Random Musings on the Gun Forums

[Peter M. Eick]

I work internationally a lot so I drop off the "real" world for a few months at a time and then get back "on-line" and try to catch up on the forums.

Today after being gone for 2 months I was noticing a few patterns so I figured I would comment on them and see if others notice the trends. You will always get the standard trend questions on every forum. If you have read them awhile, you know what I mean. What I am commenting on is the deviations from the background chatter. It would be interesting to map this out somehow.

As I waded through the highroad/thefireingline/etc. (lots of posts in the last few months), I was immediately aware it was hunting season from all of the posts on rifles and ammo. There are the usual 30/30 questions and a few 30 carbine questions, but they have tapered off since the CMP sales. Not much on the short mags or the ultra mags recently. I guess they are falling out of favor. Seems like a few questions on the 25-308. That must be the new round "de-jour".

Hitting the handguns, it seems like not much on the EMP. I guess that tapered off. Seemed to be some on the 10mm and surprisingly a lot on the 357 Max. There are all the usual questions like will my gun take +P+ but not much new to see. I guess the P7PSP's are still flooding the market as there are a lot of new questions on it. Revolvers generate about 1/2 the questions as semi's still but the revolver seems to get more questions during hunting time. Not sure why, but you see it.

Going to Black-powder, it was a very quiet 2 months. Only a few interesting posts out there. Lots of the usual stuff though. More rifle stuff as it is hunting season.

Reloading has a lot of new folks. Prices for components and factory ammo must be very high as there were many new faces and many newbie type questions. Obviously a lot of first timers out there rolling their own. Nice to see the new crowd is asking questions. I guess nearly $100 a barrel oil has finally hit the factory ammo crowd. I know I am looking forward to my bonus for searching for the stuff.

Smithing was darn light. As I type this, I don't remember even a single post that really struck me. I saved a bunch of them, but I don't remember any high points.

That brings up a comment. I save every post I am interested to the hard drive and sort them out. After today's wading I only saved 798 threads to the disk. Pretty light for 2 months away from the forums. I master post dataset is now up to nearly 9 gigs so I have plenty to read when I travel.

Now on to specific forums comments.

I see levergun.com is back up. Nice new interface, but not a single post on the henry 1860 (uberti or otherwise).

I see that there is a lot of good stuff on the reloading bulletin board. I must have saved out 30 threads there.

Park city tactical is still swamped with P7PSP threads and boy does that drive down the price of my PSP's. I saw some for sale in the 6's and that is discouraging.

The m14 board had a bunch of good threads on the Supermatch and the National's. They seem to come in lumps over there and then it goes back to the background usual questions and answers. Not much in the reloading section this time though.

Smith and Wesson forum had a lot in the pre-wars for me that was on the 38/44's and Registereds. I must have saved out 100 threads at that site alone. Lots of good information and plenty of good questions. Maybe I am still in the learning phase there so it has more of interest.

Over on sigforum there was not a single post on the 229 sports but there is some speculation that the 357 sig is going the way of the 41 magnum. Not gone, but more of a rare round. Only two posts on the sig 210's. Weird. Normally there would be more. This is like the great 210 drought of 2004 (or was it 2003???)

Ruger forum got a new look, but not much on the 357 max in the last 2 months.

Rimfirecentral had a lot on the winchester 52 and 250's. Interesting how they are popular all of a sudden. Many posts about brooks over on the cz section but not a lot of new information there. It seems like a lot of 452 varmint owners are cutting the stock and bedding them. I might have to do that to mine.

Handloads online was a bit sparse this time. Only a few good threads to me. Actually they were not a lot of posts there to look at.

Glocktalk was getting a new look and was quite unstable. From the lack of posts I would guess that it has had some problems in the last couple of months. The reloading section is drowned with chaff this time. Only a few really good nuggets of wheat in there to sort out.

Coltforum seems to be focusing on the new services. They seem very popular this time. Several good diamondback posts there.

Only a few interesting (to me) posts in the beretta forum. That one has really slowed down in the last year or so. Only 3 84F posts and a few 87t posts.

Almost nothing in the automag forum. I don't think I saved a single thread.
1911forum had a few questions in the smithing and the reloading but the kernels in colt forum on the 38 super were great. Several good threads on the super and what can be done to improve the accuracy. I saw a good thread on the Baer Monoliths, but I figured it was too old to add on to.

Well that is my observation of the last two months on the gun threads. Obviously this is biased to my interests, but I thought others might be interested.

So what broad generalizations can you all make about the recent directions and observations of the general gun forums?

 

[Onmilo]

I only hit a few forums but I work in the industry.
What I have seen the last fifteen years is dems banning stuff but ammo and surplus being cheap and abundant during that time.
Publicans lifting bans but making concessions to ammo manufacturers that severely limit availability of ammo while forcing prices through the roof.
$3.20 a gallon gas helps nothing, nobody can afford to drive to the ranges and if they can, they can't afford a great deal of ammo to shoot.
Hunting and hunters buying guns and ammo and all the other goodies are down except for Archery which due to marketing and advertising as the new politically correct way to hunt.

Gun sales are relatively flat and most of the market is in trending.

Since the Clinton purge began we have lost something in the neighborhood of 600,000 FFL holders.
There used to be a dealer for every 300 Americans, now there is a dealer for every 15,000 and this isn't making things better because most of these current FFLs are held by big box stores who seem to think people only need surplus rifles and Remington and Mossberg long guns.
Choice makes this Industry thrive and the choices and availability of product is becoming more and more limited every day.

 

[geojap]

I have wondered myself why the GunsNet.net forum seems to have become a ghost town. There are rarely any new, good posts on the ak47.net and C&R forums there. That forum used to be a hive of activity when I started reading it around 2000-2001.

I also have noticed the traffic on The High Road pick up dramatically this year.

 

[ClarkEMyers]

Books and magazines are not the primary sources; the web is and answers on the web are always less complete and more short rehash as old timers of wide experience die off and up and comers are writing shorter less complete answers.

It's so easy to ask on the web that impossible to answer questions are more common and more commonly cross-posted - I see more cross-posted "what's the best....." The world is full of good enough and frex some long time true experts have stopped trying to keep up with less expensive binoculars say as they are all good enough - like computers it is almost always possible to buy the same quality a little cheaper or better quality at the same price with more shopping but any of them are plenty good enough just the same.

More cross-posted solicitation of "what's the best....." when there is no logical answer but only emotion to distinguish say Wilson and Baer and Nighthawk and ......Not to say they are all the same but to say the differences are as much taste as logic.

The significant new interest in reloading has produced nothing new on the Red vs. Blue debates on reloading with Lyman and RCBS tending to be ignored. There is more money out there among the newly interested than when I started with a tong tool and had to stretch to afford that. More money is a long term trend as hobby shooting becomes more demanding and so limited - no more gallery pistol in the basement of the Elks or Eagles. Folks are not starting with police trade in S&W Model 10 revolvers and buying full wadcutter reloads from a myriad of small reloaders.

An ongoing loss of tribal knowledge in the postings - nobody seems to remember Jack O'Connor and the .270 so the various caliber questions are rehashing the .270 vs. .30-'06 debate all over again with different cartridges. Folks who seem never to have heard or read about the 7X57 ask about the 7mm-08.

Fewer new or renewed sites - the trend in bulletin boards is to open strong with good support and attract more and more people until the early adapters are drowned out by by perfectly nice but less informed people and the early adapters move on. I've seen more really good sites of limited focus and high signal to noise ratio go moribund than I have seen open up - maybe that's just me.

 

[Guntalk]

>>Ruger forum got a new look, but not much on the 357 max in the last 2 months.<<

Change one of those digits, and you'll see a lot of postings in a few days. <grin>