Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ross Seyfried

Idared,

Couldn't aggree more. Change is inevitable, and the world won't stop spinning just because R.S. no longer writes for Wolfe. I enjoyed the hell out of his coverage of oddball guns, and will miss his articles, but he ain't the first, nor will he be the last to cover such things. He had his faults as well. He blasted the .458 Win Mag based on experience back when it was a problem. He also deemed the .340 Weatherby as all the gun needed for Alaskan Brown Bear, based on shooting one sleeping bear at fairly long range.

Glad to hear Mike Venturino is now on the Wolfe payroll. I bought other rags at the news stand just to read his stuff. Now I won't have to. Anyone who does a chapter on the .40-90 Sharps Bottleneck(in his excellent book Shooting Buffalo Rifles of the West) is OK in my book. I must admit to a little predjudice, 'cause I have one!

Jeff

"Variety is the spice of life", and Ross' articles were definitely varied. Didn't always agree, but I always read them because I learned something.
Yes, there has been a strong trend down in the writing of Handloader/Rifle. Hate to beat a dead horse, but the Rees fellow just isn't very interesting; although he's been writing for Wolfe for a LONG time.

Speaking of blue collar writers like Finn (long rest his soul!!!), what ever happend to that little bearded fellow from Alaska who went to town once a year and built 505 Gibbs rifles FOR FUN? I can't remember his name right now, and my back issues are in another room, but this fellow was wonderful fun. I ran into him at The Alaska Professional Hunters Assoc. booth during the SCI show in Reno. I was looking for Mel Gillis, the guide from our honeymoon, and ended up talking to this fellow for about an hour. Then ran into him as I entered the Firearms Engravers Guild show and he gave me a first rate tour of the booths and introductions to the makers of merit. We jointly rolled our eyes at the prices of some guns and took apart a few of the really interesting ones. I was surprised how eager the really good custom makers were to show you "under the hood". Phil Shoemaker, that was his name. His writing was as unassuming and practical as Finn's. Anyone know who if anyone he's still writing for?

Safe Hunting,

Clint

Clair Rees advocating BSA scopes in Rifleshooter awhile back. LOLS!

MtnHtr

Southpaw--

I believe that you'll occasionally run across Phil S in Succ Hunter.

GDV

I assume Ross will still be writing for Double Gun Journal. I find him one of our best writers, certainly one with a great deal of real world experience. I share his enthusiasm for old doubles, and he communicates the feelings that go along with taking old pieces back to the field. Don't know anything, obviously, about his problems with his employers, but I'll buy whatever magazine publishes him.

As a matter of fact Phil does a regular column for SUCCESSFUL HUNTER, along with frequent features.

MD

dittos, Phil is a great read!!!

Mule Deer's last post made me realize that I meant to say Successful Hunter instead of Hunting Horizons in my post. I'm glad to see that John has the back page column now in Handloader.

Thanks! Next time it will be a little more substantial.

JB

Hey, the Haiku's are great. Now I know you're a man of both danger and culture. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

RSY

I can't recall a single case of RS shilling for a major manufacturers'
hot new whiz bang. That alone puts him in rare company in my opinion.

1B

I think Ross's lack of "shilling" is why he has had to move on, although he did do an article on scopes a while ago that was standard gunwriter pap, not naming the makes and models he had problems with, It is the only time I have seen in his writing that he didn,t tell it honestly, or maybe it was the editing that made it look that way.

i really enjoyed Phil S.'s article about his ugly 458 Mauser awhile back. ive reread it several times along with most of John B.'s and Ross's articles. my fiance thinks im nuts to keep around all those magazines but they come in real handy when winter hits hard after hunting season.

Rattler

This thread on Ross Seyfriend has taken several twists and has probably gone on long enough, but I want to make this observation before it's finished: In our world (meaning us shooters), we hold most gun writers up on a pedestal and consider them as being larger-than-life celebrities (the obvious exception being, of course, Clair Rees, who in all honestly seems like a nice guy, but his articles are, to be generous, a joke). In fact, given our inclinations, we probably place them above Hollywood stars and gazillionaire athletes on the idol scale. What's strange is that, unlike other celebrities, we actually know very little about them and their personal lives other than what they willingly disclose to us in monthly publications, which usually isn't very much.

Ross Seyfriend is a good example. I've never met him, or any gunwriter, in person, but I've read pretty much everything he's ever written since 1982, when he first appeared in Guns & Ammo. He began his public life as a world champion handgun competitor and Colorado cattle rancher. Now more than twenty years later, he's an elk guide and outfitter with his son in Oregon. His early articles showed his lineage to Elmer Keith and focused on guns that were the biggest and baddest for whatever application was at hand (like the 10 gauge, the .340 Weatherby, and big-bore Hamilton Bowen revolvers, to name a few). He shot a Cape buffalo with a revolver, then went through a long series on barrel-burner rifle cartridges. He's pretty much turned his back on the competitive handgun shooting scene, and lately he has almost exclusively devoted his writing to antique and/or obscure arms and ammunition. He's never come right out and said it, but I've always had the impression that he's something of a recluse. Glimpses into his personal life have been very scarce. One thing his writing did make perfectly clear was that he has an opinion about everything, and his opinions run either hot or cold. Objectivity is not his strong suit. His strong opinions have alienated some, even some of his fans. Some of the things he has said even I've taken with a grain of salt. But, after all, nobody's perfect, and he always seemed to have a sense of style that looked good on him, even when he was obviously way over the top.

And now something controversial and possibly scandalous has happened, and his legions of fans really have no way of knowing about it. Some will blindly follow his byline to wherever it lands. Others will shrug it off and find a new hero to worship. Others like me will continue to wonder: Is there some subtle hint of a major character defect in his twenty years' worth of writing that I've missed? That provides a clue to what happened? Is he dishonest? Did he get indicted? Is he a crack addict? A cross-dresser? A sell-out? Maybe he's just a jerk? Unfortunately, unlike Hollywood, we don't have any shooting tabloids that make their living from dishing out the dirt (whether fact or fiction) on gunwriters.

Another good example is Gary Sitton. He was a heck of a good writer, but his stories seemed to hint that he was plagued by unspecified personal problems, which apparently forced him to vanish from the scene, much to our disappointment. Wherever you are Gary, your fans miss you and are pulling for you.

So I guess I'm left with mixed feelings about finding out what happened to Ross. In a way, I share the common morbid sense of curiosity like those onlookers at the aftermath of a train wreck. And, I suppose I share a certain amount of concern for one of my childhood heroes, which feels kind of weird considering I really don't even know the guy. And then there is the fear that whatever it is, it'll knock the pedestal out from under him that I constructed as a twelve-year-old G&A subscriber.

I guess I'll just have to accept Mule Deer's invocation of gunwriter's privilege on this one, which is probably evidence of considerable maturity and self-restraint on his part, and take comfort in the fact that Ross's stories added a lot of value to my early life, and whatever personal shortcomings he may have won't ever change that one way or another.

gperry--a good and thoughtful post. I guess whatever issue has arisen with Seyfried will eventually surface in the gunrags or on the web. One thing for sure, it won't be payola, since he didn't shill for anybody---in fact I can't remember the last article he wrote about a gun whose maker wasn't long in his grave. No advertising dollars there. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

gperry,
Great post, I could take Ross or leave him, some of his articles I really liked, at other times I thought he was talking down to me. I guess we'll never know what happened, from the tone of Mule Deer and Dogzapper's comments it would appear there was no love lost between them, but it's really just a morbid sense of curiosity rather than felling a huge loss.

Some years ago, I called him since he was a reference for an Outfitter I wanted to hunt with. He gave me all the low down he had, yep and no and yea you will have a good time and he runs a good camp. He asked me what kind of rifle I was going to take, I told him that I was having a ULA Model 24 built and chambered for the 6.5 x 55 and a fixed 6 x 42 mm Leupold. Also it would be matte finnished and a 24 inch barrel. The whole conversation turned on a dime and we talked about rifles and loads for dam near an hour. I would love to share a hunting camp with him. My guess is that maybe he is just tired, people do get tired now and again. People who write, and it don't matter much if its novels, tech books or what have you every now and again get writers block. Ross had a good one in the last Rifle about of all things Original un screwed up Martinis from Nepal. Ross is a anglophile and he makes no bones about it. In the same issue, you could read about Mule Deer's 416's not that Ross did not write about them, 9.3 's from Chub Eastman and a simple bit of writing about how to determine if you are a Rifle Loon. Never mind about a scope that you can take photographs with! September 2004 was a very good issue of Rifle. Well I will miss not seeing Ross in Rifle and Handloader, that dose not mean I will stop reading.

Just my opinion, but...
RS is pretty independent. Once he forms an opinion, he'll tell you what it is.
What he makes writing probably doesn't keep him in primers.
He doesn't suffer fools gladly.
He writes about what interests him now. I don't remember him cranking out any recent articles about something he researched ten years ago. There are some writers who have made carreers out of the same six articles.
I'll hate to see him go, and will be buying fewer Wolfe mags in the future because of his departure.
As far as other writers opinion of him...well, writers, like lawyers, plumbers and mechanics, seldom have anything good to say about their competition.

fwiw,
I concur.

It took me a little bit of time to appreciate Ross Seyfried's Articles. However that appreciation has led to countless hours of insightful reading were I almost always come away feeling was "Time well spent" to quote Jack Perkins. In short Mr. Seyfried will be missed and his absence will cheapen the magazine(s).(imho)

I read Rifle & Handloader almost exclusively for Ross Seyfried, Mule Deer, and the occasional article by Phil Shoemaker..

Clair Rees seems to be a nice guy but I can't think of a recent article of his that did not suck and on numerous levels. The same goes for Stan Trzoniec and Brian Pierce. If I never read another article on LEEVER action rifles by our [bleep] Kicking Friend in the Cowboy Boots it just may be too soon...

Regards, Matt Garrett
Chesapeake, Virginia <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

gperry,

I wish I'd written that.

Jaywalker