marsh man Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 Hi Guys......I have been buying the Shooting Times for a number of years now , the last year or so it was more or less through force of habit .When John Humphries died I then lost interest in the magazine I don't think it is worth me spending about a tenner a month on it no more ,can you recommend a decent shooting mag or are they all the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rimotu66 Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 I have not bought it regularly for a few months but that is because my local shops no longer stock it, or any other shooting publications, I do pick it up on the rare occasion I go into town, I do think the internet has stopped a lot of people needing to get there weekly/monthly fix from the newsagents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brixsmaid Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 I get most of them, just because it's about the only thing I can be bothered to read - not really into books. The one thing I notice with the Sporting Shooter and Sporting Gun, is that they seem to recycle stories and letters, what appears in one quite often appears in the other. I still like the Shooting Times and quite enjoy the Shooting Gazette - albeit most of the shoot articles are outside my pay grade unfortunately! Sorry not much help really! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
remmyman Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 Hi Guys......I have been buying the Shooting Times for a number of years now , the last year or so it was more or less through force of habit .When John Humphries died I then lost interest in the magazine I don't think it is worth me spending about a tenner a month on it no more ,can you recommend a decent shooting mag or are they all the same. For a comprehensive and diverse read I think that Gunmart Magazine takes some beating. Regards remmyman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_b_wales Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 I subscribe to a few shooting magazines, but my favourite has to be Sporting Rifle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenboy Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 I think they are all guilty of turning out the same stuff written slightly differently after a while , I used to have the sporting gun but no longer bother . I would also suggest some of the content is a little exaggerated , lets call it artistic licence ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
English archer Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 Hi Guys......I have been buying the Shooting Times for a number of years now , the last year or so it was more or less through force of habit .When John Humphries died I then lost interest in the magazine I don't think it is worth me spending about a tenner a month on it no more ,can you recommend a decent shooting mag or are they all the same. I recently canceled my subscription, it has gone downhill over the last 6 months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern01 Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 I agree with the previous posts the good old ST just churns out the same old stuff year after year. Even the adverts are boring. The articles always say the guns shot brilliantly, the pickers up picked every bird, the beaters where salt of the earth, the lunch was superb etc. etc. We had a similar thread to this a year or two ago and I did a 'reality' spoof article which I will repeat if any one wants it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern01 Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Here it is: How about one gun is the greediest shot you have ever seen, another has a mobile glued to his ear arranging a couple of evictions, the third and fourth walk around with their guns closed between drives, the fifth is dressed like Toad of Toad Hall, number six couldn't hit a barn door if he was sat on the latch, number seven is a continental who shoots at birds half way up the trees and considers the rules on ground game don't apply to him, describing the hare he just shot as a beeg rabbit. The last is the shoot captain who makes Captain Mannering look like a saint and has only got the job because nobody else wants it. The beaters are a surly lot who deliberately delay the drive starting so the guns will deservedly get wet through if it is raining heavily. The first picker up is a field trialler who is only there to train her dogs and only allows them one easy retrieve per dog on each drive before being put back on the lead.. The second has two German pointers which are brilliant at finding wounded game but can turn a fine cock pheasant into a bag of marbles with just one bite. The third one simply collects all the game off the guns and carries it to the game cart. The keeper is a bad tempered old so and so and who's every second word begins in F. The game is chucked on the floor of the beaters long wheel base Landover for the dogs to sit on or have a chew at if they get a bit peckish May have ruffled a few feathers here which is more than gun six ever does! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern01 Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Here is a longer one I started to write, perhaps we should have others adding the other drives; The Partridge Shoot It was still raining heavily as I pulled into the farmyard across a sea of evil smelling mud. As I parked up between two piles of rusting overgrown farm machinery I noticed several other guns were sat in their vehicles. Sheltering from the rain and not wanting to walk around in this lot I thought as I climbed out of my truck. Good job I put my wellies on at home to hide the holes in my socks. A huge Rotwieller bounded toward me with half a chewed up house brick in its mouth and dropped it at my feet. It tilted its head slightly to on side and looked at me expectantly. Throw it and get back in your ********** car or it will have you shouted one of the guns through his half opened car window. I did as he advised and jumped smartly back into my truck. Drive 1 The first drive was a duck drive around an irrigation pond. The tame little mallards seemed to know they were safe if they swam around in small circles in the middle. Despite flags being thrashed about, labradors swimming towards them and bricks being hurled at them they would not fly. In desperation the keeper pulled a long rope out of his truck and with a couple of beaters on the other side of the pond dragged it across the surface towards the ducks. This alarmed them enough to make a few of them half heartedly take to the air. As they reached an altitude barely above head height a volley of gunfire commenced and several of the leaders tumbled wounded back down onto the water. The survivors flew over the rope and quickly dived back onto the pond. To be continued......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deershooter Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 I have been a subscriber for 25 years it's getting to the stage of going else where it has really going down hill in the last 12 months Deershooter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted February 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Thanks Fern01......Pity you didn't write a page or two for them now and again, our shoots are not quite as bad as that but your write up is a bit more realistic and more entertaining .The first ones I bought were 1/6d or 7 and a half pence in 1964 and I used to read every page from front to back. People like Alan Savory, Pat Cringle ,Colin Willock and the other old ones seemed to be on the same wave length ,or is it me getting old and grumpy, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortune Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 I remember waiting for its arrival at the newsagents many years ago and reading it from cover to cover but then as time went on it got into fairy story land as you describe. I stopped getting it years ago not because of the price but because the copy didn’t have any bearing on any sort of shooting that I was involved in and that covered small game syndicate, pigeon shooting, night shooting and all sorts of stuff. It was all about basc and how great it was to have a custom range rover or how great our Holland’s Ect were. All the guns looked like toad of toad hall or the Harry Enfield type of conservative twit. Probably through commercial considerations all of the stuff that was reviewed was exceptional value and a must have. The articles appeared to have been written by someone with a fair bit of imagination and artistic license. It just wasn’t realistic to what was happening out there on the ground. The articles were Fairy stories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_t50 Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 have ago with sporting shooter dom holtam seems to be doing a good job of covering a wide variety of field sports although if you watch fields ports Britain on youtube most of it is repeated in the mag still a good read and the likes of crow man digweed and roy lupton add some great comedy moments . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scully Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Here is a longer one I started to write, perhaps we should have others adding the other drives; The Partridge Shoot It was still raining heavily as I pulled into the farmyard across a sea of evil smelling mud. As I parked up between two piles of rusting overgrown farm machinery I noticed several other guns were sat in their vehicles. Sheltering from the rain and not wanting to walk around in this lot I thought as I climbed out of my truck. Good job I put my wellies on at home to hide the holes in my socks. A huge Rotwieller bounded toward me with half a chewed up house brick in its mouth and dropped it at my feet. It tilted its head slightly to on side and looked at me expectantly. Throw it and get back in your ********** car or it will have you shouted one of the guns through his half opened car window. I did as he advised and jumped smartly back into my truck. Drive 1 The first drive was a duck drive around an irrigation pond. The tame little mallards seemed to know they were safe if they swam around in small circles in the middle. Despite flags being thrashed about, labradors swimming towards them and bricks being hurled at them they would not fly. In desperation the keeper pulled a long rope out of his truck and with a couple of beaters on the other side of the pond dragged it across the surface towards the ducks. This alarmed them enough to make a few of them half heartedly take to the air. As they reached an altitude barely above head height a volley of gunfire commenced and several of the leaders tumbled wounded back down onto the water. The survivors flew over the rope and quickly dived back onto the pond. To be continued......... You've been on one of the shoots I used to beat on, haven't you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norfolk dumpling Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Personally I like any magazine which covers our wonderful sport and whilst yes some of the shoots are a little hard to recognise (even if you have shot or brushed [this is beating in norfolk]there) we must not have anything printed which puts us in a poor light. I have regularly ticked them off for some of their exaggerated stuff (& a couple of adverts that were very USA/Gunsmoke stuff) and they have responded positively so if you don't like it tell them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudpatten Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Part of the problem is that ST won`t pay the going rate for it`s contributors. Indeed payment of any sort is sometimes a long time coming. Incidentally, I`d also include Noel Sedgewick in my list of ST literary greats. There are many authors out here easily on a par with Pat Cringle, Alan Savoray et al. Instead of trying to cultivate them, it`s easier and cheaper for the ST to constantly recycle the likes of Turnstone,Tony Jackson,and Petrel. Peter Whittaker,(Petrel)capable though he is, must be in his nineties having started with the ST back in the 1950`s whilst Turnstone is only very slightly younger. They seem also to have turned their back on wildfowling, incidentally the main subject material for all of their truly great contributors. Yes, we get the odd tale, but nothing regular. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dekers Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Few of the magazines change their format much and each one tends to become predictable in its own way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDog Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 (edited) The Shooting Times has been going downhill for ten years or so and I stopped getting it then. Try the Shooting Gazette which is a monthly which is holding it's own in terms of content and interest. I have contributed articles to this magazine in the past. None of the magazines pay contributors anything like what they are worth. By the time I had crafted an article, fine tuned it and packaged it as required it would have taken some hours and the financial reward offered did not reflect the time and effort I had put in. Edited February 26, 2014 by JDog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudpatten Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 (edited) Dekers,I don`t have an issue with that. Shooting itself mirrors the yearly cycle and it would be very difficult to work outside of it. Edited February 26, 2014 by mudpatten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Essex Hunter Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 I read any old copy's a mate buys..... TEH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDog Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 fern01 Some alternative humour on the forum at long last. Keep it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobt Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 Has anyone ever read a bad report on something tested? it would be bad for advertising. I stopped buying shooting times and sporting gun many years ago, I had a couple of complete sets, so in sept I cauld read last years partridge copy which is the same as the years before etc, then a month later I could read last years pheasant copy etc etc I bought sporting rifle for a while but got sick of the product placement, shooting gazette was good for the fantasy shooting, but the roadtests of you really need a £100k rangerover to shoot was wearing a bit thin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krugerandsmith Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 For a comprehensive and diverse read I think that Gunmart Magazine takes some beating. Regards remmyman Agreed +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dekers Posted February 26, 2014 Report Share Posted February 26, 2014 For a comprehensive and diverse read I think that Gunmart Magazine takes some beating. Regards remmyman Agreed +1 I would tend to agree, seems quite a lot of it to, but as I only ever tend to get one or two copies a year FREE at various shows I guess it would look a bit original! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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