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MSM2019
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:17 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 04 Mar 2019
Posts: 1819
Location: Central ND

I guess this is a complaint, observation and a frustration.

So I subscribed to Shooting Sportsman, the Sept/Oct edition arrived today and I instantly remembered why I stopped receiving magazines about hunting and fishing 20 plus years ago.

Here are the articles...Boots to protect bird dog feet...The best guns, gauges and chokes for the uplands...How firing pins function...Simplifying load choices for various game birds...The benefits of off-season training at hunting preserves...The Parker VH...7 Combo hunts...Unlimited Bobwhites at Winghaven Lodge.... Creating a double from scratch... Why lightweight 12s are the kings of bird guns.

With the exception of the firing pin article and creating a double from scratch, all of those subjects have been beaten to death almost annually.

Advertisements are found on many pages and just might be the most informative pieces in the magazine.

I guess someone new to upland hunting will find some value in it. For me and I would bet 95% of the folks on the 16ga.com, it is mostly just a rerun.

My 2 cents from the cheap seats.

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John Singer
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:45 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 03 Sep 2014
Posts: 398
Location: Rochester, MN

You may likely have outgrown outdoor magazines. In addition, the instant availability of info on the net has taken some of the magic away.

I used to read Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, and Sports Afield all the time. I could not wait to see the next issue. I read them pretty much cover to cover.

Not so much anymore.

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Zrexxer
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:31 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 27 Oct 2011
Posts: 88
Location: Austin TX

MSM2019 wrote:
Here are the articles...Boots to protect bird dog feet...The best guns, gauges and chokes for the uplands...How firing pins function...Simplifying load choices for various game birds...The benefits of off-season training at hunting preserves...The Parker VH...7 Combo hunts...Unlimited Bobwhites at Winghaven Lodge.... Creating a double from scratch... Why lightweight 12s are the kings of bird guns.


All you have to do to understand the problem is realize that you could use the same stuff to create articles for Cosmo magazine by just replacing each headline with girly topics...

Boots for fall fashion...The best hair, makeup and styles for the club scene...How keto diets function...Simplifying handbag choices for various dating needs...The benefits of off-season travel at St. Tropez...The new Maybelline VH eyeliner...7 Couples retreats...He'll love the new you at Winghaven Lodge.... Creating a double date from scratch... Why keeping the conversation lightweight will reel him in.

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Old colonel2
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:31 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 07 Jun 2020
Posts: 224

The description of having outgrown them maybe accurate. Good observation.

I have the same feeling of I have seen this before and before. I dropped a number of magazines which were ok, but did not float my boat as much as they once did. Gone are Wildfowl, Gun Dog, Wing and Shot, Covey Rise, Pointing Dog Journal, Retriever Journal, Fly Fisherman, Quail Unlimited, and others I can’t remember.

I still take Shooting Sportsman and Doublegun Journal for the gun pictures. My wife refers to them as my gun porn. They can be the pictures upon which dreams are made.
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Pine Creek/Dave
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 6:46 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
Posts: 2786
Location: Endless Mountains of Pa

Gentlemen,

We do have some very experienced sportsman here on the 16 forum, however there is always something we can learn about guns dogs people and places. I have to admit SSM is the best of the sports mags, I get a few others, however I got rid of 90% of the sports magazines years ago.

When the Grouse Point Almanac turned into just another every day upland magazine, we lost one of the best magazines ever published. When Dave Meisner passed away we lost Gun Dog, it has never been the same.

If you get bored I suggest reading some old classics like GBE, Spiller, Hemingway, Knight and a few others. I never get tired of well written sports stories, especially about Grouse and Woodcock hunting, unfortunately very few are being written today. I do have a nice sports library so I never really get bored, I just get lost in the past once again. I will also pick up the DGJ every once in a while, I do enjoy good guns. The other thing that really keeps my interest is buying and selling good double guns, GI can be very interesting.

Never saw much point in complaining about the sports magazines, very few good ones left.

all the beat,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

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df
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:02 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 01 Oct 2007
Posts: 962
Location: Minnesota

I still subscribe to several, but the thrill is gone. I doubt hardly any if any all all will be around in five years.
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Researcher
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:25 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Posts: 695
Location: WA/AK

It has long seemed to me that many of the articles are just glorified ads for expensive shooting destinations. I quit my subscriptions to the slicks about twenty years ago. Got tired of paying for the author's shooting trips. Back in the 1960s my Father was sure that Jack O'Connor only had a dozen or 15 columns and had just kept refreshing them since the forties in Outdoor Life.

I only get The Double Gun Journal and usually there are no more than one or two articles in each issue that are of interest to me. I do get three collector organization magazine.

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canvasback
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:14 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 684
Location: Ontario

I only get the DGJ now. But this isn’t unique to outdoor/hunting magazines. Any enthusiast/hobby magazine cycles through the same subjects. I found it with sailboats magazines, wooden boat magazines, car magazines. Eventually you get to where you’ve read it all.

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Hammer bill
PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 1:43 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Feb 2015
Posts: 815

Gentlemen of the 16 ga.

It seems we are looking to pick up articles of far long days gone by. It tells our age. I'll explain. Back in the early 50's when I was in the 4th grade we moved to a different home still though in the country. A preacher moved on from the home we moved in. Just so happens the bedroom I got was a gold mine full of sports afield, field and stream, outdoor life and others of the same variety. Everyday I got off the buss I rushed into to observe myself in those articles. Couldn't get enough.. My mom new when I got off the buss where I was headed till I was called for supper. Wasn't called dinner Back then around our house. Then I would get my chores done, take my bath then off to bed falling asleep with a magazine in my Hands. Well you all get the idea from here.
I think we all mostly lived many of those dreams that remains dearest to our experiences. And today we expect to find a complete new excitement but have found no rush to our senses as yesteryear. We see the lights dimming on our memories which not many of the younger will ever understand because of different interest of the modern age. No longer can I pick up my single I've Johnson, head out the back door with 6 or seven 16ga shells in my pocket and not be back home until the shells were gone and my pouch full of game. I go to the gun clubs what is left in a hundred mile radius and share stories of days gone by cause we know no matter how hard we try those days are gone and you won't find them in today's mags..
New modern stories is like the tech revolution. Not really any interest to me. Not enough time left to observe myself in it. We are kinda like we just slowly fade away like McArthur 's old soldiers. And it's never coming back. Just hope our country don't do the same.
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ROMAC
PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:50 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 07 Mar 2010
Posts: 482
Location: South Eastern PA

I have the entire series of the DGJ. I read them in chronological order over and over again. I am currently reading the spring edition of 1994. It is amazing the amount of information that I pick up when I read them that I did not appreciate or simply don't remember from the last time.

It takes me about 3 years or so to get through the entire collection.
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bigblue
PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:51 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 30 Sep 2020
Posts: 181
Location: ont canada

Hammer bill you just quoted my life and what the world is today . Thank you Sir we did live through the best times. I am glad I am old.
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double vision
PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:33 am  Reply with quote
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I have a similar background. Dad always had a subscription to Outdoor Life and Popular Mechanics; newspaper delivered everyday. Those old stories and shooting columns fueled my imagination and set a course that I still travel. Devouring everything I could read about hunting and fishing certainly didn't hurt my literacy either. Times have changed, but reading is reading, and there is an endless amount on the net.
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MSM2019
PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:04 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 04 Mar 2019
Posts: 1819
Location: Central ND

Hammer bill,

You are correct. While I haven't done all that is on my list for upland hunting, I have been able to accomplish a good portion of it. Now that I am retired much of it for me will be polishing up the rough spots which I am very excited about.

I am also motivated to develop some new loads for the 16.

I suppose most of that will not be found in the pages of a magazine.

I have found more real knowledge and ideas by visiting this forum than any magazine article in many years.

The one magazine I really miss is Gun Dog. I read that cover to cover every time the new magazine arrived in my mailbox. Eventually that magazine got pretty watered down......I guess everything has a shelf life.

The internet does replace magazines, but I find it more enjoyable and easier to read printed material.

Times change and so don't our motivations, likes and dislikes.

I would guess that some of my frustration is that I am not fond of stories old or new. Every time I go hunting I make my own adventure good, bad or average and really don't appreciate or get much enjoyment when reading about someone else's. Especially because much of it is laced with a good dose of BS. I know that in some ways that is very short sighted and not very appreciative of the classic writers, but that is just my personality. I'd rather be doing it than reading about it. So that narrows down the articles that I would like to read.

If it isn't about facts, truths and real honest to goodness how to's I have a very short attention span.....as in maybe 5 seconds. Embarassed Embarassed

Reading about some fantasy hunt or an outdoor writer waxing poetic about the afternoon sun streaming through the alders while he sips his bourbon and his setter's head rests on his knee........well that isn't going to cut it.

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16gaDavis
PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 7:23 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 24 Jun 2013
Posts: 2062
Location: canandaigua - western n.y. (formerly deerhunter)

Mark , I never got a subscription to that mag , but one of the guys at the club did. Didn't really see much to grab my attn , till Roster did the article on 28ga Hevi . got my attn , and followed the loads . Had to ask a question about something - no problem . Then I noticed that he kinda left the Fed primer out of the end result , so sent him another e-mail . the reply was you are only allowed one question , and after that , get your credit card out as you will get charged for a call to his office . Excuse me , YOU left that detail out . Not willing to play anymore . I have his load and have lost all interest in that mag again !

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MSM2019
PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 8:41 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 04 Mar 2019
Posts: 1819
Location: Central ND

Never been a big fan of Mr. Roster. I saw how he operated first hand many years ago. I read his articles when I need a good laugh.

I can't remember the exact dates, but when Gun Dog was first out it was first rate. I think when it changed hands was it's down fall....at least for me.

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