Handloader magazine... I'm trying to like this rag

[1stmar]

In the June 2015 issue there is an article on imr4166, since I have been considering moving from 4064 to 4166 I was anxious to read the article. In the second paragraph the author states, referencing the introduction of new powders, " what makes this more than a ho-hum announcement is the fact that these powders are purported to be less temperature sensitive than many others, and they include the copper fouling reducer additive recently introduced in hogdons cfe 223 and cfe pistol." Ok so at this point my interest is peaked as these are the reasons I am considering the switch. My expectations are there will be some attempt to quantify how effectively it reducers copper fouling and how it handles extreme temperature changes. Nope, the rest of the article is mostly about the loss of velocity in various cartridges. It mentions how it shoots in 22-250, 06, 300wsm and others.. The key word is mentions, no factual data, no comparison to other powders and groups. Groups were "impressive", "decent", "exceptional results with extreme spreads in the teens with group sizes to match". Does this mean group sizes were in the teens? .
How do you miss the target by so much? Why intro the purpose behind the propellant and the never discuss it in the article??!

 

[skizzums]

I used to buy that magazine every month or whenever I saw a new issue. I quit a few issues ago, they almost never have anything that is important or useful to me. rarely do they ever discuss common cartridges that I load, depressing because I would really like to have a reloading magazine that I could read and learn from every month, but "handloader" is very specialized. but I do like the dozen or so issues I have to keep around just in case I do get one of the guns or calibers that the do testing for. nowadays I just spend ten minutes at the grocery store and read whatever I find interesting, ten bucks for a magazine is steep when it has nothing useful for me.

the best "magazine" I have bought recently is the annual hodgdons reloading data magazine, like six bucks at wally's and full of interesting articles, not to mention all the load data that is available on their website.


and why in the "BLEEP" do all gun magazines cost 10 dollars now, insanity

 

[Unclenick]

Electronic media has cut deeply into the print media market. They can't print the large volumes they once did, so the price goes up and the content is mainly advertising to help pay the real cost of color printing. The cover price merely helps with that. The image oriented TV generation wants pretty pictures more than text. They can't any longer afford to pay writers a living wage, typically paying less than a tenth what they did for an article thirty years ago, so they are stuck with small word count contributions by folks whose egos must enjoy seeing their names in print, cause it sure doesn't pay for the time they invest in writing even those short missives. The last publication with serious technical depth was Precision Shooting, and even with its book business on the side, it couldn't sell enough to stay afloat. It's very discouraging.

 

[William T. Watts]

Jack O'Connor was my favorite, Elmer Keith a close 2nd!

I have several years of Handloader magazine stored in my closet, same for Out Door Life, there was a time I never missed reading Jack O'Connor articles. I am no longer an NRA member, I can't put my finger on why I no longer subscribe to the magazines I waited for the mail carrier to deliver. Just not interested plus the quality of the writing isn't what it was when I was younger. The writers got old and the replacements just couldn't deliver what the subscribers wanted.. William

 

[Slamfire]

One forum member claims to be a gunwriter. He said he gets $400.00 per article, and complained about the paltry amount. Maybe if "gunwriters" stopped accepting writing assignments which don't pay for much in terms of materials and labor, that is , went on strike, they could increase their pay. As it is, the gunwriters spend more time behind the keyboard than they do at the range. Bullets, primers, powders, cases, are expensive, words are cheap. As you see in Handloader, they shoot three shot groups, which is not enough to determine much of anything in terms of inherent accuracy or velocity. If you send your rimfire rifle to Eley American for ammunition testing, the results that come back are in terms of four 10 shot groups with extreme spreads given as a computer projection of a 40 shot group composite per ammunition lot. I recently looked at a set of data sheets, must have been ten or more lots of ammunition tested before they concluded there was a "best" one. Tell you what, even ten shot groups are inadequate for defining inherent accuracy. One of these Handloader gunwriters wrote a recent article in the American Rifleman on the 6.5 X 54 mm round in a rifle. He fired five shot groups at 50 yards and made conclusions about the accuracy of certain load combinations. I doubt his groups would shoot a clean on the fifty yard slow fire Bullseye Pistol target. In fact he could not shoot a clean because Bullseye shooters fire two ten shot strings. One of those writers was claiming half MOA groups out of a Marlin 30-30 Winchester based on three shot groups with cast bullets.! I would love to see some 20 round 1/2 MOA groups in a lever action with cast bullets, at 100 yards. Three shots are a coincidence.

I look at the data they produce and consider it notational. There is only enough there to establish a start and stop charge weight and an idea of the velocity, but not the velocity spread. Extreme spreads and standard deviations of velocity are an excellent basis for comparison, though, on paper accuracy is the Gold Standard. The further you go out, the more extreme spreads will result in vertical stringing.

Magazines are totally in thrall to their advertisers. Objective data would upset someone, as there would be winners and losers.

 

[reynolds357]

I have a friend who is a gun writer. He gets paid a lot more than $400 per article. He has outfitters invite him to hunt free just to write about his hunting experience with them. (Domestic and African) He gets to keep a lot of the high dollar rifles and optics he writes about. (He has never told me he gets to keep them, but the fact he does has become obvious over the years.) He is sure to mention how well these products performed on the game he shot with them.

 

[1stmar]

At one time or another I suscribed to shooting times, g/a, guns, American handgunner, rifle, handloader, gun tests and probably many others I can't remember. I stopped subscribing to all for the longest time because all the articles were the same..it was if they ran out of something to write about. Many of these guys have been writing for decades and maybe that's the problem. I started up again with handloader because I just like hearing about new loads, techniques and products. I hear unclenick about digital media and all...However maybe if they wrote with integrity and purpose more people would subscribe. There are no more bill Jordan's, skeeter Skelton, Jeff coopers, Jd jones, mas ayoobs. No more story tellers, no unbiased articles that make you want something or want to try something. Not looking to slam these guys but how do you write an article and miss the entire purpose of a product or even one of your opening paragraphs? How do state things like es of zero or less the 3fps and maintain integrity. I always assumed they were either reimbursed for ammo and products or received them as part of evaluation from the manufacturer, if they don't thats a problem. My renewal is up, my thirst for information isn't but this forum seems to be better than any periodical... Put it into a narrative, print it up, send it to me and I'll pay...

Thanks to all for the great content and reads..maybe Wolfe publishing should take a listen in once in awhile.

 

[Tony Z]

Being an older phart, I still subscribe to lots of mags, for my various hobbies (guns, woodworking, etc.). But us older humanoids are the last bastion for print media and the publishers had better start listening and stop crying about the declining subscription numbers, as virtually every print mag has dumbed itself down.

Why do I still subscribe? Mainly cause I have for decades to these mags and to a "T", I vow to quit, yet inevitably still send in my check (yes, a paper check).

What do I get out of print magazines today? Again, almost to a "T", the most valuable parts happen to be the ads, that give you an idea of what is on and coming to market, and the funny thing is, the ads are no different than the hype published in review articles (what happened to integrity of the writers to honestly describe stuff they review?).

 

[std7mag]

Wait.... You have a June of 2015 issue???

Anyways, if you want to see how the velocities are compared to other powders, you need to go straight to the source.

The yearly Hogdon manual.

It has articles on all 3 of the new powders, and you can look at your load charts where it is listed with other powders for your caliber.

Now it Alliant would release it's new Reloder 23, 26, that would be nice...

 

[cheygriz]

I always found ig interesting that an article would come stating that the Ruger Mini-14 was benchrest accurate, and on the next page was a full page advertisement by Ruger.

Forty years ago, I read them all. twenty five years ago, I stopped reading them

Skeeter Skelton was really entertaining if you didn't try to take him seriously.

 

[1stmar]

Yes June. They always coming out early. I don't care about velocity , that was what the article was about. I care about copper fouling and accuracy.

 

[T. O'Heir]

"...Does this mean group sizes..." More about group sizes on a very short test don't mean much. Consistent groups are far more important than the size of a gun rag test.
Then there's the whole gun rags being extensions of the manufacturer's marketing department thing.

 

[1stmar]

Fundamentally I agree. However, if the author had a base and compared against the base that would be at least some help. Is my xyz rifle typically shoots 1/2 moa at 100, however with this powder th best I was able to achieve was 1 moa..it's not perfect but nothing is.

 

[skizzums]

me and my partner at work regukarky stop at Wal-Mart on our breaks and read mags for a few minutes. and we both always have the discussion that if the mags didn't cost 9.95, we would actually BUY them rather than just read for free. I understand the increasing costs of print media, and the ultra competition they have with the internet. but I still regularly buy shotgun news, why??? because it costs 5$ instead of 10$.....I really think they are going to help put themselves outta business by charging so much. be reasonable, and I will buy it, charge ten bucks for a magazine......it better be 100 pages long or i'm buying something else. lower the price, increase your customer base and make bigger profits in the end. but I guess they have a marketing department that has analyzed all this and sees it the other way. but I could care less about how shiny and expensive the cover is, if it's going to double the price(recoil magazine)

 

[TimW77]

"In the June 2015 issue there is an article on imr4166, since I have been considering moving from 4064 to 4166 I was anxious to read the article. In the second paragraph the author states, referencing the introduction of new powders... How do you miss the target by so much?"

Do you even have a clue what a "profile" article is?

Honestly, what did you expect from a "profile" report that is about 1.5 pages?


" My expectations are there will be some attempt to quantify how effectively it reducers copper fouling and how it handles extreme temperature changes."

Again, in a "profile" reportof about 1.5 pages, how much "quantifying" do you expect?




"...they almost never have anything that is important or useful to me. rarely do they ever discuss common cartridges that I load..."

Amazing, an entire magazine doesn't revolve around only what YOU want and load! Amazing!


"...but I do like the dozen or so issues I have to keep around just in case I do get one of the guns or calibers that the do testing for."

So do NOT keep them or just save the pages you "might" need. Or, even better, come out of the dark ages and SCAN COPIES of the pages you want...


"...nowadays I just spend ten minutes at the grocery store and read whatever I find interesting..."

So you ARE getting more than your moneys worth, you ARE getting more than you paid for it...


"...ten bucks for a magazine is steep when it has nothing useful for me."

You looked so closely at it, you don't even know what the cover price of the magazine is. You could at least be honest about the price. The cover price is $5.99, about HALF what you are complaining about.


"...like six bucks at wally's and full of interesting articles, not to mention all the load data that is available on their website. and why in the "BLEEP" do all gun magazines cost 10 dollars now, insanity"

And, if you are buying at Walmart, their price is even LESS than the $.5.99 cover price...

T.

 

[1stmar]

Why profile a product and not discuss what the product was engineered for?

Touch a nerve Tim?

 

[hooligan1]

I buy them, Im interested in what John Barsness has to say. Sometimes I like to read Brian Pierce....so some of it interests me, however some is just filler.

 

[JeepHammer]

Uncle Nick has hit the nail on the head...

To add to that, I work for a company that did a TON of print media, and has switched to mostly on line advertising...

Since we used to do about $2 million in media, up to $100K an issue in some cases,
Now we don't do a dime with those magazines,

They simply won't feature ANYTHING we do or has our stickers/advertisements on it.

Our name is NEVER mentioned, even on privately owned vehicles that are featured, the owner has to peel our decals/stickers off before they will get featured.

So when you see someone extolling the virtues of this or that in a magazine,
Flip through the rag, have a look at the advertisements,
Exactly who's paying the bills should click in your head.

It's pretty easy to get lazy, and they have.
They print whatever propaganda the advertisers feed to them,
The days of honest side by side testing are gone in MOST CASES... (not all, I'm sure 'Consumer Reports' is still pretty much honest since they don't take advertising dollars)

I'm pretty well tired of buying something that is supposed to be wonderful, just what I'm looking for,
To be disappointed when it actually has to perform.

It's forums like this that flick the fly crap out of the pepper,
Guys saying it works OK, but this needs to be over there, the handle needs to be at a different angle or length, the 'Widgets' get lost all time, ect. that are still fairly reliable.

 

[Clark]

Slamfire

One forum member claims to be a gunwriter. He said he gets $400.00 per article, and complained about the paltry amount.

I know a software engineer that had a gun web site in 1998 that included "the cheap scope page". He has negotiated to write for a number of gun rags. The part I laugh at is that he sends a list of topics from scientific down to the simple and banal, and the editors always pick the most simple. Then they demand that it not exist or will not exist on the internet.

I know another guy, a software engineer and patent attorney that has written a number of articles in magazines on Elephant hunting. It costs him big bucks to hunt, and the writing pays next to nothing. I think it is all for vanity.

And then there are the ad deals... I wrote a poem 10 or 15 years ago

Those that write the gun rag pages
Make it up, but pose as sages
Those who think that it's all true
Pay the bills to print more poo

Even worse are the reviews
Pay for adds is pay'n dues
If per chance you didn't pay
It ain't so good what we will say

 

[TimW77]

Handloader Magazine

"Touch a nerve Tim?"

YES, a tickle nerve...

I'm still laughing AT you!


"Why profile a product and not discuss what the product was engineered for?"


Once AGAIN...

Do you even have a clue what a "profile" article is?

Honestly, what did you expect from a "profile" report that is about 1.5 pages?

T.