It has gotten to the point (been that way for a while) where almost all the articles in the gun rags are a rehash of previous publications. How many times do I need to read about the 10 best of an authors opinion? Or the best this for that? Do we really need another revolver/auto shoot out? I've been thinking I need more info on reloading the .270 win. For that reason I have let my G&A lapse. Now I just have to wait for ST, Rifleshooter or AR to write the same article. Which they have several times before and are certain to repeat many more. The only new stuff is on, well, new stuff and it's always glorifying the new product for the benifit of the authors hunting trip. I wish I could write good enough to get free Afrikan safaris.

The "journalism" which is foisted upon todays public is nearly at an all time low for quality of experience or knowledge. But not of product knowledge! It is all about selling the goods to go with, and the places to go, and whom to hunt with. Rarely is a piece written from the heart, and then if it is recognized as such, scorned by the readership as being too touchy feelie. You are not wrong in your assesment of the available prose, so go forth and enjoy the real world which you do know and understand.

Too bad that you hadn't read all of the rags that have been out for the last 40 years. The same guns, the same New loads and of course the miracle bullets. Some good prose and some great prose. Some terrible. I still read the Handload, Rifle and other assorted magazines that I have kept. Keep reading and support the stuff that we have coming out or we may lose them all.

after the umteenth time of reading the differences between the 308 win and the 30-06 or the .243 and the 6MM rem I decided that these rags wasn't worth my time.....I haven't subscribed to a gun magazine for about 20 years.

My favorite cartridges (due to experience) are all nearly (or over) 100 years old and the number of improved powders introduced in the last 20 years are minimal.

Bullet technology and the introduction of premium bullets are the biggest news we have.....

Today's guns are not better than what we had in 1960 and except in very few instances the cartridges aren't either.

Like you.....I can't find a reason to invest in the magazines if they can't write something of interest.

I'm reminded of a business article several years ago....it has to do with the outboard motor business in Baha California.....the market was totally owned by Mercury Marine. Almost all the outboards sold in that peninsula was made by Mercury.

One day a new outboard came to the Peninsula and in a short time totally took over the market there.....that company was.....yup...Honda...

Mercury executives ordered a commission to find out what happened and the commission came back months later and the only difference they could point out was the literature that was delivered with the product.

Merc's literature was full of horsepower, torq info, charts of technical data and graphs showing a lot of performance data. Honda's printed matter that came with the outboard was a simple brochure entitled....."HOW TO CATCH MORE FISH"

I read Gun Week for keeping track of the political front, and Gun Tests to see what to avoid buying. I get American Rifleman, but beyond "The Armed Citizen" and historical articles, most of it goes unread. Most of my favorite authors are dead and I write better prose than the rags publish. As far as quality, we have already lost them all. What's the point of a pistol as a centerfold spread? I am clearly aware of the difference between my S&W and my pecker, no room for confusion and their uses don't overlap. It's just more fuel for the fires of the Million Moron March.

The only rag I get and thats because Iam life member is the rifleman. Other then that if someone gives me some i look through them.

I get Sports Afield and log onto AR.

I get American Rifleman as a NRA member. The only one I buy is Fur,Fish and Game. Most just seem to be ads disquised as articles. Also there is about a 3 month lag time between news and it making it to print. Then the news is heavely censored so they don't affend potential advertizers.

I can find more real info on various internet forums like this. Yah you have to have a good BS filter but you learn who's info you can trust.

I used to love Shooting Times, then i went to Rifle and Handloader but lately even they are getting real boring....

I just let my subscription to Rifle and Handloader lapse, I will not renew. They have changed the writers over there and I don't like the new ones.

I used to live for the day Outdoor Life got delivered....back when Jack O was still writing for them. I still scan American Hunter when it comes. Some of the African magazines are good...at least not the same old stuff. I won't pay for the US ones anymore...boring and redundant.

Wolfe Publishing wanted to know why I let my longtime subscription to RIFLE lapse. I told them point blank, I subscribed to read about rifles...not shotguns and pistols. Let me know when you change your content back to what it is supposed to be about and I might reconsider. I did not get a reply. HANDLOADER is sliding down the same slippery slope. I did not renew SHOOTING TIMES after subscribing for a decade. Instead I took up MidwayUSA on their offer of 12 issues of G & A for $11. That was a waste of money as they're both published by the same outfit. Same self-serving content which as ACRecurve said is boring and redundant. I won't renew. Then the only mag coming in my mailbox will be AMERICAN RIFLEMAN. It's not nearly what it used to be, but it's free.

I let them go a long time ago. Two strong memories .A photo of a deer in the woods, it seemed strange . I looked very carefully and I'm sure it was a stuffed deer as it wasn't standing properly !!!...I was in an adjoining state with time to kill and I found a gunshop.Just the owner so we got to talking .He asked 'do you know so-and -so the gun writer ?' Sure , I said . He said there was a recent article written by the guy highly praising a shotgun. The gun writer later came into the store with the shotgun asking "what will you give me for this piece of junk ?"

I don't pic up as many hook and bullet mags. as I used to but I am one old dog who can learn a new trick now and then. I am presently down in Australia and I am reading all their hunting magazines. Even if it is mostly about hunting rabbits, ferral pigs and goats or wild camels and night hunting foxes.

I am sure hoping that there is a good crop of young hunters out there who need the huniting and shooting liturature as I did many years ago.

Robin down under.

I'm feeling the same way about Handloader and Rifle magazines. At one time, they were excellent, but lately have become part of the G&A, ST, and other flack magazines. I want something to increase my knowledge, not just a rehash. A magazine that I do get and enjoy is Precision Shooting. Yeah, some of it is really technical and full of math formulas, but for accuracy and rifle performance, it can't be beat.

Thought this might be relevant to the topic. Not saying I agree with all that he says, but some food for thought.

Title: The Garbage Sportsmen Read

Why I hate (most) hunting magazines — David Peterson

America’s best-known hunter/conservationist, Aldo Leopold, once quipped that conservation is what a man (or “person,†if he were writing today) thinks about while chopping down a tree.

Something similar can be said of the public perception of hunting: For most people, as important as what hunters do is why and how we do it — what we’re thinking about and what our motivations are, as well as our feelings in retrospect. And in this regard, perhaps the greatest and most harmful forces misshaping both hunter and public attitudes toward hunting today are the outdoor media — TV, videos, magazines, books, even outdoor gear catalogs as epitomized by Cabela’s, which will sell anything that’s even marginally legal anywhere, and damn proud of ift These very public and influential voices could and should be cutting-edge tools for shaping ethical hunter behavior and earning public support. But overwhelmingly, the opposite is true. Consider this typically sensitive headline from the cover of a national hunting magazine:

“If you’re a deer, you’re dead!â€

Since I’m most familiar with magazines, having worked with and for them, on both sides of the editor’s desk, for a quarter-century now, and since magazines comprise the longest and still-strongest arm of the outdoor media, I’ll concentrate my criticisms there, though tee-vee’s Outdoor Channel — with its shameful litany of potbellied, limp-wicked, gadget-laden har-har hunting heroes venturing bravely on their terrain-trashing ATVs toward comfy bungalow shooting blinds overlooking cultivated patches of wildlife crops or timed-release game “feeders†(bait stations in fact) and/or motorized decoys — is far more visible to the nonhunting public and therefore, no doubt, does hunting far more harm. These horn-porn purveyors comprise the dumbest, most venal and annoying people on Earth, and so long as such TV trash persists, hunting will never be morally justifiable or publicly acceptable. Nor, under a dip-**** paradigm like that, should it be.

But I know magazines best, and the problem with magazines — outdoor and otherwise — begins at the bottom line. Commercial periodicals, at least the big glossy models, derive the bulk of their income not from subscriptions or newsstand sales, but from paid advertising. Of course, in order to attract ads you must have readers, prompting magazines sometimes to offer subscriptions at a loss in order to attract more readers as bait to attract more advertisers at steeper ad rates. Consequently, since the hunting industry is paying the hunting media’s bills and providing the lion’s share of its profits with the ads they do or do not place, industry influence on magazine content, politics and morality is colossal and — like the proverbial fox in charge of the hen house — is immeasurably hurtful to hunting. In the worst of cases, advertiser influence is so overt as to equal bribery, leading greedy publishers and obedient editors around like lapdogs on short leashes as the magazine’s advertising sales reps yip and yap for editorial content to become ever more “advertiser-friendly.†At the worst of times, this incestuous “cooperation†with financial sponsors leads to the creation of whores of so-called magazines that read and look more like mail-order catalogs and that never ever allow contributing writers to say anything that might upset advertisers or the political values (or lack thereof) of the readership.

At the opposite extreme and at best, the negative influence of industry via advertising is barely covert. For instance, writers quickly learn that it’s fruitless to try and place articles that are in any way critical of advertised products or services — ATVs, to cite a dumb-ugly example. So, after a while, you quit even trying. Moreover, what one writer with principles refuses to say (or refrain from saying) no matter the money involved, ten wannabes wait their turn in line, compliantly grasping their ankles.

Conversely, commercial magazines — not just among hook-and-bullet rags, which I’m singling out here, but in every stinking genre — love to praise what their advertisers hawk. Common euphemisms here include “gear reviews†and “product evaluations,†though few such ever honestly evaluate anything. Sticking with the uniquely annoying example of ATVs (including for purposes of this discussion not only ORVs, but jet skis, snowmobiles and dirt bikes), many hook-and-bullet pubs run regular “off-road†columns, plus frequent feature articles, while the most brazen run entire “special issues,†annually or more often, touting the latest in vehicles and accessories, thereby encouraging the bucket-seat buttheads that so thoroughly infest and infect the hunting subculture today — all for the sake of attracting more ads for same. And it works. To heck with ecology, ethics and aesthetics. No matter the obvious and widely decried facts that ATVs damage wild ecosystems, harass wildlife, debase those who use them and infuriate those who don’t — if there’s a stinking buck to be sucked, there’s a media whore waiting on calloused knees, wet lips puckered.

(Significant aside: To be fair and honest, I should point out yet again that while, as a hunter and hunting writer, I am making that genre my primary target here, just as bad and in some ways worse are the way-cool Lycra-clad yuppie gearhead publications that regularly run such “Ten Best†sellouts as “The Ten Best Small Mountain Towns to Move to and **** Up†and “The Ten Best Unspoiled Backcountry Destinations to Flock to and **** On†features. To hell with those pimps, no matter the genre they peddle.)

Another way the outdoor media negatively motivate and demean hunters is by catering to the Neanderthal whims of deep-pocketed PACs, such as ORV owner and industry groups and extreme, so-called hunters’ “rights†groups, many of which, largely industry funded and headed by high-paid professional flacks — a truly obnoxious and stupid example here is the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, formerly Wildlife Legislative Fund of America (WLFA) — can and regularly do generate stacks of letters and e-mails to editors and politicians, wildlife management agencies and others on a plethora of mostly wrong-headed special-interest issues. By buckling to such scare campaigns, the media become cowardly flunkies to a loud minority, easily duped into believing that a mouthy few, most of whom typically aren’t even subscribers or readers, represent the majority and somehow threaten profits. This is precisely the trap an Outdoor Life magazine VP tripped into a few years ago when a couple hundred letters from WLFA groupies who’d not even seen the story they were instructed to object to, successfully halted the publication of an article by Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist and hunter Tom Beck criticizing the ethics and aesthetics of killing bears over bait. The upshot included the resignation in protest of the magazine’s two top (and first and only intelligent) editors, who had solicited the article, followed by a rightly humiliating article in the business section of The New York Times.

Outdoor magazines published by nonprofit organizations should, and to varying degrees do, escape this profit-motivated industry influence, being in theory published and paid for by members and independent of advertising. Yet, since many or most do run ads to help defray operating costs, they inevitably are lobbied by the inevitable bean counters to tailor editorial content, at the least, to not offend potential advertisers. To cite a prominent and personally heartbreaking example:

Since its inception in 1984, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has been my favorite hunter/conservation group. That’s because I’m a semi-subsistence elk hunter and unabashed tree hugger and am proud as punch of the excellent work the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has done in rescuing critically endangered private wildlife habitat from development, while working with government land agencies to restore severely “wise use†abused (over-grazed, over-logged, over-mined, over-gas-welled, over-roaded and over ORV’d) public lands.

It follows that, Bugle, the bimonthly journal of RMEF, has long been my favorite hunting magazine. Not only does Bugle have a long tradition of being exceptionally well written and edited, from the first issue it has set a hopeful example of truth, courage and freedom of speech in a heavy-browed genre notorious for the opposite. Across its first twenty years in print, Bugle carved a sterling reputation as the only big (presently 140,000 circulation) outdoor magazine not afraid to broach highly controversial topics on a regular basis, even if that meant the loss of a few outraged readers and advertisers. Nor has Bugle, at this writing, ever run an ATV ad or catered to advertisers by running the standard “advertiser friendly†trio of how-to, where-to and gear-flogging articles. And readers loved it. In the most recent member survey, Bugle got the highest approval rating of any activity sponsored by RMEF, including their primary conservation work, with an amazing 95 percent of readers giving the magazine good to (mostly) excellent ratings.

Ahhh, but these be hard and stupid times today.

“The greatest dangers to liberty,†cautioned Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, “lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.†(And these days, women too.)

Recently, the leadership of RMEF has fallen into well-meaning and zealous but clearly uncomprehending and therefore dangerous hands. As of this writing, the RMEF board of directors and its hand-picked new CEO, one J. Dart — who, get this, was sitting CEO of Safari Club International, the primary promoter of the incomprehensibly immoral and ugly practice of “canned hunting†of captive wildlife, a hideous sore on the face of true hunting that RMEF has long and openly opposed — Dart and his henchmen have directed Bugle’s editors to cut back on articles discussing the ethics and aesthetics of hunting, and to start running how-to, where-to and product flacking. The bosses also want more blood on the page, both in the slant of stories and accompanying “kill†shots, the latter until now eschewed. The final straw for many former members and Bugle contributors, especially including myself, came when quisling Dart and other carefully selected Good Old Boy sportsmen’s group leaders spent a day with George W. on his happy hobby ranch near Crawford, Texas, then issued an official memo on RMEF letterhead praising Bush as “truly one of us — a hunter, a fisherman and a conservationist.†This memo serves as a de facto endorsement by RMEF, via its CEO, for Bush’s election in November (in 2000, don’t forget, he was outvoted yet court appointed). Being forced to change from a charter champion of that magazine and that organization to an outspoken critic is as painful to me as divorce.

Call something paradise, kiss it goodbye. Now even the best has fallen to greed, arrogance and the blood-and-oil-stained greed for the dollar.

All of which I am laying out here simply to emphasize how severely the First Amendment and public trust are abused not only among the outdoor media but in most commercial slicks today, and the bigger, by and large, the more so. As a passionate traditional (low tech) bowhunter, I’m particularly offended and embarrassed that easily the most rabidly commercial, techno-touting and eco-politically bone-headed segment of the outdoor media are bowhunting magazines. For a really rude and stupid example, under the title “Brian’s Bucket-Trained Bears,†the June ‘95 issue of Bowhunting World asked: “What’s his secret?â€

“‘I bucket-train these bears,’ says [Ontario hunting outfitter Brian] Cashman ... In early May, Cashman begins his rounds ... setting up ... bait stations for the hunters who will soon arrive at his Dog Lake Resort. At each stop, he drops off a five-gallon pail of goodies, rapping on the bucket to dislodge all the tender morsels. ‘The bears figure out what that sound means,’ Cashman explains. When he drops off a hunter, Cashman makes sure to hammer on his plastic dinner bell before leaving. Bears are often lying nearby, waiting for the signal, and they approach as soon as they hear their provider motor off. Cashman is taking bookings for this intriguing bear-hunting adventure ... â€

Intriguing? ... hunting? ... adventure? Such skill-less, effortless, slam-dunk, pay-to-play killing of bait-addicted, half-tamed bears is neither “intriguing†nor “hunting,†and it damn sure ain’t “adventure.†Were I an anti-hunting writer, I could get a million miles of mockery out of such ****-dipped junk-journalism as this.

Mr. Cash-man, of course, is just one among a huge number of mercenaries pandering to gutless losers for profit — he just happened to land, or perhaps (it happens) trade a “hunt†for that profitable publicity in a major bowhunting publication.

In the end, I firmly believe that to have any realistic hope of truly reforming hunters and hunting, thus resuscitating public approval and support, we first must reform the hunting media and the hunting industry that pull the publishers’ strings.

Fat chance of that in today’s vile and corrupted, Hummer-happy, Bush-Cheney America.

So far as the commercial media taking the positive lead, I know of only one such instance among hunting magazines, and even it remains a tenuous experiment, constantly under attack. Out of Idaho comes the small (circulation about thirty thousand) bimonthly, Traditional Bowhunter. Now in its twelfth year, TBM never has and under current ownership never will run an ATV ad, a high-tech gear ad or any other ad or article it deems in any way harmful to the health and dignity of the sport it represents and serves: traditional bowhunting. Consequently, Big Industry stays away and most of TBM’s ads are quarter-page spots for individual bowyers and related ma-and-pa enterprises, reinforced by a scattering of mid-sized, ethically clean businesses that can afford full-page color ads.

Editorially, Traditional Bowhunter refuses to endorse bear baiting, openly condemns the canned (fenced) “hunting†subculture that the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s new commander-in- chief’s personal and professional history embodies, and downplays the trophy addiction that dominates other outdoor magazines by refusing to glorify the ego-driven “point†scoring systems maintained by all trophy record books. Of course, by standing tall for what it believes, TBM opens itself to outspoken disgruntlement among a minority of values-confused readers, while drastically reducing its income potential.

What? A commercial, for-profit enterprise that willingly and unbendingly assumes a deep financial loss in order to set a positive example for ethical hunting and publishing? Why, by God, that’s downright un-American!

Well, depending on what stripe of American you choose to be, you could say: Yes, by God, it is! But I paint my own stripes and as a recovering Marine and Ed Abbey/Hunter Thompson-style patriotic American — as one, that is, who views hunting as more a spiritual than recreational undertaking while valuing truth in publishing over anyone’s filthy profit — I am among Traditional Bowhunter’s biggest fans.

The rest have gone swimming in ****.

David Peterson is the editor of A Hunter’s Heart: Honest Essays on Blood Sport (Henry Holt) and the author of Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America (Johnson Books).

quote:

Originally posted by Hutty:
— as one, that is, who views hunting as more a spiritual than recreational undertaking

I realize the kill is part of the hunt...but IMO it is the poorest part while being out in nature (and away from societal noise), observing the animals, and the stalk are precious to me. I believe God made the earth for us to enjoy....and I do! The hunt is a good time for thinking, reflection, and meditation without interruption...except maybe for the bull or buck that crashes into the solitude! Very little written on these aspects of hunting these days...mostly just gear, gadgets, and "how-to-kill" articles. Sad that.

I subscribe to Rifle and Handloader. I enjoy them but they are not what they once were as far as quality goes. I do like the articles by John Barsness.

My favorite gun magazine is The Double Gun Journal. It's mostly about double barrel shotguns but they do have articles on/about double rifles. They have also started including single shots. It's only 4 issues a year but it's an excellent magazine IMHO.

http://www.gunshop.com/dgj.htm

-Bob F.

About the only mag I really look forward to is the Varmit Hunters Assoc. club magazine.

Good articles. lots of stories, and they will actually tell you if something doesn't work well.

Maybe its not all the writers fault. Maybe the rags have changed because the game has changed. Hunting was more challenging in the days of Jack and Elmer, and more plentifull.

Seems to me that 90% of the articles about a specific hunt in the lower 48 are on private land, which doesnt intrest me. Its a sad reality. It also doesnt take much skill or know how to drop an unaware deer with a 400 yd benchrest grade rifle either. Thats why I like reading Dave Scoville sometimes, dont need no stinking laser guided missiles...

I have let all of my subscriptions lapse in the lasts year. Though I do miss the diversion of reading the magazines, I don't miss the disapointment of having to endure the rehash of old topics...and having the same darned information come out in each of the competing mags.

I have let them all lapse. I will say that American Handgunner remains pretty good. The two best are Magnum, from South Africa and Sporting Shooter from Australia, and Hatari from Africa. The rest are just the same story repeated again and again. How many times need we read about Boddington's favorite rifle for deer, etc.; big deer, little deer, close deer, etc. One would think the publisher's would have the brains to stop. But as long as the subscriptions keep rolling in.....forgedaboudit.

I have become bored with ST, G&A, Rifleshooter. Like many posts here I am hanging on to AR because the NRA membership. I need more toilet reading.

The two magazines I really enjoy and subscribe to, because I feel they have for the most part very well written artiles, are "Sporting Classics" & "Gray's Sporting Journal".

They are filled with good stories and beautiful wildlife art. I subscribed to Sporting Classics last year and have enjoyed it.

They always seem to publish some fictional short stories the way the outdoor mags did when I was growing up and living for my new monthly outdoor "fix" to arrive in the mail.

The recent issues always sit on my coffee table in the living room unlike the other magazines I pick up here and there which end up in the library (read "bathroom")or at my loading bench.

They are worth checking out.

I’ve dumped about 6-7 subscriptions in the last couple years. The only one that I get now is NA Hunter, and that usually goes in the trash as soon as it comes in, nothing but BS articles about nothing written by authors with little to no experience IMO. All one has to do is read any article about western hunting in any of those rags and if you have any knowledge about it you can sort through the BS in about 2 seconds flat... Very few writers know what their talking about IMO

The one that I absolutely loath is the Eastman’s Hunting Journal and Bow hunting Journal. I thought to myself finally something different when I first picked it up about 5-6 years ago. Very few advertisements and even fewer/no BS articles, only hunting stories sent in from readers and only western big game. They touted themselves as a magazine for the “little guy†the plumber, or the mechanic, the guy that doesn’t have the big bucks to go on guided private land hunts and has to learn how to hunt public land.

Now they’re now the biggest bunch of ass kissing, endorsement suck-ups, private land hunting, high dollar guided hunt whore rag out there today. I would bet that 30-40% the ‘stories’ in their rags now are by guys that hunted on guided hunts, and 80% of the articles are from guys that hunt in supper hard to draw units with awesome trophy quality. The last edition of EHJ I got I counted out of the 12 ‘stories’ 9 started off with “After applying for such and such tag for x amount of years my dreams came true when the letter arrived in the mailâ€â€¦ I gain nothing by reading these kind of stories. The guys that draw those supper tags are usually some schmoe that has little to know experience but has a license to hunt the zoo… good for him that he can kill a half tame buck or bull of a lifetime, he’s not master hunter, he was just fortunate to get the chance that so many want… the biggest accomplishment was drawing the tag! The EHJ is now half advertisements, guess them boys have to pay for their big high dollar private land guided hunts somehow.

I could give two chits about some new wonder turkey load, or some super duper new 'deer tactic' or how to hunt the west, some new 'hot spot' in the west, or the best ones lately have been “How to beat the draw oddsâ€... Ya can’t beat em, because so many articles have been written about it lately and everyone is privy to the process.

Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can do more and better research than they could gain from any article in the crap out there today. When was the last time you cut out an article or saved a mag so you could reference it later? Uh… yeah me either.

I got sick of reading the same ol chit. The only rags that I somewhat enjoy are Sports Afield and Rifle and then only because of the frequent African articles, finally something different from time to time.

How many articles can be written about how to kill a big whitetail buck. Jezzus, get off your ass and go hunt one a few times, its not rocket science. Do we really need 2-8 articles in a single rag each month on it? Whitetails have got to be the most addictive animal yet most boring/easiest animal there is to hunt… Sure the big boys are tough but so are big bulls etc… I’ve killed probably close to 50 whitetails in the last 10 years or so. They’re not too tough. Yet we need thousands of articles a month on how to hunt them. Hunters of today spend more time dreaming about hunting than they’ll ever spend hunting. I make it into the field about 55-60 days a year both here in the east and back ‘home’ in the west, and still consider myself a novice compared to some of my friends…

To be honest I think Bugle is one of the worst ones out there... I used to have a membership to RMEF but dumped it about 6-7 years ago. I was thinking about rejoining to help the mule deer (which really need the help) and the only way is through the elk and the RMEF... but after I heard that the RMEF built a new14 Million dollar headquarters building, I thought to myself, well they've finally sold their soul to the devil. I wasn’t aware that the new president was from SCI… makes perfect sense to me now. Their mag is so dry and boring it's pathetic, that was one of the reasons for ending my membership, well the real reason was because I was broke. I rarely read any of the articles, and the last one I looked at about a year ago was half advertisements… and the other half was about how cool the RMEF members are, and then 3 pages of pictures… At least the other half azzed rags have guys writing about stuff that they don't have a clue about and I can laugh at em form time to time... entertainment value is worth something! I'd rather read a Calculus book than Bugle!

I learn more on this site and enjoy the readings of people and their experiences than any magazine out there. At least some of the guys on here actually have experience in what they write about, same can’t be said for most of the out door writers today! Rags to me aren't worth their weight in poop... I save my money and use it to go hunting in other states... Might only be a $150-200 a year... but after a while it all adds up.

The next thing to go is my Cell Phone... but that’s a whole other topic all together LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Ivan:
nothing but BS articles about nothing written by authors with little to no experience IMO.

My biggest pet peeve is the staff writer on their first moose or caribou or buffalo hunt. For Pete's sake, if they were serious hunters they would have paid for those kinds of hunts themselves long before they became a staff writer. I would much rather read a "first whatever" story written by Joe Shit the Ragman - not a young guy with a journalism degree fresh in hands but with no hunting experience. I read a story the other day written by a staff writer on a moose hunt who had never even seen a moose! Give me a break...

I have read so many articles in the past that they are all the same now. I just can't finish them. I still get the Rifleman and American Hunter as my kid and I are life members but those mags are similar to the others now.

I read some of what John Barsness writes in posts over on 24Hr and I have to give that guy credit. I don't know how he can stand it what with the way things go. I really admire his cool. All of us are covering ground however thats been gone over before.

These internet forums are way more fun. I used to wait months for an article by Keith or Whelan.

quote:

Originally posted by Savage99:
I have read so many articles in the past that they are all the same now. I just can't finish them. I still get the Rifleman and American Hunter as my kid and I are life members but those mags are similar to the others now.

I read some of what John Barsness writes in posts over on 24Hr and I have to give that guy credit. I don't know how he can stand it what with the way things go. I really admire his cool. All of us are covering ground however thats been gone over before.

These internet forums are way more fun. I used to wait months for an article by Keith or Whelan.

Barsness is a good guy. He does what he does because he likes folks like you and me. I like the guy a lot.

Quote- "as one, that is, who views hunting as more a spiritual than recreational undertaking"

Amen Hutty, Bill, and AC!

It is refreshing to hear from kindred hunters. I subscribe to Rifle/Handloader but also think they've bottomed out. I don't need another article telling me how to zap a whitetail at 643 lasered yards. The optics article a few issues back that suggested you could get by without binos by glassing with your (HOPEFULLY unloaded!) rifle scope was the final straw.

DGJ is refreshing, and while some of their articles are a bit esoteric I think they get at the soul of our sport. Ross S. is a particular favorite who "gets it" and has the nerve to say what he thinks and his experience dictates. After all, there aren't too many advertisers of 120yr old rifles to offend. His 455 Webley rifle hunting article was 1000x more entertaining than any 308 vs 30-06 or 300wsm vs 300wssm extravaganza.

Today's writers would do well to forget what they learned in journalism school and read their Selous, Keith, Taylor, etc, then get out in the field and HUNT. I can read a spec sheet on the manufacturer's page. It may not be what their editors and advertisers scream for right now, but is ultimately what I think their market wants. Myself, I'm trying to transition to more open sights/bp cartridge guns to put the "hunting" back into my hunts. So far every hunt is "successful", every animal a trophy and I won't look back.

-Bob

I don't subscribe to anything any more either, but do tend to purchase Shotgun News on a somewhat frequent basis.

Try Sporting Classics Magazine....I read it from cover to cover in one sitting upon arrival. It has many "feel good" articles, a little of how to articles and something that I find missing in every other outdoor magazine around....in depth articles on sporting craftsmen and how they perfect their art. For instance, there was an article about a guy that makes handmade canoes that cost more than your truck....another article about a guy that learned how to make Stradovarious quality heirloom duck calls from his grandad and he is keeping his grand dad's tradition going, various knifemakers, gunsmiths, etc....GREAT READING! I have met several of the writers and I can vouch for them - they are the real deal. Plain guys like us that just happen to have a knack for writing. Great magazine

Times must be tough in the gun scribe world today. How else to explain Scovill's gratuitous rant on Jack O'Connor in Rifle magazine a few issues back. So he doesn't like the 270? Fine. But why does he have to take what amounts to a drive-by whack at one of the best writers of all time in the often eccentric world of outdoor sports? Never mind that O'Connor left the planet almost thirty years ago and made his greatest contributions in the 1950s and '60s. Could it be that Scovill somehow senses that neither he nor most of his contemporaries have even a fraction of O'Connor's ability or experience?

It must be a "publish or perish†mentality for many of these publications. It is increasingly difficult to find them on the ever-shrinking magazine racks, and one wonders what their circulation numbers must be. If able to find them at all, one of the reasons for buying the old mainstays like Rifle, Handloader and ST is the advertisements. But what do we find in Rifle this month (aside from another flat-out incomprehensible piece by Scovill)? Why, a full-page advertisement for a fishing lure that reads as if it were written by Billy Bass himself!

Dave Wolfe, one of the last century's truly great advocates for the shooting sports, must be rotating at high velocity.