Gun Magazines You'd Read

[Confederate]

Sam, you have some valid points. It's always dangerous to go back too far in the past without good reason. It used to be that color photos were just too expensive to print, for example. So publishers early on had to set up their contracts in one of two ways. First, they could set up their publications to have no color or, two, they could opt for some color--and some publishers decided on one or the other. If a publication had color options, they could opt for so many photos in any given month being in color. Black and white pubs generally had one color page, front and back, as the cover. This would give you a front and back and front inside and back inside, folded down the middle. This would be stapled over the rest of the publication, where the rear outside and inside would generally be ads and the front outside would be the magazine cover. The front inside was usually negotiable. Those with the color option could opt for some inside photos and they would generally have to commit to having a certain amount of color photos per issue.

Now I'm not advocating black and white photos because they're inexpensive, but because they look good and add diversity to the publication. But even if people love color all the time, present mags still use it too much. There's also too much of a waste of space, as I said. Instead of monster photos, I'd rather see smaller photos. Most good magazines use anywhere from 2-4 columns, and can juggle between them when certain rules are followed. For maximum photo utilization, three columns works well for horizontal or vertical photos. Two columns work better with vertical photos. Four columns work better with horizontal photos. Horizontals can stretch across all columns regardless of column number, but verticals are sometimes hard to fit because of proportion. Thus, regardless of photos in a story, they can usually be fitted to the story conveniently and large enough for readers to see clearly what they're looking for. So why do we have entire color pages when they're clearly not needed? Getting back to black and white photos, I think they break up the monotony of all color and, like b&w movies, they actually make magazines look better in places. (If some of you people who take videos outdoors of your family and kids, try to use the b&w feature sometimes.) As someone who has one foot in b&w TV and the other in color TV, I appreciate the strengths of both. Even so, I'll completely give up b&w if magazines would give me smaller photos and make photos on the covering pages of reviews smaller and please, no more lights down the barrels.

By freeing up pages, more text and more (smaller) photos can be used.

Like I said, too much space is being wasted by color Photoshopped photos. Less flash and more sizzle will make for a better steak!

 

[Steel Talon]

Hardly ever anymore for the past 10 plus years. Use to be an avid reader when the mags were informative, not too heavily biased and shared useful how to projects.

My last hold out was Shooting times, but when Jamerson left it declined rapidly for me. Now once in a blue moon I'll grab a shotgun news.

I purchased my XD when they first came out based on information I gathered from the magazines.

Off the NET from the forums is where I get my gun reading now. Raw real time thoughts. However I tire of the you tube reviews its all the same. When it comes from the "In The Know Fella" that get watched regularly, and have internet cred....

It's still all the same. There's the one guy that people like allot, and he's quite knowledgeable His narrative about the Rifle,pistol,shotgun,ammo (all sent to him) is the same basic mix. Ability to drive the "firearm" Comfort / reliability. Ammo seems to work fine. Great people at Green Rocket Bullet Works for sending me these fine cartridges.

Then he goes about shooting the same steel targets, gong, swingers, plastic bottles,watermelons. It doesn't change. That gets boring to me so I choose not to watch to many you tube videos from these people.

 

[Sam1911]

In those three cases, how truly useful do you think it'd be to the reading public to see a couple samples from each company were unusable?

...

It's deemed not worth taking up space because it has insufficient benefit to justify it.

...

No sarcasm intended, but what would make that same information more valuable in a gunmag?

Denis, my point with it would be to increase the credibility of the magazine. Some readers understand that life is not all a bed of roses, and clunkers get through. But the gun press has a well-earned reputation for turning a completely blind eye to that reality and that causes a disconnect between the magazine (and its writers) and the reader.

Now I understand that you're saying that none of this comes from a desire to deceive or to sugar-coat the facts to the benefit of the advertiser, but due to very practical realities of how writing and reviewing work. However, surely you've heard it often enough that you must understand -- this is just how such reporting is seen. How could it not be? When you go on a gun forum you will see in any discussion of the merits of a gun, that 20 people were perfectly happy, one is utterly miserable, and five had some issue that the manufacturer had to fix. Or some variation on that theme.

But when you read the gun press every article is presented as though NONE of those six malcontents' experiences were part of the picture. We know that is a false view of the industry but (for perfectly innocuous reasons) the press is FAILING here.

I understand that you got two Amalites that didn't work, but other guys got guns that ran fine. No worries. Let them write their glowing articles. Let your publisher put his note in the "Oh Crap" corner -- not as a long article about what went wrong, but just a note that, yeah...we got two that didn't work. That's not perfectly balanced reporting, but it's closer.

...

Having said all that -- perhaps the real (and valid) answer is, if the magazines are selling, who cares about credibility? It's not like the most discerning, knowledgeable shooters and gun buyers are getting their info from print these days anyway. Consumer item periodicals -- especially gun, car, truck, boat, and similar magazines -- are mostly about selling the fantasy. Show me lots of hot close-up photos and give me a little basic get-to-know-ya text.

"I like long walks on the beach, the color green, the smell of Hoppes No. 9, a good tight sling, and my major turn-ons are Varget and a 168 gr. match boat-tail..."

Nobody really want to find out Miss September snores, has a rocky relationship with her mother, has an irritating laugh, and suffers occasional bouts with irritable bowel syndrome.

 

[bassdogs]

Just scanned the last couple of pages of posts, so I hope I'm not repeating points already made. I don't read or buy magazines of any kind. For decades now they are nothing but platforms for advertizers and promos for new products. Gun mags are no different than travel, womens fashion, DYI Home Improvement, or parenting mags. One or two articles or an interview with an expert of sorts, and a hundred pages of ads and promos.

When I want to find out about a subject, new product offering, or help in making a decision I come to a forum like this and read what people have to say. I did exactly that when I prepared for an RV trip to Alaska last Fall. Thanks to KodiacBeers and others for their feedback. A gun magazine would have directed me to the latest or biggest weapon to answer my inquiry about a SD weapon in big bear country. Instead I got down to earth suggestions from people who have been there and experienced [some way to closely] the threat that I was anxious about. In the end, my wife and I had a wonderful fall trip to the wilds of Ak and never had to draw a weapon in SD. I am now the proud owner of a short barrel 870 12guage and am already planning my next adventure that will take us across Canada as we drive to Ak and deliver a new RV to a rental company in Anchorage.

 

[DPris]

I do understand that people want to see the "other side of the coin".
Maybe, in addition to understanding the space limitations, it could help if you consider some additional thoughts.

Possibly first & foremost is that the gunmags are based (primarily) on the idea of illustrating a particular gun or product & what it did for the author. Not on widely reporting the goods, the bads, the mediocres, and the failures of the firearms industry at large.

Readers read to gain information on what the gun is & what they can reasonably expect it to do.
Most readers understand lemons get out, why waste space saying "We got a lemon this time, back to our regularly scheduled show."?

We write about products that do work, editors & publishers see more value in such uses of space than in covering, even in a limited fashion, clunkers.
We simply can't cover everthing out there, good AND bad, so we go with what works.
You could view it from the perspective of understanding that, accept that the gunmag can't be truly complete, and just use what's there to get as much as you can out of it, realizing it's only one source of information, and can't realistically be expected to do it all.

We are not here to tell you what gun not to buy.

We are not Consumer Reports, testing multiple samples side by side in a lab setting to declare a best buy.
We are not here to regale with hunting stories.
We are no longer living in the 1960s when travel was not as common, audiences were not as sophisticated, African safaris were still exciting & novel, and fun border stories were do-able.

We are no longer living in earlier times where the focus was more directed toward articles such as "Making The $15 Surplus Mauser Into A First Class Deer Rifle", or "Making Your Own Gunpowder Out Of Used Innertubes And Nitric Acid".

Today's audience is much more sophisticated, has much more money to spend, is (in noticeable trending) shifting away from traditional hunting uses & hunting stories, and wants to know about the latest & greatest in higher numbers than those who ARE still in hunting mode. (Yes, I know- still a lot of hunters, and still a lot of older readers who like the older stuff. )
But, the numbers are with NEW. The numbers are with a younger demographic. The numbers are with tactical & self-defense.
The numbers cannot be ignored.

I recall when I was first starting to do the SHOT Show back in the mid-90s. LE & "tactical" took up one relatively small corner of the exhibit floor. Since then, it's expanded exponentially & spread out all over the floors. What used to be maybe 5% of the show space is easily up to 40% (probably higher), and if you knew how big the SHOT Show is, you'd understand that's a huge market indicator.
That also came with a progressive reduction in general outdoors & hunting space.

While there is still a market for those who like to do it themselves, the general interest mags have to throw in a mix that leans away from the do-it-yourselfer. You may see a hunting piece or two, a shotgun piece, a couple handgun pieces, a reloader's column, and so on, with a general approach to a general audience.
If you have a more specialized interest, you go to more specialized mags, and today there more of those than there were 40 years ago, to satisfy that specialized interest.

No single general-format magazine can satisfy everybody.

As for the "Same Factor", just what would you expect? There are only so many things to shoot at, so many ways to describe a gun, so many terms to use, and so many ways to convey impressions.

Remember when you hated doing a term paper for a highschool or college class?
Consider we do the equivalent up to three or four times a month.
Just not possible to come up with fresh & exciting prose after doing that for 20+ years.
Or new & exciting testing protocols.
Template? Repetitive? See the three lines above this one.

It's not a perfect system. Neither, by FAR, is gaining info from gun forums.
You use whatever sources you can find, realizing there are drawbacks to each & that each is incomplete to some degree.

Credibility is important, but the gunmags are far from the only source of firearms info that struggles with that issue.
Denis

 

[Steel Talon]

There are only so many things to shoot at, so many ways to describe a gun, so many terms to use, and so many ways to convey impressions.

Exactly.. It gets boring reading the same old stuff.

I understand for a business to stay solvent you must appeal to your demographic, specifically you need to be cultivating the younger group. I'm guessing that even the younger group seems to quickly bore of the material presented?

And to make money in this media, A publisher needs $pon$or$ (advertisers),so a symbiotic relationship grows between writer and sponsor. If sponsor A is paying XXX worth of the rag$ income and providing product. Then that publisher is going to focus XXX attention in pro articles and space. If sponsor B is only giving X they will receive according treatment. I might be wrong but I doubt it.

 

[Dogguy]

Gun writers like Skeeter were more than just good gun writers. They were good writers. Skeeter would spin a story that got you involved and then by the end of it you might realize the subject of the gun was only a minor point in the whole tale. Wish there was more of that around today. Most gun magazine articles today are little more than ad copy.

I haven't bought a gun magazine in years. Every month I get an email from a couple of magazines that link me to their electronic issue. I always check them out but seldom read the articles anymore. When I do read an article, I figure it could have been written by a soulless computer using plug-in phrases. Really, how many times in your lifetime can you look at an article and photos about a 1911 pistol without just getting that thousand-yard stare?

 

[Mike OTDP]

As I mentioned before, it's the sameness that is the most annoying. You could subscribe to a magazine for about three years...then start realizing that the stories were being reworked and recycled, like the old guy telling the same sea story over and over.

The most frustrating part is that it doesn't have to be that way. There are five Olympic pistol events - yet the last time I saw an article on an Olympic-grade pistol was in the mid-1990s. Instead, we get Gunsmith Xs custom 1911 - which happens to be pretty much identical to Gunsmith A through W's custom 1911s.

The material is out there, you just have to be willing to print it.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

I have read these same comments about motorcycle magazines today. Humanity is the same across the spectrum.

 

[DPris]

An Olympic pistol is a limited-interest item few would buy.
The 1911, on the other hand, is extremely popular.
You should be able to see which one gets the coverage & why.
Denis

 

[JohnBT]

"Most readers understand lemons get out, why waste space saying "We got a lemon this time, back to our regularly scheduled show."?"

Precisely.

All the gun reviewers do is write a brief overview of the model and show you what you can probably expect to see if you get one. Anybody who expects promises that everything will work out perfectly if they buy one needs to call mom for a hug and quit reading gun mags.

I believe it to be completely unrealistic for a gun mag to buy 50 copies of one model and torture test them and accuracy test them and go over them all with a fine toothed comb and report the percentages of this, that and the other. It's just a little show and tell is all it is.

I still have a subscription to Precision Shooting and frequently buy Shotgun Journal and some of the specialty mags. They have interesting articles, many of them in depth and written by people with a specific interest.

John

 

[hAkron]

I read just read them for the articles...oh, who am I kidding, I like to drool over the pictures.

Honestly though, I don't put a whole lot of stock in the reviews, I like the factual info (this gun holds 15 rounds, this gun comes in 2 finishes, etc) and I like the ads, especially the ones for companies I may not have otherwise heard of. I recently started reading Shotgun news and I think it's a worthwhile publication.

 

[JohnBT]

Seriously, the pictures in the magazines are easier for me to see than looking at the same gun in the gun store with the bad lights and my dirty glasses.

John

 

[jhco50]

None. I got tired of all of the articles being about semi-auto handguns and black rifles. To top it off, all of it is tactical and I don't have much tact.

 

[Rexster]

I do miss the writings of Bill Jordan, Charlie Askins, Skeeter Skelton, Tom Ferguson, and others of that era! Jim Wilson wrote good stuff, too, more recently, but his writing has faded away, too. To answer the title question, I used to read many, but today, only pick up the occasional "American Handgunner" with any regularity, and it is not nearly what it used to be. The propaganda from the NRA that pretends to be journalism usually goes straight into the recycle bin. I really should check to see if I can request "none of the
above" as my magazine choice.

It is not just the firearms press that has gone downhill in the USA. To really learn anything from a bicycling or photography magazine nowadays, I usually pick up something published in the UK. The Brits still know how to write and inform. Of course, there is not much new the Brits can say about most firearms, as their firearms culture is nearly extinct.

 

[Sam1911]

It is not just the firearms press that has gone downhill in the USA.

What sells, and what is good, valuable, cherish-able, and worthwhile, are now -- and probably always have been -- somewhat at odds.

Go back much over 200 years ago and only the intelligentsia and various educated classes could read and/or could afford printed materials, therefore more printed material was important, weighty stuff. Today we have a very high literacy rate. Most residents of the world's developed countries can read and can afford printed material of some sort. But the ability to recognize words does not inherently connote the education, cognizance, and attention span required to appreciate good, informative, and well-crafted writing of any form.

So we find the world of popular print media has developed to sell the largest possible units of low-cost periodicals, by giving the broadest market something that matches their simplest wants. Lots of pictures, short, light, bare-bones articles not running more than a page and a half, and only on subjects that are flash and sizzle and exciting. Mental junk food.

For most purchasers of a gun rag out of the magazine rack at the local supermarket, finding inside a 4,000 word essay on the development of the S&W Triple Lock, or the mechanics of bullet stabilization, or the technical reasons behind the problems encountered during the early fielding of the M-16 rifle in Vietnam would be like biting into a big chunk of carrot in their piece of chocolate cake, or finding the can of Coke is really full of skim milk.

 

[JohnBT]

"finding inside a 4,000 word essay on the development of "

That's why I like Precision Shooting and Double Gun Journal. Of course, they don't publish lengthy pieces on the finer points of difference between, say, a 2nd generation and 3rd generation Glock or how to use a Judge for 1000-yard benchrest and Olympic trap.

 

[kb58]

...One such was a new revolver model that interested me personally & was generating a lot of gun forum buzz. First sample had multiple issues, but the consumer interest in it was high & I requested a second sample. Which was every bit as bad as the first. Game over. Guns returned unfired, article cancelled...

To me, this is news in itself. I understand that without a product to review, there can't be a review. However, when you order two units and neither worked - that is worthy of reporting. It certainly won't make points with the manufacturer, but it would be helpful to potential buyers to know that the product has issues.

This thread is rather timely because I happen to be writing an article about how human nature and random chance affect perceptions, and this is a good case in point. The data you were supplied (two defective units) was not passed on to readers, and by doing so, biases the data and gives a slanted view of the product to readers - simply by not publishing anything. In a way, it's a "complement by omission" where since nothing positive could be said, nothing is said, but it results in an uneven playing field because the bad news is left out. I'm not saying you personally, all of us do the same thing in both directions. A product is either "wonderful" or "it sucks", neither view really results in true objective data.

Regarding the comment, "A writer just can't win", I have to agree. If he prints good news, he's a "shil", and if he prints bad news, he gets black-listed. And if he gets a defective product, does he print the bad news, or assume he got that 1 out of 100 failure and not print anything, biasing the results. Once money is brought into the equation it becomes much more difficult to balance real data against writing an article that exists simply to pay the bills.

I think that the problem is we live in a litigious society, that the fear of lawsuits has scared everyone into printing only feel-good stories. Far and few are articles that say, "this product is very bad." It just doesn't happen. Look at American car TV shows versus British car TV shows, and there's a huge difference. On "Top Gear", if a car sucks, they say, "This car sucks." Here, it's so watered down as to say very little at all, ending up as some video, some words, and little else.

I haven't read magazine in years because of all the comments about - the utter "sameness" of the reviews which result in a uniform color of gray as far as real information goes. I find it much more useful to read forums and actual user comments - good and bad. Sure, the outspoken few who are pissed at a particular manufacturer make a disproportionate amount of noise, but it's still a far more (perceived) sense of objectivity I see in the forums versus print media.

I think the reason why forums tend to win out is because there's a perception that because no one's getting paid, the objectivity is better, rightly or wrongly deserved.

 

[DPris]

KB58,
Didn't I mention that both samples I got were received at the same time other writers were reviewing the same model & liking them? Thought I did.

Tell me how useful it'd be to the reading public to see Writers A,B & C wrote up samples they liked while Writer D returned two bad guns, and cancelled his piece.

OK, D got two bad ones & decided to let the article go.
The other three guys got good ones & wrote 'em up that way.

Conclusion? Stuff happens. Some days you get a good one, some days you get a bad one. Some days you get two bad ones.
Happens to writers, happens to readers.
Would it have changed the world as we know it if I'd tried to "report it"? Nope.
Would it have caused anybody to not buy that gun if I had? Seriously doubt it.

You see forum posts all the time about purchasers having to return new guns because of malfunctions or QC issues. You'll also see some "Now, that just ain't right" responses, after which everybody who wanted one of the guns in question still buys it, the company involved still makes it, and the world goes on.

One cancellation I did about 15 years ago involved a particular very cheap semi-auto carbine I thought was poorly designed & shoddily built. I wouldn't own one as a gift, I wouldn't recommend anybody bet their life or their money on it. I saw nothing to write about.

That one's still in production today, and it has a certain following among people who don't care how it's built because it's cheap & it has "a GREAT warrantee".
It's occasionally mentioned on the forums, followed by immediate accusations of Gun Snobbery directed at anybody who dares to make a derogatory comment about it.

My opinion, had I "reported" what I disliked about the thing, would have generated the same responses, would not have swayed knowledgeable buyers out of acquiring one when they were perfectly capable of coming to the same conclusions I did & talking themselves out of buying it, and those who saw only "cheap" and "warrantee" would have gone right on buying them.

Show me the benefit of wasting print space in these instances?
Denis

 

[Confederate]

I'm not surprised by any of the criticisms here. But what did surprise me was that Denis did not think that going backwards would work. Many of us old farts here remember when color TV was first introduced. BATMAN, GET SMART, I DREAM OF JEANIE and other programs gave us vivid colors even if the writing was pretty much the same. Then color came to gun magazines and suddenly everything was high gloss and huge! It wasn't just that the writers we loved were gone. It's that everything changed for the worst! I just got my recent GUNS & AMMO and it was, lie the previous issue, awful. Talk about wasted space!

Now my suggestion was to step backward. Make articles more substantive and shoot photos in black & white. Denis, of course, doesn't think this will work. It's not that I have nostalgic feelings about black & white; it's that black & white actually produces superior tones and more detail in dark areas. It also would detract from all the glaring color! I also would drop the facing pages photos with type over the dark areas. In short, Denis doesn't think stepping back in time and focusing more on content and less on gloss is the answer. But I invite readers to check out any monthly magazine and check out how little content there is. (One article in G&A was about a gun manufacturer that produced two identical autos, one several ounces lighter than the other. The photo showed one gun, with a stainless finish, next to its plastic twin--only the latter was covered by two stainless clips that totally eclipsed it!) I was hardly flabbergasted as this is what I've come to expect. But I still think going back and doing it the way it used to be done is a major step in fixing the problem. Denis, however, thinks shooting photos in black & white would be rejected by readers. I have one article, a roundup of .44 magnums from a 1980s magazine, where the B&W photo of the revolvers takes up one half of one page. The facing page has no photos, but the next page does. But they're fairly small. The article, by Dick Metcalf, is excellent and (I think I mentioned this), and the article is followed by a short write-up of each of the gun manufacturers featured in the article. It's a magazine I've kept and it's well worn from reading. I doubt anyone saves any gun magazines now, and if they do, I'd be stunned if they go back and reread them.

Some anti-gun people liken the modern gun magazine to pornography, but they miss the fact that car magazines, knife magazines and others have followed the same sad format. These editors could learn a thing or two by looking at computer magazines or, better, going back to the 80s and doing it the way it used to be done. Of course no one will listen to an old, half-dead fossil like myself. We'll just keep going down the same sad path.




Color? Who needs it? Go back to B&W!

.
.

 

[DPris]

Con,
It's not that Denis THINKS going back to the 80s wouldn't work, it's Denis KNOWS going back to the 80s wouldn't work.

I started writing professionally 22 years ago, submitting B&W photos. I saw the color creep in. I saw B&W reduced greatly.
I also saw an increase in sales as color became more prominent.
I was the first guy to go digital with my editors in the late 90s.
I've been here, on the inside, watching trends develop, watching the gun market change, watching the publishing process itself evolve, and evolving along with that in terms of both editorial and technical requirements, for quite a while now.

Digging in & refusing to move beyond 1985 is a recipe for a publisher to go bankrupt, and in a big hurry.

Going retro just ain't in the cards, and it'd lose sales to just about everybody but you.
And you, unfortunately, don't spend enough to keep the mags afloat.

You might want to give it a rest. Your vision isn't going to happen.
Denis

 

[twofifty]

A very enjoyable discussion worthy of J-school.
Thanks for the insights into an industry that is under siege from all sides.

 

[DPris]

Happy to oblige.
Denis

 

[kb58]

My opinion, had I "reported" what I disliked about the thing, would have generated the same responses, would not have swayed knowledgeable buyers out of acquiring one when they were perfectly capable of coming to the same conclusions I did ...

But how do these knowledgable buyers acquire this knowledge? From personal experience, talking to others, and reading. By omitting negative data, the only data in the public domain ends up artificially positive. What we end up with is a if-you-can't-say-something-nice-don't-say-anything-at-all style of journalism and indeed, that's what most magazines contain these days. I still say the root cause of this is the threat of lawsuits...

To get back on-topic, that's why I don't read magazines, due to suspecting that they're a poor choice for objective and balanced reporting.

 

[Sam1911]

I think the take-home messages here, both from Denis and from the other posters, are these:

1) The gun press is continuing to evolve in a direction that sells magazines,
2) Those evolutionary steps are not very appealing to the more advanced or knowlegible enthusiast, falling short in both quality of information and credibility of the periodical as a resource,
3) The disappointment of the knowlegable few cannot be a compelling force on the publishers to change because the huge majority of magazine buyers don't know or care about point 2, as evidenced by point 1.

In other words, making the magazines better would not sell more magazines. So don't expect them to get better.