Decline of the American Rifleman

[Jim Watson]

I was leafing through the new August American Rifleman and noticed a couple of clangers right off.
In seven pages of plugs for Rossi firearms, the picture caption showing a S&W type hammer block calls it a "transfer bar." Strangely, the text gets it right.
Likewise a piece on the Colt Police Positive says it has "an early form of transfer bar safety" in spite of a real Colt catalog quote "a solid bar of steel, 1/10th inch in thickness, rests directly between the hammer and the frame, except when the trigger is being pulled."
C'mon, man, name the parts right.
Or am I being too picky?

 

[S.Crockett]

I was leafing through the new August American Rifleman and noticed a couple of clangers right off.
In seven pages of plugs for Rossi firearms, the picture caption showing a S&W type hammer block calls it a "transfer bar." Strangely, the text gets it right.
Likewise a piece on the Colt Police Positive says it has "an early form of transfer bar safety" in spite of a real Colt catalog quote "a solid bar of steel, 1/10th inch in thickness, rests directly between the hammer and the frame, except when the trigger is being pulled."
C'mon, man, name the parts right.
Or am I being too picky?

Noop.

AR, with only a very few exceptions, is now written primarily by Millenials and Gen-Zers.

Attention to details, proof-reading, and the use of correct firearms nomenclature isn’t their strong suit. Nor do they really care all that much.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Some context.

I am an agricultural “technician”….I maintain and repair just about anything involving farm operations. You could say I am a heavy eq tech or a diesel tech or whatever as well.

We are going to get into the weeds here.

I am convinced that John Deere engineers their equipment using several groups of people with different backgrounds who never communicate with each other and they design a SxS ATV and another group designs a different model SxS ATV. You might be working on one ATV and the wheels will have lug nuts and the other ATV will have lug screws. They will have the same diameter tires but different sized rims. One will have rack and pinion steering and the other may have hydraulic steering. One will have a carbureted Kawasaki and the other will have whatever EFI Chinesium engine that comes in some of them. These will ostensibly be similar models even and have a similar price point but they are completely different machines designed by a group who had no idea what the other group was doing.

This is what is happening in these articles.

 

[.38 Special]

The magazine of a few decades ago was somewhat dry and technical, but you could count on the information. Now it's just more Rodale Press-style eyewash. There are exceptions, but the majority of it now is pretty pictures and empty words, and I'm tempted to tell the NRA to save their money - the cost to them almost certainly exceeds the value to me.

 

[jar]

Having grown up in an era when it was necessary to be able to translate British Whitworth to Imperial Standard and determine whether the car was positive ground or negative ground and remember that the knock off hubs turned against the direction of rotation I get really annoyed at the current lack of proof reading and elastic nomenclature.

Was told the other day that to kill the germs in water I should boil it to 375 degrees F.

There are far to many times these days when all I can respond is "Ok?"

 

[SunnySlopes]

I stopped reading it when it stopped advertising guns for sale on the back page. Did they stop mailing the guns to your house, too?

Is nothing sacred?

 

[230RN]

I don't know who writes what, but I will say that over the decades, I always expected a moderate decline in quality during the summers. I chalked it up to other personnel replacing vacationers, but maybe I was wrong.

Or is this just another slam the NRA for the sake of slamming the NRA?

There are times the strategic paranoid me thinks outside agencies will "enlist" people to knock the NRA for their own motivations.

But I've been following the "things are never what they seem" paradigm throughout quite a number of four-year U.S. Presidential terms now.

So let's just assume I'm wrong.

Terry, 230RN

 

[bangswitch]

I generally read "I Have This Old Gun" walking back from the mailbox, and throw the magazine in the trash can as I walk by it. AR is nothing more than a bunch of advertisements any more, with little real content. If it weren't free, I wouldn't get it.

 

[HighRoadRover]

My Uncle once gave me, about 50 years ago, a stack of American Rifleman magazines from his basement. I read them all, cover to cover, in about a month. That is how I think I developed background knowledge that would pop into my brain, unbidden, when someone talked about Mausers and Colt Army Revolvers and Nambus and Winchester 73's and M1911s and the Legend of Charlie Askins and how rifle scopes work and even that you could reload your own ammunition. That incomplete but fairly extensive education course of reading set the stage for my enjoyment of firearms and shooting to this day.

I saw an internet meme a while ago that said, "Back in the day, car owner's manuals told the operator how to adjust the valves and set the timing and gap the plugs, etc. Today, car owner's manuals tell the operator three times not to drink the radiator fluid." One suspects the decline in technical expertise in guns has similarly occurred with the rise of the millennials, and that is reflected in AR. Most of what I see on the internet about guns today is just somebody passing along on the internet something somebody else was passing along. P.S. - don't drink the radiator fluid in your car.

 

[AlexanderA]

Many years ago, I used to save my Rifleman magazines for future reference. Then, I started trashing them after a quick read. Now, I just trash them directly. (Life member here, so I don't have the option of just dropping the subscription.)

 

[Hangingrock]

I've been reading the American Rifleman since 1964. There have been changes thru the decades. The one constant has been change and that's part of life.

 

[9x56MS]

It is not just American Hunter but most hunting and gun magazines. Used to be that writers had to have been there and done that. Also had have had at least an understanding of journalism and the rules of reporting. He'll your lucky to get the what and where now , never mind the who, what, when, where, and how. He'll anymore I am pretty sure I know more about the subject matter than most of the new group of writers.

 

[W.E.G.]

Many years ago, I used to save my Rifleman magazines for future reference. Then, I started trashing them after a quick read. Now, I just trash them directly. (Life member here, so I don't have the option of just dropping the subscription.)

It only takes a few clicks on the NRA website to notify them to stop sending paper copies to your physical mailbox. I shut my paper subscription down years ago. I don't want anyone going through my mail to know I'm a gun owner, or know what bank I use, or how many medical bils I haven't paid. Any time a catalog company gets our address, I immediately notify them through their website and FecesBook to stop sending catalogs. We get almost zero mail at this point.

I get an email that notifies me that there is a new issue of AR or AH, or whatever other rags they are publishing. Sometimes I click the link and browse the PDF version of what represents what remains of that brand. I'm less interested these days. I'm not going to buy the new $2,500 deluxe 1911 from a custom shop in Idaho. Can't afford it, and don't have time to do anything with it even if I could afford it. My dance card is pretty much booked for the foreseeable future. I wish the NRA all the best. If not the best suits. I know you know what I mean.

 

[I6turbo]

I'm not particularly bashing AR as our hobby and the 2A movement is better off with it than without it, but like almost everything else these days, it gives the impression that the primary reason for its existence is MARKETING and monetization. Granted, every endeavor has to pay its way and make a profit -- I support that -- but these days the value of what you get in so many things is so hollow, and so many things that masquerade as information or services (magazines, the "news," Google and the internet, etc.) is little more than a firehose of various companies' and various groups' marketing and PR campaings.

Or, maybe that's the mentality of the country as a whole. Maybe fluff is all the majority want. Maybe there's no audience for anything more in-depth and technical.

Take a look at this archive copy of American Rifleman from 1937. Notice how technical and in-depth the articles are, and how they would have to have been written by someone with experience, someone who actually knew a lot about what they were writing about, not just did an hour or two or research to churn out the article. The article on the home-made chronograph is so much more in-depth than most things you'll see today, and beyond what 99+% of readers would actually undertake to build nowadays, it's almost funny.

https://ia801801.us.archive.org/1/i...6_85_6/sim_american-rifleman_1937-06_85_6.pdf

 

[hoardingthemanual]

I was reading the bible and in the middle of the damn verse is "http://www.nytimes.com/" People are not even proofreading bibles nowadays. If they won't respect God, do you think they'll respect the 2A?

 

[hoardingthemanual]

Here’s a pic

 

[jmorris]

C'mon, man, name the parts right.
Or am I being too picky?

You are just reading things written by people that don’t know as much as you do. Happens all the time. If you keep reading, you should do it with a red sharpie, grade them and send them a photo. Who knows how many people you will help down the road, educating the educator…

 

[Outlaw75]

You are just reading things written by people that don’t know as much as you do. Happens all the time. If you keep reading, you should do it with a red sharpie, grade them and send them a photo. Who knows how many people you will help down the road, educating the educator…

I tend to agree with the first part of this. OP is most likely more knowledgable about certain technologies than the majority of their writers (who are probably freelancers). Maybe OP should write up a few articles and submit them to AR.

 

[Jim Watson]

Take a look at this archive copy of American Rifleman from 1937.

Poor fellows, never a MOA to be found. Ned Roberts would have been glad to shoot into 8 inches at 500 yards but could not do it.

Don Zutz, normally a shotgunner, once reported on putting modern (1980s) bullets in a prewar Winchester rifle, either a .250 Savage or .257 Roberts, I misremember which. He said accuracy was considerably better than reported from back then.
Do you think Winchester would make a barrel to my specifications like they did Roberts, so I could try it out?

 

[Jim Watson]

You are just reading things written by people that don’t know as much as you do. Happens all the time. If you keep reading, you should do it with a red sharpie, grade them and send them a photo. Who knows how many people you will help down the road, educating the educator…

Once upon a time American Handgunner had a contributor who regularly pointed out errors and exaggerations in other publications. I thought that seemed petty, so I started combing AH for similar gaffes and wrote to call them to the editor's attention. He replied that I did not understand what was going on. I understood very well that he could dish it out but he couldn't take it.

 

[Corpral_Agarn]

Noop.

AR, with only a very few exceptions, is now written primarily by Millenials and Gen-Zers.

Attention to details, proof-reading, and the use of correct firearms nomenclature isn’t their strong suit. Nor do they really care all that much.

Amirite?

It isn't a generation thing, it's an editor not doing his job thing.

Oh and my pops has lots of those old magazines going a long ways back. Guess what? They are loaded with inaccuracies and myths as well.

 

[GEM]

What else is new? Watch a military documentary on TV and see the same old cargo ship being strafed and claimed it was a battleship.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

IMHO the Internet, the Web allows the sharing of information that used to be the domain of the gun magazines. And for those of us of certain age cohorts, the current writers don't compare as well to Elmer Keith, Charlie Askins, Bill Jordan, Jack O'Connor, Elmer Keith, Skeeter Skelton.....

 

[Hikingman]

The editor is at fault, and getting the story out by an imposed deadlne far exceeds inclusion of accurate details.

Another example: aviation news stories on MSM. Those people write it in a way that ignores BASIC aircraft knowledge and science which leaves professional pilots shaking their heads, including misprounced terms and seemingly without a technical fact check of all included language.

Is accuracy important in this instance? That's okay, it's only ABC, CBS, and NBC or other national outlets.

Sensationalism, breaking news, and market share? Now we're getting somewhere.

 

[Reinz]

It took me all of 2 minutes to go through the Rossi shill edition before going in the trash.