Guns & Outdoors Forum

I received my November 2025 issue yesterday, apparently that is their final print issue and they are going to online only, I understand economics of that, but I will miss reading my saved up issues in my deer stand enjoying a cup of coffee and Irish cream, the Internet reception on my phone will make that difficult to read and I generally don't like reading on my phone. Makes me feel old .

Phones suck - but what about Kindle? You can subscribe to "many" mags with Kindle, and have it pre-loaded ready when you are. Kindle is gobs better than any PHOOOOOONNE...

I used to carried my Kindle when I still hunted in northern Cal. The Kindle is a lot lighter than a book and is back lit when needed.

I used to carried my Kindle when I still hunted in northern Cal. The Kindle is a lot lighter than a book and is back lit when needed.

we have one of those type of devices somewhere in the house, have not seen it for awhile...

I really enjoy the digital mags we get from Scott. Outside of his, I can’t remember a regular gun magazine article I’ve read in years that made me want to get a subscription to their paper or digital mags..

BTW I jut got an iPad Pro Mini and it’s amazing. I’ve retired my other 2 full sized versions. You can download .pdf files of mags and books to rake them anywhere even when you have crappy reception.

Between SHOT show previews online, online press releases, and my coworkers cueing me in on the "latest and greatest" that they are foaming at the mouth over. . . that's usually sufficient input for me on what the industry is doing and I can keep my own counsel on the latest re-hashing of hundred-plus year-old mechanisms. I got sufficiently burned out on tepid review articles that looked exactly the last 90 review articles striving to pitch and not offend the paid advertisers - I don't think I've paid money for a gun mag in over 20 years.

I don’t read gun magazines anymore. Haven’t for years. Only read a couple of “outdoor magazines”.
Field Ethos
Sports Afield
and the one we generously get free here.

1980's and 90's, if there was a G&A in my mailbox, it was time for some serious bathroom reading.

Bigslug wrote: ↑Sun Sep 28, 2025 9:30 pm Between SHOT show previews online, online press releases, and my coworkers cueing me in on the "latest and greatest" that they are foaming at the mouth over. . . that's usually sufficient input for me on what the industry is doing and I can keep my own counsel on the latest re-hashing of hundred-plus year-old mechanisms. I got sufficiently burned out on tepid review articles that looked exactly the last 90 review articles striving to pitch and not offend the paid advertisers - I don't think I've paid money for a gun mag in over 20 years.

This!

PFD45 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 28, 2025 10:43 pm 1980's and 90's, if there was a G&A in my mailbox, it was time for some serious bathroom reading.

If you're reading in the bathroom, you're not eating right!

The ONLY "gun magazine" I pay for is "Handloader"

Zee wrote: ↑Sun Sep 28, 2025 9:44 pm I don’t read gun magazines anymore. Haven’t for years. Only read a couple of “outdoor magazines”.
Field Ethos
Sports Afield
and the one we generously get free here.

Field Ethos is in a league of its own for outdoor/adventure mags IMO. Well worth the price for the printed magazine.

Well, the best outdoor magazine is, of course, Sporting Classics and you can still get it in print. https://sportingclassics.com/

Touché.

Bigslug wrote: ↑Sun Sep 28, 2025 9:30 pm Between SHOT show previews online, online press releases, and my coworkers cueing me in on the "latest and greatest" that they are foaming at the mouth over. . . that's usually sufficient input for me on what the industry is doing and I can keep my own counsel on the latest re-hashing of hundred-plus year-old mechanisms. I got sufficiently burned out on tepid review articles that looked exactly the last 90 review articles striving to pitch and not offend the paid advertisers - I don't think I've paid money for a gun mag in over 20 years.

The amount of marketing wankery contained within the pages of gun rags drove me away a loooongggg time ago. I get it, subscription fees aren’t what’s paying the bills, advertising dollars are. Which I’m 100% fine with.

But I’ll let someone else pay to read how the Taurus Model 69420 curved hand grip frame gun made to clear some Thiccboi love handles is the best thing since the 1911.

don't forget,
"The first test gun had problems with "this", they sent us a second one and assured us that problem has been fixed in production models. Even though we had problems, the second one was great, the 3 times we got it to fire, and we really think it deserves a spot in your safe. "

on ANY new gun that's actually a POS, from one of their advertisers

If one would cover comp shooting as well as hunting, there would be a chance I would read it. Pheasant season, indoor small bore (youth), turkey season, indoor air rifle (youth), deer season, flintlock season, turkey season, high power begins, varmints, warms up enough for F class and benchrest to come outside, trap and skeet, nationals, high power, long range, palma, pistol, trap - cover winners and real hard stuff like pres 100 ect ect.

More to guns than bunnies and bambis

Those niche topics probably don't have enough advertisers to be profitable, though some do have their own magazines. Deer and Turkey hunting do.

GrapeApe wrote: ↑Mon Sep 29, 2025 11:52 pm Those niche topics probably don't have enough advertisers to be profitable, though some do have their own magazines. Deer and Turkey hunting do.

Well, the high power stuff has its own fed mandated program that runs 7 nationwide matches in all areas of the country, not including the clubs that run their own. From Apr to Nov in the NE you can shoot a match of some type every weekend then pick up indoor or Battle Of the Bulge matches. The amount of shot that is sold at the trap nationals would sink a yacht and those people like to spend money more than F class shooters. With the decline of hunting in general you see the magazines disappear because they DONT have enough readership to support advertisers.

As I stated, there is more to firearms than Choot dem Deers. A mag that is about guns and sports should cover guns and sports, all of them. Turkey is a niche topic, it wouldnt even be a thing if everyone who was buying 10M air rifles wasnt paying into Pittman Robinson. You dont need a mag that covers ONLY 10M air rifle, just an article that talks about it. Things like gear and target size. You do get that if you laid a soda can on its side with the bottom facing you and took your deer rifle at 200 yards and hit it 10 of 10 offhand, you wouldnt make the top of the list.

Hunting is dying off, in fact all shooting sports are suffering from the fact that there are less kids now than there were, and younger people have a lot of self inflicted pulls on their time. I dont care if a kid or dad or mom gets interested because they can shoot at the HS rifle team, or they learn that HS still have rifle team because of a mag article, or grandpa takes them hunting. I started my kids hunting, none hunt now, one competes though and honestly I hunt pheasants, turkey when I have time and I take the flintlock for deer when I can talk myself into going out.

Hunting is a high dollar niche thing that honestly is real hard to convince people to try. Getting the Fudd mags to carry articles that the younger generations and people with no interest in hunting might find an urge to try venison interesting and introducing the hunt only crowd to see that black rifle are not inaccurate spray and pray machines isnt a bad thing.

Regardless of content, if paper magazines were profitable there would be…more paper magazines.

We can long for days gone by, but those days have long gone by.


I’m the old man.

I kinda miss the old-school gun magazines. Even though a lot of the articles were blatant advertisements and just repeating the same stuff that had been said 1000 times before. It was cool to see the new stuff coming out, and learn about old stuff I'd never heard of before.

Now it's all Youtube dorks and social media influencers getting the info out there... and they are INFINATELY worse about saying dumb stuff then the old 'gunwriters'

With the exception of a few notable exceptions like Forgotten Weapons.

CPJ 2.0 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 30, 2025 1:30 pm Regardless of content, if paper magazines were profitable there would be…more paper magazines.

We can long for days gone by, but those days have long gone by.

Not just magazines, pretty much ALL print media is slowly dying out.