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This may fit in with Worthless Gunrags.
I took a close look at the 2006 Gun Digest this afternoon. Jim Foral received the Townsend Whelen Award, well earned. While there appear to be a few good articles the overall Digest has taken a definite turn toward being a useless coffee table book. It appears to be an incomplete catalog filled with color, gloss and glitz. This slide toward mediocrity is not unexpected. The Handloaders Digest took the same nose dive several years ago.
Sorry Jim, I voted with my pocket book, kept it closed.

Jim Foral is one of the few writers who do in-depth research from original sources, I always enjoy his articles. I have GD from the first issue but stopped buying them a few years ago. I now go to the local B&N and read any Foral article so we can stay friends.

I agree about Jim Foral. I enjoy his work. We all reach that gag point and it looks like this year is my PNR with GD.

I have in the past looked forward to the arrival of the Gun Digest; however, the 2006 edition seems to have substituted color photos for updating the reference portion of the book.

I enjoyed some of the "front" articles, especially Tom Turpin and Terry Wieland on bullet performance. The back of the book is out of date. What really rankles is you can't find guns written about in the front material in the back reference material. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

jim

Yes, Foral's articles are always meticulously reseached and it is obvious hundreds of hours of research goes into what is ultimately produced. In my mind, this bears no comparison to those that simply type out various opinions, commentary, recollections and other stream of consciousness drivel.

selsnslim, all:

Danged if I can 'figger you guys out. I can imagine what an editor reading these threads must go through. If he had any hair left, he'd be tearing it out.

I've been reading Gun Digest since the early '50's. The long time editor, John T. Amber, was my mentor in the writing business and was almost like a second father to me. After John "retired," I must admit that I didn't care much for the book during the tenure of his successor, Ken Warner. Ken's tastes in guns and gun material are obviously different from mine. When Ken Ramage took over, I saw a shift in the book's contents back to the type stories published under old JTA, and, for my taste in material, a definite improvement.

The 2006 GD markes the 60th anniversary of the publishing of the book. In an effort to make this issue a bit special, it was decided to do an all color, slick paper version of the up front material. I thought Ken succeeded admirably. Added to that, the retail price of the book, even with all the costly upgrades, remained the same as the 2005 issue.

As far as the catalog section goes, I guess the old saw about computers, "gargbage in, garbage out," applies. The editor can only print what the industry provides to him. I know that the request goes out each year in a timely fashion requesting the updated catalog information. Ken can only print what he gets back in. I'm not trying to defend Ken - he's perfectly capable of answering any criticisms himself. I'm only trying to explain how it works and what the pitfalls are.

If the "garbage" referred to is the editorial content, then I guess everyone's taste differs. I am surprised at the negative comments though.


Tom

Turp,
I probably could have written my post a little clearer.
If I am criticizing I should use my name. William Iorg.
I agree it must be very hard to be an Editor.
My criticism does not include the content of the individual articles but rather my overall perceived value of the current Gun Digest. To be fair I went back to the book store this afternoon and took another look. I then came home and looked at my nearly complete collection of Gun Digests. This starts with the 3rd Edition (Klein�s 1947) Edited by Charles R. Jacobs. Despite the 3rd Edition�s 162 pages I find it more interesting on shooting subjects than the 2006 Edition.
Looking at the catalog portions there is in fact less information about the firearms in the 3rd Edition than in later Editions. Moving forward at ten year intervals I feel the number and diversity of articles and the content of the catalog section, is greater and more informative until about the year 2000. From there I feel the catalog section becomes less �dream worthy�. I am not interested in curling up in my chair and drooling over the catalog section of these latest Digests. Article wise I find it sometimes takes five years or more to really appreciate some articles in the Gun Digest. Eventually, I find that most every article is unique and informative.
It is not the information in the catalog section but its ability to help us remember the past and dream of the future.
Call me shallow, I am not enthusiastic about the 2006 Gun Digest.

�We� are using Jim Foral as the quality baseline for articles. Jim compiled a series of articles from the Outers book and Wolfe published them in his Gunwriters of Yesteryear. I am enthusiastic in my praise of this book and heartily endorse it to anyone interested in the shooting sports. I must point out this book is plagued with miss-spelled and out of context words. Nearly every chapter suffers from this and it does affect readability of the book. In spite of these faults, Gunwriters of Yesteryear is an extremely interesting book and worth whatever the asking price on the used market. I have given several copies as gifts and have been thanked by those who received them, despite the fact there are no pictures � color or black and white. We can only dream over the words.

The whole industry is having trouble selling magazines even as they continue the slide toward articles with no meat and no gravy.

The 7mm-08 article in the October Handloader bored me to tears and the T/C Encore article was water without ice. And overlooked big problems with T/C's product line. Honestly they were not about handloading, nor was the wonderful article on the Ruger Pistol in the last issue.

The 1958 edition of Gun Digest was sitting on my nightstand, I picked it up. Horror of horrors they criticize some products. The articles are long, well written, and full of information, history, research, opinion, and character. Gatling Guns, Francis Sell on 20 gauge shotguns, the history of Col. Colt in London, Old Gus, and of course the legendary 600 yard mule dear shot by Keith. I STILL READ IT AGAIN AND AGAIN. IT IS NOT MAGAZINE ARTICLES REHASHED, IT IS TECHNICAL ENTERTAINMENT! A genra (Spelled wrong I know, but the forum has no spell checker, shades of 1975) all its own.

One of the best articles I have read in years was Venturino on shot loads for revolvers because he explained why he shot rattlesnakes. I spent over $40.00 to make 50 fantastically effective snake loads because of that article, and to stockpile enough #12 shot to last three generations. And, I remember the title of one old Gun Digest artice: "The Old Mans Got a Gun", even though I haven't read it in 5 or 6 years.

Editors seek out the job of keeping us happy. Look at this forum, we all have our cherished beliefs tromped on, and we are outraged, and we come back for more. Magazines have succumbed to what folks call "The Malling of America", every article is identicle to the last one, as if MacDonalds and Denny's path to success was usefull in publishing. Well maybe it is for romance novels, but gun folks are a diverse bunch.

To stave off attack let me say I enjoyed 75% of the Oct Handloader a great deal, and learned a great deal too.

But, Gun Digest isn't just a big magazine, it should be a special forum for life with guns, for why and how we use them, and where they came from and what worked and what failed and why.

It isn't enough to ask the industry to provide Catalog info. Someone should be hounding them, criticizing them if they don't respond in an accurate and timely way right there on the printed product for all of us to see who is customer oriented and who is just marketing a product. OH kind of like the way Gun Digest has become a marketing tool and not oriented toward the reader, sort of like Guns and Ammo, etc, etc, etc...!

Gun Editors of America - this is the Golden Age of Firearms in America, and the dark ages for gun magazines.

What I see in America today, is fewer and fewer 'gun nuts' out there. Oh, there are plenty of guys that are ga ga over Glocks, or swooning over Short Magnums, but not so many guys that just plain 'tinker' with guns.
The articles in the older GD issues, delt a lot with tinkering. The current issues do not.
I think this just reflects the audience, not the ability of the writers or editors. Publishing gunzines is not a public service, its a commercial enterprise. They are going to address the audience that their market research shows them to be buying magazines. I think they are presenting what gun owning American's want to read.
I too yearn for a more comprehensive magazine, dealing with home gunsmithing, reloading, wildcats, and the like. I have my fairly extensive collection of old issues of GD, and I have my books by Jack O'Connor, Larry Kohler, George Nonte and other great, but departed, writers to keep me company.

I'm particularly disturbed by the breakneck slide towards automotive, and sport vehicle content. Showin' my age too, I guess.......Of course, in our " Salad Days"...........you could niether literally, or figuratively get much mileage out of plain vanilla Jeeps, and that most noble of back country workhorses, the Dodge Powerwagon.

GTC

Guess I'll have to get a copy of the 2006 issue and see for myself. Not sure how to assess what's being said about it.
One thing I've noticed in myself, with repect to all gun publications is, I'm just not as interested in all of the writings as I was when I was younger. Maybe that comes with being in the 70's, I don't know. I remember loving to sit down after dinner and reading all of the articles on guns, and fishing articles especially by Ray Bergman. My initial take is that it's age (whatever that means) related. Along with that, I'm just not nearly as interested in all of the technical humma humma. So, I pass all articles by Art Pesja (sp?)
So, the books get used for reference documents and "if" I find the time, I read articles by writers who post here on 24 Hour. And, I guess like lots of guys, I have my favories outside of those writers who frequent this house.. And, some I don't care for as well.
I guess I'm in the "Grumpy Old Men" domain.
I do buy (subscribe to) magazines that are well done, lots of them.
Like I said, there is a strong desire to read everything that 24 Hour writers have to say in print, regardless of the magazine it's published in. And, eventually, I get to read it all, just not as quickly as before.
Don

The price of the Gun Digest is what bothers me. I have only been a devotee of the book since 1988. For me the slide to mediocrity has been swift.
The articles are what makes Gun Digest interesting. There seems to be fewer and fewer articles as the price increases.

I would just as soon try to find a year old copy at a discount somewhere rather than pay $25-30 for a new book.

I wish I could articulate my opinion as well as siskiyous6 did his. I'm nearly 40 years old and read everything "gunny" I could get my hands on since I was 10 or so. Didn't have a mentor growing up and had to learn everything I knew by experimentation or reading. And as a kid you don't have the money to do much experimentation. For that matter, I still don't have as much money as I'd like to do even more! By the time I'd reached adulthood and had more money to experiment and the opportunity to be around other "shooters", I'd learned better when I was getting such ridiculous advice as: "Son, you don't want a 12 guage to hunt deer with, you want a .410, it shoots like a rifle!" OR, "Them 20 guages hold a tighter pattern than 12 guages do 'cause they have a smaller diameter barrel" OR "That L.C. Smith I used to own would hold a pattern 2' wide all the way from the gun as far as you could shoot".

Fast forward to now. In the last several years since making an effort to catch up with technology by purchasing a computer and learning to "surf the web"; I've learned more than I did in all the years previous to that. I've become dissatisified with most of the magazines I used to enjoy reading- probably have "grown" far beyond the level that they cater too. Of course the fact that in the last 2 years I've bought/ sold/ traded/ and shot around 30 different guns during this time has helped immensely! Just off the top of my head, I've learned to adjust triggers, and feel confident that I could bed a rifle or install (grind) a recoil pad if I had a belt sander.)

I tend to forget that a lot of people don't even know how to mount a scope on rifle, like my cousin who pays someone to do that for him- not lapping rings, just putting it on the gun! I was reminded of stuff like that again this past weekend when I visited him in PA. I went thru a bunch of new gunshops while on vacation (what else would I do with my free time? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />) I was exposed to the usual questions such as, "How far will a .308 shoot flat?" and such while I was waiting my turn to look at a few new guns.

I said all that to say that I find the vast majority of gun magazines pretty boring these days, unless I'm in a barber shop or something. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> I still like to reread some of the "classics" like Keith and O' Connor, but except for a very few writers, namely Johnny B., who "learns" me more useful stuff in a simple article that I do in most books, (it's obvious that the man shoots A LOT of guns & loads!) if I were to ask myself what I really learned from reading the entire magazine cover to cover, the answer is nothing! Instead, the "technical entertainment" value counts hugely these days. Hadn't really thought of that until siskiyou6's post. That seems to stick with me more than any information that I can glean these days. Probably explains why I can still go back to O' Connor and get a laugh over a lot of his witty remarks and writing style (or even Patrick McManus and Paul Quinnett's outdoor humor!)

I believe it was Gun Digest that had an article by Paul Matthews (can't remember the title) in which he made a case for the perfect deer rifle for him, a .375 H&H! It was done so well I almost bought the whole Gun Digest for that one article, but I did buy, not one, but two different .375's to achieve that goal myself! (Sold the Win 70 as it was a full pound heavier than advertised and lightened my SUCKS to just over 7 lbs. scoped for lots of carry and shooting the more modest "deer loads".) There have been more articles like that one over the years that I can't recall off the top of my head. I don't remember who authored it, but I found the one making a case for the 20 guage 3" magnum to be very interesting as well. Seems like I recall an article about the turn-of-the century "market hunting" and using punt guns mounted on boats in one of them too. (Pardon me if it wasn't in Gun Digest, but I think you get the picture.)

I guess it comes down to which market that Gun Digest is appealing to, people that have been there and done that, or to the new people to gundom. I personally don't buy them as they don't seem to be much value for the money- (seemingly) at most, 1/4 articles, the rest of which is "fill" and often not correct. (Doesn't show a lot of guns that are available, and occasionally has a gun that isn't available. But one of the earlier posts, I think by Turp, explained that one for me already.)

I also like the GD reviews of the trade, and I always read the Rifle portion first (my main interest). I also like to check out the European portion too, if only for the wierd stuff -- to me anyway -- that shows there.

This year I started reading the Rifle Review, and turned the pages back a couple of times to find out where the start of the article was. It just begins in medias res, and lurches on from there. I don't if Layne Simpson wrote it that way, or what, but it bugged as my grandkids say.

I am surprised that Savage doesn't send their product update, but not at all the Steyr does not.

jim

When there are major changes in the layout and orientation of a magazine annual that has been published for as long as Gun Digest has, there are bound to be some who like the new version and "traditionalists" who don't. I am a former editor (not of a gun magazine - there haven't been any in India in a long time) and I have also been a GD reader for some twenty years now, since they began to become available in India. The 2006 edition has some very nice improvements over past editions especially in the new Single Shot Rifle and Black Powder sections. That said, I do miss the "One Good Gun" write ups that were one of my favourite sections in years past. I did buy the last two editions in the USA where I am now, and I shall be buying GD in the future as well.

Tom Turpin's Custom and Engraved guns section is certainly fantastic in colour - I hope that someday Krause would bring out a compilation of all past issues on CD with the black and white pictures enhanced in colour using modern colour enhancement technology.

Best wishes everyone!

To All,

Obviously, everyone has a right to their opinions. My earlier response was not an effort to defend the publication, but rather to explain some of the comments on the catalog section. You guys determine the worth of the publication or the lack of it with your wallets.

I am quite surprised by the negative comments though, and almost no positive ones. Although I'm missing a few of the first issues, my collection is complete from 1951 to present. No doubt that many of the early issues were jounalistically superior to anything today. All the "biggies" of the day wrote for John Amber and Gun Digest. Guys like O'Connor, Page, Jobson, Whelen, Cary, and numerous others, were much better at their craft than are the current crop of writers, with a few exceptions.

Technically, however, the book was printed on the cheapest paper available and crisp photos were almost unheard of. The paper soaked up ink like a sponge making it impossible to reproduce much more than blobs. Technically, today's book is far superior to the early ones.

Now, between the two, technical matters or editorial content, give me content every time. However, I don't think the comparison between Gun Digest of old and Gun Digest of today is really a fair comparison. To be a fair comparison, one must compare Gun Digest of today with the other gun/hunting/outdoor periodicals of today. That's where Ken finds writers for each issue.

As far as "hounding" industry to provide catalog data, I guess I'll have to go back to the old saw, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink!" If the businesses making up the firearms industry aren't smart enough to realize the advantages of having their material in the GD catalog section, then I'm not sure I'd want to buy their products anyway. Added, if they are not willing to take advantage of the free advertising provided by that section, they are doubly dumb.

Anyway, to each his own. Personally, I like the "new" Gun Digest as compared to the rest of the outdoor press available today. If you don't, that's fine too. Diversity makes the world go around.

By the way, Krause Publishing no longer exists. It was sold to F+W Publications, Inc. Just recently, F+W Publications was sold and whether there will be another name change or not, I don't know.

Tom

While I admit I haven't read the 2006 Gun Digest yet, I have read and presently own every other one ever printed. There are some which remain favorites, the 1974 year quickley comes to mind, but in all fairness there were several years that I really can't say that there was a lot in them that I really remember. But, worthless would be a pretty strong word to use in my estimation. I can't recall a single year when there was not something I didn't enjoy when I first paged through the digest. The last few years have been worth buying for me because of Tom Turpin's section on custom guns alone, but I freely admit to liking to view such eye candy. Any other articles I enjoy are icing on the cake for me.

I think sometimes we are all guilty of turning our lack of interst for some writings into something akin to a "waste of time to read" when it may interst others a lot. I just set out a stack of books that I just don't read , some I never even looked through the entire book, that are simply taking up space in my bookshelves. The authors include John Wooters, Roy Dunlap, Jim Carmichel, Edward Matunas, and others. To say that the books aren't worth reading would be no doubt wrong, but they aren't worth reading to me anymore. Thus they will be sold in the future for no doubt a fair amount less than I paid for them and I will use the money to buy more reading material.

The other thing I think causes more dis-interest in certain reading material is that with the age of the internet there is a huge amount of material to be had at a person's fingertips. This often makes it much harder to get John Q, Public to open his wallet for any books or any other such reading material. I certainly don't envy any editors of books or magazines today. We shooters are very tough to make happy, and most of the time the saying "You can't please all the people all of the time" was never more true than it is today.