What happened?? About a year ago (or so?) John Barsness was made the editor of Wolfe Publishing's "Successful Hunter" magazine. When my last issue arrived, it seems he was no longer writing for that magazine at all??

Does he still write for "Rifle" and "Handloader" magazines, or has he stopped working for Wolfe Publishing all together?? If so, does anybody know what happened??

(Maybe some of you guys hanging out over on 24hourcampfire have an insight to what happened? John has posted there on occasion in the past...)

I'll miss John's writing. He was a major reason "Rifle" and other Wolfe products were my favourite gun rags...

- mike

He no longer writes for Wolfe Publications and has not been employed at Wolfe for several months

MHO,

I don't know if you frequent "24hourcampfire.com. JB posts on that board quite often under the handle" muledeer". There are multiple threads concerning John and Wolfe publications. I think most of this went down between August and November of last year, if memory serves.
GWB

MHO,

Mr. Barsness quit writing for all Wolfe magazines in November. He posts under the Name MuleDeer on 24hourcampfire. There are many many posts there as to possible reasons why. Mr. Barnsness never really gave an explanation except to say that he a Wolfe were not on the same page anymore. In my opinion it is a huge loss to Wolfe. I won't resubscribe. He has been writing for Sports Afield, GUNS, american Hunter and Rifleman, as well as a few others.

Hope this helps,

ddj

My subscription to Rifle and Handloader just came up for renewal. I won't renew, mostly because when they dropped Barsness they lost most, but not all, of the writing which I consider relevant to me as a hunter/shooter. I don't wish him any bad luck, he's probably a nice guy, but I'm sick of Venturino's "me and black powder silhouette" articles and variations thereof.

Thanks guys! I only look at 24hourscampfire infrequently. Today I tried to see if I could spot posts relevant to this, but thus far no luck. Maybe with more detailed use of the search function...

In any event, it seems no explanation was provided other than they decided to part. I guess that is about as much as I need to know.

Thanks again.

- mike

I spoke to John a while back and the problem with Wolf is a change in ownership. The long and the short of it is that the new owner is an idiot. The new owner is a sales guy who thinks he knows something about publishing, he is involved in way too much in the editorial end of all the magazines. Expect more articles tied to advertisers, more hunts paid for by the product they are "discussing" and less useful or even meaningful content.

The new owner and John had major "philisophical" differences and there was a bit of the old "I quit" "No, you're fired" stuff. Why this guy would mess with success is beyond me, other than shere stupidity. Successful Hunter had for the first time begun really showing a profit under John's hand. Evidently, renewals are not going well under Mr. Hoot, the new editor.

I know Mike Venterino casually, we live in the same small town, nice guy, but his articles belong in a speciality black powder magazine or something like the American Rifleman. He doesn't even hunt much, never has, once stated that he didn't like hunting in Africa (one trip in the late 80's I think). The last issue, which I can't find, had two articles by each of the regular writers, including two by Venterino which had nothing to do with hunting. Renew? Not likely.

24-Hour Crapfire has the worst search function I've ever tried to use. I've never been able to find anything. The a-hole factor is pretty high over there also, I don't know how John stands it other than they pay him to put up with it.

Inside view, interesting!

I have to admit I don't spend a lot of time reading Venturino's articles either...

- mike

It was a very dumb decision by Wolfe and smart for whoever picks up Mr. Barsness's talent.

ddj

quote:

Originally posted by HunterMontana:
I spoke to John a while back and the problem with Wolf is a change in ownership. The long and the short of it is that the new owner is an idiot. The new owner is a sales guy who thinks he knows something about publishing, he is involved in way too much in the editorial end of all the magazines. Expect more articles tied to advertisers, more hunts paid for by the product they are "discussing" and less useful or even meaningful content.

The new owner and John had major "philisophical" differences and there was a bit of the old "I quit" "No, you're fired" stuff. Why this guy would mess with success is beyond me, other than shere stupidity. Successful Hunter had for the first time begun really showing a profit under John's hand. Evidently, renewals are not going well under Mr. Hoot, the new editor.

I know Mike Venterino casually, we live in the same small town, nice guy, but his articles belong in a speciality black powder magazine or something like the American Rifleman. He doesn't even hunt much, never has, once stated that he didn't like hunting in Africa (one trip in the late 80's I think). The last issue, which I can't find, had two articles by each of the regular writers, including two by Venterino which had nothing to do with hunting. Renew? Not likely.

24-Hour Crapfire has the worst search function I've ever tried to use. I've never been able to find anything. The a-hole factor is pretty high over there also, I don't know how John stands it other than they pay him to put up with it.

Thanks for the run down.
I read all of the posts over on 24Hour when John gave notice about severing ties with Wolf, and he never gave any hint to what you presented here. I commend him for that. He's a FIRST rate guy.
I too didn't renew my subscriptions to Rifle and Handloader, but kept Successful Hunter. Phil Shoemaker is in the same class as JB, a great guy, genuine, and an excellent communicator. I enjoy reading Mr Shoemaker's articles. If he should fold his tent in the future, I shall follow him as I did JB to Guns Magazine. I have very high regard for Guns Magazine now that John has joined their staff. He joins some other very good writers at Guns.

Don

quote:

24-Hour Crapfire has the worst search function I've ever tried to use. I've never been able to find anything. The a-hole factor is pretty high over there also,

You said a mouthful, brother. I recently threw in the towel over there. Just sick of the BS.

Anyway, I didn't even know MD was JB, and PMd back and forth about a couple things. I think I referred to him as "Dennis" (thought that was his name).

quote:

Originally posted by Kamo Gari:Anyway, I didn't even know MD was JB, and PMd back and forth about a couple things. I think I referred to him as "Dennis" (thought that was his name).

Yeah, a little confusing as there's two similar screen names. muledeer (no space) is Dennis and Mule Deer is JB.

With all due respect guys....I don't think Mike Venterino ever said or tried to imply he was/is a dedicated hunter. True, he does not make 500 yrd running shots on mule deer or take charging buff at 5 feet.

What Mike brings to the table is a great depth of knowledge and experience in old leverguns, single shot rifles and revolvers. The fact that they started off using blackpowder and he writes about it is just keeping the facts straight.

Mike writes for a dedicated reloading magazine, by nature it will be more technical than flashy, sorry but reloading is about numbers. I find each issue of Reloading essential to my reloading info. I cut out stories and file them by caliber if they pertain to a caliber I shoot.

Rifle gives one a bit more leeway in content to write an exciting story. But there again Mike does not hunt much but he does compete with his rifles. He routinely is MT State Champion and wins regional and national titles. So he does not hunt but he has the knowledge and skill to preform at a higher level.

Mike is just Mike, flashy ? No. But he will not blow up your gun and he is honest about what he does.

And yes he is my friend. Is he for everyone, I'd say not but he knows his stuff..........................JJ

quote:

What Mike brings to the table is a great depth of knowledge and experience in old leverguns, single shot rifles and revolvers. The fact that they started off using blackpowder and he writes about it is just keeping the facts straight.

Exactly, and that really interests a very small minority of shooters REPEATEDLY which is one of the reasons why Rifle and Handloader won't be renewed by myself and others. He's also starting to pollute Shooting Times IMO.

quote:

He routinely is MT State Champion and wins regional and national titles. So he does not hunt but he has the knowledge and skill to preform at a higher level.

Really, would you care to list the years he's won the MT State Championship besides 2000. I'm not knocking his shooting but I'm not for puffing it up either. I don't have any axe to grind with Mike Venturino, I just don't care for his subject matter and, that along with the lack of Barsness, is why I'm voting with my wallet.

As far as being a nice guy, I'm sure he is and a good friend, that's important and I can see why you're defending him and I admire you for it.

Magazines whose subject matter is narrow tend to have a narrow following. I won't be one of them.

ddj

Don't get me wrong here, Mike is a very nice fellow. He knows more than I will ever even begin to know about black powder target shooting and historical rifles and I respect him for that. HOWEVER, I'm not really all that interested in that subject. The magazine, after all, is called Successful "Hunter". And his articles just don't deal with hunting with modern firearms, which is what I am interested in.

When Sefried left Wolfe so did I. Nothing there to interest me after that.

I like Barseness, Seyfried and Venturino, for different reasons.
I no longer subscribe to Rifle or Handloader, as I have never had much use for Scovill, Trzoniec or Rees, although I like Haviland and miss Al Miller as editor.
It could be worse, though. I see American Hunter recently gave Phil Spangenberger a chance to write yet again about killing a Cape buffalo in the early 1990s ago with a Kodiak double rifle in .45-70. I swear I have read that article in at least three or four other publications. I wonder how many times that poor old buffalo has died in print.

quote:

I swear I have read that article in at least three or four other publications. I wonder how many times that poor old buffalo has died in print.

Ain't it the truth!

I've watched outdoor/shooting magazines recycle fundamentally the same stories from the same writers over and over through the years. I guess we, the readers, are to blame for financially rewarding the magazines for doing it. As to the writers, well, I guess if they can sell something more than once to willing buyers, then they can hardly be blamed.

Oh and let's not hold our breath too long on when the next spate of 45/70 as DGR stuff starts poping up like toadstools after a spring rain. After all the article was in the American Hunter and so - blah, blah, blah...

Frankly, most editors would rather paste in an article from someone they know, especailly if it has been previously published and edited, than actually doing any work editing and laying out a new piece from an "unknown". From a marketing point of view it's a smart move to just print some crap from someone that has a following, people will buy and/or subscribe on the basis of whether their favorite writer is featured in a publication. Unknow writers require the potential reader/subscriber to actually read the article and evaluate the work based on content and his own opinions, risky bit there, especially in areas where there are several "schools" of thought. The introduction of a new writer, or dropping a old favorite, opens the door to re-evaluation of content and style, and as such the possibility of lost subscribers. This is what makes the "firing" of JB so idiotic on the most fundamental level. You might have read and enjoyed Mike Venterino's stuff BUT you never thought about whether you'd actually buy the magazine because of his articles because you were buying BECAUSE of JB's stuff which you liked. Now that JB is gone you are forced to evaluate the remaining content. Change begets change and there are always unintended consequences that are unforseen (due to lack of experience) or unforseeable (due to lack of vision).

This past year I began going thru old outdoor & gun magazines going back to the late 50's.(I know; I'm a pack rat.) Most I have discarded; has taken me months. You should compare the writing and subject matter with today. No comparison; most of what you read today is pushing someone's product or services. The change in the quality,subject matter and objectivity of the writing seems to me was evident by the beginning of the 1990's. The only mags I regularly purchase are Handloader for its technical articles and, less frequently, Rifle. As for the others, rarely do I bother. I use to like the Petersen mags(Guns, Hunting, etc.) but since Petersen sold the Co. it has become just a marketing shill for products and services, one of the worst in my opinion. But the same holds true for almost all the rest. Even NRA has succombed to the "disease". As for the new ownership of Wolfe, I will be on the alert for "change". If Handloader declines in quality it will get no more of my $$$. By the way, if you can, read some of Jack OConnor's stuff. He wrote stories and called a spade a spade, no marketing hype. Same with Elmer Keith, P. O. Ackley & others of that era.