his writings, and ultimately if this leads to a complete collection/bibliography, or even a biography, I would be happy to share it with you if you provide your email or contact information. I know there are rumors that he has been working on an autobiography, which would diminish the need for a biographer, but nevertheless, I want to learn what I can.

This is something I have been thinking about for years, and I have the time and the inclination to move forward now. If you have any additional publications or more specific begin/end dates for his publications, I would appreciate it. Thanks for your help and here goes:

-G&A Shooter's In-Sight column and monthly features, early 80s to late 90s.

-Handloader, Rifle, and Successful Hunter from late 90s to mid 2000s

-DGJ from inception to current

-Gray's Sporting Journal, unknown period?

-NRA publications, unknown period? mid 2000s on? Which publications besides the shooter's rights one?

-Outdoor life, unknown period? Mid to late 2000s?

-No known books? Wrote intro to Hamilton Bowen's The Custom Revolver.


It's funny, a common theme if you read threads about him over the last decade is that "his moves and their reasons are well documented on previous threads," but if you read the previous threads, there is a great detail of speculation and very few facts. It's not entirely clear to me why he left G&A, why he left Wolfe, etc. etc., so any information BASED IN CLEAR FACT would be useful to me. I know he is selling Elk Song right now, so if you have any FACTUAL gossip about his comings and goings even today, I would be interested in hearing it on this thread too. If there is any non-public info you could share, feel free to PM me! I want to document what I can, while I can. I will be as discreet as necessary.


I admit my quest is somewhat quixotic, but pretty much everything else interesting has already been done, so this is at the top of my hobbyist to-do list!

Thanks!
Alabamagene

Also, I know he wrote some articles for Honda about ATVs/conservation (mutually exclusive??).

My understanding is he wanted to "write" about guns, and not do quasi gun advertisements shrouded as gun mag articles. He was a writer/shooter, and his philosophy was people wanted to read about diverse topics, and not just about what the editors felt they wanted to read about.

Dan

For sure one of the best if not the best of all modern US outdoor writers. A guy "who shots straight and speaks the truth" (as Cooper used to said). Has his own ideas which he defends well, and are 95% right. For sure the most knowledgable american writer on european firearm, ammo and their using.

Miss his writing too.

Dom

His writings in G&A had a huge impact on me as well. I probably would not be a gun looney if it were not for reading the things that he wrote about.

Ross Seyfried has long been one of my favorite gun writers. I do miss his well done articles in the magazines I read. I don't make any claim to know the man. However, I did speak to him once on the phone about an elk hunt on his ranch. He impressed me during that conversation.

If he is a bit full of himself, that's fine with me. When you're good, you're good. There's a big difference between confidence and condescending. He has been more than courteous with me on the phone, and even invited me to stop in for a visit, which I would really love to do. Would love to see his gun cabinets and even go elk hunting with him (if I can keep up).

In today's atmosphere of PC and moral equivalence a lot of people feel threatened by anyone who's sure of himself and certain in his beliefs. Hence the controversial aspect of writers like Cooper, Keith and Ross. They wrote about things they had experienced and knew well, and therefore could draw logical conclusions.

I think Dan hit it above as to why Ross left a certain magazine. They forced him to go (at very short notice) shoot a deer in Mexico with a Vanguard in 300 Roy. Huh??
Can you imagine anything less Seyfriedesque?

Ross is one of the very few people alive today that I would really like to meet and get to know. I wish he'd compile a book version of his writings.


Pete

"If he is a bit full of himself, that's fine with me. When you're good, you're good."

Unless you have an ego and believe in yourself, you probably won't amount to much.

I'm 52 and I've spent my lifetime finding a balance between healthy confidence, humility, and arrogance. Some people always interpret confidence as arrogance or being "forward" or some other negative. You just cannot please everyone. I'm more at ease in my own skin than I've ever been.

my understanding was that he had personality clashes with other writers above and beyond reasonable.....that said i do enjoy his writing and often buy DGJ cause of one of his articles......do also reread his articles in Rifle alot...

He openly criticised other writers in his articles at least once to my recollection. That probably didn't go over too well. One would think the editor could "smooth out" those rough spots in articles before publishing, but I don't know that. It would not surprise me if Ross wanted to write about what Ross wanted to write about regardless of what management wanted Ross to write about. That was fine with me. His articles were beyond the typical "infomercial" stuff we pay to read today. I let my subscriptions lapse for a long time because of that, but having nothing "gunny" to read was worse, so I went back to Wolfe. It also helped that JB went back.

on the editor thing.....depends.....were it my publication i would have BUT i also have no clue what was going on behind the scenes, Ross may have stated if his articles were to heavy handed edited that he would quit.....i dont know....

but he is a good writer and i will continue to buy mags with articles of his in them cause i do like the stuff he writes about just like i enjoy John and Phil and a few others....

I have enjoyed reading him over the years ever since he first appeared (I think) in G&A back when he was dominating the PPC game. As I remember it, no matter what he wrote about, it was well written. That said, some of his more arcane subjects seemed to dwell more on his eccentricities. I had a hard time finishing some of those.

Alabamagene:

I, too, grew up with Ross's writings as a major influence on my shooting. His first G&A article in the August '82 issue about the 1911 is still one of my favorites, and why I eventually had to own one. Then in '92 or '93 he wrote "My 20 years with the .44 Magnum" (when it was actually more like 25), and I had to buy a 4" S&W 29 with custom Herrett's stocks and a Milt Sparks holster just like his.

I wish his writing was more readily accessible, but the point is he wanted to write about what he wanted to write about, which is good for readers like us but not very appealing to advertisers. He could take the most obscure topics and make them interesting, like whacking a buffalo with a revolver, using a 10-gauge double as an all-around shotgun, building and shooting a Paradox revolver, shooting a target rifle at one mile, loading with paper-patched bullets or even casting soft nose bullets that behave like Nosler Partitions. Even though I never tried any of those things, I read and re-read the articles with great interest because they were so enjoyable to read.

If you don't have Elmer Keith's Gun Notes, Volumes I and II, there are some interesting references in Volume II to some of Elmer and Ross's experiments loading for big rifles, big shotguns, and various other things, as well as Elmer proudly announcing Ross's '81 IPSC world championship in his monthly column.

Every gun writer that has actually known him, whether they liked him or not, has acknowledged that the guy can really shoot, and can really shoot about anything.

Greg Perry

Seyfried once wrote about killing twelve doves with thirteen shots from one of his antique shotguns. He was a world champ pistol shot, and by all accounts, about as good as they come with a rifle. I'm not sure there are many in the world who could come close to that, and virtually zero in the gun writing world.

Ross is the kind of man most of us would like to meet on a mountain somewhere. If Mr. Barsness were there it would be a meeting of two of the best writers about hunting, shooting, and gunanalia who have blessed us with their work. If Ruark was there it would be a "full house."

Well, I would want Finn Aagaard there too... Good writer, and sure knew his stuff!

John

I ran into Ross hunting the Missouri Breaks of Montana about 20 years ago. What I witnessed and what he wrote about weren't quite the same...

Sounds like a good story?