Decline of the American Rifleman

hoardingthemanual said:
Steel and hand checkered walnut should not be a luxury.
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Like everything else though, people want to pay 10 dollars for a Chinese tool instead of 50 for a good one. Or watch free (and often very high quality honestly) videos rather than pay for a magazine that's half ads and half pandering.

I used to get 10 or more magazines. From G&A to Supersport to Dirt wheels to sport rider to easy rider (for the articles of course) to sport compact car and R&T. They got so bad and the youtubers got so good why bother? You can go online and watch Bill Wilson and Ken hackathorn tell you all about building and shooting a 1911 for free....or read specs and all some 25 year old in tactical gear shooting a box of gold dots through one?

Back in the late 90s customers were voicing that the magazines had gone up in price and were half full of ads. The magazines replied with "we have to have revenue" but everyone stopped buying because of it. And that was in the early days of the net and no YouTube. All the mags were so soft spoken and never giving a poor review that nobody trusted them anymore.
 
The magazine is mostly ads now or articles pushing certain products. There aren't many good articles
 
The quality of editing has generally declined in recent years across all the magazines that I read.
 
Hate to tell you but both you and Rossi are wrong. The S&W safety device is properly called a "transfer bar." According to SAMMI, a "transfer bar" shields a firing pin attached to a hammer and a "hammer block" shields a hammer from striking the firing pin mounted on the frame. They both do the same thing, but because the firing pin is located in different places on their respective revolvers, the shielding is performed differently and called by different names. Maybe you can "Save Face" by telling the NRA Riflemen of the error in calling the item a "hammer block" in the article which it is not.
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SAAMI, not SAMMI.

I searched the SAAMI website and found a definition for hammer block safety.

HAMMER BLOCK - SAAMI

A device intended to isolate the hammer from the firing-pin except when the trigger is pulled.
saami.org saami.org
A device intended to isolate the hammer from the firing-pin except when the trigger is pulled.

That definition is correct, but it is so vague that it is totally useless for differentiating the two types of safeties.

I was unable to find a definition for transfer bar safety on the SAAMI website.

The explanation you provide is incorrect. A transfer bar doesn't shield anything, in fact it isn't between the hammer and the firing pin until the trigger is pulled. A hammer block does perform a shielding action. A hammer block can be used on a firearm regardless of whether the firing pin is on the hammer or mounted to the frame. A transfer bar only works on firearms with frame-mounted firing pins. It is true that they both do generally the same thing (prevent the gun from being fired if the trigger is not pulled), but they do it in very different--one might say, opposite--ways.

Here are correct definitions/explanations.

A transfer bar TRANSFERS the hammer blow to a firing pin. That's why it's called a transfer bar. The hammer can't reach the firing pin in a transfer bar design unless the transfer bar is interposed between the two. When the trigger is pulled, the transfer bar is moved between the hammer and firing pin and allows the hammer strike to be transferred to the firing pin. A transfer bar is, in the normal state, not obstructing/shielding anything--if the hammer were to fall unintentionally without the trigger pulled it would not hit the transfer bar--it would hit against the frame. Ruger revolvers are equipped with a transfer bar.

A hammer block BLOCKS the hammer so it can't reach the firing pin, or (if the firing pin is hammer-mounted), BLOCKS the hammer so the firing pin can't reach the primer. That's why it's called a hammer block. While the hammer block is in place, the gun can't be fired because the hammer block shields the hammer from hitting the firing pin or blocks the hammer so that the firing pin can't hit the primer. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer block is moved out of the way allowing the hammer to strike the firing pin or the firing pin to strike the hammer. A hammer block is, in the normal state, obstructing/shielding the hammer and is moved out of the way to fire the gun. If the hammer were to fall unintentionally without the trigger pulled, the hammer would hit the hammer block which would stop it from hitting the firing pin or prevent the firing pin from hitting the primer. S&W revolvers use a hammer block safety.
 
There is no denying that printed magazines lack the quality of those golden years 1940 to 1960, but so too do we :neener:. The journalism standards were perhaps never as high as we imagined them to be (Jack O'Connor wrote about Remingtons, but his collection and subject matter most often featured Winchesters and custom Mausers). Still, he had the grace and good sense not to disparage the other guy's gun (unless it was a Weatherby featuring the rococo style of stock he detested). Since that time, the style of writing has mutated to the process of finding fault with other people's choices, scraping web sites and public domain for facts and opinions, and creating enough friction to generate web traffic and contentious comment. The system will not support the cost of dedicated, objective storytellers and reporters, and lets face it, how much more analysis and reporting on 7.62x51 is needed?

If we want to blame someone, we had better own that onus. We are reluctant to pay for things we can grab off the net, especially if we don't even have to read the article because it is digested and doled out to feed the shadowy algorithms that dictate life or death, monetization or relegation.

But alas, the OP is not above such tactics. He has generated a slew of responses by framing the thread title to sound as if it was a commentary on the state of American rifleman, rather than a screed on the new relaxed standards of periodical content. If he was operating under his own standards, the title would be "Decline of the American Rifleman Magazine".
 
rust collector said:
The system will not support the cost of dedicated, objective storytellers and reporters,
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I bet the old guys didn't get paid much. So maybe the issue is as much that people who love guns and the outdoors aren't willing to write articles for peanuts now.
 
I've got a lot of American Rifleman issues from back in the day that are keepers, but not any issues lately for the last few years. I thumb through them and throw them away. Most take about 4 minutes or less from mailbox to trash can.

I got tired of seeing pistols on the cover, or political figures "gracing" the cover that make my blood pressure go up.

Another problem is our postal service. I've had my magazines and other gun related literature delivered to the wrong houses a few times. One neighbor was nice enough to knock on my door and give me my magazine that was delivered to his house. That's a little disconcerting and awkward. I live behind enemy lines in the bluer than blue state of Illinois.

I don't know a lot of my neighbors anymore. The neighborhood has changed from a positive gun culture with a lot of gun owners to God knows what. Having gun related literature delivered to the wrong house is like putting a sign in your yard that you have firearms.

Last week before I saw this thread I called NRA publications and told them to stop sending the American Rifleman or any other NRA related literature to my house. It's sad we live in the times we do, but it is what it is.

PS: Some of the writers for the NRA don't know what the L they're talking about sometimes. They do get a lot of facts wrong when talking about guns and ammunition. The NRA is no longer the go-to source for expert information.
 
AlexanderA said:
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.)
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I have stacks upon stacks of American Rifleman from the late 1990s through to about 2015. After 2015, they get little more than a cursory glance the day they arrive.
 
I’d pay for a good magazine. But it seems like the economics of “charge people a subscription for good content” isn’t as popular as “charge people a subscription AND actually make all your money from the advertising.” I don’t know if it’s plain old greed or if the actual mechanics of producing a magazine are so ferociously expensive that ad revenue + subscriptions still don’t cover the costs + turn a profit…. It’s not like people are illiterate, there are thousands who would really pay for a good magazine. But it has to be good, to justify a subscription in the $50-100 bracket and not in the $10-20 (or free) bracket.

In the case of the NRA I unfortunately understand why it’s junky, because the magazine is a freebie with membership so it nowadays essentially only exists to sell ad space to companies. If they didn’t make money that way they’d instantly go “digital only” or just can the whole thing in favor of a free t-shirt.
 
This is a problem with many "fan" magazines -- whether about guns, cars, cameras, or anything else. They become shills for products in their area of interest. That's because they have to monetize the support from their client companies in order to stay afloat. Nothing remotely critical is ever published about those products.

In the old days, when the Rifleman was less guilty of this, it was supported by a financially healthy NRA. We can directly connect the decline of the Rifleman to the financial decline (due to internal corruption) of the NRA generally. The condition of the magazine, like that of the museum, is a symptom of the general problems within the NRA.
 
Which came 1st. The chicken or the egg.

Are print publications declining in sales due to poor writers.

Or are poor sales making it impossible to attract good writers.

There was a time when a writer for outdoors/hunting/shooting publications could make a decent living and it attracted talented writers.

Nobody is buying them anymore. I don't know how much Hickock 45 gets from his YouTube channel, but IMO that is the type of thing is the future. In fact, the present.
 
I'm one who far prefers print over video. I find most youtube videos pretty much useless for instruction and almost none entertaining. There have been some exceptions but they have been few.
 
Thomasss said:
Hate to tell you but both you and Rossi are wrong. The S&W safety device is properly called a "transfer bar." According to SAMMI, a "transfer bar" shields a firing pin attached to a hammer and a "hammer block" shields a hammer from striking the firing pin mounted on the frame. They both do the same thing, but because the firing pin is located in different places on their respective revolvers, the shielding is performed differently and called by different names. Maybe you can "Save Face" by telling the NRA Riflemen of the error in calling the item a "hammer block" in the article which it is not.
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I see John beat me to it. Still...

That just makes SAAMI wrong. Well, maybe not.
SAAMI Glossary says:
Hammer Block: A device intended to isolate the hammer from the firing pin except when the trigger is pulled.

Strangely, and unfortunately, Transfer Bar does not appear in the SAAMI Glossary. Where did you find it?

I go by the manufacturers' terminology.
Reference to guns, drawings, and parts lists show that (Ruger NM) a transfer bar transfers the hammer blow to the frame firing pin. It doesn't shield anything.

A hammer block (S&W and Rossi) blocks the hammer nose firing pin from hitting the primer or the hammer face from hitting the frame firing pin except when the trigger is pulled.
 
Jim Watson said:
Strangely, and unfortunately, Transfer Bar does not appear in the SAAMI Glossary. Where did you find it?
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I googled "revolver hammer block" and "revolver transfer bar" and the two definitions came up according to SAMMI.
You might also look at references of S&W revolver's safety.
 
"Shield" by Freedom Dictionary : Material To protect something from interference; a cover that protects whatever is behind it.
You obviously didn't search what I stated.
I personally think you guys are nitpicking to the extreme.
 
Jim Watson said:
All it shows is a bunch of gunzines, gunboards, and toobs.
Many of which actually agree with me.
The most authoritative looking thing I can find is
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1) You obviously didn't search what I stated.
2) "Shield" by Freedom Dictionary : Material To protect something from interference; a cover that protects whatever is behind it.
3) I personally think you guys are nitpicking to the extreme.
 
I googled "revolver hammer block" what did you look under?

As Abe Lincoln said, you can call a hammer block a transfer bar but it doesn't make it one.

Never mind.

-30-
 
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GEM said:
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.
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Yup.
It ain't just AR, it's a systemic problem. The Information age has turned most people (and our kids, grand kids, etc.) Into lazy, unlearned, soft, video gamers. Kids today (for the most part) only know what their electronic devices tell them.
The rest of us just marvel and shake our heads. I graduated from high school when calculators were a new invention and were priced accordingly. All the math I learned was via the old longhand pencil-and-paper method plus the forced memorization of multiplication tables from back in the 3rd grade.

I hope I am afflicted with a severe case of Alzheimer's (it is in my mother's side of the family) before I get to the nursing home. That way I will never know (nor care) about the improper, inappropriate, incompetent or abusive care I will inevitably endure at the hands of these kids that will be tasked with my care. Now at age 68, that day may be closer than I know.
 
Forgot to mention in my earlier post that I was also an advertiser in a small way with several magazines over many years before reducing down to just one… It wasn’t hard to verify that a certain percentage of my new customers were calling after seeing the ad… Over time those referrals became fewer and fewer. Finally I could no longer justify the expense, dropped an ad I’d had for twenty years and never looked back.. As the rags became less relevant, they lost both revenues and readers, a downward spiral that grows worse and worse until there’s nothing left for anyone - reader, advertiser, or publisher… Wonder how historians will view these times - or simply write them off as a “time of change”.
 
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