Any update on this? Any has the owner considered the idea of putting all the issues on a DVD or CD to sell so people can have the entire collection?

flylo,
PS is dead.

I used to get PS and many other magazines.

Since the internet I hardly read them.

Now all I get are the American Hunter and Rifleman that come with our NRA life memberships.

The reason PS mag tended to emphasize BR shooting Is that it was begun by and owned by one of the two major BR associations in the U.S. IBS (International BR Shooters) I believe. Originally, it was envisioned to include mainly match results, but then it grew to include members' treatises on getting better accuracy...and digressed over the years from there to become a somewhat specialized gun rag.

As years went on, it found the economics of publishing to be unfavorable, so it begin publishing a lot of poorly camouflaged ads as articles, and all the other mistakes that today's gun rags are guilty of.

There were numerous other problems, such as some PS writers becoming infamous for demanding "freebies" from the manufacturers for doing their articles...not just on loan, but to keep. As they were already well paid for their articles, neither Dave Brennan nor the manufacturers liked that. Dave straightened that out, but it was just one of many, many hassles he endured. I'm surprised he stuck with it as long as he did. I consider him a very fine man.

I have every issue of PS from No. 1 thru about year 2007. You CAN track the decline of the magazine very clearly over that time, and I finally dropped it.

C'est la vie...change is always with us, and time marches on, to heap on the clichés.

AC,
I disagree generally. Dave did not have the best rapport with his writers and customers. I know 4 writers that wrote for him a long time. It was hard to get beer money. I never saw any of them with freebie equipment.
I believe they ran out of new material a long time ago.

Butch -

You are welcome to your opinion. I also used to write for Precision Shooting, and Dave was always a perfect gentleman to and around me.

I know of the "freebie" situation because Dave & I discussed it in detail when one of this writers did something else to bring disgrace to the magazine. He quit accepting any manuscripts from those writers, one in particular.

Ac,
If he were such a good guy, why did it fail? It sure wasn't the writers.

Butch -

It failed because the economics of all printed material, periodicals, newspapers, whatever, have changed enormously with the advent of the internet.

For instance, my daily newspaper subscription just recently went up by $5 per month... more than 20%. The newspaper could get away with that because they are the only daily in a city of over 5,000,000 people. They have NO print competitors.

But PS wasn't in that kind of monopoly position. The cost of printing, paper, mailing, etc. all were rising faster than the magazine could support. That's life in the electronic age.

Hammering the reputation of a good man won't change that in the least.

Ain't hammering Dave's rep., just telling it as I do know it.

AC, I'll leave it alone. I like you and it ain't worth arguing about. Dave is gone and ain't coming back.

And I am speaking about him as I know him to be personally. Mine is first hand knowledge, not something someone else told me.

So you can continue to think whatever you wish. I will continue to believe what I personally experienced with him.

I wrote for him for nearly a dozen years. He was a bit opinionated, but allowed me a tremendous latitude in subject material. I did, I think, a nine month series on Schuetzen shooting, from casting bullets, to competition over a year.

I got exactly ONE freebie. Savage sent me a single shot 223 that ended up being rechambered to 22-378; an Ackley Improved shape. They did NOT want it back for some reason. Or any of the three spare barrels they shipped with it. It was part of a testing process with BlackStar barrels internal coating/treatment process.

I think it was a combination of the increased cost of putting out the magazine, and the fact that Dave was just tired of the process.

Rich

PS: Alberta, the assessment of David Brennan as somewhat irascible is not a miniscule minority one. It's a long way from Cave Creek to Manchester.

You know AC, you are not the only person that dealt with him.

I know that, Butch. But I may be one of only two or three posting here at AR who actually wrote for him. And Rich (Idaho Sharpshooter) has already posted his thanks to Dave.

Anyway, I was writing my own personal opinion of him, not what some of the others who dealt with him but are not posting here thought of him. Anyway, Butch, as I said, you and everyone else is welcome to believe whatever they wish. And I will believe what I experienced personally.

I believe Dave held the magazine together much long than many, many could or would have, and loved the magazine enough that when things started to get bad for it financially (15 or more years ago) he started investing his own money in it.

So, anyway, as I have long respected you as a shooter, I'll stop this minor disagreement with you here. My beliefs are mine and yours are yours, and that's fair dinkum with me..

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
PS: Alberta, the assessment of David Brennan as somewhat irascible is not a miniscule minority one. It's a long way from Cave Creek to Manchester.

Yes, Rich, he spoke his mind, as he allowed you and I to do. I didn't think he was a "sweetheart", but I did and do think he was a good, honest gentleman.

BTW, why the cheap shot about the distance from Cave Creek to Manchester? Your home in Idaho certainly isn't much closer, and I have not always lived in Cave Creek.

He was an outstanding example of the Irish. He always treated me fairly.

One issue, an article I did ran a bit late, and after making me promise that there was nothing libelous or profane; he had me send it straight to the printer.

I hope there is a way to bring it back.

As some of the people here know I wrote for Precision Shooting for over twenty years and got to know Dave Brennen very well. For a few years I served on the PS board of directors. I was shocked to learn that the magazine had folded.

I enjoyed the latitude that Dave gave his writers. He liked my writing and gave me a great deal of freedom. I used to write forwards to articles, just exercises in writing that had absolutely nothing to do with precision shooting... things such as tearing around Jackpine Savage country in an old Porsche, short-shorts on Jack Nichlaus and the No. 3 car and assassinating whitetail bucks. As long as I eventually got down to business with a match report or a product review he printed whatever I sent him.

I think the magazine was at it's very best 20 years ago when guys like Rich were writing for it. We covered Camp Perry, varmint shooting as well as benchrest.

PS went under for a number of reasons, one of which is right here... it's hard to get folks to pay for something when there so much good stuff (this forum for example) free.

I really like to write and have done so for a number of magazines since PS folded... but not very successfully. No one is interested in the things I really liked to write about. Let's see you sell a 3,000 word article on Farley rests or wind flags to Outdoor life.

An era has passed and we really are diminished.

Alberta Canuck,

not a dig in any sense of the word. My apologies if it came across in that manner.

I only saw Dave twice outside of the SHOT Shows, once at the Super Shoot, and once at Ben Avery.

I think PS was different, in that it made people think about what was being written about as well as enjoying most of the articles.

Things like Dick Wright being smoked at a Benchrest Match by his wife Glorya (SP?), aka the Child Bride.

Dave only turned down one article I wrote. It was handgun, about the engraved SAA on a Black Powder frame that Colt made me. He liked the

story and the pictures, but said he just could not stretch the envelope that far.

This, from a man who once published a "Swimsuit Issue" of PS. Here are all these middle-aged white guys in swimming trunks holding Benchrest rifles in front of themselves.

Rich,

Glorya is the way she spells it. She hasn't shot benchrest for quite a while but gets a deer or two nearly every year and takes care of squirrels that attack our bird feeders.

Sorry to see PS go but let's be honest; there hasn't been much new for the past several years, and there certainly are few new, young shooters in the game either. All the mags still publishing on paper are re-hashing old stuff. We are writing about buggy whips and wonder why people who don't even want to drive a car don't buy them.
It is the way of all paper publications; they will all be gone sooner, or later.
Shooting sports? Look around the next time you are at the range or shop and tell me how many guys under 50 there are. I hate to see it.

PS was different. Mostly accuracy focused, and a lot on Bench Rest and LR rifles, but Boyd Mace wrote a lot about LR Prairie Dog shooting in Montana, and I got to do things on LR Rock Chuck shooting here in Idaho, and a nine month series on Schuetzen and the old Coors Matches.

And, as I mentioned, the infamous "Swimsuit Issue"...

Definitely a shame that it went.

But what are people reading now?

Just search the WWW I guess! I used to look forward to receiving my PS every month. There was always good stuff in there.
Peter.

The UK had a large online shooting magazine. I haven't been notified of any current issues though.

I think that they just put new articles on the website now like a blog rather than produce an online magazine. I never figured out how to receive updates either as even when I registered I never heard anything.

I assumed that with the growth of things like F class and the Precision Rifle Series that there would be new precision/accuracy oriented magazines produced but it appears not. Most just seem to cover/advertise new rifles and gear, not their use...

Had subscriptions to quite a few in the past at one time or another:
Guns & Ammo
Rifle Shooter
Shooting Times
Double Gun Journal
Rifle
Handloader
American Rifleman
Magnum (S.Africa)
Recoil
Target Sports (UK)
Had high hopes for Sporting Rifle (UK) but apart from Laurie Holland's articles there is nothing much there.

Not sure what else is out there now - Any suggestions welcome!

Precision Shooting was pretty unique...

I suspect that after a while one might run out of new things to say? What new things can one say about F class for example?
Peter.

that's the cool thing about shooting Rockchucks. Every trip was different.

I enjoyed reading it and I had nothing to do with bench rest...but had an interest in the sport and the rifles that graced the pages. Could not afford it (young with Kids). I gave the mag up after reading to many pages on how to build a potato gun, wasn't why I subscribed to it.

I have always felt like the magazine in it's hayday was as good of a rifle magazine as the Varmint Hunter Association magazine was.

The elder Ron Kesselring of Kesselring's Gunshop in Burlington, WA was the first man to sell me on the magazine (both magazines as a matter of fact).

We don't have magazines that are written with the same technical level of expertise as they were.

For instance; I bought a Guns and Ammo magazine called Sniper, the other day. I was expecting some quality information on long range shooting, and how things work with sniper rifles. 50% of the magazine was BS stories about Cops and sniper rifles and how one guy got to shoot some bad guys. I thought the magazine was called Sniper, not Law Enforcement Monthly. Of course that article with the 4 or 5 pages devoted to team training involving police snipers, kind of left me cold. And you know every rifle review, every scope review and every stock review were perfect!

I will say this the "Long Range Hunting" magazine by the Gunwerks boys isn't horrible. I am going to subscribe to it after we get our house moved. These guys are not shooting BR or F-Class but they have quite a bit of knowledge. We'll see what it evolves into.

For me, the issue Creighton Audette had on the ladder method of developing loads was worth a year's subscription.

Same with the Swimsuit issue.

Rich

Rich,

I missed those, can you post them?

Not the swim suit issue. I have not seen it but I cannot believe its what most people would be hoping for.

Okay,

Creighton, once he had the rifle zeroed, then with the recommended starter load, began loading three rounds each powder charge 3/10ths of a grain increments. He used a large target with a vertical line running full length, and a small horizontal line about 1/3rd the way up. That served as his zero/aiming point. He would shoot slow, to keep the barrel from heating up. I will say the charge spread was four or five grains light to heavy. One of these days I will have to tell you about the Idaho Spread Sheet (my version) and loading at the range.

Every group of three would move higher on that vertical line, but generally stay on it. After shooting, he would take the target home and start measuring distance between groups. He told me that, as he neared the "sweet spot", the difference would be less. After that, they went back to having a bigger spread. Say that you have ten groups on the line. Average roughly an inch apart. At some point, there well be two groups that are less than3/4ths of an inch apart. From bottom of the one to the top of the other, that is where you can get to fussing with very small increments, including seating depth.

He also started each load project by seating the bullet long, so that it took a bit of push to chamber the round. He would Dykem Blue the bullet where it showed rifling marks and rechamber it. After each chambering, he would shorten the oal a very small amount, clean the bullet with steel wool and re-Blue until the chambering pressure was very low, and the rifling marks were about as long as they were wide. Under magnification, the rifling marks looked like little squares. He used that as his setting, and kept that dummy round until the testing was done. He would seat the test rounds .0010/ths off the leade/origin of rifling. That gap was referred to as the "jumping point". Occasionally, he would increase that, usually with larger rounds/heavier bullets to .0020". He laughed one afternoon at the Super Shoot, when John Gammuto (Brennan's Major Domo) said anything farther was "like the Star Trek opening scene where they were going boldly, where no man has gone before...".

The article was six or seven pages, but he used a couple different rifles, and showed targets.

The swimsuit issue was, iirc; David Brennan, John Gammuto, the dentist John Palmisano (one of the "P"s in PPC, bullet die maker Ferris Pindell was the other) and two or three others. They wore their swimming suits and held bench rest rifles in front of them. It may have been John shown apparently nude holding a rail gun turned sideways in front of his private parts...
Bunch of middle-aged white guys, all sporting the middle-age paunch, and all pasty white from not being out working on a tan during the summer.

It was hilarious, I laughed my azs-off. My wife said it was the funniest thing she had ever seen in a magazine...
To my knowledge, it was the only issue that sold out in a week, and got a re-print made.

Ask, and ye shall recieve,

Rich

Gammuto disappeared with a few folk's money. I don't think he has reappeared. Heard the mafia got him.

The 1997 Annual Precision Shooting book has an article by Randolph Constantine titled 'The Incremental Load Development Method. In it he takes a very detailed look at the ILDM, including the powder increment (depends on the case capacity, 0.3 for medium cases, 0.5 for large cases), the range at which one shoots (Audette said 300 yards) which very much depends on the inherent accuracy of the rifle you are shooting etc. etc. There is a LOT of BS spoken about the ILDM but IMHO Constantine has it right. The purpose of the ILDM is NOT to find the "magic" load for your rifle. Rather it is to find a load (if it exists) that is not sensitive to minor variations in charge weight for that combination of bullet, primer and powder. It was a 27 page article! The immediately prior article 'A High Power Odyssey" by Robert Metaxas is also a beautiful article.
Peter.

he was going to start a new magazine, called it something, iirc, the predecessor to to PS's name.

Help me with the name Butch.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
he was going to start a new magazine, called it something, iirc, the predecessor to to PS's name.

Help me with the name Butch.

It was called Accurate Rifle.

After John Gammuto left PS and started his own magazine, an occurence that made Brennan very unhappy, Dave started following that which John was doing very closely. Dave did not appreciate anyone he trained starting a competitive publication. It may be of interest...

After Gammuto left PS and after "The Accurate Rifle" folded he reappeared somewhat later reincarnated as "Giovanni Gammuto, master violin maker" and lived in Jeffersonville, PA.

A little googling reveals that there was some controversy as to whether Gammuto actually made violins or bought them from China.

I just checked and it seems that John's violin website has disappeared...

Wonder when the rest of my issues of Accurate Rifle will arrive?

+1, Butch.