Handgun Magazines...Will They Ever Get It?

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OK, Jack, one more-

As a professional writer, one who puts his real name on everything he publishes, I do not make things up.
Even were I so inclined & so dishonest as to do that, which I'm not, I wouldn't take the risk of "making things up" that could be easily disproven.

Unlike you, hiding behind a faceless & anonymous screen name, I have a reputation to consider.
I also have enough personal integrity to do my best to give people accurate info based on my own knowledge & experience.

Go to Amazon.com, spend a couple bucks, buy the Kindle eBook on the Colt 9mm Carbine I wrote.
Included is a photo of three bullet weights I shot into water jugs through that carbine.
115, 124, and 147.
They were fired into water, not as directly comparable tissue simulants, but as comparisons to each other in how they responded at the higher carbine velocities.

That photo clearly shows the extreme fragmentation of the 115, the core/jacket separation of the 124, and how well the 147 held together.

The focus is primarily on the gun, but ballistics are also briefly discussed, not just between those three bullets through the Colt, but also with a velocity/penetration comparison between the Colt and a Glock.

(Parenthetically, you run into the same situation with a .357 Mag carbine; lighter bullets designed to expand well & hold together at handgun velocities tend to violently fragment on impact through the longer barrel.)

Three samples does not make a comprehensive analysis that holds exactly the same across the board, but they do illustrate the principle that higher 9mm carbine velocities than what the bullets are designed to perform at through shorter pistol barrels CAN produce more violent fragmentation and less penetration.

I base my statements, not on "making things up", but on what I've done myself.
Since you seem to regard those as lies, and me as a liar, there is no point whatever in any further interaction with you.

You can now drivel on as much as you want, this is my last response to you.
Denis
 
Odd, I always thought Handloader featured too many revolvers and 1911s while skipping over plastic framed guns. Independent reviews still exist. That's what I do in my spare time so as a bonus, I'm not beholden to manufacturers or advertisers.
 
DPris said:
OK, Jack, one more-

As a professional writer, one who puts his real name on everything he publishes, I do not make things up.
Even were I so inclined & so dishonest as to do that, which I'm not, I wouldn't take the risk of "making things up" that could be easily disproven.

Unlike you, hiding behind a faceless & anonymous screen name, I have a reputation to consider.
I also have enough personal integrity to do my best to give people accurate info based on my own knowledge & experience.

Go to Amazon.com, spend a couple bucks, buy the Kindle eBook on the Colt 9mm Carbine I wrote.
Included is a photo of three bullet weights I shot into water jugs through that carbine.
115, 124, and 147.
They were fired into water, not as directly comparable tissue simulants, but as comparisons to each other in how they responded at the higher carbine velocities.

That photo clearly shows the extreme fragmentation of the 115, the core/jacket separation of the 124, and how well the 147 held together.

The focus is primarily on the gun, but ballistics are also briefly discussed, not just between those three bullets through the Colt, but also with a velocity/penetration comparison between the Colt and a Glock.

(Parenthetically, you run into the same situation with a .357 Mag carbine; lighter bullets designed to expand well & hold together at handgun velocities tend to violently fragment on impact through the longer barrel.)

Three samples does not make a comprehensive analysis that holds exactly the same across the board, but they do illustrate the principle that higher 9mm carbine velocities than what the bullets are designed to perform at through shorter pistol barrels CAN produce more violent fragmentation and less penetration.

I base my statements, not on "making things up", but on what I've done myself.
Since you seem to regard those as lies, and me as a liar, there is no point whatever in any further interaction with you.

You can now drivel on as much as you want, this is my last response to you.
Denis
Click to expand...

I thought your last response was your last response to me.:D

Okay, so let me get this straight. You want me to buy your book when I can get more accurate information online for FREE from people who put in a lot more time and effort despite the fact that they're not charging money??? You sir have a lot of nerve, let me tell you.

I believe you did your "test," and I believe that you believe it means something, but I'm trying to tell you that it doesn't. Maybe you were using outdated or low quality ammo, maybe the three bullets had fundamentally different constructions, I don't know but something isn't adding up. You could start by telling everyone which three bullets you tested. I'd almost be willing to buy your book just to find out.

And another thing, why are you spending so much time testing these self defense bullets in completely unrealistic guns, then using the results to make blanket statements about 9mm HPs in general? First you say bucket tests are useful because they proved that lightweight bullets don't penetrate. That didn't turn out to be true, so then you threw in the whole 16'' barrel nonsense. How deep does this rabbit hole go, and when does it prove the validity of water bucket tests? Your little half truth didn't pan out.

What this all boils down to is if you're not going to do something right, then just don't do it at all, and especially don't charge money for it. Don't put "we tested the popular HPs" on the cover, then have it turn out to be water jug tests of obscure rounds no one has ever heard of. I'm not saying you wrote that article, but you sure do seem hell bent on defending it.

Seriously, though, which three rounds did you test? Now you've got me curious. Besides, if you're going to make claims like that then you owe us that much.
 
I can't find that book. BTW, you're not exactly using your real name. It wasn't easy for for me to find you. The lest you could do is provide a link.
 
Now we get thousands of arm chair quarterback veterans of the first-person-shooter gaming wars pontificating their wisdom and error laden information free of charge on gun boards and Youtube.....

and we all it progress :eek:
 
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If you were born between 1948 and 1964, you are considered a baby boomer. If you were born at the end of the time period, you are 50+ years old. If you were born in 1948, you are 68 years old this year.

The people who market most products want people in the 18-35 year old age group. We are well past that age so we don't matter that much, any more. We have more disposable income than the younguns but we still don't count because we tend to spend less impulsively and smarter. That comes with the grey hair.

The gun mags go after the 18-35 crowd so you see the guns that interest that group. That goes for most TV commercials unless it's for adult diapers, Viagra, AARP, etc. The newer TV shoes (reality shows) want the 18-35 year old viewers. I won't waste a minute of my time watching a reality TV show.

We don't matter any more. We are dying off every year. We are tighter (smarter) with our money and when we retire, our incomes decline. We don't waste as much money as the young studs do.

So, no one wants our money any more unless you are infirm or not firm. They don't care if we don't buy their products because they don't count on us to. They don't market to us nor do they think we are dumb enough to give them our money. We just don't matter any more. That's fine with me. They don't matter to me, either.

Who really cares who the bachelor or bachelorette chooses? Who cares if Tameka is pizzed off? Who cares who is sleeping with whom or who the baby's daddy is? Obviously someone cares because we keep getting this crap on the new shows. All I know is it's not from anyone I know.

Bottom line?
The mags don't care to cater to us because we aren't their target market. We like steel, wood and revolvers. They don't care. We don't matter any more. We are old news.
 
Much of what you say's true.
I've been saying for years on the forums that today's mags, with all of the expansion of guns, gun ownership, and related gear & garb that go with them, are more consumer driven than they were in Jordan's time.

There are hundreds of gun models that weren't around then to write about, and thousands of subsidiary products to cover today.

The mag market is no longer driven by "Ten Ways To Re-Cycle Your Used Shotgun Brass" and "How To Make Your Own Gunpowder From Old Innertubes".
Or by "Two Weeks In Darkest Africa."

It's driven by what's new for people to buy.

The old stories we read 40 years ago by Jordan & Skelton have no appeal to the age group you reference.
They want to know the latest & greatest.

I wouldn't, though, go quite so far as to say we older people don't matter at all.
Not all mags cater only to the video game crowd & not all writers write for 20-somethings.

It's just that times have changed, and the gunmags have had to change with 'em.
Denis
 
Again, the problem most people have is not with the subject matter. There are magazines for hunting rifles, skeet shotguns, target shooting, you name it. Whatever your interest for guns, there's a magazine for it. Personally, my only interest is self defense pistols, home defense long guns, and what goes with that, like holsters and ammo. I don't hunt, I rarely shoot skeet, and I don't do any target shooting. I have an interest in collecting, but I don't need to see reviews on those.

I also don't care about guns that have no use to me, like 1911s and revolvers. While I may collect those guns, I do not carry them. I carry polymer striker fired and DA/SA type stuff. What I'm getting at is that the majority of gun magazines are geared towards me. I want to see the latest and greatest plastic fantastics. The problem is the execution. All gun magazines do these days is announce products. I learn nothing from them that I couldn't learn from an internet forum. As much as it pains me to say it, the best gun magazine right now is probably Recoil. Once you get past the tacticool crap, there's usually at least one pretty interesting article. For example, they fired the staff's CCW pistols through car doors into gel in the last issue I read. That's the kind of stuff I want to see. It may not generate advertising dollars, but it's interesting and useful to know. They also do reviews of more obscure guns from smaller companies, which is refreshing. If that kind of format could be duplicated without all the tacticool crap it would be a success.

Another favorite is shotgun news. Yes, they participate in the shameless marketing articles of the big mags, but they also have lots of interesting articles afterwards. Like how to build an AKSU from a Hungarian parts kit. I also enjoy the historical articles. They have something for everyone in each issue, but most importantly they provide REAL information that you can't get from a manufacturer's website or an amateur youtube review. They have articles that require real ingenuity or research.

This also isn't a problem of age, so don't make it out to be that we're just a bunch of old fogies out of touch with the times. This topic comes up frequently on all the forums, including the infamous ones, which are a young crowd. And seemingly getting younger by the day...but that's another topic altogether. The bottom line is that the issues raised here are not bound by age or interest. They're fundamental issues of quality.
 
Ha-ha! I read the title of this thread and thought I was going to read posts about whether we prefer double-stack or single-stack magazines, plastic or steel magazines, parkerized or stainless steel. Wrong kind of magazine! But, to answer your question, there are lots of reasons, and everyone here is at least a little bit right.

1) You can only do so many articles on the old guns. A thirty year-old gun is going to already have a massive catalogue of previously written material on it. Some guns even have pop-history books written about them. It is kind of like asking why book publishers keep printing crummy teen fiction like the Twilight Saga when they have a goldmine's worth of English literature in Shakespeare or the Fireside Poets (a good satirical example of this an article from The Onion, "Humanity Still Producing New Art As Though Megadeth's 'Rust In Peace' Doesn't Already Exist")

2) Magazines don't make money from selling magazines, they make money from selling advertising space. They only consider readership numbers as it affects advertising revenue. As somebody pointed out, you are the product being sold by the magazine, to the advertisers. As such, they are far more interested in keeping advertisers happy than they are keeping you informed.

3) There are plenty of places to go besides gun magazines if you want honest opinions. Some of the more reputable YouTube channels, like Iraqveteran88, Nutnfancy, Military Arms Channel, Hickok45, tnoutdoors9, and TFB TV will generally give you their opinions straight. Granted, they are OPINIONS of the reviewers, but they are usually pretty good at explaining why they do and don't like something, and what there criteria is for considering something a good gun/round/knife/caliber etc. Websites like Ballistics By The Inch are doing a good job in specializing in gathering a particular kind of data. Print is a fading media, but that doesn't mean that the information is being lost. The flip side of this is that you get a lot of garbage on the internet that is patently false (reference the recent NYT article about the columnist who shot the AR style rifle and developed PTSD and suffered bruising due to recoil).

4) Most people who are grabbing these magazines are not deep enough into firearms to be interested in the minutia of cylinder gaps, bullet seating depths, and all the stuff that hard-core gun buffs would consider informative. They are mostly interested in what cool new toy is going to pop onto the market that they must absolutely have because all the upcoming video games are going to feature it.

5) What you are describing sounds more along the lines of "Gun Digest." And, yeah, I think there are a lot more gun enthusiasts interested in something like that. Of course, a publication like that would have to be able to pay for itself in sales. And tests like the ones you are suggesting probably ain't all that cheap. So you end up with hobbyists giving you whatever information they like, and, voila, you end up with those resources mentioned in (3) above.

What I am about to suggest is not meant to be snide, condescending, or sarcastic in any way, so please don't take it that way:
Have you thought about setting up a website, blog or YouTube channel of your own? I've heard that the good ones can actually end up paying for themselves. Just a suggestion.
 
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Back to the original post - of the 9 choices posted above, if I were to walk into an airport magazine store to buy a magazine to read on my upcoming flight, there are only two I would consider - the one in the middle with the 1911, and the one at the bottom right with the revolver.

I don't bother with the articles on what I see as "plastic toys". Actually, many of those potential articles mentioned above by the OP would make interesting reading to me.

Personal opinion - people should read articles on how to shoot better, rather than the next new gizmo gun. There's a big stink about a police officer who shot someone lying on the ground, hands in the air. Turns out the cop was aiming at the other guy holding a toy truck. Leaving out whether any shooting was justified, the officer was aiming at one person, and shot another. Maybe he should learn how to shoot, if he's going to walk around with a gun. Ditto for everyone else.

I understand the premise that advertising is what pays for the magazine, so it's important to provide a place where some company will want to place an advertisement. Just the same, the editors I've worked with considered it very important to produce a quality magazine. They also wanted to provide a variety of articles, so readers would be likely to find some articles they cared about.


As cstarr3 just wrote if I "thought I was going to read posts about whether we prefer double-stack or single-stack magazines, plastic or steel magazines, parkerized or stainless steel..." I'd grab that magazine and head for the counter to pay for it.
 
Growing up in the fifties, I developed a love affair with magazines which I still embrace and nurture. "Back in the day", the only source of information regarding firearms to gun enthusiasts were the gun rags (mostly Shooting Times, Gun World and Guns and Ammo), the Shooter's Bible, Gun Digest, the American Rifleman and the three major "outdoor sports" magazines (chiefly Field & Stream, Sports Afield and Outdoor Life) which offered monthly columns by the gun writers of the day.

Today, we truly live in a golden age of information involving most anything and certainly anything firearm-related, and I'm not just referencing the internet. Go to Barnes and Noble and you will find well over a dozen gun magazines on the shelf. Attend any major gun show and you'll see hundreds of books published that address the most minutia of firearm interest (for instance, an entire book about the Winchester Model 67 single-shot .22 rifle). This plethora of reading material, be it gun magazines and books or the internet, was never imagined a few decades ago and I would suggest that we've become pretty jaded along the way.

But, speaking for myself, I will never tire of getting the latest gun magazine (or automobile magazine, for that matter) and reading the articles and looking at the photographs. I'd much rather do this than stare at a computer monitor, even though I'd be the first to concede that the information (both the good and the bad) provided by the internet is vastly greater than the whole of the gun magazine industry.

I'm just thankful that we live in America where we have access to guns and gun reading material where we can all make our own choices of what to read and don't have to defend why we do. I would only hope that people making apparently unpopular choices aren't disparaged by small-minded critics who see the justly celebrated internet as the only way to the "truth".
 
Just a quick addendum re the advertising relationship: In court documents filed in the state of New York earlier this year concerning the dissolution of Harris Publications, Harris Pubs estimated that approximately 25% of it's total publishing revenue derived from advertising & approximately 75% derived from newsstand sales.

The mags can't survive without ALL three legs of the tripod- Production, Advertising, and Sales. Ads are simply an economic necessity & don't wag the dog nearly as much as many think they do.
Denis
 
Denis thanks for your very insightful post. I have learned quite a bit from them. I haven't learned a darn thing from Grampajack.

I admit I haven't bought a gun mag in a while except for one issue of Handguns by Harris publications. It was a good read and I have read over it a couple of times.

And I prefered magazines that I learned something from. Like in articles by Gil Sengal and Ross Seyfried and others like them that taught how to load and work on your gun. I just haven't seen a Handloader on the rack at Walmart in a while.

Wil Terry, poster # 19 was my favorite gunwriter and I have several old G&A annuals just for his articles. And I am lucky enough to be able to trade emails with him. I have even been invited to visit him at his home. Someday I am going to make it too.

Gunmags simply can't be all things to all people. Also Deaf Smith mentioned Paco Kelly. You can find a lot of his stuff here. www.leverguns.com All the articles are excellent reading.
 
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mikemyers said:
Back to the original post - of the 9 choices posted above, if I were to walk into an airport magazine store to buy a magazine to read on my upcoming flight, there are only two I would consider - the one in the middle with the 1911, and the one at the bottom right with the revolver.

I don't bother with the articles on what I see as "plastic toys". Actually, many of those potential articles mentioned above by the OP would make interesting reading to me.

Personal opinion - people should read articles on how to shoot better, rather than the next new gizmo gun. There's a big stink about a police officer who shot someone lying on the ground, hands in the air. Turns out the cop was aiming at the other guy holding a toy truck. Leaving out whether any shooting was justified, the officer was aiming at one person, and shot another. Maybe he should learn how to shoot, if he's going to walk around with a gun. Ditto for everyone else.

I understand the premise that advertising is what pays for the magazine, so it's important to provide a place where some company will want to place an advertisement. Just the same, the editors I've worked with considered it very important to produce a quality magazine. They also wanted to provide a variety of articles, so readers would be likely to find some articles they cared about.


As cstarr3 just wrote if I "thought I was going to read posts about whether we prefer double-stack or single-stack magazines, plastic or steel magazines, parkerized or stainless steel..." I'd grab that magazine and head for the counter to pay for it.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with you on one point. I would much rather read articles about technique than the newest this and that. Don't get me wrong, product announcement is a good thing, and I like being informed about new things on the market, but when you're devoting 90% of a magazine to it...no. All I want to see about new products are the specs and the price, and don't bother doing a review on it unless you're going to put some serious rounds through a random model, not just a few magazines through a factory provided sample, which as someone already stated is not going to leave the factory without testing and possibly a few tweaks.

I also love post incident reports, especially with details. If the person shot wild, what gun were they using and how much training had they had. If the round over or under penetrated, what was it, what barrel length was used, etc. Did someone use a car door or interior wall for cover, and did it work for them or did they get ventilated.
 
......I have to agree with you on one point. I would much rather read articles about technique than the newest this and that. .......
Click to expand...


It's never going to happen, but if I found a magazine issue completely devoted to technique, written by people who know what they're talking about, I'd buy it instantly, and chances are it would never be tossed out. I know just which room I would keep it in, and probably eventually have read it from cover to cover. :)
 
mikemyers said:
It's never going to happen, but if I found a magazine issue completely devoted to technique, written by people who know what they're talking about, I'd buy it instantly, and chances are it would never be tossed out. I know just which room I would keep it in, and probably eventually have read it from cover to cover. :)
Click to expand...

I didn't say completely devoted to it, just including it. Let's say we're talking about a magazine for defensive handguns, geared towards the CCW market. This is the layout I'd like to see.

At the front, I'd like to see about three or four pages of product announcement. It can be as shameless as you want, so long as it's short and sweet. Pick one or two interesting new guns, a few accessories, and some ammo. This is informative, and might help purchase decisions. Let's say I'm thinking of buying an LCP and I see the Glock 42 is about to come out in a few months. Or I'm thinking of buying a CZ and I see that Sphinx is working on an economical SDP. Like I said, though, keep it short and sweet. Weight, bbl length, capacity, MSRP, and expected date of release. Maybe one paragraph per item to mention anything interesting that sets it apart or makes it unique.

Then get to the guts of the magazine. I'd like to see one real review per issue, where you take a gun or accessory and really put it through its paces, more so than is possible for the average shooter. These can gladly be two or three parters. Or even four for that matter. For example, take a factory gun and start dumping rounds through it. Don't clean it and do a torture test or two. Carry it around for a few months and see how the finish holds up. You can test the accessories at the same time, like holsters, sights, etc. So each issue, give an updated round count and any failures, then review one of the accessories you've been using. This will also give you an automatic ammo review. What ammo did it like or not like, and what was the most effective carry round for it.

If it's a magazine about self defense, then do a post incident report and bring in expert opinions on what was done right or wrong. You can even use old incidents. Bring in autopsy and ER reports. Find a retired surgeon or medical examiner to write it. If the incident was a failure, answer whether it was the failure of the shooter or the ammunition. Did the person have enough ammo, did they have to reload, did their gun malfunction? Police shootings alone will keep this column in business until the end of time.

Do some real ballistics testing. The possibilities are endless. Just try to speak to real concerns, like how much power does round A have compared to round B after passing through a barrier, like an interior wall. Do the 9mm vs .40, the handgun vs. AR, etc. etc. It doesn't have to be comprehensive. Just try to answer one small question per issue. Again, two or three parters would be very welcome, as well. For example, the issue raised here would be a good one, which bullet weight for 9mm? Do a three parter, one for 115gr, one for 124 gr, and one for 147gr. Do three popular loads per issue, then see if there's a trend when all is said and done.

Then bring in a respected working firearms instructor, civilian, police, military, it doesn't matter, and let him run with something. Grip, stance, how to use cover, reloading, backup transitions, etc. He could also talk about how to use lights and lasers, or if they're even a good idea in the first place. What do you do if someone grabs your gun? How do you stop a knife attack? The possibilities are endless.
 
The covers are what sells. Not the other way around.



(and what sells is what people own or are about to buy or are considering buying, so they want to know more about it)


Technique? Buy books.
 
confederate,

the current issue (no. 303) of handloader magazine has an excellent article on the three s&w masterpiece pistols: k-22, k-32 and k-38. none of these models are, sadly, no longer produced. gil sengel does a masterful job of covering these ancient artifacts of accuracy!

there is still good reading material out there and good writers behind it.

murf
 
I find double or even triple column handgun magazines easier to read than single column, myself, given typical rack size of 8x10.5 inches. [/snark]

As far as "Handgun Magazines ... Will They Ever Get It?", most of them lost me years ago, for many of the same reasons others have listed.

I like historical handguns. I like outdoors trail guns. I was converted in my thirties to accepting self-defense as a reason by a couple of law enforcement acquaintances. Too many of the magazines in the past 20 years just ignore my root interests.
 
> I cannot imagine a handloader not
> getting HANDLOADER MAGAZINE

I didn't even know there *was* such a magazine. It's certainly not on any magazine racks in my area.

The local racks' selection is, roughly in order, movie/TV, borderline pornographic bodybuilder/fitness, feetball/sports, true confessions, "biker lifestyle", "car/truck/ATV lifestyle", and "gun/hunting lifestyle". Everything else together is down in the single digits.
 
Mike OTDP said:
I used to subscribe to several magazines, but gradually gave them up. Too many of the articles are essentially the same. Oh, another Glock or Glock clone. Oh, another custom 1911, just like the one featured in the last 30 issues.

How about some coverage of the Olympic shooting events? Or of the World Muzzle-Loading Championships? Anything but the same tired old articles rewritten.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but how many ads are the World Muzzle-loading Championships going to buy? ;)

The internet is the way to go. Personally, I love forgottenweapons.com. Ian (guy who runs the site) digs up stuff I've never heard of, that would only be seen in a museum, then takes them apart and explains eactly how they work. If you want to hear something different, check out his breakdown of the Japanese type 92 heavy machine gun: http://www.forgottenweapons.com/type-92-japanese-hmg-at-james-d-julia/
 
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