Gun 'Riters

[Nightcrawler]

During my many boring nights in Mississippi (well, except for the armed robbery, the shooting, the traffic accidents, the people running from the cops, and the crazy homeless guys), I would thumb through nearly every gun magazine I could get my mits on. Turns out my mom tossed most of the SWAT Magazine issues that were going to my old house cuss: ), so I had to make do with whatever I could find on the Wal-Mart shelves.

American Handgunner, Gun World, Guns & Ammo, Handguns, you name it.

Most of them, I'm sorry to say, are crap. Certainly not up to the writing quality of SWAT.

But I noticed a few quirks that I think are worth sharing.

Churching it Up: Many gun-writers use unnecessarily long words and elaborate phrasings. In most attempts it comes across as a break in their writing style, a failed attempt to sound witty or intelligent.

Cliche City: I can't tell you how many times I've read the phrase "disassembly is straightforward". Now, granted, it's a beautifully descriptive word, straightforward, but it's been done to death. A lot of times it seems like they're re-writing the same article over and over again.

Butt-Kissing: It annoys the heck out of me how one publication insists on printing "Glock" in ALL CAPS every time. Same thing with "SIG" or "SIGARMS". Furthermore, while I'm sure the Horus Vision reticle and PDA system is just neato-friggin'-torpeedo, it's not necessary to continue to gush about it each time one of its scopes is used in a test (especially if it's a test of the rifle, not the scope).

Broken Articles: SWAT Magazine does this too, but only a little bit. Most gun rags break up nearly every article, for no apparent reason. Heck, sometimes, they'll have an article on the back page that's continued on an earlier page. I don't see why they do it like this, or why they do it so much.

Annoying Ads: If I see that article for that herbal supplement Claxoran one more time I'm going to scream. If you're not familar with it, it comes in at least three variations. Most are designed to fool an unsuspecting or unusally slow-witted reader into thinking it's actually an article in the magazine. If you can't tell immediately, the fact that Claxoran is always written with the little "tm" after it should clue you in. Oh, plus, it's an answer to a letter supposedly written to Andrew Easton. You haven't heard of Andrew Easton? Neither have I. But he's supposedly a "noted sportsman and hunting authority". It's like, I'm so sure youre buddy went fox hunting in Northumberland. What'd they do, look that place up on a map of England? Oh, plus the ads from BLACKHAWK!!! rolleyes: ) that are supposedly written to that company from "the mother of a wounded soldier". PUH-LEEZE. How low can you go? Surefire has a similar ad puported to be from a GI in Iraq, which I'm equally dubious of.

Bad Pictures: Why oh why would you have an article about a firearm and not have a single picture of the entire weapon? An issue of a Guns & Ammo spinoff called Surplus Firearms was especially guilty. They had a review of an M1892 Krag carbine. I've never seen this carbine, and wanted to see a good pic, but they failed to produce a picture of the whole weapon.

What about you folks? Any gunrag gripes? Any good magazines you want to speak up about?

 

[OEF_VET]

My biggest pet peeve is opening a gun rag to read an article, only to find the article is sharing page space with an advertisement for the VERY SAME product.

Now, I understand that there are costs involved with publishing magazines, and that ads cover a large majority of those costs. I also understand that certain companies spend a lot on advertising and that those same companies are the ones with new, exciting products out there for writers to write about. Therefore, it's readily apparent that it would be darn near impossible to tell an advertiser that they can't advertise in a particular issue, since their product is being reviewed in that issue. But, do they have to share page space, or be on back-to-back pages? Space them out a bit, don't make it so darn obvious.

 

[Freelance Tax Collector]

In general, I agree with you on every count.

I try to stay away from the "tactical" magazines I think they have just the same problems as every other magazine out there, but I myself like shotgun news. They have some of the same articles in other magazines as well, but generally I think they do better.

The other is rifle shooter magazine. I've only ever read this months issue, but from what I saw, I was impressed. They talked more about ballistic concepts and tips to improve shooting, rather than review after review of guns.

And is it just me, or does the adjective "beefy" appear at least once in every one of Fortier's articles?

 

[mec]

"My biggest pet peeve is opening a gun rag to read an article, only to find the article is sharing page space with an advertisement for the VERY SAME product"

It may just be an unfortunate coincidence. Like when the endless commercials on cablevision promote a "Male Enhancement Product" right next to the one with the woman saying " Living with genital herpes can BE-Uh-HASSLE!"

A couple of editors have explained the ratio of advertising pages to the page count of the magazine-I got a headache both times but it seems that the ads pay for pages in some sort of direct ratio and have a lot to do with the articles being continued on page so-and-so. (how does this work when there's at least one advertisement on every page????)

The little one to three hundred word article usually hightlight an advertiser's product. I've done a few of these-but only with products I've used and liked (and usually bought myself.)

The cliche thing is a real problem. When I found myself using the same phrases over and over again, I decided it was time to bail before I started contridicting myself.

 

[del4]

I don't mind the ads for guns and related stuff. I like seeing articals on stuff I see advertised in the magizine. If I see an ad on something I know nothing about, it nice to see someone expand on that item. I know that the article is going to be mostly positive. That do however give real stats. I will read that a tactical rifle makes 3" groups at 100 yards, fit and finish is great, target crown, an 8 lb trigger, and fun to shoot. They will sugar coat the fact that this rifle gets 3" groups and has an 8 lb trigger but they did tell you.

I am tired of the "male enhancement" and the Andrew Eastman ads though. Especially when they show old people getting all lovey dovey.

I kind of expect the Blackhawk and surefire ads since there is a war going on but I don't know that I would go there.

They do use the same 50 cent words and cliche' over and over again.

If you want a magizine that's bad, look at SCUBA mags. They are terrible. Same thing month after month.

 

[mec]

"They will sugar coat the fact that this rifle gets 3" groups and has an 8 lb trigger but they did tell you"

I remember one writer who got hold of a sample .32 mag that was about two hundred fps below the usual performance and threw 4" groups. He had a real hard time making that sound interesting- but he tried.

One "custom" "gunsmith" noted for his truly ugly engraving has a way of rushing poorly tested guns out to the writers. He developed a proprietary cartridge lever gun and sent it to a writer along with about ten rounds of ammunition. The guy dutifully wrote it up - along with the 5" 50 yard group he shot with it. Same smith rushed out a very inaccurate 17 hrm and it sprayed bullets all over the paper. He explained that a 17 with a specific rifling pitch would probably group " into uh inch." At that time, taurus had one out that would group into about half that with all 7 rounds.

 

[jacobtowne]

When I arose this morning I brushed with my tactical toothbrush, then donned my tactical underwear.....

One cliché that annoys is the verb 'wear,' as in the pistol wears a certain finish.

SIG in uppercase is correct, by the way. These are the initials of the Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft. Likewise, SIGARMS is the trademarked name for SIG in the U.S. in N.H.

But I agree with your points.

JT

 

[ceetee]

They break the stories up because the ads are sold before the stories are even written. The magazine pages are laid out based on the advertising space sold. The publisher arranges the ads based on who pays for full-page ads, vs. half-page ads, etc.

Each ad size costs a different rate, as does where the ad is placed in the magazine (hence those full pages of little business-card-sized ads). The copy is then arranged depending on where the ads have been placed. In many (possibly most) cases, the editor will suddenly realize that he has a page with a half-page ad on it, and needs content to fill up the rest of that page. He either needs a single story to fit the space, or he has to have a writer expand an already-written piece with fluff to make it longer.

Brings a whole new dimension to the word "fluffer"...

 

[noresttill]

SIG in uppercase is correct, by the way. These are the initials of the Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft. Likewise, SIGARMS is the trademarked name for SIG in the U.S. in N.H.

GLOCK too p) Its the correct way to spell it and Im sure Gaston would raise Cain.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Surefire has a similar ad puported to be from a GI in Iraq, which I'm equally dubious of.

Actually, I'd be very surprised if it weren't 100% legitimate. In the first place, Sure Fire has impressed me as a bona fide company with a great deal of concern for its name and reputation. The Sure Fire name would never be worth anything to anybody again if those advertisements were demonstrated to be fake. In the second, I've chased down my share of testimonials over the years, and have used them in advertising materials with excellent results. In the third, I have a hunch its flash lights are as rugged as claimed. I've never deliberately dropped mine, but it's survived a few jars and bangs.
That said™, most self-styled "gun writers" are poor writers, and an unfortunately high percentage are apparently not very knowledgeable about guns: not a good combination, in my opinion.

 

[Brother in Arms]

SMALL ARMS REVIEW!!!!
One of the greatest magazines ever.

Brother in Arms

 

[mec]

Surefire flashlights are good products. I have three of them - a couple of "combat" lights and the most useful- a 25 lumen Executive /Outdoorsman that throws a good beam and has a nice, long battery life. The company has market them by spreading samples far and wide. Being low profile, the've sent me these three but I talked to a guy who makes documentaries in war zones. He told me that they had supplied him with about $1,000 dollars worth and got their advertising dollar out of it. Everybody who saw him use these things bought a few of their own and they quickley spread all over the mid-east among free-lance media types and soldiers. They got a good jump on the competition with those long-shelflife batteries and now the technology has spread out among a number of suppliers. Surefire still has a big market share- people stick with them because they want to see what they're going to do next.

 

[R.W.Dale]

My absolute biggest pet peeve is for any issue of a gun mag to have more than ONE full length article on a 1911 style handgun. I've seen issues with up to four

 

[Aguila Blanca]

My pet peeve is when they test a gun that's a piece of crap but, because they obviously can't upset an advertiser and call it a piece of crap, they make it up.

Like they get a pistol that didn't work out of the box. Naturally, when a gun writer calls the manufacturer and says "Hey, that gun you sent me to test don't work," it gets repaired post-haste. They'll usually mention that it got sent back, but they make it sound like 24-hour turn-around for repairs is what the normal buyer should expect. (RIIIIIIGHT!)

Speaking of cliches, how about the "The gun will shoot one-hole goups if I do my part"? This hackneyed phrase usually follows a description of just how miserably the gun actually shot, followed by numerous disclaimers as to why the writer is so absolutely certain that the gun will actually shoot so much better than it actually shot ... if he does his part.

My other pet peeve is the people who make up the covers. They sensationalize the articles to a point that when you go looking, you can't even find it. I recall some manths back the cover of one magazine touted a feature article on a gun I thought would be very interesting. I went through the table of contents in vain looking for the article. Then I went through the magazine several times, also in vain. I finally found it -- the "article" was a 1/3 page industry announcement on a page titled something like "Industry News" or some such catch-all name. Why waste the space to put something on the cover that occupies an insignificant portion of the magazine?

Then there are the sensationalized titles on the cover that don't accurately reflect the subject. One I particularly remember was called on the cover something like "Saved by the Tueller Drill!" (Notice how the cop wannabe mags put exclamation marks after every title.) Read the article, and it was a decent explanation of what the Tueller Drill is, and how it came into existence. But ... nowhere in the article was there any discussion of anyone's having been "saved" by the Tueller Drill. Why is it seemingly impossible to actually READ an article before putting a blurb for it on the damned cover of the magazine?

The only real writer among all of 'em these days, IMHO, is John Taffin. The others may know a bit about guns and shootin' but they don't know beans about writin'.

 

[f4t9r]

I know what you are saying. I keep reading them just like you

 

[4v50 Gary]

Speaking of writing...

As an aspiring writer, I find inspiration in finding a good excuse in the old song, "It's a long way to Tipperary." I share the relevant verse (and chorus) with you now:

Paddy wrote a letter
To his Irish Molly O',
Saying, "Should you not receive it,
Write and let me know!
If I make mistakes in "spelling",
Molly dear", said he,
"Remember it's the pen, that's bad,
Don't lay the blame on me".

It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye Piccadilly,
Farewell Leicester Square,
It's a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there.

 

[Nightcrawler]

LOL!!

 

[Radjxf]

Can't recall the name of the rag, but half the articles of guns tested are by a certain gentleman whose initials are D.P. I absolutely die laughing every time I see a pic of this guy. Mean look, carefully posed, small legs, tight jeans, big gut. Absolutely hilarious. Recently tested a Kel-Tec SU-16 that grouped into 3+" at 50 yards and commented about the excellent accuracy!

 

[ACP230]

I've committed gun prose and had articles in a couple of the magazines mentioned on this thread.
I have never had an editor contact me about lenthening a piece after it had been submitted. I've had a couple suggest adding to them while pieces were in the discussion stages.

I've had many articles cut between submission and publicaton, however.
Some of the cuts included things editors suggested I add.

 

[SixForSure]

My absolute biggest pet peeve is for any issue of a gun mag to have more than ONE full length article on a 1911 style handgun. I've seen issues with up to four

There is no such thing as a 1911 in a gun rag. It is the venrable 1911.

 

[orangeninja]

My pet peeves are few but severe.

1.) There are more handguns out there than Glock, Sig or some Johnny Come Lately 1911.

2.) They offer very little in terms of new information.

3.) They tend to be self righteous....especially the FMP publications.

4.) Inbreeding, it's the same guys writing the same crap for a bunch of different magazines.

5.) Price. They make money off of advertising correct? Then they sell for about $6.00 with tax at the counter, but just last week I saw one for about $10.00.....now seriously, www.amazon.com has a host of truly informative guides on shooting, tactics, etc for the same price and nowhere in their books is the mention of viagra.

6.) Apparantly to be a gun guru you must have been a cop or military guy at some point in life. Ironic since most cops I know don't have half the information tucked away in their cranium as several people on this board concerning guns. And they (cops) tend to begrudge learning tactics. Not only that, but the tactics cops are taught, are heavily tainted by lawyers....to the point of absurdity. I don't even like our classes anymore.

Some things that I like?

1.) They tend to be pro 2nd Amendment...they'd better be.

2.) It is a platform for making political announcements.

3.) Occasionally a useful tid-bit of knowledge will squeek past the editor and make it to print.

4.) Lots of pictures.....books generally suffer in that catagory.

5.) Advertisements by gun manufacturers are sometimes interesting, just to see how they market themselves.

6.) The small catalog of advertisers in the back is a good start for finding people like holster makers.

 

[gp911]

I'm in full agreement on the aggravation of gun rags always requiring at least one test of a 1911 variant, and sometimes several of them. Also how many .308 bolt guns are there?! Mix it up a little for cryin' out loud! Stop with the super high dollar .308 bolt guns in every issue! Would it kill 'em to revisit a classic non-1911 now and then? Maybe a revolver that isn't a .38 snubbie or a Casull? Also stop with the "there's two guys approaching you in an alley, which do you shoot first?" stories. How about a varmint gun that isn't in .223? Maybe test a .257 Roberts, or a .22-250? How about a test of the more popular wildcat cartridges, or ex-wildcats that have caught on somewhat like .35 Whelen? While we're at it, I'd like to see a follow-up to the fluff pieces that are just industry propaganda, with actual results listed. If the first story on the new Glock 59 in .458 Lott is just a full page ad disguised as an article with "we can't wait to get our hands on one" at the end, get your damn hands on one and shoot it, a lot. Drop it on the ground, take it baboon hunting, drag it behind your ATV, just make the damn story interesting, FFS. Sometimes I swear the writers share a common template and just change the gun name in each article...

Plus a test of an inexpensive gun would be refreshing once in awhile. I don't need an NEF story in every issue, but maybe throw one in a comparo with the expensive stuff? How about a Glock vs High Point comparo? (I know, but I'd read it anyway.) Anything but another test of the new Kimber with the plaid grips, twelve picatinny rails, fourteen integral safeties, and the Union Jack themed slide graphic with plutonium night sights and side of fries... Spare me another test of an AR with twenty add-ons that nobody will ever use, just give me a good 6.5 Grendel test or a .50 Beowulf update, or maybe a .458 SOCOM update that isn't half a page long...



Where's my beer?!


Oh there it is...



I'm better now...


gp911

 

[AZgunstudent]

Sometimes I swear the writers share a common template and just change the gun name in each article...

A colleague of mine made almost the same comment when I showed him a recent gun review in one of the NRA magazines. The article said something like, "There were no failures to feed or eject during the accuracy testing..."

Which would have been good news, except that the author was reviewing a revolver.

Maybe it was a joke and the humor was lost on me. But considering some things I've read in shooting magazines, I doubt it.

 

[R.W.Dale]

There is no such thing as a 1911 in a gun rag. It is the venrable 1911.

LOL your so right! I never noticed till you pointed it out.

 

[Braden]

Butt-Kissing: It annoys the heck out of me how one publication insists on printing "Glock" in ALL CAPS every time. Same thing with "SIG" or "SIGARMS". Furthermore, while I'm sure the Horus Vision reticle and PDA system is just neato-friggin'-torpeedo, it's not necessary to continue to gush about it each time one of its scopes is used in a test (especially if it's a test of the rifle, not the scope).

Keep in mind that both "GLOCK" and "SIGARMS" are company trademarked in all caps. If the magazine is going to use then name then they are supposed to do it correctly.

Aside from that, I pretty much agree with you. Right now my only subscriptions are to American Handgunner and Combat Handguns. Of the two, I think Handgunner is far superior. Haven't read many others, but I'm open to suggestions if there are good ones out there that I'm not aware of.