A few people may have some legitimate complaints about Gun Test's subscription service but, then again, it's just like anybody else's - they are in business to sell magazines. Any magazine that gives you a 'free' trial subscribtion will give you the same grief when you try to cancel your subscribtion. Remember Gun Tests does not accept advertising and therefore has to rely on subscriptions to pay the bills.
As far as the magazine itself goes, I really like it's refreshing honesty. It may be a bit rough around the edges, but then again, unlike nearly every other magazine it tests real off-the-shelf weapons, not hand built and tuned 'reviewer samples'. Would you rather know that XYZ's off-the-shelf pistols jam every 3 rounds, or that XYZ's hand tuned reviewer sample worked pretty good?
Did you ever notice that pretty much every other magazine likes just about everything they test, and that they're head-over-heals in love every high buck model with a full page ad in the middle of the story? How about the 2 or 3 trade rags that just print thinly disguised press releases as reviews and laugh all the way to the bank? In most magazines, the manufacturer of the weapon being 'reviewed' is also an important advertising customer. Guns, cars, or investments, it's a fact of life in the magazine publishing world that advertising dollars heavily effect editorial content.
I think there are a couple of reasons that a few people don't like Gun Tests. IMHO, for the most part it's just honest disagreement, and I think that's what we have here. For example, there's the luck of the draw. Gun Tests tests an off-the-shelf weapon that because of quality control problems is a POS, and somebody else gets lucky and buys a great one - he's gonna think they are nuts for knocking his wonderful new toy. Well I want to know about the POS 'cuz sure as heck I'll be the guy that gets one of the bad ones.
On the other hand there's the guy that reads too much Guns and Ammo, American Handgunner etc and buys a $1,800 Gee-Whiz Custom Carry 2000. He picks up a copy of Gun Tests and they say he could have done better for half the money - now he's gotta feel that either he screwed up or they are just too #@*! dumb to understand the greatness of Gee-Whiz's Custom Carry 2000. You guess which theory wins....
[This message has been edited by sholling (edited September 14, 1999).]
