In the last year, I have dropped G&A, Hunting, Black Powder Hunting, Precision Shooting, and Single Shot Exchange. I still read American Rifleman, Rifle, Handloader, Black Powder Cartridge News, Accurate Rifle, Rifle Shooter, Shooting Times, Shotgun News and the Journal of the American Single Shot Rifle Association. I'm pretty well stuck with American Rifleman as I am an NRA Life member. I read everything of interest in the last issue in 45 minutes. Shotgun News will not be renewed. Accurate Rifle has the saving grace of Mic McPherson and a couple of other interesting experimenters. BPC News and Journal of ASSRA take care of my interest in the old guns and are always refreshing to read and reread. ST and Rifle Shooter were kept over G&A so I could keep track of the mainstream gunstuff and I found I can read Jeff Cooper, unedited, on the Internet without the three month lagtime.
Now, with Rifle and Handloader, I am very disappointed of late. I started reading them back when the freelance gun experimenters made up over 80% of the material that was published in those two journals. Most of the time, it was very interesting stuff and made one THINK! Lately, however, the publisher has seen fit to gather together a stable of gun writers who throw together assigned subject articles. They seem to be the same group of 10-12 writers whose articles are seen in many of the mainstream gun magazines. Sometimes, they even rework the same material into two or three articles for different magazines published within the same month! It has gotten to the point where Ken Waters is their only interesting writer and he has been missing from the last few issues with no explanation from the editors! Their annual subscription rate is double that of equivalent magazines and for only 6 issues instead of the industry-standard 12. As far as I am concerned, I could drop them, go back and start reading 25 year old back-issues and be better served! The money I would save would go a long way in purchasing classic gun books, both reprints and originals.

I, too, am disappointed but I did make an interesting observation; their advertising is about guns and related shooting products! I recently counted up the non-gun related ads (ATVs, snuff, assorted junque) in Guns & Ammo and discovered that slightly more than 10% of their ads have nothing to with guns. The American Rifleman is pretty bad about this, too. If I want to read about off-raod vehicles I'll subscribe to an off-road magazine. One important fact I learned from G&A's recent off-road pulp was that when I go 4-wheeling I should carry a tow strap and a shovel. Duh.... Anyway, I don't rely on gun mags for reloading data; I like the new product reviews and ads as a way to keep up on what's new.

About the only writers I really enjoy and pay attention to anymore are Ross Seyfried and John Taffin. What I would really like to see is a greater variety of writers. This might produce some fresh ideas and perspectives. The worst thing about most of the present writers and the magazines they write for is that they are BOREING. The issue is not whether I agree with Craig Boddington or Joe Blow or even whether they are good writers or not, but rather I want the views of someone else. It's called VARIETY. In all of the rags we hear the same opinions from the same bunch over and over and over. There is a ton of talent and experience out there the publishers seem just plain too lazy to go after. And why should they, they are selling the present stuff well enough to stay in business and it is business for them plain and simple. I think an on line magazine that solicited new writers would be much more appealing. Handgun Hunters International has a publication called the Sixgunner that solicits articles from its membership that is close to what I am talking about. The writing isn's as polished as that found in the big magazines but the amount of really solid information available in any one issue exceeds that of a years worth of the big boys.

I miss Elmer and Skeeter and Finn.Hell,I even miss Jack.

Bravo five one

If you folks were disappointed in Handloader #218, wait until you see Rifle #203.
If I hadn't seen the cover with my own eyes I would have mistaken it for Shooting Times or worse yet Guns & Ammo. There are two good historical articles, but the rest is junk.
Oh how the mighty have fallen!

ZM