Handgun Magazines...Will They Ever Get It?

[Jim Watson]

i didn't find any "me and joe went huntin'" articles; all technical as far as i can see. all the authors put out good stuff with a lot of empirical data to back them up.

Great. I will hit yon friend up for some back numbers and see if I want to sign back up.

Mike:
Handloader and Rifle magazines are bimonthly from the same publisher, so you can get one of their periodicals every month. I hope Rifle is up to what Murf says about Handloader.

 

[murf]

mike,

the mag comes out in february, april, june, august, october and december. if you do get a subscription, i suggest you call wolfe publishing and ask them to throw in the 50th anniversary issue (june 2016). that one has a bunch of old articles from the sixties and seventies.

murf

 

[John Joseph]

I seldom read gun magazines any more. There are a few that interest me but for the most part it is guilty as charged when it comes to being vehicles for advertising hype and little else(even American Rifleman!) There still are excellent writers & publications but you won"t see those at the news stand at the supermarket (Rifle and Handloader come readily to mind) My State (CA) Rife and Pistol Association actually puts out very enjoyable magazine.
My opinion, anyway.

 

[mikemyers]

Thanks, murf!

I wonder what they might charge for just selling me this '50th Anniversary" volume? I'll try to call them on Monday.

 

[murf]

mike,

they will sell you any issue for about five or six dollars each, if i recall.

john joseph,

handloader is on the magazine racks here in prescott, az. but, wolfe publishing is in prescott, too.

murf

 

[Confederate]

Writers will put together a story, with no idea which photos are going to be used. The story is supposed to be complete, even if there is barely any room for photos, and the photos that get printed are selected by an art director, not the writer, based on available space (which changes as the pages get laid out for printing).

I've spent most of my life as an editor and what you say is true, but if one has a staff of writers and if they hold editorial meetings, they should have some of these things ironed out. Color was prohibitively expensive in the 80s and there were more photos, but they were smaller. Most of them I kept. Today, I almost never keep the the flashy, color gloss stuff that gets published. All the covers look alike and the content is difficult to read. There doesn't seem to be much of the writers in the columns of text that accompany the photos.

The magazines printed articles based on what their readers wanted to see, and the magazine tried to create a mixture of articles, so all the readers would find something they were interested in. The magazines concentrated on things that were new, at least until the internet re-defined the word "new." Most of the time, the manufacturers were people who were just involved in the hobby/sport as the people at the magazines, so it was usually a group effort.

This is where I have to disagree. I don't think the editors really _know_ what the readers want. I can't remember the last time I read an article in a gun magazine all the way through. Magazines almost never mention older guns, except in passing. I've never seen a single article critical of the Glock's (and other) alleged safeties on some of these polymer, striker fired pistols, even though there are many experienced gun handlers and instructors who are critical of such safeties.

Advertisers were usually more involved with the magazine, sending product samples for reviews, and helping support the magazine financially. Still, if the magazine thought something was interesting, or "news", they'd go out of their way to request a sample for doing a review.

Yes, and that's the primary reason were getting what we're getting. Switching from gun magazines to car magazines, why is it that cars today have no "bumpers"? And why are the fore and aft the contact areas painted? Or why are the front parts of the cars are so close to the ground (so that going down into even a small hole (in the snow or even off road) can throw the entire front section out of alignment)? But try finding a car that doesn't have all these things, and who decided to give them to consumers?

I felt the same way when both S&W and Ruger decided to dump their medium framed guns in favor of their new 686/681 and GP-100s. I'm not saying the new guns aren't great, but less than a year earlier gun magazines had touted the S&W 66 and the Ruger Security-Six as the perfect outdoor guns. After that, the gun rags went completely silent about such guns. The new "L" frames and GP-100s were hailed as great competition pistols and range guns, but neither gun was offered with light weight 3- and 4-inch barrels for campers or hikers.They took the great outdoor guns and gave us boat anchors, and the gun writers didn't say a thing or suggest there might be markets for lighter trail guns.

Anyway, there's not much we can do except publish our own magazines, and that's not likely. I'd like to see articles for general handgun lovers -- articles on long discontinued guns and not so long discontinued guns; technical articles, honest test reviews and articles on stopping power and such. Shrink the photos to two columns or less for most and let advertisers know that they will have zero editorial input.

 

[mikemyers]

.......Switching from gun magazines to car magazines, why is it that cars today have no "bumpers"? And why are the fore and aft the contact areas painted? Or why are the front parts of the cars are so close to the ground (so that going down into even a small hole (in the snow or even off road) can throw the entire front section out of alignment)? But try finding a car that doesn't have all these things, and who decided to give them to consumers?........

The same people who make mobile phones so skinny there's no room for a decent battery - stylists - who try to make us think that we want what they're showing us? Who really wants a watch that needs to be charged every day? Or a phone that needs to be charged twice a day? Or cars that looked like they were made from a rocketship? Stylists, and marketing, trying to get people to think they need the latest product. Not that this is anything new. Advertising.

Anyway, the magazines I worked for couldn't afford to do the things you mention, and one by one, almost all of them went out of business for various reasons. I agree with your comments though.


Quite a few people I know appreciate the high quality of guns made many years ago, by skilled craftsmen, not automated machines. Maybe one of the reasons it seems like we had better writers way back when, is because the products they reviewed way back when, were more interesting? Hand made, vs. mass production?



Question - years ago, kids knew how to take things apart and re-assemble them. What percentage of today's kids do you think know which way to tighten or loosen a bolt? Or how to "fix" things? Are they going to buy a magazine showing pretty, shiny things, that are perfect out of the box, or a product that needs to be broken in? How many people that own guns nowadays have any clue as to how to take them apart for cleaning?

I think many of us responding to this thread (me, for example) are used to the way things used to be, when people could, and did, work on maintaining their handguns, and appreciated quality guns. Maybe magazines seem to be changing, because the market for the magazines is changing. Maybe reloading, and cleaning, are going the way of the typewriter, or cameras.

 

[Potatohead]

Heck I still love handgun magazines and imagine I always will. In my opinion they singlehandedly revolutionized the whole industry.

Who would enjoy having to reload after every shot? Certainly not me.