Jayco--

Yes, it's Jim Shockey. I know Jim pretty well, and have hunted with him and his cousin Guy and they are the real deal.

Part of the problem with magazines is that they usually have to assume that they're addressing both beginners and veterans. This becomes especially true as magazines become more successful. It's entirely possible to publish a magazine for, say, 10,000 specialized readers, but it isn't very profitable.

Most magazines need to sell at least 30,000 copies of each issue to make a profit, and even that is marginal unless you specialize in RICH readers. Get up around 100,000 and you'll lose some readers each year, sometimes due to the human failing known as mortality, some due to changes in interest, losing a job, etc. etc. In the biggest magazines they assume 1/3 of any year's paid readers will drop out, and a new 1/3 will come on. It's less in some medium-sized magazines, but the basic principle still holds.

So you always want to attract new readers. This is why .30-06 articles are run once in awhile. You have to explain the basics for the new readers, yet also offer more in-depth articles for older, more experienced readers. This balance is always a fine line.

Ken is certainly right about how one-time writers can often provide a more-in-depth piece than a staff writer. A few years ago, for instance, HANDLOADER published a piece about .30 caliber bullets, wherein the author shot about every brand of 180-grain bullet into test media, at velocities from 3100 fps down to where the bullets quit expanding. He shot 3 bullets of each type at 100-fps intervals in velocity.

It was one fo the most interesting things I've ever seen published in a shooting magazine, but must have taken months to complete. Which is probably why I can't remember the same author doing a similar piece, or indeed any other writing for general-circulation gun magazines. The cost in time and materials must have been incredible.

On the other hand, I have seen one-time articles by amateurs that featured such confused logic that the "information" was useless. One I remember supposedly told us how to handload the .338 Winchester, while tweaking a rifle at the same time. But the guy didn't just change one thing, then test the rifle. He changed two or three things, often a bullet and the barrel bedding and the scope, then reported on the accuracy. Which factor made the difference? We'll never know, so learned nothing.

Most amateurs also don't have the experience of pros. Most top professional gun writers I know have not only hunted on at least 4 continents, but with an astounding variety of rifles, bullets, sights, etc., that they've often tested extensively on the range. They often take more game animals in one year than the average guy takes in a lifetime. I don't take as many animals as some of my fellow writers, but have averaged about 20 big game animals a year for the past few years, plus a lot more bird hunting. In addition I normally accompany folks who take another 10-20 big game animals, mostly because I'm still curious and learn something new every day I shoot or hunt.

Some gun writers do more, some less, but in general I would say we all hunt more than the average rifle loony, and if we're good, honest observers should have something of interest to say. Some of us work too hard and so some of our stuff gets pretty thin at times, but in many ways that can be blamed on the shooting public, which apparently has an almost insatisable desire for shooting and hunting stories.

MD