A few weeks ago, I experienced a routine joy for the last time. As I walked back to the house from the mailbox, shuffling through the stack of bills, mailers, catalogs I didn’t order, and other garbage, I discovered the pot of gold at the end of the postal rainbow–my copies of American Handgunner and Guns Magazine!
Alas, we got the word a few weeks back that these would be the last issues of the magazines to be produced. The bosses at FMG decided the juice was no longer worth the squeeze, and they were pulling the plug on the best print magazines in the business.
Not hyperbole
I don’t use that title lightly, either. Over the decades, I’ve subscribed to most of the Gunzines, and have read all of them at one time or another. I’ve got a garage full of old issues, dating back over three decades, that attests to my obsession with the print magazines dedicated to my favorite topic and industry.
Of all the titles that have come and gone over the years, the ones I’ve enjoyed the most have been produced by FMG. American Handgunner was always my favorite, but Guns Magazine ran a close second. My favorite authors in the business were found in both, and I eagerly looked forward to each month’s installment.
While the other titles on the market have all been graced by talented writers that I’ve enjoyed (and continue to enjoy–I still have subscriptions to several of them, so I can follow their work) I found the content, writing, and images in Handgunner and Guns to be the best around.
A new chapter
I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to see the stories from the FMG crew jump off the printed page at me anymore. The publisher intends to continue producing online content, and sending out their free newsletters, but, dare I say it . . . it won’t be the same.
That’s probably ironic, coming from the editor of an online blog, but I’ve always preferred reading printed books and magazines over online content. My wife devours e-books, and loves the fact she can carry an entire library of them in her pocket, but I think I’ve only read two or three of them–one of which, was my own–and they leave me rather cold. I recognize the utility of them, and agree they offer significant advantages over print, but I’ll always prefer the reading experience of paper.
Perhaps that’s not surprising for a guy who likes revolvers, pump shotguns and lever action rifles, drives a pickup truck that was built in 1989, and prefers rock music that was recorded before the Grunge Era.
P.O.D. to the rescue
Maybe it was a harbinger of things to come, but about a year or so ago, FMG decided to assemble collections of articles from some of their most popular authors, and print them (on demand) as softcover books.
I think the first of these I remember was the collection of stories from FMG’s “John Connor,” a gent my friend (and all-around Guncrank) Roy Huntington insists is quite real, despite his fictional nom de plume. Yeah, I could have dug through the boxes in the garage and found all of Connor’s literary goodness in the old, wrinkled issues I’d saved, but it was so much nicer to have all the Odd, Angry Shots in one place. Now I can laugh about his hijinks in the bush, marvel at his simple, but profound, wisdom, and get all misty-eyed about Little Lizzie simply by turning the pages in the book.
Marvelous!
When Duke Venturino passed, I was grateful that he’d been thoughtful enough to preserve so much of his knowledge for posterity in his books and articles. I was hoping we’d benefit from his musings for many more years to come, but the Good Lord had other plans for him, and Heaven’s Gun Club was eager to welcome him to their range.
FMG was good enough to collect some of Duke’s best articles in another print-on-demand collection, so we could reflect on his work. My copy sits beside his books on Sixguns and Lever Guns of the Old West, and is a perfect complement to them. I’m hoping we’ll see a Second Edition with even more of Duke’s stories from FMG in the future . . . and a companion set from John Taffin’s column, which seems like an obvious move. There’s enough gold in John’s old columns to fill the most cavernous mine–one could do a whole series of books on those.
nighty nite
When Roy offered a copy of his own print-on-demand book from FMG, I jumped at the chance to get it. For decades, I’d been guilty of turning to the back of Handgunner to sneak a peek at his Insider column on the journey from the mailbox to the house (a clear violation of my self-imposed rule that a magazine should be read in sequence), and I was excited to have a bound collection of them.
The Insider collection is billed as a “bedside reader,” and Roy explained that he envisioned it sitting on the nightstand, waiting for you to pick it up and turn to a random page for a few minutes of fun reading before the lights were turned out for the night. Well, if that’s what Roy wanted, then I was bound to oblige him, and I’ve been reading his book thusly for about six months now. Every now and then, I land on a story that I’ve already read, but I read it again anyhow (for the third or fourth time), because it’s just good stuff.
One of the fun things about The Insider is how quickly it can transport you back to another age. In a matter of a few pages, you leap from the 1930s Southwestern Border, to the pre-’68 GCA years, to the Wondernine Era, only to zip forward to Y2K or the 2010s a few pages over.
How neat, too, to look back on the guns and gear that you’d nearly forgotten about (remember the “double 1911” from Arsenal Firearms? How about the Budischowsky TP-70?), or to rediscover a timeless jewel of information that solves a problem that’s currently vexing you (still shooting low and left? Trying to figure out the easiest way to clean your barrel or fix that cracked stock? Wondering how you can modify that front sight so you can actually see it?).
And don’t forget the Amos Grundy stories–such fun! Those really demand a sequel. Maybe we can convince Roy to turn the camera off for a few days, and pick up the pen for a bit?
A good second
I’m still gonna miss not being able to read the latest copy of Handgunner or Guns at the kitchen table, but having these books available takes a little of the sting out of it.
Check them out at the FMG Store, and while you’re there, check out the .PDF collections of the ever-popular Ayoob Files, and the other e-titles on surplus firearms, S&W revolvers, and other favorite guns.
They’re not as good as paper, but they’ll do.
Mike, I feel your pain and sense of loss. Printed books, magazines and newspapers have been a strong addiction of mine since my Mother taught me to read at an early age.
My mornings started with coffee and the daily paper. When newspapers started going belly up with printed editions and went to on line status I was lost for a while. Have learned to get by with Enews but sure don’t like it, just not the same and never will be. Same with book and magazines. “American Handgunner” has always been my favorite gun magazine, thank you Roy. “Shooting Times” in second place thanks to Skeeter.
Then there are these cotton picking self driving cars……………
I’m going to miss Handgunner, for sure. Fortunately, I’d been falling behind and not keeping up with all the issues, so I still have a reserve of “new” ones to whittle on, for a while. But they won’t last for long.
Being something of a milsurp junkie, my favorite was the issues of Surplus Firearms. Each issue focusing on military surplus handguns, rifles, and occasionally shotguns. Then again, I also miss the old American Rifleman magazines from the 1960s where the back pages had listings of milsurps at prices that make us cry today.
That said, the digital age has facilitated the creation of some of the best gun-porn on my computer, followed on by Jeep CJ/Wrangler-porn. Future generations will have to read on line about actual print magazines of past times.
One good thing about digital is that It’s put me in touch with so many people that I never would have met, otherwise. The number of elctronic pen pals that have turned into good friends is stadily climbing, and I’m grateful for it!
If it’s in print and in your possession it can’t be altered, canceled or prohibited by any outside agency. This is especially important because the web has devolved from knowledge-gathering to political pandering and hucksterism.
I’m often shocked at how little the gun culture knows about the innovations, practices and problems of its own past.
When they pat me in the face with a shovel, my relatives will have one hell of a lot of books, digests and magazines to sort through. Hopefully it all won’t end up in recycling, or a dumpster.
Amen, brother. We’re not so good at remembering our own history, as a culture. I think that’s one thing that binds all of us together, here at RevolverGuy–we still appreciate it!
Mike, it was great seeing you at Revolver Fest last week in Clinton, S.C.!
Apparently I’m still in the 20th Century and also prefer reading printed material: newspapers, magazines, and books. That probably explains why I also enjoy revolvers and manual transmission vehicles. However, Revolver Guy is totally different; easy to digest, very interesting, and I look forward to every new article. Perhaps there’s hope for me yet?
Haha! Maybe hope for both of us? I had a wonderful time seeing you in SC. I’ll have an After-Action Report on it soon, and hope everyone will share their comments about the event.
Mike, once again you prove yourself the gentleman we all know you are. Thank you for your shamelessly kind endorsement of our books and passing the news on of the sad demise of our print editions. The company is very small and family owned. With the loss of print advertising, it was simply not sustainable to keep the presses rolling. A print magazine is paid for with the subscribers paying for about 40% of the costs, and advertising picking up the rest. Alas … the digital age meant advertisers are moving away from print. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been in meetings at the SHOT show as some millennial marketing director sat across from me — while I tried to explain we older shooters have all the money and we read print and buy the things we see. Of course, you can never get them to look up from their phone long enough to hear you. Ahem …
But as someone told me, one door closes while another opens. I’m planning on ramping up my videos, doing more gunsmithy related ones (how about a full S&W 3” Model 10 build?), showing off new and old guns … and who knows what else. We’ll just have to see. In the meantime, thank you all for your support over the years, for many of you becoming friends, for some amazing times in the industry … and for buying my book! Ha!
Thanks again Mike for lending your gentlemanly hand to all this.
Roy Huntington
P.S. I’ll do more Amos Grundy stories soon. I miss him too.
Roy, on behalf of all the RevolverGuy audience, please accept our thanks for the decades of good fun and learning you and the FMG crew provided for us! I’m excited to see what comes next from your fertile mind, workshop, camera, and pen!
Ditto that. I particularly enjoy Roy and Brent on GunCranks. Their personalities and life experiences compliment each other and bring reality to the viewer. Roy brings common sense (a trait few seem to have these days) along with much food for thought to the discussions.
Hello Roy! I found you and all your gun goodness online from the FMJ articles in Wheelgunner and then again from your videos on YouTube. I’m a fan and I just recently purchased your book the insider articles and am looking forward to reading it this winter cover to cover. Gonna be a good read I sure. Thank you.
I believe the gun manufacturers will realize (way too late) that they should have supported the print magazines with advertising to prevent their demise. One firearms support company (holster maker) noted that he rarely saw orders that came from online advertising, but that most were from print.
There is a shift taking place going back to “physical” music and movies with CDs and DVDs. The reasons are because Internet subscription purchases don’t last forever and can be changed.
Real magazines you can hold in your hands can’t be changed.
Maybe another 15 years down the line we’ll see a return.
I hope so, Steve. I’m probably not the average reader, but I would have paid more to keep my paper subscription going. If they do come back, I expect them to be a real niche product–low circulation, high cost.
Thanks for recognizing this, Mike. The print versions of American Handgunner and Guns going away deserves a moment of respect for simpler days. I can remember the excitement of seeing the new American Handgunner hit the newsstand when I was a teenager. I read my dad’s gun magazines growing up, Handgunner was the first one I bought on my own. I looked up to the competitive shooters like the pro athletes they were. Ross Seyfried, Tommy Campbell, Bill Wilson, Mike Dalton and Mickey Fowler to name a few. Handgunner introduced me to a country boy from Louisiana that ran a long-barreled S&W Model 27 like nobody’s business, giving up nothing to those with autos (Jerry Miculek). Back then, the ads were amazing, and I looked forward to seeing them as much as the articles. Roy’s Custom Leather Goods, Tyler T-Grips, Herrett’s Stocks and Bianchi Leather come to mind; not to mention the many, many gunsmiths that advertised there. As I got older, John Taffin and Mike Venturino guided me with their handloading wisdom. In the early 2000’s, Clint Smith threw gasoline on the embers of my revolver fire with his writing in both magazines. It’s a shame that those marketing folks wouldn’t listen to Roy Huntington at those shot shows…
That said, I have no doubt that Mr. Huntington and his crew will make the online platforms work, at least until we can restore some sensibilities to the planet! Best of luck to him and them, and thanks for the decades of fine work in print.
Today’s generation would probably have a hard time understanding how we relied on these magazines for the “latest news.” 🙂
A writer had a lot more influence in those days, which was sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing (but mostly good). I do tend to think the editors did a pretty good job as gatekeepers–in comparison to the current internet age, I think the quality of writing tended to be better, on average, in the print era. Especially if you focused on certain titles (we all knew which ones were hardly worth the paper they were printed on).
There were a few magazines that were generally junk, but managed to land one or two talented guys. I subscribed to some of them just for those writers. It was kinda like buying the whole album, just to hear those one or two songs you liked–a decision that folks don’t have to agonize over, these days!
“The Insider,” “Shooting Iron” and “Best of Smith and Wesson” are enroute.
And here’s to Bill, Skeeter, Elmer, John, Duke, Colonel Jeff, Charlie, Elden, Paul Weston, Henry Stebbins and Bob Nichols. God rest ye merry, gentlemen.
Sad to see this when I got my issue of Guns. I didn’t get to AH yet and didn’t realize that was going away too. I had just reupped my AH sub for 3 years. Anyone know what happens to that?
Unfortunately Matt, I think we just lose on that investment. I still had quite a bit left on mine, too . I got really hosed by the Harris publications a few times, because they kept going in and out of business. I guess I’m a slow learner.
Wow Mike, I hope you’re wrong on that. I sent the check in June and it was cashed on 8/1. Surely they knew then that they were going to be ending print production. If true, that would really upset me. I’ll email them and try to find out what the deal is.
I still miss SWAT Magazine. This is sad too. Not that the powers that be are asking but I see this process of doing away with print periodicals as another nail in the coffin of civilization which is being handed to us via the internet. My ammunition stocks are done, mostly, I’m working on life skills for hard times, and trying to get my kids on board with that.