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my last magazine i got from Rifle Magazine was pretty thin and my favorite read and always my 1st was John`s and now that he is retired and i am glad for him too i am done with this magazine so when my subscription comes up for renewal the renewal will be tossed in the garbage . John Happy Trails you will be missed ! Pete53

Not too many even worth the paper for puppy training.

The NRA mags took the same demise

pete53;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope that this first Sunday in the 3rd month - already!! - finds you well.

In the past few years I found myself looking for John's articles as well as Terry Wieland's stuff first.

There's nothing wrong with the other writers truly, but like art I suppose, I just prefer how some writers stories get told, you know?

In that vein but off on a bit of an artery of hunting stories, not technical rifle stuff like the excellent Gun Gack series, if you or anyone has a chance to pick up John's "Born to Hunt" which is still available at their riflesandrecipes.com site, it's a collection of very well told hunting stories.

The earlier hunting story book "The Life of the Hunt" doesn't seem to be there anymore, but is available from abebooks.

https://www.abebooks.com/9781885106179/Life-Hunt-Barsness-John-1885106173/plp

Our reloading component situation is such a gong show up on this side of the medicine line that I've given up on Handloader magazine as well since anything new and interesting is flat out unobtanium or close to it. Thus I'm sticking to tried and true handloading recipes as much as possible and a bunch of us are trading components amongst ourselves to keep going.

Anyways sir, that's more or less where I'm at as well it seems with some of the written word these days.

All the best to you all this weekend regardless.

Dwayne

Pete53, I agree somewhat with your assessment. I have been reading Rifle and Handloader since the late 70's. The early years had articles from occaisional authors and I miss that. When Bob Hagel quit it hurt. JB and John Haviland articles were main attractions for years. They still have Brian Pierce so there is 1 or 2 articles every issue he is a good writer. JB wrote the Rifle dept column and a feature article in the latest Sports Afield he is still there and it's a good mag. You just follow the writers to get there articles. That simple..mb

I am down to just a handloader subscription. Rifle mag lost a bit of it's appeal when JB left. I did get a sports afield subscription which i do enjoy. Thanks to JB.

I completely with all three of you. IMO there are only three gun writers left worth reading: JB, Petzal, and Weiland.

SlickLizard;
Top of the morning to you, I hope the day down in Golden looks to be a good one and you're well.

While I'm reluctant to recommend Mr. Bezos' company for books, it appears they've got a better deal than my usual go to which is abebooks.com.

Anyway sir, if you like Terry Wieland's stuff, this is a well written book which was recommended to me by another 'Fire gun loonie/cyber friend.

https://www.amazon.ca/Great-Hunting-Rifles-Victorian-Present/dp/1510731695

The photography is good too by the way.

All the best and good reading.

Dwayne

Hi Dwayne,

Hope you're doing well--and winter hasn't returned to BC!

Actually, The Life of the Hunt is still very much available on www.riflesandrecipes.com, but if you click on Born to Hunt it's listed as "out of print", as all we have left are 2-3 of our personal beat-up copies. Eileen leaves it on the site to see how much demand there might be, and if there's enough might bring it out as a e-book.

One of the interesting things about the hunting/gun writing business is that in the 1990s--when The Life of the Hunt was originally published in hardcover--I was making the majority of my magazine money by writing hunting and fishing stories, as in narratives rather than how-to articles. About all the major magazines ran them regularly back then, along with Gray's Sporting Journal.

But by the early 2000s the "story" market faded considerably, and the gun-writing market picked up. Which is when I made the transition to almost all gun writing.

Thanks,
John

John;
Good morning and thanks for the correction.

We're getting some snow but not as much as our daughter down in the Lower Mainland has been getting, though that was last weekend more than this - so far.

Thanks again for the correction on which books are available. Somehow I thought I'd looked on your site, but then as it's been pointed out to me all too many times, what I "thought" I'd done doesn't always match up with what is. Something like that?

Regarding the "story" market, for sure you and I have discussed that and obviously I think it's a pity and try to support what is left of it by purchasing books and doing my best to encourage more.

Perhaps it's just me, but I think if we as a group lose the "story" part of hunting it'll be a sad day. I remember as a kid listening to my Uncle Frank and Dad telling stories of their annual moose hunts and hoping to one day have stories of my own to tell.

One imagines not that many generations back our ancestors doing the same around a fire too, so it's pretty deep in some of our DNA maybe?

Maybe not too John and maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see?

Anyways sir, again I appreciate the way you bring us along on your hunting stories with your word pictures. Not everyone can do that, well very few in fact I'd say.

Not that I don't learn from your gun writing, but sometimes when I read I just want to go along on a hunt to somewhere else, you know?

Best to you and Eileen as spring starts to get sprung.

Dwayne

3 problems.

1, Skimpy

2,The writers.


3, Content.


Been reading everything Gun I can get ahold of for 40 some years.
Could write many of the articles, more extensive even.

Half the content is beyond old, much is focused on $5k guns or scopes I have
no need for.

Rifle and Handloader are the best I'm aware of, and they don't excite me anymore.

The complaints of gun rags going down hill started not long after gun rags were invented.

I noticed all the magazines I've been reading are very thin on interesting substance for me. I may find one article that interests me per magazine. Pretty sad.

I've had Handloader and Rifle starting at #1 for both. I'm planning on dropping Rifle. Rifle has always been better than AR. My dad and grandfather were life members of NRA. Dad had all the magazines back to way before AR. I can't remember the earliest issue we had - maybe 1920's or earlier??? Dad died in 1976 and mom went Loonie Tunes - She burned all those magazines along with other things I'd very much like to have. I found those magazines to be very interesting reads. I had dreams of going to Alaska and to Africa, carrying a Whelen or a Rigby. I was younger then and probably much more impressionable regarding those articles. But it was my impression that those were better, more interesting articles even though looking back, they may have had more opinion than fact in some articles. Now it seems to be "Look at all the new great stuff on the market.

As people age, like many on this board, magazines and their online versions become less interesting.

The longer you’ve been hunting and shooting, the more it takes to catch and hold your interest. The short of it is, older fellows are not their target audience. They are looking for a younger demographic. Younger readers have less experience, so basic 'how to', hunting and shooting articles get consideration.

Here's an example. This is from the editor of a Cdn magazine asking for pitches:

Expanding viewership

Try to include groups beyond our core demographic (males 35-65 yrs.) such as families, women, and different ethnicities, particularly in photos. This should not be staged, but reflective of the content. Please include this info in your pitch if it's relevant.

HANDLOADER is definitely the stronger of the two. Don’t have much hope for the new bunch, except Jeremiah, who despite my fussing about his hat is a good writer and seems pretty meticulous with his work. He might just save the day.

I’ll stick with both for the time being, filling in the gaps with select YouTubers, SPORTS AFIELD, and the RLN.

The older I get, the more my focus sharpens - the more I realize that I have way fewer days ahead of me than I have behind me and that I need to focus much more on stuff that deeply interests me and quit trying to be well informed about all the latest "advances" in the gun world. "Want the skinny on the latest WonderGun?" Nope. "Want to know all the recipes for feeding it?" Double nope. Since the rags are full of that stuff, and most of the reviews/insights about the vintage stuff that does interest me contains very very little I don't already know/am aware of/already own in my fairly vast personal library, caused me to drop magazine subscriptions years ago and now only peruse them at Barnes&Noble - and actually buy maybe one out of every six I peruse. Not to say I know everything but I thirst for more intimate knowledge about vintage stuff than what the "introductory" type articles usually provide. Sure, a little stuff gets by me that maybe I should learn about or would like to learn about but, meh, I'll live and the world will continue to spin on its axis but at least I'll have saved myself a bunch of money.

I'm also one of those guys who detests reading digital magazines/books. My very soul requires feeding by paper&ink. When it comes down to one last old curmudgeon still buying physical books, that guy will be me.

While that's certainly true, which is why the largest-circulation "outdoor" magazine I regularly wrote for 20-30 years ago, Field & Stream, had a 90% turnover in subscribers every 2-3 years. However, that turnover tends to be less in smaller, more specialized magazines--especially if they continue to run a few articles that continue to interest older readers.

Another major factor is that the average age of hunters and shooters keeps increasing, due to less "recruitment" among younger generations. The last time I looked up the average age of U.S. hunters (at least those who bought licenses) it was pushing 50, and that was a few years ago. The average has continued to rise over the last few decades. Many of those older folks don't hunt or shoot as much as they used to, but still like to read about both--and many still buy guns and related stuff even if they don't shoot and hunt as much as they used to.

As a result, the regular readers of gun/hunting magazines still include a bunch of "mature" folks--often called "Boomers" or "Fudds" by younger hunters and shooters. But they still have a major influence on the gun market--especially in the USA, which is by far the largest sporting-gun market in the world, whether for hunting or target shooting.

Yet some of the owners/publishers of gun magazines concentrate almost entirely on the newest stuff--because it results in the most advertising. In the long run this may not be such a great tactic, because a lot of older readers won't care. And a lot of the younger readers depend more on "free" information they can find on the Internet.

I know a lot of this because I've not only been a staff writer for several major hunting/gun magazines since the 1980s, but due to editing three magazines. As Jack O'Connor noted in The Last Book, a magazine editor needs to have a feel for what readers want to read--and when advertising starts driving editorial content that "feel" becomes increasingly irrelevant.

On the other hand, the Internet made it possible for writers to go directly to readers, rather than depending on a magazine publishing company. Which is exactly why Eileen and I started www.riflesandrecipes.com over 20 years ago.

I’m done too

I was a subscriber to all three mgs.---the first to go was Hunter, same articles every year and about the same time of the year. Still get Handloader and Rifle, they both are getting mighty thin and what they do write about is, I believe a last ditch effort.
I can usually fine one, maybe two articles that I am interested in.
Was rereading some of my back issues of the Varmint magazines and noted it seemed like all of the printed load data was 200-400 fps. anemic---accurate loads yes but this data is supposed to be for Varmint loads!

Hip

What you say makes a lot of sense, gnoahhh. I was at a writers conference just before COVID hit and we had a few speakers who talked about target audiences and updated business models. One fellow talked about satisfying the demographic that I quoted from a writers guidelines letter. Specifically,


He said that the under 35 crowd has different priorities. Most are focused on their job, starting a family, nice cars, mortgages and travel. They would rather drop $1000 on an iphone rather than a Tikka. We've all heard about, or read that the younger crowd wants sound bites. Their world is composed of faster moving info-bits. They want to get to the point. As a result, writing has changed to feed their need. Shorter articles. Less story telling. More info and tech.

But when you reach 35, your focus shifts to things that you will pursue for the rest of your life. And you have more disposable income.

This evolved into a discussion of magazine advertising. The spenders are the 35 to 60 year olds. That fell in line with the guidelines core demographic ages of 35 to 65. The editor has to satisfy the publisher and the magazine's bottom line. He does that by satisfying both advertisers and subscribers. After all, no one makes money when a magazine closes its doors and people stop buying things.

The younger crowd cares more about the latest stuff. They don't want older things. (Our generation was the same.) They are used to tech. They expect performance and, like us, are products of their generation. You might say that they are updated versions of ourselves. This generation wants tactical gear, fancy scopes and the latest cartridges...like the 6.5 CM, for example.

Most older hunters and shooters don't care for the 6.5 CM because they have a cartridge or three that will do the same job. Few would give up their 6.5x55 or 260 Rem for a Creedmoor. Please note I said "few" not "none". This is especially true if the rifle used has a unique provenance or a long history with the owner.

There is a lot more than what can be adequately covered here.

Writers, well known or not, are the means to an end. Their writing skills get you to read the magazines where the ads appear. Readers will buy things. Corporate bank accounts will swell.

And while paper magazines won't disappear in the immediate future, electronic tablets, or whatever they will be called down the road, will replace wood pulp and ink.

There is a constant changing of the guard. To paraphrase Elton John from the Lion King - it's the circle of life.