I will not buy any gun rag with a 1911 on the cover

[Mikul]

I agree. The 1911 is a great gun, but I'm tired of seeing yet another 1911 with minor variations get reviewed. I'm waiting for the issue that compares carbon steel, stainless steel, and aluminum frames for accuracy.

I picked up a magazine in the book store with THREE articles about 1911's (two reviews and one about accessories).

It doesn't really matter if they're talking about 1911's, Glocks, or a Korth, they're going to say the same thing. "I loved it. It is a good gun." Reading gun rag reviews reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit where they advertised a new Broadway show featuring a world renowned hypnotist. When interviewed outside of the theather everyone said the same thing: "I loved it. It was better than Cats. I'm going to see it again and again."

 

[WonderNine]

I never have read gun rags and feel all the smarter because of it!

 

[Guns_and_Labs]

A contrarian view

I love 'em all, though I must admit I'm a rifle guy first. The 1911 articles almost always have pretty pictures, and I'm always in awe of how much work you can put into them, and they still can't hold better than 8 MOA. The problem with Glocks is that they're too simple and the finish makes them unphotogenic. Of course, the "Glock Torture Test" is always amusing.

To continue the magazine review, I'll throw in a couple of others:

Rifle -- Always an interesting article for novice or expert.
The Accurate Rifle -- I'd like it better if I could understand the math.
Shooting Times -- Kind of like Guns and Ammo with reloading info. Just OK.

But I must say Guns and American Handgunner are on top, in the gun porn department. They can print a picture of ANYTHING and I want to run right out a buy one. Or go shooting.

 

[Bobarino]

i really like American Handgunner. its one of my favorite rags. but i never buy it when it has YET ANOTHER super duper custom slicked up jeweled polished "tactical" 1911 on the cover. i'm soooooooo tired of reading about the "new" 1911. there is nothing new about the 1911. its been around forever, and there is nothing you can do to one that hasn't been done 1000 time before. its like buying custom car magazines with ANOTHER "custom" Camaro on the cover. there's a gazillion guns out there and customizers for those guns and they don't half the coverage of the newest, ultimate, compact, concealable, tactical, ported, polished blah blah blah 1911. i fully concede that the 1911 is and excellent platform and has a huge following. but, there ARE other guns out there that people are interested in, belive it or not. heck there's even other CALIBERS! talk about an epiphany!

Bobby

 

[M1911Owner]

I agree with Landric--I haven't bought a gun rag in over 15 years. After a few issues, you've got it all pretty much memorized.

Here's one article Landric missed: "We Test the .697 Super Ultra Magnum." Conclusion: "The recoil was brisk, but very controllable." (Note: Author did not publish for next six months, while broken wrist healed.)

 

[Landric]

Oh, and I almost forgot my favorite all time gun rag quote:

"We found the pistol to be combat accurate"

That means you might be able to hit the barn from inside 5 out of 10 times.

Oh, and why do they always feel to need to tell me how to break it down and clean it? 95% of all handguns disassemble the same basic way. I'm reading about the gun, I don't own it. If I owned it, I would have the owners manual, and that would tell me how to break it down. What a waste of space that two or three paragraphs is. I suppose it is pretty easy to cut and paste from the last article though.

And what the heck is with Jeff Cooper anyway? That guy hasn't had a new idea since 1911.

 

[Echtermetzger]

Amen, Alduro.

The 1911 is a great gun (or at least the potential to being a great gun depending on the make and model), but it doesn't do a thing for me. Unfortunately, the 1911 Mafia and their friends in the Glock cult rule the gun rag culture.

And since they are dependent on gun manufacturer's advertising revenue, they aren't going to publish anything really controversial.

"The new POS in 9mm sucked....we had multiple FTFs with different ammo....blah blah"

That'd be a sure way to piss off their advertisers and irritate their sales staff. So they stick to less controversial subjects like

"We Try out the NEW 1911!" and other garbage.

Gun rags are amuzing to page through when I'm at the book store, but I'll be damned if I buy anything with a 1911 or a Glock on the cover.

Thank the gods for gun forums.

 

[Tamara]

You know why American Handgunner has the latest megabuck custom from Larry Vickers on the cover and splashed all over a centerfold inside? For the same reason that Road & Track has Ferraris on the cover and featured so often.

Who wants to read a review, complete with glamour shots, of a Ford Taurus or some other family bus when you can go rent one from Hertz to see what all the fuss is about? By the same analogy, most folks reading the magazine own or can rent a Glock or a CZ, but the multi-kilobuck customs are conspicuous by their absence in the rental case at the local Guns 'R' Us.

Gun Tests and Combat Handguns are replete with black & white photos of everyday ol' pistols, but I enjoy the fact that there's at least one magazine out there that will let me drool over photos of sculpted billet unobtainium that I'll probably never handle in real life.

 

[XMP]

I wish AH would publish two handgun mags: one solely devoted to 1911 and one to other handguns. Then we'd see which would quickly go under die to financial trouble. If it weren't for the 1911 there wouldn't be any solvent handgun mags for anybody to look at

 

[OF]

SWAT. That's it. Dumped everything else when I became a member at TFL and realized that the rags were almost 100% BS.

- Gabe

 

[Tom Servo]

Some day I will publish my own magazine. It will be called Juggs & Ammo, and it will cater to large and diverse readership. It will not have 1911s on the cover. Or the "new" ported Glock-of-the month. It will have other things.

 

[Gary A]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually Ruger and S&W account for the majority of handguns sold in the US.
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That may be true, but that includes their revolvers (which make up the bulk of their market).
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The logic here would seem to imply that there be more revolvers on gun-rag covers then if that is the bulk of what people actually buy.

 

[Majic]

The logic here would seem to imply that there be more revolvers on gun-rag covers then if that is the bulk of what people actually buy.

That maybe logical, but the gun rags feature the makers who spend the most money in advertising. Since Glock and the 1911 makers (mainly Kimber) invest heavily in advertising they get to stay on the covers. Take notice of who has the most full page ads in the rags.

 

[Jammer Six]

I will not buy any gun rag with a 1911 on the cover

That's OK.

I won't buy one with anything else, so you and I balance.

Except, of course, that I have a lot more to read...

 

[Big Mike]

I will not buy any gun rag with a 1911 on the cover

AMEN Brother Alduro, and I'm glad someone finally said it. I will not offer criticism on the 1911 itself, only the vast quantities of times I see them profiled on the cover of mags. What's funny too is many of the 1911s the feature are the high end production to full custom pistols I would never have enough discretionary cash to purchase one with.

Now before people bark about the accolades of shooting a "nice" 1911, lemme say I've shot many already, Les Baer, Wilson, Caspian, Colt Custom, Kimber Target, and a handful of other ones with equal amount of custom touches that seem to be the rage. They all shot ok, and I won't knock them, but none of them ever shot so well it convinced me to give up any other pistol I had at the time, and is probably why I don't own one now.

If fact, I think the gun magazines profiling 1911s have pushed me to the internet for my primary source of information. Maybe I should thank them??

Mike

 

[Mad Man]

Some day I will publish my own magazine. It will be called Juggs & Ammo, and it will cater to large and diverse readership. It will not have 1911s on the cover. Or the "new" ported Glock-of-the month. It will have other things.

Like a pair of 38 Specials? Or 44 Magnums?

For those who prefer the smaller calibers, "Why I like the 32."

 

[mec]

"....would publish two handgun mags: one solely devoted to 1911 and one to other handguns. Then we'd see which would quickly go under die to financial trouble. If it weren't for the 1911 there wouldn't be any solvent handgun mags for anybody to look at...."

This is extra true. Back in the mid 90s, before the gun magazine circulation began to fall off in a big way, one editor wrote an answer to a reader who asked " Why don't you have more issues featuring revolvers?"
The editor replied that they had published such an issue a few months before and newsstand sales went completely to heck.

I'm not sure if revolver sales are higher or lower than semi-autos- the buyers would be better off if this were true, but sales of semi-auto articles are way out in front. Same on message boards like this. The semi-auto forums get a lot more hits than the revolver ones.

 

[grislyatoms]

The only magazine I bother with any more is American Rifleman.
I'll also pick up a copy of "The Shotgun News" if I am looking to buy something new (for price comparisons and such), the rest of them are the same tired old stuff hashed and rehashed.