Shotgun News , getting lesser in advertisers

[nathan]

I used to love to go through this gun mag back in the 1990s until the early 2000s. Thats where i learned to buy direct from dealers and get wholesale prices and had them sent to my FFL dealer. Since the internet came about i never bothered to even look at them at the Walmart Mag SEction.

I was at Walmart checking on ammo and the same old story. I did see one box of WWB .40 SW , weird to see the least inside an empty glass cabinet. Then i proceeded to the magazine section. I picked up the Shotgun News and was so surprised its as thinner , or one third of its thickness in pages compared back many years ago. It has the usual stuff advertised but gone are the big names like Backman and Pawn of Dallas and JGsales of Phoenix , AZ.

 

[MtnCreek]

They still selling those pre '81 DIAS's?

 

[CoRoMo]

I would imagine that most all hardcopy publications are going the way of the dinosaur; not just SGN.

...i learned to buy direct from dealers and get wholesale prices and had them sent to my FFL dealer.

Not sure I follow. If you buy "direct from dealers", how are you getting wholesale prices, and why then would you have it sent to yet another dealer? Doesn't sound like you are buying 'direct from dealers', not your local dealers anyway. Having them sent to your FFL would mean that you are acquiring them 'indirectly', 'through' your dealer; not 'directly' 'from'.

Maybe you meant to say something else.

 

[JohnM]

Yep, most of those great print magazines are fast disappearing.
I really hate to see it happen.
Nothing better to me than sitting down in a comfortable chair and reading through the pages.

 

[morcey2]

If you missed JG Sales, I'm surprised. They have been in every one that I've bought including one just a week or two ago.

Matt

 

[Dr. Sandman]

JG was in the last SGN I bought a few weeks ago. And, as the OP said, more people are not "bothering to look at them", so one can expect that the publication is in decline. Personally, I love SGN and I pick one up every now and then to take on trips and to read in the john. One could even put it in the privy. I could see using it for hygenic purposes, unlike that glossy and uncomfortable Field and Stream.

 

[silicosys4]

I can see advertisers temporarily pulling ads if they don't have the inventory

 

[AlexanderA]

I used to subscribe to Shotgun News, back in the 1980's when I had my FFL. It was the indispensible "bread and butter" for anyone in the gun business. Recently, I re-subscribed. What a difference! Not only is it thinner in bulk, but it also has proportionately more editorial content. (This is actually good.) Clearly, advertisers have moved to the Internet. Regarding some of the larger advertisers, their print ads in the SN might as well be disregarded, since they have almost no relation to what they actually have in stock. Print media, in comparison to the Internet, have a long lead time -- and that's highly problematic in a market such as this one.

 

[bannockburn]

I also use to subscribe to Shotgun News but this was back in the '70's. It use to come out three times a month and usually one of the editions had more pages than the other two. There was a ton of stuff in those pages and I would spend hours just looking through each and every ad in it. There was something for everyone in Shotgun News and it wasn't just limited to FFL dealers either. It was a veritable treasure trove of gun parts, accessories, scopes and mounts, military surplus gear, and many other collectible items. It sort of reminded me of the old department stores "Wish Book" toy catalog at Christmas time.

 

[BearGriz]

I loved looking at that magazine! My neighbor would give me his old copies in the mid-to-late '90's, and this teenager would sit there and drool over every page! I do recall it being rather thick, but I would practically memorize the content.

 

[ltcboy]

The only thing that irks me about SGN is when Fortier and escpecially Coffield write their articles and refer to themselves in 3rd person tense. "Coffield says this.....Coffield does that.....Blah blah bla"

Aggravating.





Mike