Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Just got my latest issue of Nepotism magazine

ANYONE is better than Hoots. I always thought Scovill was arrogant and condescending, but everything he wrote was worth reading. Kinda miss him too.

You could see he was nervous.

I think he should have lost the hat, or whoever shot the video should have lit them better. The big brim shaded his face.

Yeah, his delivery is pretty stiff. Venturino on the other hand, seems quite natural and at ease. He’ll get better, I expect. His writing is fine.

I wish the young man well, I sincerely hope he can keep the wheels on the wagon at Wolfe Publishing. It must be a tough business (I know nutting as Sgt Schultz would say), advertising pays the bills I suppose, advertisers want positive reviews for their product...but you have to maintain creds and numbers with your audience, and I doubt there is a much harder audience than the gun crowd. A tight rope walk for sure.
In my many years in logging and construction, I have noticed that nepotism and political hires seldom work out well. But, that is a different orange from publishing, in construction if you don't get X amount of yards moved, there is no way to fake it...in logging, if you don't get X number of board feet to town, you can't fake it. Learning curves for the young are very steep, and if they don't have the 'fire in the belly' motivation, they don't last long.
But Polacek has a good stable of writers, advertisers, audience...so if the Brandon inflation spiral doesn't wreck the discretionary spending of the audience, he should do just fine, I sincerely hope so.

Have a friend who met Scovill in person, said the same thing about him. I don't miss him.

I think he’s a very able and accomplished guy, with a lot to be proud of, but he could tone it down a little.

Handloader and Fur-Fish-Game are the only two magazines I still read anymore.

Haven’t gotten my issue yet.

I have not read the article.

But judging someone simply upon their last name or age instead of what they produce ain’t wise.

A young man I helped mentor years ago is now one of my mentors. He just put more time and effort into learning than I did, he’s now far better informed than I am. I judge his advice based upon its value not the age of the man giving it.

Just my two cents worth.

Is that socially unacceptable where CB hats are common?

Don’t know. Don’t see many here. I was mostly just being a smarty pants and riled up the pro-hatters. I’m gonna try to be a better person from now on….

I’m a man,
But I can change,
If I have to,
I guess….

You quoted a great Canadian. We'd be better off with him for prime minister than what we have now.

Those two alone make it worth the money to me. Anything else is lagniappe.


RS

Elmer never gave up his hat.

I miss Harvey Donaldson, Wooters, Zutz, Waters and O'Connor.. Sadly, they don't write any articles any more. I remember some new kids that needed some more experience before they got to be regular contributors, some characters named Barsness and Venturino., come to mind. My favorite getting a little long in the tooth.
It will be good to see some new, younger faces.
And yeah, I wear a hat in the house.
Bfly

It's a manners thing (where manners are practiced) to remove one's hat when you enter a room. You'll see it without fail with military personnel and lots of old cowboys.

+100!

Hoots has definitely hurt the quality of the brand. I have to be really bored to read his stuff. I generally find his work to be a waste of paper and ink.

Yep. You're assessment of Scovill is spot on and I miss his writings a bit as well,.
Long live Barsness! May he bless us with his knowledge and witty writing forever....Pearce too.

In the traditional Western ranching culture hat etiquette has always been around. As we have become more mobile it has become less so but it is still considered good manners in many places. When you enter someone's home, knock on a door, or speak to an older female (someone's mom/folks), taking your hat off is a sign of respect. This is where the term "Hat in Hand" actually means something.

Many people who own horses but may not necessarily be in the out-west ranching community may not be as in tune with it, but if you go to a place like Jordan Valley Oregon or a ranch in very rural Northern Nevada/Southern Idaho/Owyhee County ID to one of the ranches there, it is more normal, even if half the people are wearing ball caps these days.

Thanks for the mention! I didn't even start regularly writing about hunting guns (whether rifled or smoothbore) until about 40--which is apparently when I decided my knowledge and experience was adequate. Before then had made my living writing for over a decade, but about a wider range of subjects. But somehow I suddenly got so many assignments from guys like Scovill that eventually gun-writing became most of my income.

Know a lot more than I did back when submitting my first gun articles in the late 80s and early 90s, but thankfully gun-writing is one profession where you're allowed to learn on the job. (In fact that's generally true about professional writing on any subject.)

Which is exactly why I thought Jeremiah's article was pretty good. As somebody else mentioned, he didn't lapse into "gunwriterese," and clearly explained not only why he likes the .260, but how his knowledge about it has grown, both in handloading and the field. Have known quite a few gun writers who never did learn much, despite the opportunities the profession provides, including one who wrote about rifle cartridges he'd never even fired, much less used in the field. He was quite successful for a while, but eventually various readers and people in the industry caught on, and he's now gone.

But my main point, again, is that gun-writing is exactly like many other professions: Older professionals will continue to retire, and younger ones will eventually take their place.

You could say you earned your stripes so to speak. You didn’t start out writing a regular column for the foremost handloading journal in the USA.