Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A little (hopefully) constructive criticism

I quit reading gun mags when the tactical stuff got put on every other page. I dont mind AR's, just dont want to read about them every friggin month.

And before you call me an AR hater, I own 2 of them.

Steve and others, you make an excellent point about the cheaper rifles. I have another friend who came up poor and tough, and killed his first deer at the age of 6. The first time dark caught him in the Ogeechee River swamp, he was 8. His grandpa was his idol, and he spent nearly every weekend at his home almost on the banks of the river. That was his 2nd home, and the swamp was his 3rd. His grandad hunted, fished and trapped, and did seasonal farm work for a living. He's also been the man most farmers in the area call when their crops are being destroyed by deer, and he's shot more deer than most men and hunters have even SEEN, much less killed, and he's shot them with everything from a .22 LR pistol to a .375 H&H. Almost none ever got away, and that's generally been from 40 to 100 or more a year, depending on the year and deer population. He's also got the best pair of eyes of anyone I've ever met. He once spotted buttons on a small buck at 200 yds. that I hadn't seen with a 5x scope!

This guy was never able to afford a really nice rifle for most of his early years, but he read everything he could on them, and learned some tricks from that and some local 'smiths, on how to "accuraze" a rifle. He learned how to bed a gun and how to adjust and stone a trigger, and many "cheap rifles" shot amazingly well after a few simple ministrations. People began paying him MORE than he'd had in these rifles when he demonstrated subMOA accuracy for 5 shots at 100. This, by saving his $, got him into better guns, but even that didn't always yield better shooting guns, and he didn't cull them except by accuracy. He rarely shot more than once, and that was when there were multiple deer available.

He's old like me now, and darn near on his last good leg, so doesn't get out much any more, but when he does, he's STILL deadly. Now he's shooting a 7/08 that shoots cloverleafs at 200 yds for 3 shots - about all he ever carries with him hunting anyway, and 2 more than he needs most days.

So while "cheap" guns may inspire little confidence or pride in ownership, even THOSE really CAN produce some remarkable accuracy. No, not all of them, but many, these days, with a minimum of tinkering, which he's always done for anyone who asked for free. Now if they'd just take his advice on HOW TO SHOOT, there'd be a lot fewer deer in the woods these days, but most won't. The price of the gun has little to do with a man's success, but what he can DO with it really does, and I've seen some "poor but proud" guys out-shoot many with much higer priced, shiny, and beautiful guns.

It's always the "nut behind the bolt" that matters most. Some could kill a deer with a slingshot. Some can't get one with a nuke! C'est la' vie!

I finally got around to reading this thread. Timing is kind of interesting, cause i just emailed a friend of mine, that has written for numerous mags over the years, and as other well known names as friends. I was venting to him, knowing full well he doesn't set the contents of these mags, and being more of a conventional writer, his output isn't in as much demand by the editors as it once was.
My discussion was basically about well known names shilling for various companies/manufacturers, lack of product knowlege where even i could point out mistakes in the writing, and these younger guys/editors directing articles about stuff meaningless to the average reader.
Example:
a writeup on a 2k turnbull 1911, yes, a nice gun but how many are going to pay that?
Another endless article on a ar15 that with optics cost would be over 3k. Yeppers, just what the average guy is going to buy.
I have taken one major mag for many many years, for among other reasons i knew the family that owned it, not true any longer, and i probably need to quit taking it. Page content is way down, and the articles are more and more supportive of the products/shilling/for some of the major advertisors.
I guess that would be okay if they would just flat state paid propaganda to get you to buy some new product.
I still get the NRA mag which as a life member, doesn't cost me anything, and i take handloader.
Which does have content i am interested in.
Truthfully tho, i would hate to have to make a living writing. I get more information off these forums then i do in any maggazine. And other forums like this.

Which brings up another point. When I first met John Wootters many years ago, one interesting point in his conversation was the point of gun and hunting writing: “It isn’t journalism. I did real journalism for years [John was a reporter on the Houston paper, among other things covering a major hurricane], and gun writing is entertainment.”

And that is indeed what a large part of gun and hunting magazines used to be, entertainment for when we couldn’t be out shooting or hunting. Yes, there was some information, but the writers we remember best from those years entertained us. Today we can indeed get a lot of information from the Internet (and occasionally even some entertainment, though not intentional), but many shooters and hunters get their entertainment from TV and videos, not reading stories by people like Wootters or O’Connor or Skeeter Skelton. A good writer can do things with a story that TV cannot, because he can spark our own imagination and actually make us feel as if we were there. There are very few TV shows that create the same sort of atmosphere, let alone the interior conflicts and emotions we feel when hunting. But TV is great for selling stuff, which is why far fewer magazines runs hunting stories today, a very different situation than 25-30 years ago.

Very true. There used to be a back page for humour, the deer hunting stories that were thin on equipment or load recommendations, but packed with camp happenings - the people, the time of year and what happened in between the stalking. Entertainment and good memories.

Times have indeed changed.

John
This is very interesting, as we all had writers we'd have shared a camp with, but some of the TV guru's, not so much by comparison, in fact, "no thanks" even comes to mind with many of them.
John

MD said, "A good writer can do things with a story that TV cannot, because he can spark our own imagination and actually make us feel as if we were there. There are very few TV shows that create the same sort of atmosphere, let alone the interior conflicts and emotions we feel when hunting."

And MD, you are one of the few out there left that can, even if the word limit is short, give us at least a taste of what it was like being there with your words. Really good stories would be called "wordy" today, in our sound byte oriented world, and largely, I think, because people don't want to spend one second more in reading something than is absolutely necessary to get, like Jack Web used to say, "Just the facts, ma'am."

Most of us hunt for the constantly changing feelings, sensations and questions that are presented to us during the hunt. Real hunting is a very cerebral thing, if done right. A writer, like yourself, who has the talent to put all that in words effectively has always been a pretty rare commodity. Robert Ruark is one of the greats, but there are a good number more.

Now that physical limitations let me get out less than I have traditionally, it'd sure be nice if the editors could at least allow some experimentation in this. With our population getting older, and especially those who'd buy gun mags, it just might enhance sales and subscribership. If you could pass this on to editors without getting your hiney chewed for it, they might be surprised at how many former subscribers would resubscribe.

Just a FWIW, really. All I can do is all I can do, and in this case, that's just to ask. Thanks for a great discussion, all.

Hey, I just tuned-in to this thread, and I'm not sure if that that's a compliment or not!

When I turned 50 one of my parishioners said, "You know, 50 is the new 30." I said, "Well, I wish someone would tell that to both my body and my mind. They're still operating under the old calendar!"

I think you and John put your finger on it right there: the ability of the author to spark the imagination so that the reader feels like he is a part of the story. That is what I appreciate about many of the old-time writers, as well as a few of the contemporary ones.

They also relate their stories in ways that spark memories. For instance, John's article about opening and closing ranch "gates" in the most recent Sports Afield did that for me just last night. His description of the fellow from Back East who closed the gate with himself on the wrong side reminded me of the time I did the exact same thing, fighting a new fence "gate" open and closed only to find myself knee-deep in muck on the wrong side and having to do it all over again. My BIL remarked, "I didn't know ministers knew that kind of language." The only thing I could think to say was, "Yeah, well, I wasn't always a priest."