Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters American Rifleman - lost interest?

MD,

I found a few of your articles in some of the old AR - back in the good old days. Your reply was sufficient to substantiate what I was feeling and others wrote.
It seems like the articles now are paid advertisements. Further complaint for me was also stated by others: plastic crap - AR-15 and semi auto pistols. I don’t give a rip about either.

I’m guessing that a lot of new buyers of guns buy these things though, maybe even some older loonies?

I’ve moved a lot in my lifetime and it appears that most of the magazines I had back in the day were tossed - Outdoor Life, American Rifleman, Field and Stream, and most of the hunting magazines and gun magazines I used to devour. Good magazines like Rifle and Handloader though have stuck with me. Unfortunately, when I was over-seas, I took Handloader and Rifle on-line. Now the old computer I downloaded on is virtually dead. I’ve replaced many, but not all.

I always enjoyed grays sporting journal, and fur-fish-game. Been a while since I bought a magazine though

The rag wecreive is just burnt barrel trash

A lot of those were compiled in a book called "The Old Man and the Boy."

I lost interest for hunting magazines back in the 1980's.

I guided hunters in Wyoming with some of the guides stories were published about.

Irwin and Peggy Bauer wrote some articles about hunting and being in camp with some of these guys. The stories were embellished to just sell magazines. Real BS!

One particular article in Outdoor Life was about top Wyoming Mule deer guides. I worked with and for these guys. The outfitter was just a business man. He ran a huge outfit with many camps. He gave hunters a great experience from his camps but couldn't guide himself out of a paper bag. I never saw him ride a horse and he sure never guided any of his hunters. The guides written about hated deer hunting and would only guide elk hunters.

Another well known writer was a wimpy ass whined and complained about how hard the elk hunt was. What did he expect for a camp that was 30 miles back from the trailhead? He never paid his bill and never wrote the article after going on a 10 day elk hunt.

Some of the writers today you can just tell they are full of IT.

Pretty much the same here. Almost nothing that interests me in the American Rifleman. Been that way a long time.

The NRA needs fresh blood! Starting at the top!

We should save them for the coming toilet paper shortage!

I'm with the majority. I've gotten my share of AR over the decades of being a life member. I generally speed read the "Armed Citizen" and trash it. The new tupper
ware bargain rifles, hi capacity handguns and bull pup shotgun articles are not my thing.

Agreed. I suspect but do not know that if the NRA published one and only one official journal, that is less scattered material, there might be more interest to go with more waste. I have multiple copies of the old "cardboard" cover Wolfe publications as I kept replacing copies in storage when I moved. I don't much care for any of the current paper and YouTube style publications on guns and hunting - Barsness excepted as he conveys a sense of fun - and some other writers are good enough to engage my interest despite subjects that I don't much care about. I'll blame the decline of the Rifleman and so much else on Wayne LaPierre as choosing to dilute the soup by the time honored method and seeking more news stand sales while caring less about long term members.

The latest issue has a cover article about some 9mm semi pistol that is a clone of some other 9mm pistol. Who the hell cares?

Any hunting articles in either the Rifleman or the Hunter usually involve some company introducing a new plastic rifle and paying for a hunting trip for the guy writing he article. Gun goes bang. Game goes flop. Whoop de doo.

My wife gets an Email newsletter called NRA Women. It has much better articles than either the Rifleman or the Hunter.

I have a chronological library of old American Rifleman, dating back to the early 70's, chock full of good useful information, the old ones had at least 1 gunsmithing project how tos, one stock making or refinishing how to, at least 2 articles on loading for common and obscure cartridges, history of classic arms, in depth cast bullet how tos....arguably, one of the most useful magazines ever printed. Then came the rapid downhill slide, by 2008, it was not worth the paper it was printed on. In my opinion it was vying for 'most worthless gun rag' with Guns and Ammo (who never met a product that they didn't like).
In retrospect, where would we be today if we had listened to Neal Knox...every "whacky" conspiracy theory he spoke of turned out to be true. Eric Holder's Fast and Furious is a perfect example. Knox predicted this, but I was too stupid to believe at that point, the govt would stage false flag events to influence outcomes. Boy, was I (we) wrong. Harlen Carter and Neal Knox were the hardliners that believed in take no prisoners 2nd Amendment, no compromise. If we had only listened. Now we have a self serving pork barrel bureaucracy, which should be called, Keeping up with the LaPierres.

Hi Mule Deer:

This is slightly off-topic, but one of my favorite hunting stories of the past was, I think, the first of yours that I ever read. I was either in junior high, or early high school so early to mid-80's, when I read your story of guiding the young teen with a flinch, and resuscitating his rifle-shooting with your Ruger .220 Swift, and then guiding him to, as I recall, an antelope. Was that your article? If so, do you recall what year and magazine?

Thanks,

Greg Perry

Hi Greg,

Yep, that was my article!

Am not totally sure which magazine it appeared in, but the pronghorn in question was taken in 1988. Had been guiding for a rancher/outfitter for a couple years in central Montana. and the guidee was a guy just out of high school, as I recall from somewhere in the Midwest, whose life's ambition was to be an Alaskan hunting guide. So he purchased a Ruger 77 .338 Winchester Magnum, the rifle he brought to Montana for the pronghorn hunt his father bought him as a high-school graduation present.

He went with the outfitter the next day, and could NOT hit anything with the .338, despite being a good-sized guy. (Have yet to find much correlation between size and recoil resistance.) So the outfitter handed him his .25-06, and the kid still couldn't hit anything--no doubt because the kid was still flinching. After lunch the outfitter asked if I'd take the kid out, and I said OK as long as it wasn't that afternoon.

The outfitter (like many) didn't have a real range. Instead he had clients shoot over the hood of a pickup to "confirm" the rifle's zero. I'd built an actual shooting bench--not fancy but adequate--behind the main barn. Put up a foot-wide "gong" made from what I recall was a hubcap at 300 yards--which measured around 15" in diameter--but also had a paper-target board at 100. Had him sit down at the bench with my .220 Swift and shoot at the 100-yard target. He jerked (not flinched) noticeably when firing the first shot, then said, "Hey, that doesn't kick!"

He put three in about an inch at 100, then clanged the gong a few times. The next morning we within 150 yards of a pretty big buck, and while lying prone next to him I noticed the .220's muzzle was wobbling noticeably. Whispered in his ear, "Relax. He isn't going anywhere." Whereupon the muzzle steadied, the rifle went off, and the buck trotted slowly in a 30-foot circle and fell over.

Yep, that's the one. I was 18 then, and your magic way with words captured my imagination. I haven't shot my antelope yet, but I do have a Ruger .220 Swift. I think I read that during a study hall in a magazine borrowed from the library, and I still remember it to this day.

"Where are we going in the Wayback Machine today, Mr Peabody?" "Well, Sherman, today we're going back to 1988 - to a ranch in Montana where I'll introduce you to a guy named Barsness who'll teach you a few things about antelope hunting. Leave your Magnum at home. Then we'll continue on to 1953 and we'll swipe an American Rifleman magazine out of somebody's mail box so I can show you what a real gun magazine should be like."

I have lost interest with any thing associated with the NRA until WLP is gone!

The only magazine I get I actually care for is Sporting Classics. Mainly to look at all the stuff I can't afford. I also like and keep Virginia Wildlife magazine.

The NRA magazines are nothing but advertisements. I've never seen a gun review in them that was really objective. I got a bunch of free subscriptions when I bought something last year that I can't even remember. Game and Fish, which is sometimes worth looking at, and Whitetail Hunter, which always has some hunter holding a up a rack that looks like it was bred and cultivated behind some high fence. Some others are just junk, too.

I wish I didn't get so many magazines. They aren't even good for burning. They make glowing ashes that fly away. I usually justy thumb thru them real quick and throwp them in the recylcing bin.

I have all American Rifleman magazines going back into the 1920s. Stopped keeping them about 20 years ago. Although I get 2 other gun mags the only ones I keep are Rifle, Handloader and Sports Afield.

And a BLOOD LETTING !!!!!