I was a subscriber to Gun Tests at one time. You hit the nail on the head. They had the illusion of objectivity but on more than one occasion I caught them putting out wrong information. Even letters I wrote to them proving their technical errors went unanswered.
Speaking of Guns N Ammo. I can’t watch the firearm programs on Outdoor or Sportsman’s Channel anymore. Other than R. Lee Ermey’s program most of their shows are nothing but 30-minute advertisements for whatever gun or accessory they are getting paid to hawk this week. Just like the gun rags, never a bad review or a “don’t buy this” warning. YouTube firearm videos are waaaaaay more valuable, and plenty of them have idiots yakking at the camera, too.
Been a couple of years since I have even looked at one of their magazines. But, even then it was pretty apparent what they are all about and who they are marketing towards. Like instagram on paper.
All image and no substance. Which could be said about most things in the gun industry today.
As to the editor thing, seems a bit questionable. But, I don’t care enough to go farther than that since they don’t get my money anyway. Rather spend that $9 bucks on ammo.
The only gun magazine that I still read is the Garand Collector’s Association Journal, but it’s not a typical gun magazine.
I guess it’s Pollyanna-ish of me, but even in the old days I never heard of a situation where:
- Editor/writer has a financial stake in a company.
- Said E/W writes a promo piece on said company and how they just keep winning and innovating and destroying their competition.
- Magazine doesn’t disclose this conflict of interest within article.
I guess I never even gave them credit for being journalists anyway… just the gun version of a smut magazine.
The article on the MP7 which was written was talking about the comments and overall feel that HK gave to the author. I don’t recall if he put quotes on it as I think he was giving more of a summary. The article was not anti gun, nor has anything else been that I’ve seen or heard of from RECOIL.
Regarding the online editor, her job is to put out as many articles as possible. Did anyone check to see what was written about her by RECOIL? Typically they do a brief bio article when someone new comes in.
Regarding fluff pieces in magazines, I would hope editors call it like the writers see it. Only one time have I ever been asked if it was possible to change something by an editor, and being that it was a layout instead of anything written, I didn’t care. Writers and ad guys don’t talk to each other. The people who sells the ads to companies don’t have anything to do with the articles. I don’t disagree that we don’t see much of anything negative, but I think part of that is a matter of how much testing is actually done with the weapons. Most articles that I’ve seen recently are more about how the weapon works, lots of pretty pictures, accessories, background/ history of the company, and then a little about actually shooting it. Gone are the days of thousand round tests for each weapon. Ammo prices are high, and articles don’t pay that much money… I don’t know many if any guys writing who want to spend all the time of reviewing and writing an article, just to get a check that almost covers the ammo bill.
I think the youtube guys are much worse. You have guys who are billing companies 3 or $4,000 for “reviews”, and not disclosing it. Guys who own gunshops and sell the weapons they are reviewing, but do the reviews under a different name so it isn’t obvious. Plus there is the art of the shake down which has been mentioned for youtube “reviewers” who go back to companies and let them know they have a damning article written up, but their mind could be changed for cash or merchandise.
Add to the above, the youtube clowns who speed up their videos so it makes them look cool shooting faster and the list of BS goes on and on.
Obviously you have to be careful no matter what format you’re in, but overall I find more objectivity in a lot of YouTube videos versus regular TV shows.
I think we could put just about anything up against regular TV shows and find the shows lose. I got pulled in to help as a technical consultant for a movie one time, and the lack of knowledge was obscene. Not just a little obscene, but off the charts obscene. Getting paid to do it was fine, but since I don’t care about celebrities, and have better things (usually) to do with my time, I wouldn’t do it again. Someone called in a marker, and I helped them out.
That being said, I do know a producer who is a gun guy… and if he needed something I would help him out. Though its entirely possible I might feel dirty and hate myself later.
I remember they reviewed some post ban Bushmaster M4 with a fixed “M4 style” stock and they commented that while there was an area in the buttstock for a cleaning kit, there was no trap door to secure it and they said that was a negative feature.
Every issue demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding regarding firearms and function. They really did think that just because they compared and contrasted the performance of 5 different brands of ammunition that they were the definitive last word on the subject.
Again, I don’t have a lot emotionally invested in this discussion. But if that were the case, they should have been very specific about the comments being “the opinion of HK” because it read like the opinion of the writer. And in both cases the editor should have caught it, it caused quite a bit of “F Recoil” hoopla when it happened.
I really don’t buy or subscribe to Recoil anyway because it’s an expensive gloss magazine. The last magazine I had a paid subscription to was Small Arms Review.
It absolutely read like the opinion of the writer, and as he was also the editor, what he wrote made sense to him because he understood the context. It created a massive backlash against the magazine, and had it happened a few months earlier, it probably would have close them down for good.
I can understand what you mean, and your reasoning. I don’t buy firearm magazines, typically not even ones that have articles or pictures in.
Don’t assume forums are any better.
ETA: Stickman nailed it on YT e-celebs too…
I’m just saying…
full auto .17 HMRs might hurt someone
Image and substance, I saw those words and they are key to the discussion. Most of us know the dif pretty well I think so when we see “image only” it grinds a little. I know it does with me. There is plenty of substance without image in the industry-- guys, companies who do what they do, do it well and sincerely and without a lot of fanfare. And for sure, lots of image with no substance! An outfit with substance that also wants an image-- no issue with that, right? When they can back up the claims and splashy ads with real products and accomplishments. I say good for them.
As to the why of, “you never see them criticizing products in the gun rags”. This complaint is, I assure you, as old as gun rags. Although my interest has been up and down over the years, I still read some magazines once in a while and I do see some criticism-- not tons, but I think I can partly explain that, at least from my own POV as a small-time gunwriter myself. This is from an article I had in SWAT Magazine a few years ago, it kind sums it up:
Gunwriters’ credibility is sometimes called into question when they have only good things to say about the guns and gear they review. As a freelance writer, I am generally not given assignments, I have the luxury of testing what I want to, when I think it may be of benefit to readers and students. I write it up and hope it makes it into print, and yes, I have returned products to manufacturers and politely told them it was useless. When there’s not enough time and page space to cover all that’s worthy, why use any of it on the inadequate, irrelevant, and uninteresting?
I mean, I could pretty easily identify enough bad products to write a ton of bad product articles. I would say, “it didn’t work, it sucked, and is a waste of money”. Than can be valuable info but there’s a lot more value in writing about things that actually do have some use and work as advertised. Now I am not exactly in the inner circle of best-known gun writers but I have the idea that there is some feeling, not even an unwritten rule, but an underlying logic that you try to write about what’s good; the crappy will suffer enough for being crappy and unmentioned. It will evolve to a better state or go extinct all on its own lack of merit.
I do see articles that talk well about things that I think are not great (usually in the 1911 and AR15 categories). I think we have some really good authors going these days but also some who maybe are good writers but don’t have tons of experience and, whether or not they do, it’s not easy to spend enough time and ammo to really predict what it’s going to be like to own a particular gun for a lifetime. I DO usually go for a thousand-round test, partly because I long ago gave up any hope of actually making money at gunwriting. Throwing out the “income” aspect completely is liberating-- I can concentrate on generating data, gathering facts, and forming opinions based on a decent sampling.
Not to say that the voiced concerns are completely unfounded but ya gotta keep in mind, a magazine, like a TV show, it’s a business.
I’d rather spend my money on books by Collectors Grade Armory, Vickers or similar.
Speaking for myself, having written numerous articles for SWAT magazine I have not gotten any free guns shipped to me. Also, I have pointed out problems with guns in the articles I wrote-including problems that other gun writers had not noticed or encountered. We sometimes have the option to purchase the gun at dealer’s cost.
I pointed out that the FS2000 could have nasty doublefeeds if you slammed a magazine into the magwell with the bolt back, causing the bolt to jump forward and half feed a round. Then if you pulled the charging handle back, you got a doublefeed.
I mentioned guns that had to go back to the factory because they had major problems including a MSAR Aug clone, and some other company’s AUG clone.
I mentioned a situation where a Wilson Combat 1911 had to go back to the factory because its extractor was not optimum and it had some issues. Even before this problem was corrected, it did perform fairly well until the issue made itself obvious at about 470 rounds.
Other writers for SWAT have pointed out problems with guns. The late Louis Awerbuck wrote about the Benelli M4 as, “designed by chimpanzees for use by gorillas.”
The magazine has edited out some of my better lines–possibly because my articles tend to be on the long side. When I reviewed the Knights SR-25 ACC I mentioned the one malfunction I encountered in 1100 rounds and described the ammo as “Portuguese surplus ammo from the late 1970s that was probably left over from ops in Zangaro.” For whatever reasons, they cut out my reference to Zangaro.
They also removed my reference to the TV show Madmen in my article on the HK VP9: "If Don Draper, the fictional Ad Exec from the hit TV show Mad Men, were writing copy for the HK VP9 it would read: “The Heckler & Koch VP9—A better gun that’ll make you a better shooter.”
I guess I am no Don Draper.
If anyone is interested, here is a link to some of my articles: https://www.swatmag.com/article/author/edlawrence/. The one on Force on Force and UTM munitions was written by someone else as indicated by the different name on the article. It somehow got mixed in with the listing of my articles because I share the same first name with the author.
LOL. I guess I never read SWAT but glad you guys were putting it out there as it is. Didn’t Rob_S also write for them? Say what you want about his personality, but the chart ended bullshit arguments for nearly a decade.
So there were a few exceptions to the rule I guess. But if I want to learn everything there is about the FAL I just bought the book by Blake Stevens. And I’d rather buy a $100 book full of all the information you will ever need and more, than pay $50 for a year subscription to Glamour Guns.
I used to read Guns and Ammo, but I skimmed the articles to read things like Cooper’s Corner. Now I feel like I can write articles that are far superior (not to mention more accurate) than those in most magazines, so I’ll just hang on to my 7.99 and leave them on the stand.