Up until now I respected Ayoob.

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But handloaders do know the composition of their loads. Show me one that doesn't! OK, we all know there is one out there somewhere but in general if we handloaders must prove ourselves innocent under the presumption of guilt then all the prosecution needs to do is walk up to our bench and grab a handful for testing. We make them by the hundreds!

The reason handloads can perform better than factory is because of stricter quality control. Not only would the results be reproducible but reproducible to a higher degree than factory ammo. We keep records for our own safety. Though we consider this to be done for our own physical safety I don't see why such documentation would be a bad thing at trial. It can't be anything but useful for proving us innocent if indeed we are.

There needs to be no misconception about how handloading is done. Go ask anyone who handloads, I am not blowing smoke here. Handloading is not some mysterious black magic, it's very much scientific. Yes we experiment with many loads at the range but those are not used randomly in application.

There can be differences of opinion as to WHY it's done and some may care about such things, they are free to do so, but I won't because my reasons are defensible. If anyone has a problem with that they can write their congressman. Maybe he cares? :neener: Hehe :D

Mas is absolutely right about the internet Ninja thing. I've read advice so ignorant I wanted to puke! It's not so bad here on THR because the format allows for immediate feedback but there are boards where the interaction is limited due to format and/or censorship considerations to the point of allowing misleading statements go unchallenged. I won't post on those boards and simply reading them fills me with dread and apprehension. Does Mas think SOME of his readers are too stupid to sort these things out for themselves? I do, if someone is stupid enough to post those things publicly then there is someone stupid enough to believe them. So Mas is trying to be helpful? That's mighty nice of him.

Technical disputes aside, I'd shoot with him anytime.
 
I like Mas. I dont always agree with him, but I like to read his stuff. Food for thought and all that.
 
Read the article in question tonight, it seemed to me his main reasoning behind not using handloads was the difficulties in proving conclusively the nature of the load in the gun when it was fired. That said I thought he was pretty much spot with his comments on the internet, there is some wonderful information on forums, however there is some very poor information on the internet as well.
 
let the mighty hammer of John Moses Browning rid the earth of vermin kind.
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I don't really have an opinion on Ayoob as far as this thread goes, but I'm stealing this for a sig line on the 1911 forum
 
Ryder--Amen to that!

I HAD a brand new Kimber Ultra Eclipse, until a round of factory-defective Winchester ammo blew it up.

I advised Winchester. They had me return the ammo, and they discovered that the flash-hole was too small. Winchester would not have had that problem is they, as I did as a hand-loader, uniformed ALL flash-holes, and literally every other dimension of my brass. Too, I doubt that weigh every load to +/- 1/20th of 1 grain. I even used to split the grain of powder when it was fractionally too heavy. I doubt that they do that either. That's called obsessive. :D

Doc2005
 
<troublemaker mode>

You know, one of the things that's always amused me about my fellow reloaders is that 'most all of them insist that their reloads are far better and far safer than factory rounds, because of the individual quality control.

Fair 'nuff.

But ask one of these guys if he shoots other people's reloads, or allows other people to shoot his reloads? The usual answer is a very emphatic NO, usually with a cuss-word prefix. After all, the reasoning goes, there's no quality control for the other guy's stuff. And no one wants to take the liability risk of blowing up someone else's gun.

Hard to reconcile these two common positions, isn't it?

</troublemaker mode>

pax
 
Sounds like you had a nice Kimber there. That is obsessive. I don't split grains, my powder measure which cost hundreds of dollars (can't spell the name but it's a real long and fancy sounding) does that for work for me :D

Edit- Pax.. I have reloaded for other people. My fee is keeping the left over componants which they purchase. I require their gun to make their loads. They leave the gun with me. I shoot that gun a lot developing their load. The reason I wouldn't shoot another peron's reloads is very simply. They were not made to my gun's dimensional specifications. The loads are matched to the guns due to manufacturing tolerance variation. I have a variety of 45acp pistols. The favorite load of one might perform (I haven't bothered to check) in either of the others but accuracy would be miserable. In theory if the round chambers there shouldn't be much difference between shooting another person's handload or buying something off the shelf.
 
I'm not sure why Gun Magazine writers wouldn't like internet fora. They're a wealth of story possiblities for any writer. IMHO, the opinion in the thread about how the gun shop BS has now gone live and online is really pretty true.
I write freelance and I get ideas all the time for articles from this forum and others in which I participate. Right now, if I could sell the article, I'd be writing one on 7.62x25 and it's modern applications, as well as any up and coming weapons using it just because of a thread about dream guns.
I'd also write one on gun shop etiquette entitled STOP MUZZLING EVERYONE, JACKHOLE!! thanks to some jerk at a gun store wednesday who yammered on about how he used to work at this gun manufacturing facility, owned 2 of those and 4 of those, and wanted one of these- but the romanian one because this one is junk. While crouched down in front of the case of wheelguns :rolleyes:, I looked up to see straight down the barrel of a pistol he was spouting the specs of and pontificating about at length. I could sell that article because I've seen a lot of posts about bad gun shop manners and how it bothers people.
sorry... this is what happens when I write off the cuff...
I don't get why writers wouldn't LOVE internet Fora. Writers like Ayoob who write directly about the problems the average guy faces, or might face, could benefit the most.
These writers have the opportunity to keep their finger on the pulse of their magazine buyers. Not every writer, and more importantly not every editor, can have such a valuable tool for successful writing strategy. And, yes, magazines exist to sell ads. They are a business.
More to the point:
Though I do understand that sometimes you bite, or at least bark at, the hand that feeds you. I sell motorcycles and ATV's and if I had a dollar for everytime I said the words "stupid redneck" at work, I could retire. While I don't mean it everytime, it'd be very offensive to my clientele if they heard me and didn't understand my motivations, or bitterness.
Cut Ayoob some slack, Thatguy. Granted, when you're publishing, every word is measured and every thought weighed. But, forgive him this trespass and move on.
 
Writers

Take a look at this thread.
http://www.ambackforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=32850&highlight=mas+ayoob
I think maybe you misunderstood Mas Ayoob when you read the article, or else he doesn't practice what he preaches. I don't know, but I suspect that Ayoob would not make a statement that disparages forums in general. As others have stated, there are a lot of misinformed folks, overbearing and in general way wrong at the top of their voices on the web. Doesn't mean that all are, or that you can't get good info.
In addition to Mas Ayoob, this thread has two other writers, tv producers on it. Namely Michael Bane and Walt Rausch.
 
Gun magazines and the Internet are very similar. Sometimes you'll read something and think, "True dat".

Other times you'll read something that will peg your BS meter.

But it's all good. They're both like a supermarket. You take what you like and leave the rest on the shelf. ;)
 
Ryder, in what part of the state do you reside?

We're down in Clarkston, but I attended CMU.

By the way, I agree on the rationale of not shooting other's handloads. I never have full-length resized. For that very fact alone, no-one else should fire my loads. It simply would be imprudent.

Doc2005
 
I'm surprised no one has added these comments from Ayoob in the latest Combat Handguns issue, June 2006. From his column Self-Defense and the Law, his article titled Light Trigger Liability, beginning page 8, the following quote was contained at the end of his article on page 89:

I've quoted heavily above from two popular guntalk bulletin boards, the High Road and GlockTalk. There is much to be learned there from wise and experienced people whose advice is not available elsewhere. These are true forums, arenas for egalitarian debate where each poster's word is valued the same. The bad news is that a 12 year old kid with internet access or a clueless "gun shop commando" can appear to speak with the same weight as a veteran with decades of experience in the field. The good news, though, is that once you sort the wheat from the chaff, you find the kind of good advice that I've quoted above from Marty Hayes, Attorney Colglazier, Attorney Browne, Robert Bartholomew, and many others. Thanks for that to the hard-working web-masters and moderators of GlockTalk, The High Road, and other responsible boards.
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Enough said???
 
Okay, maybe not quite enough:
Just cite some of these cases in a traceable form Mr. Ayoob and you will shake off a good fraction of your critics. Otherwise, I view him as having something of a Marshall & Sanow problem--i.e. one of reporting "real world" cases no one in the real world can actually find.
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From the recent AH article in question -

Ayoob:
The records of the N.J.v. Daniel N. Bias trials are archived at the Superior Court of New Jersey, Warren County, 313 Second Street, P.O. Box 900, Belvedere, NJ 97823. Those wishing to follow the appellate process can begin with the Atlantic Reporter at 142 NJ 572, 667 A2d 190.
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Is that traceable?
 
so basically you are mad because he said "net ninjas" exactly one time and because he says you should not use your own reloads in a SD situation becuase it can get you into trouble, which I agree with heck I use Winchester White Box JHPs because they sell it at walmart, it says "personal protection" on the box and it is the cheapest I can find. I also like the term netninja, we have all run into a few of those.
 
Mas has come on here to argue his points directly, and you can read the thread yourself.

On the broader point, I agree completely that the interent forums have indeed trumped the printed rags as the best source for information about firearms and related topics. And yes, they are getting nervous about it. However, they have nobody to blame but themselves. With few exceptions, they've degenerated into an exclusive club of mutually-congratulatory hacks who get paid to play with guns and run around on expensive hunting vacations by propping up the companies that advertise with them. The articles are 90% advertisement and 10% fact, with plenty of rank error thrown into the mix. Most are either "see what fancy animals I killed last time I took a trip YOU could never afford" or "look at this shiny new toy XYZ introduced at the Shoot Show where I got drunk with the reps--don't you really really want it? See ad on p. 77 and buy it or they're going to release the photos from the motel room!"

Mas is actually one of the few I still have any respect for. Whether you agree with him or not, I don't feel that his opinions are for sale and he writes for a very broad range of magazines including some really good ones such as "Backwoods Home"--a true readership-produced magazine that operates well below the radar of the big ad buyers.

Let's leave Mas' opinions aside for the moment. There's plenty that gets printed in the rags that's either grossly incomplete, biased or plain wrong. The article last fall in Handloader, which is one of the better magazines, regarding the 7.62x54R is a good example. The author made it clear he had little interest in the cartridge or the Mosin-Nagant rifle. He did a slapdash review of it and offered some bare bones data on the loads he had time to throw together. The question is, if I need information on the Mosin-Nagant or the 54R, am I better off going to the rags or going to www.mosinnagant.net, www.7.62x54r.net, or www.thehighroad.org? There isn't even a contest. The websites blow the rag out of the water. It's comparing a professional writer who gets an assignment from his editor with folks like Vic and Tuco who have dedicated thousands of hours to the topic, coupled with all the forum members including THE world-renowned German expert on the Mosin-Nagant! These guys not only collect the rifles, they TRAVEL TO FINLAND to interview Simo Hayha and tour the battlefields. They coordinate with reenactors to put together detailed on-line articles about rifles and gear. And while the rags cost a ton of money, the internet forums are free. This is one case where you DO NOT get what you pay for.

And the same can be said for almost any other type of firearm or cartridge. If you want real opinions, untainted by ad money or professional arrogance, you come to the internet forums and you toss your question out to the members. The collective wisdom is rarely wrong, particularly if you go to the specialty forums.

For example, if I have a question about a Savage 99 I'm thinking of buying I don't go digging through the box of rags, I go to the 24 hour campfire's forum and ask the "rats" what the skinny is. The last time I did this it took less than FOUR HOURS after posting to get the verdict that the 99 was not what it appeared to be, due to certain technical alterations and a probably reblue.

How can a rag compete with that?

It's also interesting to go back in time and take a look at the gun magazines from the turn of the 20th century through WWII. They were very different beasts, much closer to the readership than the admen. Readers were given large chunks of the mag to write letters debating points with the staff, rather than just a page or two of "feedback" amidst the sea of glossy advertising. In many ways, those early magazines resembled the interent much more than the modern gun rags.
 
For example, if I have a question about a Savage 99 I'm thinking of buying I don't go digging through the box of rags, I go to the 24 hour campfire's forum and ask the "rats" what the skinny is. The last time I did this it took less than FOUR HOURS after posting to get the verdict that the 99 was not what it appeared to be, due to certain technical alterations and a probably reblue.
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This is totally off topic and frankly just an opportunity to gloat because I'm a shallow, materialistic a-hole, but this gun is my prized possession. I have a bone-stock Model 99 built in 1936-37 that has not been altered, reblued, or refinished and is well above 90 percent. My dad bought it from the original owner in the 1950s and gave it to me in 1975, when I started hunting. I shot my first deer with that gun and have only recently retired it from service.

Now to get back on topic. The Internet has been a terrific resource for that particular gun. For the first 29 years I owned the gun I knew almost nothing about it. For years I tried to find another like it at gun shows, but could never find one exactly like it. Then one night in 2004 I discovered savageshooters.com. By the next morning I knew just about everything about the gun, from the period of manufacture, to the model, to the fact that it was a model only manufactured in that brief window which is why I never saw another like it, to the fact that the gun I estimated to be worth $500-$600 was worth more than twice that. This is when I retired the gun from active hunting duty and bought a Tikka T3.
 
It's Evolutionary

The world of print is lumbering off to extinction. That is a fact, IMO. Magazines, regardless of format, are dying off. There is no way to compeat with the limitless range of the internet. 8 pages of prime space devoted to a single topic? Wowzers, big freaking deal. I can get 8 million pages and interactive conversation on the net.

Of course the mags will "rage against the darkness and not go quietly into the..yadda, yadda." It's just a shame, as Cosmoline points out so well, that because of lost revenue..the print world has whored themselves to the point of morphing,albeit almost seamlesssly, into one or two big ads every issue. Everything is attached to an advertiser in one way or another. I'm talking gun mags in this case. Sure, some of the photos are great but so are many on the net..right here on this site, Oleg and others have served up a multitude of images that rival and even surpass anything I've seen in print.

As Walmart lays waste to mom and pops, so the net is vaporizing the printed page.
 
When was the last time "Guns and Ammo" tested a gun that wasn't the-greatest-thing-ever-inlcuding-every-other-gun-ever-tested-apparently? The firewall between advertising ande editorial is as extinct as a principled politician, it seems. How can we trust opinions of magazines that feature nothing but glowing reviews of the products advertised within those very same magazines?

Sure, there is a lot of garbage on the Internet. I've recently gotten a little frustrated with the caliber/ammo cowboys who have never shot anything other than the occasional paper target telling me that unless I've got super+P-heavy-flow-unobtanium-tipped Super Pluggers in my Glock my life is in danger, or that I will die a swift and horrible death if I don't carry a certain caliber. I've been hunting large mammals long enough to know what a load of crap that is.

That kind of blather is a lot more common on forums other than THR, however. It exists here, but is kept to a minimum. I usually start my research on those other sites, then come here for solid, rational information. It's like a refuge from the white noise of the Internet, thanks in large part to the excellent work of the moderators.
 
alduro

Thanks for your post #38. Pretty much sums it up for me. Thanks!

What I do get off the net are several friends in the States, Canada, Sweeden, Greece, The Phillipines and Australia and a boat load of information on Boolit casting, reloading advice, shooting handguns ie technique and a refreshing and often enlightening political views some but not all of which mirror my own. This Forum is one of the best. To that I am greatfull. As for the Gun Mags, well I guess being a baby boomer who went through puberty with Playboy tucked between the mattresses I like the pictures.

Take Care
 
You are quite welcome sir. Hey guys, if we're net ninjas, just look at the bright side, you get to wear a nifty mask while typing.:evil:
 
I don't have a real high opinion of Ayoob, but in this case he hits on a good point. Anyone that takes advice from strangers online, about legal issues regarding shooting, is not helping themselves.
Yes, there is a lot of BS in the forums, guys spouting off about this and that, with virtually all of their firearms knowledge coming second or third hand from some other bozo online. I am convinced that much of what is posted is not only inaccurate, but untruthful. Firearms reports and opinions in the forums mostly consists of apocryphal and anecdotal info.
Not that it really matters, since I read the forums for entertainment, and not knowledge.
 
FireBreather01- I had not seen those comments from Ayoob and they are opposite of the impression I got from his comment in passing in his recent article. Maybe I read it wrong but when he uses the same term as another writer clearly disparaging the forums I have to wonder. Also, he stated clearly that we were all wrong about using handloads for defense but the evidence he offers isn't applicable to defensive shooting situations.

As for taking his advice on avoiding "tactical" guns for defense, remember what he wrote a few years back about his personal choice for a "bedside gun?" It was some high capacity thing with an extended magazine giving 20 or more rounds with a light rail. He also said he kept a fighting kinife by the bed and a bullet resistent vest. If donning a vest and grabbing a knife in one hand and a 20+ round laser-sighted pistol in the other to investigate a bump in the night doesn't make you look like a crazed "Ninja" then what does?
 
Personally, I believe that a majority of people who write books, and write for magazines are held to a higher standard, and rarely will pure, absolute BS be published in a respected magazine. Opinions, and questionable product reviews, sure.

On the internet? anything goes. And, boy, does it go. I see his point.
 
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