American Airguns Blog
Friday, May 13, 2005
Airgun Magazines
Over the past 10 years that I have been into adult airgunning I have enjoyed reading a variety of airgun publications and even writing for a few of them. Many have come and gone over the years, much to the dismay of many of us. The prevelant US magazine at the time I started airgunning back in the mid 90's was US Airgun magazine while the Airgun Letter was also going strong but in more of a newsletter format. Both were very informative and helped me to learn more about my hobby. I even wrote 6-8 articles for US Airgun magazine on various airguns and the SHOT Show in 1999. I had one cover shot and a couple of feature articles during my run as a writer of them and I really enjoyed testing airguns and writing about them. The magazine changed it's format right before it's demise to include rimfire firearms but that didn't seem to help it out of it's circulation problems and printing stopped.
Prior to US Airgun there were other publications like American Airunner and Airgun News And Report but those were before my time and I never had a chance to read them but I heard they were quite good. There is also the British magazines Airgunner and Airgun World that are published by the same publisher (as is my understanding) and have basically the same articles in them from month to month. I subscribe to Airgun World since I like to read Nick Jenkinson's articles. The are somewhat informative but I don't think I have ever seen a critical article about any piece of airgun equipment in either of them. They are very beholden to the airgun manufacturers and always seem to write very favorable reviews so they can continue to get equipment to test. Every rifle or pistol or whatever is the best thing since sliced bread. Still, they do have information about the new equipment and I enjoy reading the hunting articles.
The Airgun Letter was one of my favorite airgun publications to read. I corresponded with Tom and Edith Gaylord a lot early on in my internet career since I my site was the first airgun website published on the web and thiers opened up about three months after mine. They hosted one of the first airgunning forums so we shared web experiences together. They shutdown the Airgun Letter to start up Airguns Illustrated magazine. It was going to be the first US airgun magazine to be sold on newsstands but after several magazines were published and enough articles were in the queue the published took over the magazine and then ran it into the ground. From what I heard the ran the Gaylords off and tried to publish the magazine without their expertise and it just didn't work. It is now gone the way of the dinosaur and Dodo bird.
The interenet has spawned a lot of new technology one of which is the ezine or electronic magazine. The idea has really caught on and a couple of enterprising airgunners started an airgunning ezine called Addictive Airgunning. Each month the internet reader can download electronically a magazine with airgun reviews, tuning, hunting, competition and other things. Now that I have a cable modem hookup and home I am going to subscribe and start reading.
The only paper copy US airguns magazine that I know of is Airgun Hobby magazine. I had a chance to check out the magazine at the Airgun Expo a couple of weeks ago and subscribed on the spot. The magazine is published in black and white but the article are informative and varied including articles about antique airguns, 10 meter competitions, equipment reviews, airgun tuning and repair just to mention some of the stuff covered. I have read over most of the articles in the three issues I got at the Expo and have really enjoyed them. It has been a long time since I have written any articles, I have been busy with Field Target and then getting married last year. With these new airgun publications I think I may have to get back into it again.
Prior to US Airgun there were other publications like American Airunner and Airgun News And Report but those were before my time and I never had a chance to read them but I heard they were quite good. There is also the British magazines Airgunner and Airgun World that are published by the same publisher (as is my understanding) and have basically the same articles in them from month to month. I subscribe to Airgun World since I like to read Nick Jenkinson's articles. The are somewhat informative but I don't think I have ever seen a critical article about any piece of airgun equipment in either of them. They are very beholden to the airgun manufacturers and always seem to write very favorable reviews so they can continue to get equipment to test. Every rifle or pistol or whatever is the best thing since sliced bread. Still, they do have information about the new equipment and I enjoy reading the hunting articles.
The Airgun Letter was one of my favorite airgun publications to read. I corresponded with Tom and Edith Gaylord a lot early on in my internet career since I my site was the first airgun website published on the web and thiers opened up about three months after mine. They hosted one of the first airgunning forums so we shared web experiences together. They shutdown the Airgun Letter to start up Airguns Illustrated magazine. It was going to be the first US airgun magazine to be sold on newsstands but after several magazines were published and enough articles were in the queue the published took over the magazine and then ran it into the ground. From what I heard the ran the Gaylords off and tried to publish the magazine without their expertise and it just didn't work. It is now gone the way of the dinosaur and Dodo bird.
The interenet has spawned a lot of new technology one of which is the ezine or electronic magazine. The idea has really caught on and a couple of enterprising airgunners started an airgunning ezine called Addictive Airgunning. Each month the internet reader can download electronically a magazine with airgun reviews, tuning, hunting, competition and other things. Now that I have a cable modem hookup and home I am going to subscribe and start reading.
The only paper copy US airguns magazine that I know of is Airgun Hobby magazine. I had a chance to check out the magazine at the Airgun Expo a couple of weeks ago and subscribed on the spot. The magazine is published in black and white but the article are informative and varied including articles about antique airguns, 10 meter competitions, equipment reviews, airgun tuning and repair just to mention some of the stuff covered. I have read over most of the articles in the three issues I got at the Expo and have really enjoyed them. It has been a long time since I have written any articles, I have been busy with Field Target and then getting married last year. With these new airgun publications I think I may have to get back into it again.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Back At It!
It has been over a week since my last blog and what a busy week it was! I was gone for business for the better part of the week and the rest of the week was spent catching up. It is too bad that work has to get in the way of my fun! That's all behind me now and now I have a chance to reflect on the Little Rock Airgun Expo.
For the first time in my life I actually bought a table at a show and sold off a bunch of stuff that I had accumulated over the years. It was a very interesting experience for me, I looked at the show much like a garage sale in that most of the stuff I had for sale was priced to move. I really didn't think that I would sell a lot of it but it turned out that I sold a lot more than I expected. The things that suprised me were the old airgun magazines that I had from the mid 90's on. They sold to some of the other dealers even before the show officially opened!
I had five airguns that I took to sell and I was able to sell all of them expect for my Air Arms s410 which I traded for an old FWB150 that was in very good shape. I recently bought a FWB300 which I had been enjoying shooting and saw several of the 150s at the show and thought it would be fun to have one of these as well and made a pretty good deal on the trade.
Being at a show like this can be dangerous if you are trying to save money or if you are trying to not buy more stuff. I went into the show to sell off a bunch of airgun things and make some room in my cluttered closet and ended up spending some of my profits on more gear. I hadn't planned on it but I ended up buying another Paul Watts trigger Rekord trigger blade, a FWB124 piston seal, a subscription to Airgun Hobby magazine and a few other nick nacks. I even bought a couple of nice necklaces for my wife from Wade Sutherland. There was certainly a lot of eye candy at the show and lots of old interesting airguns.
The best part of the show was talking with all my fellow airgunning friends. It was really interesting sitting behind a table and watching everyone look through the gear on my table and talking with them about my site, airguns, field target and a whole host of other things. It was a great experience for me and one that I thouroghly enjoyed.
For the first time in my life I actually bought a table at a show and sold off a bunch of stuff that I had accumulated over the years. It was a very interesting experience for me, I looked at the show much like a garage sale in that most of the stuff I had for sale was priced to move. I really didn't think that I would sell a lot of it but it turned out that I sold a lot more than I expected. The things that suprised me were the old airgun magazines that I had from the mid 90's on. They sold to some of the other dealers even before the show officially opened!
I had five airguns that I took to sell and I was able to sell all of them expect for my Air Arms s410 which I traded for an old FWB150 that was in very good shape. I recently bought a FWB300 which I had been enjoying shooting and saw several of the 150s at the show and thought it would be fun to have one of these as well and made a pretty good deal on the trade.
Being at a show like this can be dangerous if you are trying to save money or if you are trying to not buy more stuff. I went into the show to sell off a bunch of airgun things and make some room in my cluttered closet and ended up spending some of my profits on more gear. I hadn't planned on it but I ended up buying another Paul Watts trigger Rekord trigger blade, a FWB124 piston seal, a subscription to Airgun Hobby magazine and a few other nick nacks. I even bought a couple of nice necklaces for my wife from Wade Sutherland. There was certainly a lot of eye candy at the show and lots of old interesting airguns.
The best part of the show was talking with all my fellow airgunning friends. It was really interesting sitting behind a table and watching everyone look through the gear on my table and talking with them about my site, airguns, field target and a whole host of other things. It was a great experience for me and one that I thouroghly enjoyed.
