Gunrag Writers/Editors have no shame.

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slabsides

Member In Memoriam
In the June issue of Shooting Times magazine, there is a 'review' of the Browning Stainless Stalker with carbon-fiber laminated barrel. The subheadline of the article, written by Rick Jamison, who has the title of 'Reloading/Rifles Editor' of the magazine, is: "Rick gives Browning's new carbon-fiber-wrapped bolt action rifle *high marks*." (emphasis mine.)
If you read the article carefully, you will find that this variation of the A-bolt rifle is essentially unchanged from the previous stainless model except for the carbon-fiber barrel.
You will also find, if you read the small print in the 'SPECS' sidebar, that this .22-250 caliber rifle, which is given such high marks, has a high price, too: $1750 list.
Must be a GREAT rifle at that price, right?
OOPS. Next page. Velocity and Accuracy table. 100-yard accuracy for seven factory loads and two handloads are given, shot in 10-shot groups using a top name brand 'scope. They range from a LOW of 1.6" to a HIGH of 3.5". Would YOU buy a .22-250 rifle that shot that poorly with nine different loads, and pay that kind of a price for it?
Apparently Jamison thinks you would.
You see, the carbon fiber barrel is supposed to have some magic capability of shooting COOL. OOPS, wait. There's a table here that shows Jamison's extensive tests for that, too...and it looks like an ordinary steel barrelled Remington meets or beats the carbon barrelled Browning.
High marks must mean something different to Shooting Times and Jamison, who calls this sorry excuse for a shooting iron "...truly up to the minute in technology." Yeah, right!
 
Writers can be whores...

Mike Irwin pointed out that it takes quite a while before you get name recognition and free stuff for testing. Until you reach that point, it's all out of pocket expense for the writer. The problem with writers is that fear losing those freebies if they say Brand A's new gun is a piece of crap and my son's Red Ryder shoots straighter. Opps, that's a quick way for Brand A or any other brand to stop sending you freebies. So, writers refrain from mentioning all the negatives or they downplay it with euphamistic terms.

That's why I trust the folks at TFL more than the gunrags. No one is paid a dime here and our members can share any observations about any gun without fear of manufacturer retribution.

Right now I get very few gun rags: American Rifleman b/c I'm a lifer, Rifle, Muzzle Blasts (black powder mag with lots of historical stories, how-tos for black powder rifle building) and The Accurate Rifle (which replaced the Tactical Rifle - good, but The Tactical Rifle was better).
 
Yep Shooting Times used to be a great magazine. I enjoyed the articles by Skeeter Skelton and Bill Jordan. Now all the gun rags are basically add rags. They have become so commercial that they aren't worth reading. Also how about the same articles in three or four different magazines. I wrote them a letter about this a couple of months ago and never recieved a reply. I think basically one company owns Shooting Time, Handguns, Rifle Shooter, Peterson's Hunting, etc. If Jim Wilson quits I'm gonna quit subscribing.
 
Rick Jamison has been around a while, long enough to do the kind of "it's great" article that the magazine demands to keep its advertisers happy, while getting in all the info the careful reader needs to understand the real results of the test. Two faced? Maybe, but he keeps his job, which is what counts to him.

Jim
 
You got to remember the guy who wrote the article and the guy who writes the captions are rarely the same man. Captions are almost always a positive spin, or at worst neutral, no matter what the article itself says.
 
Not always. American Handgunner dinged the Colt double action auto so hard, that Colt pulled all advertising for years. However, most don't make a habit of offending the manufacturers. The best honesty is from the American Rifleman.
 
That's strange that the gun mag business is like that. Auto and motorcycle magazines often go so far as to nitpick good vehicles (Honda's CBR929RR is often described as, "so well engineered and easy to ride it's boring") and they always get more the next year to test and destroy.

Do you think it's because the gun industry is so small compared to the auto industry and even the bike industry that they can't afford even a little criticism?
 
I like when they test handguns and say it has good "combat accuracy" and there are no accuracy charts or "I really didn't have time or the weather was bad so I didn't get to do any accurcay testing."
 
Intel6,

"Good combat accuracy" has become the code-word for "Can't hit the side of a barn!" I'm giving up all of my subscriptions, also. Their won't be much advertising when their subscription rate goes in the toilet. Good shooting! Doug.
 
Rick Jamison's been a staff writer for as long as I can remember.

In fact, I think it might have been his article in Buns & Whammo that so greatly infuriated me that I let my subscription lapse, and haven't purchased a copy since then (that was in 1992).

As far as the specific comments on accuracy are concerned, I really don't think that's all that bad given factory ammo. Handloading has the potential to drop those groups by half.

And, as far as trusting American Rifleman, read this thread for an eye toward that...

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=60570
 
I used to get AH, but also let it lapse for much the same reason. Interestingly enough though, I have recently been receiving Guns and Ammo, even though I never subscribed to it. I don't know what is going on but I am not going to take the time to find out. I will say this about the two magazines. I didn't like AH's propensity to drool all over every gun they reviewed, or the way they lauded S&W (basically made them out to be victims of sorts), but at least the writing and pics were passable. Not so Guns and Ammo. It looks like it was written by ten-year-olds in someone's garage. I'm talking about horrid grammer and mediocre writing skills, and pics so bad they make the ads look good.
 
Guns and Ammo has really gone down the tubes over the last few years. They've dumped the few good and honest writers they had - Seyfried comes to mind - and replaced them with Gun Industry hacks.
You have to realize that these mags make far more money from advertisers than they do from sales. It's not in their financial interest to be honest about these products.

Gun Tests is the best mag out there (IMHO), since they don't accept advestisements. I don't always agree with their assessments, but that is due to the criteria they use more often than not - they are still many leagues ahead of the traditional gun mags.
 
There is ONE honest magazine...

Denny Hansen of SWAT magazine has, on several occassions, told readers NOT to buy a weapon because it was not up to snuff.
He once described the Beretta 1201FP as "designed by chimpanzees for use by gorillas". This editorial honesty has cost SWAT some advertisers in the past but the credibility of the magazine has, in general, been beyond reproach.
I call that honest.

I wholeheartedly agree that most other gun (and knife) magazines are really not worth buying.
 
"Gun Tests is the best mag out there (IMHO), since they don't accept advestisements."

IMHO, you haven't been a reader [subscriber] of "GT" long enough to discriminate.

Their past is, at best, checkered.

I dropped my subscription when they editorialized in favor of certain federal gun-restriction/banning legislation.

At any rate, I can't take seriously any gunzine that would praise/condemn any particular model of firearm based on a test sample size of one.

That's just not good science, no matter the label.
 
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