Good handgun Magazines

[jeffj13]

Fairly new to shooting and I was wondering what handgun magazines might make for some good reading.

Not so much interested in handgun reviews, but more interested in articles on shooting, ammunition, personal protection, concealed carry, etc.

Also, I'd be interested to know if there are any magazines to avoid.

Thanks for your help.

jeff

 

[jeffj13]

Fairly new to shooting and I was wondering what handgun magazines might make for some good reading.

Not so much interested in handgun reviews, but more interested in articles on shooting, ammunition, personal protection, concealed carry, etc.

Also, I'd be interested to know if there are any magazines to avoid.

Thanks for your help.

jeff

 

[Centenniel]

American Handgunner is an excellent handgun magazine. I've taken it for years and it has a good variety of interesting articles on the subjects you mentioned.

 

[Erich]

I am of the opinion that handgun journalism is better across the board than it was even a few years ago. FWIW, I have been pretty impressed with recent articles I've found in Shooting Times and Guns & Ammo, which was not the case a decade ago. I agree about American Handgunner having some good stuff (there's stuff in it that I can't stand, as well), and I also have enjoyed Rifle, American Rifleman, Shooting Illustrated, and Guns. I enjoy certain writers in Combat Handguns. Mas Ayoob has a column in Backwoods Home that's worth reading:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/ayoob_index.html

Guns Magazine (American Handgunner's sister publication) is now available for free in a digital edition online, by the way.

There are also countless 'blogs on firearms and firearms issues - as always, quality varies.

 

[Gatofeo]

Handloader magazine has an occasional handgun article worth reading.
The most recent edition has a good article on the Browning Hi-Power, with a lot of different loads for it.
But for pure handguns, I'd say that American Handgunner ranks at the top or near it (opinions vary from one person to the next), followed in no particular order by Guns, Shooting Illustrated and American Rifleman.
The latter magazine, American Rifleman, requires membership in the National Rifle Association to receive it. But then, if you're not a member, you should be.
Now, more than ever before, every shooter should belong to the NRA.

 

[diamonback68]

Ain't none of them worth their price. Stopped them all and now I get much better info right here on the FORUM.

 

[Bassamatic]

The two I get are the American Rifleman and Guns and Ammo. I enjoy both. Besides, it's about all I have time for. I mean, how often do you go to the bathroom?

 

[KeithCarter]

Like Diamondback68, my favorite reads are the blogs on the gun forums. There's a lot of chaff to get through, but the wheat (information) is the best quality by far.

Keithcarter
NRA Life

 

[Andy Griffith]

I'll give a suggestion, and perhaps go in a different direction- books.

One of the best books to start with would be
Cartridges of the World- which I have found indispensable, and suggest obtaining more than the current version to see how some cartridges and trends "evolve" over time.

Another, although somewhat dated yet will give you the background that you need would be Sixguns by Elmer Keith- why, everything by Keith is good, IMHO.

Stay away from Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting- not because it is a bad book, but because you'll get a headache reading it because of style- McGivern was no writer whatsoever!!!

Get some of Massad Ayoob's books, Bill Jordon's No Second Place Winner and Col. Askins' writings to include a few.

They are many books to build a library with depending on your specialty. Books that I couldn't be without might not be your "fancy," but a decent firearms library is just as affordable as any collections of books. Spread it out over several years, and you haven't hurt the pocketbook too terribly.

Our more discriminating members will chime in with other suggestions.

 

[badam0112]

Originally posted by jchampagne:
+1 american handgunner

+2

 

[jjones33]

Originally posted by diamonback68:
Ain't none of them worth their price. Stopped them all and now I get much better info right here on the FORUM.

+10000

All I get is handloader and shotgun news. Everything in all these magazines is shilling for one advertiser or another.

 

[gregintenn]

I like Shooting Times.

 

[animalmother]

I get most of them. I really like Combat Handguns and Gun Tests.

 

[Wheelgunner840]

There was a time when I had a subscription to American Handgunner, Guns, Guns & Ammo, Shooting times, Gun Tests, and of course The American Rifleman, which was free with my NRA membership, all at the same time!

In no time at all (a couple of years) I was up to my elbows in magazines! Since there were specific articles on specific guns in all of them, I never threw any of them away. They just kept piling up. I put them all in cardboard boxes and stored them in the basement. One day, I just put them all out for the trashman, and cancelled every subscription.

Here is what I learned from reading a bazillion gun rags.

1. If you are a new shooter, you will have a voracious appetite for gun info, and gun rags do feed that appetite. I soaked up a ton of info in short order.

2. You quickly find out that whatever guns are being featured in a particular issue are the best thing to ever hit the market. (Until next month!)

3. There are some really good gunwriters out there, and some really bad ones who just say whatever the advertisers want them to say. You will need to sort them out. Gun Tests was the best for accurate reporting of what is good and what is bad for the money. They screwed up occassionaly (The Rohrbaugh comes to mind), but all in all, they never steered me wrong. They accept no advertisement money, so they can call a piece of crap a piece of crap.

4. After a while, you will realize how little you know by how much you know. (If that makes sense.)

I am glad that I fed my appetite for anything "Gun" back then, and I did learn a lot, but these days, I get my monthly NRA magazine, and I visit the gun forums. That's it.

I have toyed with the idea of subscribing to American Handgunner again. If I had to pick one, that would be it. (And then I would drop it into the recycling bin everytime a new one came in!

WG840

 

[n4zov]

All I get is handloader and shotgun news. Everything in all these magazines is shilling for one advertiser or another.

+1 I could not have said it better. Virtually all of the major gun publications have one goal: To sell you the guns their advertisers manufacture. Period.

There are a few exceptions: Handloader, Rifle, American Rifleman, and organizational publications like Rampant Colt and SWCA.

 

[sipowicz]

Stay away from Pro-mags...Mecgars are okay.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

All I get is handloader and shotgun news. Everything in all these magazines is shilling for one advertiser or another.

You can read the online gun advertisements as they are the same "articles" as in the gun mags. Even if they knew, none of those mags would tell you if the gun they were reviewing/advertising had a lethal safety flaw. Get the magazines that come with your NRA membership and don't pay for gun manufacturers advertising.

 

[jkc]

Shop around a litttle to see what tickles your fancy --- American Rifleman is a reliable reviewer of new stuff, but may be too dry or technical for your tastes or knowledge level, in which case perhaps Shooting Times or Guns and Ammo will appeal to your level of expertise. American Handgunner often examines esoterica that may be beyond the interest of the casual shooter. Soon enough, you'll sort out your level of interest, which will change over time as your knowledge expands and your interests narrow.

No successful magazine kowtows to its advertisers, it's the other way 'round. Advertisers buy exposure, which comes from readership, which comes from subscriptions and distributor sales, which is principally quantified and published, last I looked, by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Magazines live and die by circulation numbers, not by favoring one or another potential advertiser. The reason that gunwriters and their editors tend to run favorable product evaluations is that you would soon quit reading about and paying for reviews of POS junk. How many times are you going to grab a mag off the supermarket rack with a blurb like: "New Lorcin Flunks Out!" On the other hand, most of us are eager to hear about high quality, innovative, unusual, or otherwise interesting products, even if we have no "mission" or budget for them. The quirky exception to this generality is the oddly persistent rag, Gun Tests, which inexplicably survives, despite abysmal writing, laughable testing protocols (if any), and ridiculous comparisons of guns that bear no comparisons ---
"New England Fireams break-action trounces Perazzi in 12 ga. economy comparison!"

You've got lots of choices --- shop around...

 

[Jerry in SC]

When Ross Seyfried stopped writing for Handloader and Rifle I lost interest in magazines. He had a passion for the odd and unusual that most current writers can't seem to grasp.

I'd rather read vintage books on handguns.

 

[Spotteddog]

I prefer Wilson Combat's for any single stack 1911'.