Rant: When did gun rags become 10 bucks?

[Bainx]

It's all about marketing. Supply and demand. The publishers and promotion people know exactly how much "the sheeple" will pay to see a movie. That is why it costs what it does to go see a movie. Same with the car you buy.

Congrats George Hill, you have separated yourself from "The Sheeple"!

 

[mini14jac]

It amazes me too.
Makes you wonder how good the market for gun magazines really is.
I will subscribe occasionally. Then you pay $2-3 per issue.
Or, I will spend the $20 on a good book instead of two magazines.

Like others, if I want good information I come here.
Or the Glock forum, 1911 forum, Smith & Wesson forum, Ruger forum, Ak forum.............................

That is one of the great things about the Internet. (thanks Al Gore!)
If I want to know the real scoop about a computer printer, gun, camera, etc., I just post a question, and the next thing you know, a dozen people who have actually used the product will let me know what they think about it.
Cool!

 

[geegee]

The stuff in magazines pales in comparison to what you can get onthese forums.

Amen to that. geegee

 

[280PLUS]

heh, i'm way to cheap for $10 gun rags,,,

i read em at the range for free,

so what if its 6 months old,

if you havent seen it yet...

 

[Steve Smith]

I freely admit that I'd rather look at Nagata's work than anything Playboy has to offer.

No offense, Cratz2, but if you had ever read a Playboy cover to cover, you'd know that besides some great photo layouts, the magazine itself is a quality production. Makes for an enjoyable read. Good articles and plenty of text, rather than the rediculous amounts of ads in the gun rags. Gun rags just make me mad (like George?) that I spent the money for ads.

Playboy ranks with Popular Science and Popuar Mechanics, but the gun rags rank with the National Enquirer. Sad.

 

[Dan Johnson]

George;
Was this some sort of Internet experiment? I have often noted how someone can make a post blasting most anything and a flood of yes men will rally to the cause without any pause to consider if the original poster has the facts straight. Fact is, most gun magazines sell from 3.99 to 4.99 and Wal-mart discounts that price. G&A is 3.99. Tell us where we can get a brick of .22s for 3.99. I want some. I'm not saying the price of magazines is cheap or even reasonable, but can anyone name one monthly gun magazine that costs 10 bucks?

Dan Johnson

 

[Brad Johnson]

It's marketing hype to help them sell subscriptions. You've all seen the blow cards that read something like "Save 75% off the newsstand price." Subscriptions mean ad dollars, so they will sacrifice a few newsstand sales in order to make it happen.

Brad

 

[George Hill]

No. No experiment.
Looking at the newsstand, I would pick up the gunrags and look at the price printed right on the cover.
9.9something was the price on several gun rags.
6.something was the price on others.
Guns & Ammo was the cheapest, I don't remember what it was... but it was more than it used to be.

And If I wanted to just say anything I wanted to - I probably wouldnt be posting under my real name.

 

[BerettaNut92]

I'm tempted to buy whatever magazine that is that has the Beretta Billenium (steel frame, cock and lock and carbon fiber grips baby!!!) on the cover...

 

[4v50 Gary]

The path to wisdom is never cheap? Well, you don't necessarily have to spend $ for wisdom. Wisdom & knowledge are two different critters. Anyone can get knowledge but wisdom is something that is acquired with time. Enuff philosophical stuph.

$10 for a gunrag is nuts. If I'm lucky, I pay $10 or less for good, used book - preferably about weapons. Pretty pictures and rehash of the same old controversy (9mm v. 45, rev. v. pistols, AK v. AR) isn't worth the ducats. Now, if those mags actually taught you something like servicing your gun or some history behind it (new stuph and not rehash).

 

[JohnBT]

I pay $12.99 for the Double Gun Journal at Barnes & Noble. A subscription would be 4 issues a year for $39. Great color pics of guns I'll likely never own.

www.gunshop.com/dgj.htm

I should probably subscribe to Precision Shooting too instead of paying $5.99 an issue at the gun shop. I don't feel too badly about it though, by the time my dad and uncle read them and get them back to me I'm ready to look at them again.

John

 

[sm]

Now I appreciate SWAT, I'm learning some stuff, I'm not being "inundated" by a flood of this is what our ads money says you gotta have. I respect that.

Books, I do not know how many times over the years I have re -read Brister's Book. I use it still as a reference. I paid too much at the time because I couldn't wait, ordered it and paid too much in shipping (priority).

Being a broke older return to college student, I raid my gunsmiths' collection. I make notes to myself to check my friends used Bookstore and tell him to be on the lookout for some things.

I traded an old psych book for a Ruark book I wanted...I'd rather read Ruark, truth is there is probably more real life application learned from it than psych. Or maybe Freud was right.

 

[Zip06]

Ten bucks, thats outrageous. When they went to $4.50 I decided to start buying books at the gunshow. In the mags everything is recycled. Every gun is a "must have." Every technique is "Tactical." Wonder bullets; goofy ways of measuring group sizes; nothing is objective; never a bad or imperfect gun. There is more info contained in a single thread there on THR than most of the mags.

 

[Black_Talon]

You guys gotta get in tight with the honcos at the gun rags so you get comped subscriptions. I haven't paid for an issue of AH since the mid 80s. Stopped buying G&A and Shooting TImes at about the same time. My gun rag budget consists of an occaisional GWLE or some such. The internet's so much more fun and it's more up-to-date anyway.