Two new gun-related mags worth getting ....

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Airborne Falcon

Airborne Falcon

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I rarely buy gun mags these days. Most of them are full of schilling long-winded reviews for whatever manufacturer spends the most ad money with them ... or worse. Many of them do nothing but tout the latest greatest new thing ad nauseum ... it gets old. Pardon the pun.

Besides, (pro tip inbound) if you have a library card you can download and borrow all the gun magazines (periodicals not actual high caps for you newbies and antigun lurkers and trolls) you want. Practically any gun magazine worth reading is available for borrowing/downloading from your local city or county library system via the Libby app or the Hoopla app. Okay, that's the pro tip of the day but that's not what I originally intended to post about friends.

Two new mags are out, maybe they've been out awhile I dunno, (I just stumbled across them yesterday on the rack), ... but these two are worth owning.

The first one is the new 2022 Hodgdon Reloading Annual. I hadn't bought one since 2009 but I was past due ... 300 BLK, 6.5 PRC, etc., new cartridges since 2009, not to mention all the new powders like the CFE offerings ... it was time.

What suprised me was the great article on 45-70s in this edition. It alone made the purchase worthwhile because I actually learned something in the process about a caliber/cartrdige I thought I knew most everything about. And that brings-up a point I've been wanting to make ... I wish all of the manuals would include more updated articles on the tried-and-true stuff, making it better and cherishing it rather than always pushing the new designs, latest calibers that are going-to-be flash in the pans like so many others ... if you keep your old gun rag mags and manuals then ypu know what I'm referring-to. Anyways, the 45-70 article is outstanding. This is Hodgdon's 75th anniversary edition so there is a lot of good historical stuff in this 2022 edition.

Next up is the Guns & Ammo 40th anniversary salute to Black Hills ammo ... really really fun read on one of my all time favorite ammo manufacturers that I became intimately familiar-with while serving at Bragg. It is jam packed with history, loads, pictures, specialty articles ... well worth putting on your coffee table if you are a fan of Black Hills Ammunition and their contributions to both our military and our sport. The MK 262 article especially ... any former snipers or sharp shooters will appreciate how that round came about and how we've all been driven crazy trying to duplicate it over the decades. (Johnny's Reloading Bench has a great series on it btw.)

When was the last time you bought a gun rag mag off the rack and/or do you subscribe to any other than the ones the NRA includes with their membership?

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Airborne Falcon said:
When was the last time you bought a gun rag mag off the rack and/or do you subscribe to any other than the ones the NRA includes with their membership?
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I almost always buy a copy of Hodgdon's "Annual Manual." Occasionally I'll buy a copy of "Handloader" or "American Handgunner" if there's an article in one of them that looks like it might be interesting to me.:thumbup:
 
Where do you find Handloader on the rack anymore? I used to subscribe but they got expensive at only six issues a year and then they would go-off the reservation with some of their articles and reviews in about four of those six. Crazy stuff. Funny ypu brought them up because I literally just finished going-back and looking at some of the issues I've missed since unsubscribing in Dec 2008 ... and I've not missed much. Now, if I could find them on the rack I'd buy the ones with articles that I need or could learn something from ... they used to be $5.99 an issue. They're probably twice that now.

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Airborne Falcon said:
Where do you find Handloader on the rack anymore? I used to subscribe but they got expensive at only six issues a year and then they would go-off the reservation with some of their articles and reviews in about four of those six. Crazy stuff. Funny ypu brought them up because I literally just finished going-back and looking at some of the issues I've missed since unsubscribing in Dec 2008 ... and I've not missed much. Now, if I could find them on the rack I'd buy the ones with articles that I need or could learn something from ... they used to be $5.99 an issue. They're probably twice that now.
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Strange, I just buy "Handloader" at Fred Meyer's or Albertson's - the two grocery stores we shop at most often. The truth is, while my wife and I are grocery shopping, I occasionally wander over to the magazine rack and thumb through the periodicals while she's doing the shopping. I don't buy "Handloader" (or any other magazine) at all unless there's an article that looks interesting to me and I don't have time to read it before my wife comes looking for me.:D
I also used to subscribe to "Handloader." However, there's one writer in there that absolutely irks me, so I quit. Every once in a while though, it still has an article (by someone other than that guy) that grabs my attention.:thumbup:
 
Riomouse911 said:
When I’m done I tear off the address label and bring them to work to help spread the gun word. :)
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I think that's a great idea, and my wife and I do the same sort of thing. We're both retired, so we don't have "places of work" to take our gun magazines to anymore, but what gun magazines we do get, we leave at the doctor's/dentist's offices, and at the church after we're through reading them.:thumbup:
 
I use to stop by the local book shop and peruse through their fairly well stocked magazine section as they carried Small Arms Review. Some great articles on what's new in weaponry as well as some very interesting historical pieces as well.
 
All good points ... a good magazine is fun to read sometimes, in print, in your hands.

I've had a lot of fun today going back through some of mine from 20 years ago and more. Some Gun Digest older than that ... 60s and 70s.

They're like time capsules.
 
Hokkmike said:
I think repetitive articles and the internet have largely subverted the usefulness of printed magazines.
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Airborne Falcon said:
All good points ... a good magazine is fun to read sometimes, in print, in your hands.
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And not to get too gross, but (no pun intended) my wife and I still have a magazine rack in the bathroom, beside the stool. A laptop in that rack would look kinda weird, and the steam from the shower would probably ruin it over time.;)
 
I used to subscribe to Guns n Ammo, then Shooting times, then Rifle and Handloader, along with Varmint Hunter and Precision Shooting. Varmint Hunter and Precision Shooting went out of business and I finally dropped all the other gun rags. How many articles do I need to read about 30-06 hunting loads or how to load cast bullets. I have a large stack of Gun Digests that I look through occasionally.
 
I used to love the shotgun news mags as a kid, my uncle was a subscriber to about a half a dozen magazines for well over a decade. American Handgunner, GUNS, Guns & Ammo, Shotgun News, American Rifleman...... He always passed them down to me when he was done with em. He actually had a Grocers Pallet in his garage that had the big corrugated cardboard walls that came up just about chest height. It was FULL as well.....

I used to spend hours just flipping through gun mags and would imagine all the possibilities. This was before the advent of smartphones, most people with a cell phone at that time had a trac-phone and it was a far cry from where things are now.

Now when I see a gun magazine in the store, I always want to grab it but for $8.99-$10.99-$11.99 I can resist. With the easy portable access of smartphones and all the information you could ever want, there are better ways to spend money....
 
Guns & Ammo seems to be trying really hard to be relevant. Its customer service phone line in Chicago sucks, however. The publishing company still owes me $13.00

Love the rifle pictured on the Hogdon's Reloading cover. Sweet. (I will buy a Super Grade Model 70 with French Walnut very, very soon).

I subscribe to American Handgunner, have for more'n twenty years. Roy needs to come back on THR and post some more. Roy? Roy? Bueller?

And, of course, American Rifleman.

I don't like taking a computer, tablet or cell phone into the bathroom with me. A paper magazine works much better.
 
Hi...
I used to subscribe to maybe 8-10 shooting/hunting magazines.
I pared it down to Handloader several years ago. Most magazines have become repetitive and paid advertisements.
I sometimes buy Guns of the Old West or American Handgunner if an article interests me...doesn't happen very often and usually because the article has photos of cowboy style firearms and leather.
 
It has been a long time since I subscribed to a gun magazine and quite sometime since I purchased one off a rack. The racks have pretty much disappeared around this area and the few that exist ether have no gun mags or only one or two that appeal to the mag dump crowd. I used to pick up a copy of "American Handgunner", "Rifle", or "Rifle Shooter" now and then when one contained some of my interests but I have not seen any of these on a rack in years. I used to find "Muzzleloader" at Hastings and would do the same as with AM but when Hastings folded there was no source anymore. They might be available on Kindle but I tried reading one magazine and with only a 10" screen it was extremely frustrating so no Kindle subscriptions for me. To be truthful I really don't miss them as most seemed to carry what I call "fluff' articles.
 
I got the 9/11 20th anniversary G&A issue for my birthday. Came with a nice fullsize mag dedicated to the latest and greatest AR15 stuff. I cant stand the G&A tv show.

The only magazine I get regularly isnt necessarily gun related, though they do have something about em in every issue. Its called Backwoodsman Magazine. Its an excellent, Texas based family run rag, in close to its 40th year. Most content is reader submitted. You can find it at local stores, at least here in KS. It also fits in every well to the mantra of THR.
 
BigBlue 94 said:
The only magazine I get regularly isnt necessarily gun related, though they do have something about em in every issue. Its called Backwoodsman Magazine. Its an excellent, Texas based family run rag, in close to its 40th year. Most content is reader submitted. You can find it at local stores, at least here in KS. It also fits in every well to the mantra of THR.
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Yeah, I love that magazine! I used to subscribe but now I pick the latest issue-up if I see it on a rack wherever I happen to be. I used to love their knife making and reloading/casting articles every now and then. So much hand drawn stuff in there ... glad to know I'm not the only one who loves those.

The family that publishes Backwoodsman is a lot like the family that publishes Handloader, Rifle, Black Powder Cartridge, etc. Wolfe family I think is the name. Little small publisher in Arizona.
 
Most of the gun magazines have become repetitive and boring. The big ones, like G&A and Shooting Times, have been empty shells for many years now. A few, like Handloader, held out until relatively recently, but even those ones now lack interesting writers and novel topics. Handgunner still is a quality product, but honestly, I stopped trying to tell one black plastic semi-auto from another back in about 2003, so a whole bunch of that magazine is wasted on me.

I can't walk through a bookstore these days, though, without bringing home an issue of Guns of the True West, Black Powder Cartridge News, or Muzzleloader. None of them really have enough content to justify a subscription, but they always stick to my fingers when I pass by the magazine rack.
 
Actually, I forgot to mention that I subscribe to Recoil. I usually find a couple articles of interest in every issue, and those folks are trying real hard to spotlight 2A activists from every walk of life and all over, as well as some pretty good interviews with people in the firearms industry. Weird but oddly interesting interview a few months back with a former porn "actress" turned gun rights activist. Plus that mag always has a feature about gun or military museums worth visiting and some interesting motor vehicle builds. Seems a bit more varied than the conventional older periodicals.
.38 Special said:
Most of the gun magazines have become repetitive and boring.
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So I had a recent (short) hospital stay, needed some reading material, and the wife brought me every gun mag that was on the shelves of Barnes and Noble (like six or seven). Five of 'em had feature articles about the new Springfield Armory SA-35. (If the gunshop I made the wife stop at on the way home after I was discharged had had an SA-35 in stock, I woulda bought it)... But, like I said -- for me, paper periodicals are good bathroom reading (I don't like to take a laptop, tablet or cell phone in there for doing the personal business). So they have some usefulness.
 
My wife and kids bought me subscriptions to Recoil and Concealed Carry Old Dog, which were rolled up in my stocking and included a note of "two more years worth coming."

So far so good. They're quality mags as far as paper and graphics go, for sure. Some decent drills suggested. Lots of gear reviews. I'm kind of at that age and stage where my old gear works for me ... although I am a bit of a flashlightaholic.

That does bring up a good point about gear reviews in a lot of the mags these days.
 
Airborne Falcon said:
My wife and kids bought me subscriptions to Recoil and Concealed Carry Old Dog, which were rolled up in my stocking and included a note of "two more years worth coming."

So far so good. They're quality mags as far as paper and graphics go, for sure. Some decent drills suggested. Lots of gear reviews. I'm kind of at that age and stage where my old gear works for me ... although I am a bit of a flashlightaholic.

That does bring up a good point about gear reviews in a lot of the mags these days.
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Very nice, when I did spring for a magazine, which has only been a half a dozen times over the last decade, it's been those Recoil magazines. They are really nicely appointed magazines with cool information. More for modern, black rifle types.....
 
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