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

I am going through all my magazines, since several people have told me I have a fire hazard due to too many.

It turns out that as I am going through my magazines, I'm keeping all the Handloader and the Rifle magazines. The Sports Afield - I'm keeping too. I have a few other subscriptions and I'll be sorting them into keep or give away piles too.

Regarding the American Riflemen...

It's probably just me, but I found almost zero articles in the American Rifleman magazines in the last ten years that's of interest. While I'm keeping maybe 90+% of the older American Rifleman magazines.

I'm putting the magazines that I have no interest in boxes that I'll take to the next gun show that I have tables at and I'll be giving them away. If no-one wants them I'll be using them for bullet expansion testing.

What are your feeling regarding the demise of the magazine? Or is it just me?

I look at the armed citizen section and toss mine

It is a propaganda and advertising rag, not a gun magazine. American Hunter isn't much different. I read the table of contents, then toss them. Maybe once every 3rd or 4th issue I see something interesting.

I've canceled all of my other subscriptions. I pick up Rifle or Handloader once in a while over the counter. At one time I had a substantial stack of gun magazines but over the years I sorted through them and tossed everything that didn't address a specific gun or cartridge I was very interested in the name of saving spaces. I did the same with my collection of four wheel drive publications at the same time.

Tom

My experience is similar. Since I am a Patron member and my wife is a life member we get both American Rifleman and Hunter. Seems like neither has very much of interest to me. BTW I'm also a life member of SCI and find very little in their magazine of interest.
Maybe it's just me too.

I reached the same conclusion as most above. I think it's been longer that 10 years since it's had much interesting stuff, other than the political.

I'm down to only one other gun mag, Shooting Times. About the time I decide to not renew they come out with a good issue. More pistol stuff than I like since I'm a rifle guy. Actually I've done that with many others and from about 10-12 subscriptions I'm down to 3 or 4. Only a couple I read cover to cover, non-gun rags. Readers Digest will likely be the last I cancel, if ever, but it's also deteriorated. Most consistent is Smithsonian, with National Geographic being next. I just cancelled the latter. Hard to read much new when you've read all your life!

Mostly advertising

I have done the same with American Rifleman plus canceled others as well. You pretty well get the same articles from another magazine.

American Hunter is better

I have just about every copy of the Rifleman from 1936 to present date. Only a few 1936 and 1937 and all of 1939 are missing. I've have the collection for a bit over 20 years and it sure shows how badly that magazine has deteriorated in quality over the years. FWIW, from 1936 60 1988 they are all in official NRA binders.

I've dropped quite a few gun rag staying with Rifle, Handloader Guns and Rifleshooter. I also still get the magazine from the Cast Bullet Association. I'm not all that sure I'll be renewing them much longer. I have gun rags as far back as the early 1960s and a few from around 1955 that I got off the shelf before I started subscribing. Gun rag? How about two shelves roughly 7 feet in length stuffs with various gun rags; stuffed so tightly that you couldn't get one more magazine on that shelf if your life depended on it. I never threw one away ever since I started reading that stuff.
Paul B.

When I was an NRA member - I'd "read" it while literally standing over the garbage can and drop it in there once I made it to the last page. It's never been a particularly strong magazine for content for me.

How many times can you rehash the same subject? If i read the term "Monster Bucks" once more, I'll hurl :-)

I feel the same way about American Hunter. I got the latest issue a few days ago. Thumbed thru it and didn't see anything that interested me

AR has been a rag for quite some time now, I long ago switched to American Hunter. Can't say that's a whole lot better though.

Miss the days when Ed Harris and Finn Aagard were regular contributors.

Yeah, there used to be some entertainment and education. Now it's just a write up on whatever the advertisers have come out with lately.

Very true and AR hasn't had a good editor in a long time, either. They occasionally have an article worth reading, perhaps every third issue. They never pass up coverage of the latest inaccurate 9mm pistol. I saved ARs for many years; now it takes a few minutes to go through one and then it winds up in the garbage can.

Was it the old Sports Afield magazine that had the Grampa and the Kid articles? Those were my favorites

That was Field & Stream, and the column was by Robert Ruark--which some older members of the Campfire might know also wrote the classic African safari book HORN OF THE HUNTER.

I was a staff writer for AMERICAN RIFLEMAN and AMERICAN HUNTER for a while in the 1990s, back when both published everything from well-researched historical/technical articles to some actual hunting stories. But the market changed, and not just for them but most other magazines.

Readers lost interest in hunting stories, I suspect mostly due to being able to watch videos, and then TV shows supposedly about hunting--and then see all the same stuff "free" on the Internet. There's still a tiny market for hunting stories, especially in GRAY'S SPORTING JOURNAL, but also in a few others. I published my first article in GRAY'S in 1977, their first full year, and wrote a bunch from then through the 1990s, when I also was editor for a couple years. Also wrote a few in 2021, when they asked me to write for them again. But payment was erratic (which it tended to be with GRAY'S) and I'm not as patient as I used to be.

Anyway, both AMERICAN HUNTER (which I started writing for in the late 1980s) and AMERICAN RIFLEMAN (which I started writing for in the mid-1990s) both eventually changed. Instead of publishing actual hunting or firearms articles of some length, they started running much shorter articles, basically about some new product. In fact I was actually chastised by a junior editor at AR after writing a technical analysis of a new rifle scope: He said I hadn't provided sufficient "enthusiasm" for the scope. Gee, and until then I thought AR really wanted a technical analysis--which is what it published when I first joined the NRA.

Which is partly why I started publishing my own books, and Eileen and I started RIFLE LOONY NEWS, our on-line magazine.

About 2X a year I see an article of interest. I’m sick as hell of seeing black plastic of some sort on every cover. EVERY cover.

That’s the one thing I really like about Bugle from RMEF. They have some good stories that are reminiscent of the “olden days”. If I got my hands on a copy of Sports Afield or Field and Stream I coveted it and read it until it was falling apart. 😁….the good old days.