The author's bolt action rifles were the assault weapons of their day up to the middle of the 20th century. What was he smoking?
I think it's a generational thing. He appears to be close to my parents' age, and the "latest and greatest" rifles during his formative years undoubtedly were the Mauser-pattern bolt rifles. And
his parents or grandparents probably wagged their heads about the newfangled military-style bolt-actions that the young whippersnappers were hitting the hunting fields with, since
real shooters used lever-actions and single shots and "the only reason to want a bolt rifle would be to satisfy Sergeant York fantasies."
Fast forward to the present, and shooters of my age and younger (38) are now the young whippersnappers interested in the more modern designs and being berated for it. But a lot of my generation cut our teeth on small-caliber autoloaders, and it's even more true of those younger than I.
He harps on the "Rambo" connection he sees...but I was only eleven years old when the Rambo movie came out, and a lot of AR/AK owners today probably weren't even born yet in 1982. So Rambo doesn't even enter my head when I see an AR-15 (I wasn't even old enough to see the movie and have no idea if he used AR's or not), but to someone of his age, perhaps it does.
So I understand why he may not have any inclination to shoot modern-looking rifles. That doesn't excuse his insults or closed-mindedness, though.