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A Sad Day for Precision Shooting Magazine...
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He contacted me about doing some writing when he started the Accurate Rifle. Met him at SHOT that year. He just seemed very out of sorts, like a kid who had been sent to his room.
Do any of you know what actually caused the blow up? He worked, iirc, for an engineering company in the Chicago area, and all we heard was that his company had landed a huge contract to do something in China, and he was going overseas.

Rich
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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Gammuto's son was killed in a car accident years ago and it seemed to change him completely. He became "The Tattooed Man" and his behavior became kind of erratic. His wife, Karen, divorced him. I lost a daughter in a similar accident a couple of years later and got a very touching letter from John.

Brennan was a mixed bag. The experiences of both the people the got along with him and those who didn't, chornicled here, are both correct. When he wanted to he could be very charming on the phone or by letter. He was very uncomfortable in a lot of social situations and very self-conscious about his height... in all the years we worked together he would never let anyone take a picture of the two of us. (I'm 6'2") When he went to the SHOT show and helped man the booth, when it was done, instead of going out to dinner with the guys, he would simple disappear. Ditto at the Super Shot. He seriously pissed a lot of people off and they were justified.

When I got into benchrest and writing I decided there were two people who I would never argue with... no matter what. They were Brennan and Dwight Scott. I did so and always got along with both of them.

Re: the "Freebie" thing and product reviews... I did most of the product testing for years and that's a mixed bag. I got a lot of calls asking me to accept a sample product and test and write about it. Some would say that if I liked it I could have it. Some said I could buy it wholesale. Some wanted it back.

I religiously tried products out that I knew what to do with. Some I refused... How can you test barrel freezing? I know nothing about lubricants... how do you test grease?

I really pissed some people off when I sent their product back and told them how to make it better and refused to write about it favorably. I never wrote anything about products that were a real POS. Too many gun writers will accept a $29.95 pair of binoculars and write a glowing testimony.

Some of the new products made during the time I was testing were works of genius... The "Wind Probes" and the mounts that Dwight Scott and Gene Bykes designed to counteract the tendency of the most expensive BR scopes to change POI. Some were pure crap. A famous trigger maker has a brother who sent me a windflag he wanted to make and sell. He did everything possible to screw it up, design-wise .and simply said to mount it on a stick in the ground. I wrote him, told him how to improve the design and sent him a blueprint for really good stands that no one was making at the time. He freaked out.

Dave alienated some people in a market that was too small to let you get away with that. But the real reason PS went under is right here... In a day of computers, the printed word is rapidly becoming obsolete.


Dick Wright
 
Posts: 669 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 27 March 2014Reply With Quote
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Rich,

The company told John he had to go to China and he simple refused. I don't know if he quit or was fired.


Dick Wright
 
Posts: 669 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 27 March 2014Reply With Quote
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I wondered. When he bought the HD and got all the tattoos, he killed his chances in the industry.
I always liked John. He was the only person there who was crazier than me.
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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Wow!!! Just stumbled across this. I too was very saddened Accurate Rifle closed--I loved reading the African Hunting stories (by Kevin Robertson?). I was VERY disappointed when PS shut down. I learned so much from that magazine. I had just paid for a two year subscription renewal when it folded. I always thought the reason was because Dave Brennan just was willing to keep up with the computer age.

Rich, I didn't know you wrote for PS. Dick, I loved reading your articles. I always thought the PS writers were guys who thought and did tjings the way I did. PS was a big influence on me getting into 1K BR from 2005-2007 when I lived in Tucson.

I almost submitted an article. I figured out how to simply and quickly modify an RCBS Casemaster into a very good neck wall thickness gauge using trimmer pilots. I still use it today.
 
Posts: 3701 | Location: Oregon | Registered: 27 May 2004Reply With Quote
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Yeah... those were good days and I miss them a lot. Not much opportunity for a writer nowadays. The only magazine that might evn think of an article from me would be "Rifle". I refuse to write a one page article on "How to get your trophy buck this fall" or "What's better... the .270 or 30-06".


Dick Wright
 
Posts: 669 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 27 March 2014Reply With Quote
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INTJ,

I started in 1988. I took the 6,5x68Shuler, necked it down to .25 caliber, and blew most of the taper out and a 35-degree shoulder. Thought I would put the hammer down on the Irishman by calling it the 257 Banshee in the article.

Should have known better. Dave responded by tagging me in the Writer Masthead "Obscurata & Mythology". I signed off most of my stuff "just a Rockchuck shooter from Idaho..."

I agree with Dick, magazines take themselves way too seriously these days, not much, if any fun allowed.

Ask Dick about the PS Swimsuit Issue sometime.
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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"What's better... the .270 or 30-06".
Damn, Dick! I want to know! Even though everyone really knows the 9.3x62 or 74R is better!
Peter.


Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong;
 
Posts: 10505 | Location: Jacksonville, Florida | Registered: 09 January 2004Reply With Quote
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Peter,

The truth is I've never been much hung up on calibers. If it's sensible, it's O.K. with me. (You don't hunt cape buffalo with a .22 Hornet.)

I'm making a.222 this year on a Ruger No. 1. It's going to be a duece in spite of the fact that my benchrest competition cartrdge, the .22 PPC, .100" Short, is a lot better, more accurate in conditions. much more effecient... 3500 fps with a 52 gr. match bullet with 26 gr. of Scottish 322. Eleven years ago when I was younger and could shoot straight I took a third at the Super Shoot with it in spite of everybody there telling me it couldn't compete with a 6 PPC.

Let's see you sell a varmint rifle chambered in a that caliber... won't happen.


Dick Wright
 
Posts: 669 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 27 March 2014Reply With Quote
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Dick, I just sold my Rem 40X in 222 Rem, barrelled by Tooley. Just wasn't using it. No BR shooters in my club. Just sat in the safe. As I mentioned before somewhere, I bought it from Bob Pease many years ago and had it rebarrelled. I also just sold (I believe) my 6mm BR barreled by Nelson Berger, again, many years ago. Bob Pease suggested the 6mm BR as PPC brass was very hard to find back then. 3500 FPS is moving 'em out there!

Peter


Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong;
 
Posts: 10505 | Location: Jacksonville, Florida | Registered: 09 January 2004Reply With Quote
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I bought my first kinda accurate rifle from Bob Peace. It was called a poor man's PPC. It was a bedded 700 with a rechambered factory barrel in either 22BR or 6BR. Workman ship was great and it shot very well. I forgot the rifle company that he used, but they were in the New Braunfels area.
 
Posts: 8959 | Location: Poetry, Texas | Registered: 28 November 2004Reply With Quote
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Accurate Rifle, Precision Shooting, Varmint Hunter's Assoc. Small Caliber News.

All gone.

I must be getting old.


JAPPFT,


GWB
 
Posts: 23752 | Location: Pearland, Tx,, USA | Registered: 10 September 2001Reply With Quote
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we are.

I just hung up the phone with a bench rest shooting friend.

"Hey remember...":

1. Manley Oakley
2. Wally Siebert
3. Roger Johnston
4. Seeley Masker

And about a dozen others?

All gone.

The magazines you mentioned, I wrote for them all. I guess that makes me old too.

Rich
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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Wally helped me out on a couple scopes and Seeley built my first 2 BR rifles.
 
Posts: 8959 | Location: Poetry, Texas | Registered: 28 November 2004Reply With Quote
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I expected that when I moved back home after the USAF that I would finally be able to hunt and flyfish all the time so there would be no time to competition shoot. As it has turned out over the last eight years, while I have scored some decent salmon and steelhead on a flyrod, hunting hasn't gone so well because of Gulf War Syndrome as manifested in middle age. Meaning I don't have the energy or motivation to hunt hard here in Oregon.

To that end I want to get back into competition shooting. Of any endeavor I have pursued I am most natural as a shooter. I want to shoot 1K BR again, but there are no close NBRSA or IBS ranges around. Given I am still employed full time I need to find a place within a couple hours drive. I am not exited about what they offer between Eugene and Portland.

600 yds is the max distance, but everything seems to have been informalized so guys can shoot with their hunting rifles. I would be happy to shoot 600 yd Highpower, maybe even F-Class, but they only shoot Highpower at 100 yds. I would consider a Garand Match at 200 yds but it too is at 100 yds. They do have Precision Rifle--not sure I want to do that.

Seems like NBRSA and IBS just didn't catch on here in the West......
 
Posts: 3701 | Location: Oregon | Registered: 27 May 2004Reply With Quote
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Well, The NBRSA is active in your area and I'm sure F Class is also. F Class has a website as well as the NBRSA.Check them out.
Check out accurateshooter.com A lot of F Class shooters are members and they have an F Class forum as well as benchrest.com
 
Posts: 8959 | Location: Poetry, Texas | Registered: 28 November 2004Reply With Quote
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I looked again. No NBRSA long range, though there is a range that will be around two hours away--when I move later this year--that has long range F-Class.
 
Posts: 3701 | Location: Oregon | Registered: 27 May 2004Reply With Quote
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This thread is about days gone by... I miss them a lot. Some of the best parts of my life were the shooting I did in benchrest, the people I met and writing for the magazine. The internet effectively changed everything... communication is so much faster now.

Matches are smaller now days and there are fewer people hunting. I grew up in a place and a time where everybody had guns and everybody hunted.

We now live right in the middle of Michigan deer country. This season there was practically no one in the woods after opening morning and very few then. I enjoyed having the woods to myself but that's not good for our sport.


Dick Wright
 
Posts: 669 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 27 March 2014Reply With Quote
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Emerald Empire Gun Club is just outside of Eugene/Springfield complex.

Tri-County is just south of Portland in Tigard.
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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Rich,

Emerald Empire only goes to 200 yds but when I get moved to Eugene I might join just to do load development. There or Albany, whichever place is least upright. Tri-County in Sherwood has a 600 yd prone/bench class that I might try. Douglas Ridge has a 1000 yd range but I don't think there are any competitions there. It would be a good place to sort out a long range hunting rifle. It would be cool if we could establish an NBRSA 1000 yd match there.

I won't be able to do much competition shooting this year, as we will be moving and building a house. However, after that...
 
Posts: 3701 | Location: Oregon | Registered: 27 May 2004Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by Dick Wright:
This thread is about days gone by... I miss them a lot. Some of the best parts of my life were the shooting I did in benchrest, the people I met and writing for the magazine. The internet effectively changed everything... communication is so much faster now.

Matches are smaller now days and there are fewer people hunting. I grew up in a place and a time where everybody had guns and everybody hunted.

We now live right in the middle of Michigan deer country. This season there was practically no one in the woods after opening morning and very few then. I enjoyed having the woods to myself but that's not good for our sport.


Dick,

There is still a lot of deer/elk/bear hunters here in Oregon. Some places get awfully full. But I do ageee with your point that the hunting and shooting we did 50 years ago is gone. That said, there are new shooting competitions to try, though I just can't get excited about anything pretending to be tactical (like PRS).
 
Posts: 3701 | Location: Oregon | Registered: 27 May 2004Reply With Quote
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what INTJ said, plus one!

I pretty much got my fill of PRS Ranger Style in the late 60's early 70's.

Today, I'd just call for an Arc Light...
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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Got my first copy of Precision Shooting in a local gun shop. I have issues from about 1992 till the magazine folded. Same with the Accurate rifle. Still trying to find the January '03 issue as they had a good writeup on how to make an adaptor to use redfield target sights on a Ruger #1. Came as a complete suprise to me and many others when it closed up shop. Thanks for the memories. Frank
 
Posts: 175 | Registered: 16 November 2008Reply With Quote
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T-H-E issue to have, was the swimsuit issue of the mid-eighties (iirc).
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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This internet, it's forums and other reading sites are what is putting the magazines and newspapers out of business.

Here in CT the Bristol Press newspaper building has been sold. It's used now to store bicycles!

There is no paperboy anymore. It's a no print all internet world.

I used to subscribe to magazines and only get the Rifleman and Am. Hunter as they come free with the memberships.

I used to subscribe to Rifle and Handloader and no longer.
 
Posts: 980 | Registered: 16 July 2008Reply With Quote
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Gun magazines these days, are mostly infomercials for the factories...
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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Just like the airplane made battleships obsolete, the car made horse and buggy obsolete, times change. I have found some of the web-sites very informative as soon as you learn who's who on them. Better than having 6 boxes of old magazines stored in the attic in case you need to refer back to them. Been there, done that. Don't want to do it again.


velocity is like a new car, always losing value.
BC is like diamonds, holding value forever.
 
Posts: 1650 | Location: , texas | Registered: 01 August 2008Reply With Quote
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