Hidden agenda?

[adzyvilla]

I've been moved to write this after casting my eye over the latest issue of sporting gun magazine. I would be interested to know others thoughts on the following. 

I have been an occasional reader of shooting magazines since I was old enough to understand them, firstly second hand copies of shooting times when father had finished with them, then on to airgunner, and more recently all sorts of titles. Generally, if people can't think of what to buy me for birthdays, they will get me a shooting or motoring magazine subscription. Some are better than others, but regardless of the title, I begun to notice a trend a fair few years ago which seems to be accelerating as time goes on. 

So what is this all about? Get to the damn point. It began when pro steel shot articles first appeared, often as advertorials or obvious puff pieces. Nothing wrong in that, manufacturers need to raise awareness of new products and as shooters we are normally eager to give innovations a go. But over time, gushing pro steel morphed into anti lead, the writer going to pains to empathise the damaging effects of lead and all the benefits of its (now evidently) chosen successor. I can't remember similar articles extolling the virtues of bismuth or tin (please correct me if I'm wrong). 

On another subject, articles bashing driven game shooting appear to have become deur rigeur in recent years. It was first noticeable to me when articles on raptor persecution were featured rather heavily, almost condemning accused gamekeepers without fair trial. Then questions were raised about bag sizes, tarring all the big commercial shoots with the same brush and inferring slaughter on an industrial scale. Then it was how high is too high?, then the ethics of releasing game, and now to the latest line of attack, about how simulated game is better than the 'real thing'. 

Taken in isolation, it is absolutely right that all of these aspects are explored and debated, and I think as a sport there are uncomfortable facts we need to confront. But this should be done in the open, and fairly. Not like some cold War era psyop designed to alter our thinking subliminally in a drip... drip... fashion, as it seems to me is the way our august publications seem to be going about it.

Are we being subtly (or maybe not so much) guided into a way of thinking and acting, being prepared for a future that has already been chosen for us? (see the lead shot phasing out for further details). Years of pro steel/anti lead propaganda in media, then all of a sudden our representative bodies decide to abandon lead shot. Now that the future of lead has apparently now been decided, is it the turn of game shooting to follow the same fate? Are we being conditioned to accept a time when gameshooting is openly derided by shooters, like lead shot is now? 

Maybe I've got too much time on my hands as a result of covid-19 curtailing my freedoms, and the conspiracy nut in me is coming to the fore. As I have said above, what does everyone else think? 

As an aside, but in a related fashion, did anyone else read the article in last months sporting gun by Mark Avery? Why bother giving an avowed enemy of country sports a two page spread in a shooting magazine? He will hardly persuade anyone over to his way of thinking like that as his views and that of wild justice are already well known. It seemed a very odd feature to me and I waited to see if any letters to the editor mentioned it, but there was nothing printed. Might as well put a centre page of a great big juicy T bone steak in the next copy of vegan monthly. 

Many thanks for reading. 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

I've not bothered with Sporting Gun for years,used to see Robin the editor quite often.

Rather surprised it is still going.

I am quite happy not to read it after reading your summation.

[adzyvilla]

Thanks tightchoke. 

Its not just sporting gun, shooting times is at it as well. Full on conspiracy nut mode now, I'm fairly sure the current editor of ST is a plant. Straight out of uni and into editor of the top selling shooting magazine. I would dream of such an opportunity. It has changed for the worse over the last few years under his stewardship and is plumbing new depths on a weekly basis. 

[B725]

I stopped SG and ST a few months ago as they kept missing deliveries , the subscription team are utterly useless and didn't get any further with the editor even after I met him twice.

[marsh man]

23 minutes ago, adzyvilla said:

Thanks tightchoke. 

Its not just sporting gun, shooting times is at it as well. Full on conspiracy nut mode now, I'm fairly sure the current editor of ST is a plant. Straight out of uni and into editor of the top selling shooting magazine. I would dream of such an opportunity. It has changed for the worse over the last few years under his stewardship and is plumbing new depths on a weekly basis. 

I was a staunch supporter of the Shooting Times for many years and I believe my first copy was 1/6d , I carried on buying them every week until I got married and then my mother bought it each week so I had a good reason to pop in every Friday night when I left off work , towards the end of her life I was finding it not worth the paper it was wrote on but I still popped in each Friday to leave her a little treat and to pick up the S Ts , once she passed away I stopped getting it and the odd time I read it in TESCOs I was glad I did , might be a age thing but I can't find enough of interest to fork out the few quid they now cost .

[London Best]

2 minutes ago, marsh man said:

I was a staunch supporter of the Shooting Times for many years and I believe my first copy was 1/6d , I carried on buying them every week until I got married and then my mother bought it each week so I had a good reason to pop in every Friday night when I left off work , towards the end of her life I was finding it not worth the paper it was wrote on but I still popped in each Friday to leave her a little treat and to pick up the S Ts , once she passed away I stopped getting it and the odd time I read it in TESCOs I was glad I did , might be a age thing but I can't find enough of interest to fork out the few quid they now cost .

Similar here. First copies cost 1/6d. I stopped buying it regularly in 1976. Still bought one occasionally, but it got worse and worse. I don’t think I have bought one for about 25-30 years. I still get passed the odd one sometimes but I am appalled at the lack of informed content.

[rbrowning2]

Adzyvilla, well said, I stopped reading shooting magazines a long time ago, glad I did from what you have written.
Sounds like you are correct they are brain washing the readers, similar to basc did pre u turn on lead shot in its magazine. 
Anybody remember Tim woodhouse? He used to write for the shooting magazines many years back he wrote articles on how banning lead shot would be the end of small gauge guns so rumour had it around the fourten.org.uk site his plain speaking words lost him his living writing for the magazines as pressure was applied so they no longer published his articles for which he got paid.

These magazines are businesses they publish what will maximise their profits, via adverts and article contributions and sponsor of products paying them to promote them with the readers.

 

[marsh man]

2 minutes ago, London Best said:

Similar here. First copies cost 1/6d. I stopped buying it regularly in 1976. Still bought one occasionally, but it got worse and worse. I don’t think I have bought one for about 25-30 years. I still get passed the odd one sometimes but I am appalled at the lack of informed content.

I used to look forward to every Friday to pick up my ordered copy of the S Ts , I left school 62 so it would be about mid 60s , Blue border with a Black and White photo on the front cover, some of the wildfowling clubs were not that old then and most weeks there was a mention of one of the W A G B I clubs , the adverts for guns on the back pages would now make your mouth water along with the cartridges , I also looked at the keepers jobs available but I ended up as a brick layer , now having retired I haven't got the slightest interest in brick laying but still very much involved in helping out on game shoots and the interest in keepering is as strong now as when I forked out 1/6d for the old shooting bible , happy days .

[REDINGTON]

To many the shooting world is just a money maker, when its no longer making them money they will move onto something else.

its like charities,, just a way of milking the more sensitive souls and drawing the cash for high paid ceo,s

geldof, bono, etc,, "give us yer 'kin money" they cried,,, showing starving kids, while their tax avoidance offshore bank accounts were bursting at the seams. hypocrites.

 

[Scully]

1 hour ago, adzyvilla said:

Thanks tightchoke. 

Its not just sporting gun, shooting times is at it as well. Full on conspiracy nut mode now, I'm fairly sure the current editor of ST is a plant. Straight out of uni and into editor of the top selling shooting magazine. I would dream of such an opportunity. It has changed for the worse over the last few years under his stewardship and is plumbing new depths on a weekly basis. 

So have you contacted either magazine and made known your opinions? 

[adzyvilla]

2 minutes ago, Scully said:

So have you contacted either magazine and made known your opinions? 

As a matter of fact, yes. On a couple of occasions I have written to ST and received no reply. Even saw the current editor Patrick galbraith at the game fair last year who was very concerned (not), too busy chatting to the totty at the subscription stand. 

But this is by the by, do you have an opinion regarding my post? 

[PPP]

3 minutes ago, adzyvilla said:

too busy chatting to the totty at the subscription stand

That's the first thing he's got right so far..  I agree, it feels like all of these publications or associations are trying to squeeze the last drops out of us before they move onto some other mob .. fishing beware?

[Westley]

I too have stopped buying any shooting magazines. I have had some passed on from shooting friends though. It would appear that the current Editor of the Shooting Times is never editing,  but spends most of his time touring the country and shooting. As said, we are being brainwashed, continually, by both the shooting press and the Governing Bodies of shooting, as to how harmful lead has suddenly become. When BASC tell me that I should NOT eat lead shot game more than three times per YEAR    Well, I think they have well and truly lost the plot.  I am now in my mid 70's having eaten lead shot meat for most of my life, sometimes more than three times per WEEK  !  Having said that,  I have read in recent Sporting Gun magazines a couple of excellent articles by Robin Scott condemning those people who are jumping on the 'ban lead' bandwagon and the constant propaganda we are being fed. He highlighted the fact that BASC have conducted a couple of interviews with Swedish shooters to inform us all as to just how good steel shot is, once we 'learn' how to use it. He then makes the point that IF steel is so damned good, why do parties of Swedish game shooters coming here to shoot, not ensure that steel shot cartridges are available for their use   ?  I have said many times before that WHEN I stop getting water supplied through lead pipes, I may consider not using lead shot. Unfortunately it appears that the next generation of shooters have already fallen for ban lead campaign, hook, line and sinker. (lead alternative, of course).

[REDINGTON]

41 minutes ago, Westley said:

I too have stopped buying any shooting magazines. I have had some passed on from shooting friends though. It would appear that the current Editor of the Shooting Times is never editing,  but spends most of his time touring the country and shooting. As said, we are being brainwashed, continually, by both the shooting press and the Governing Bodies of shooting, as to how harmful lead has suddenly become. When BASC tell me that I should NOT eat lead shot game more than three times per YEAR    Well, I think they have well and truly lost the plot.  I am now in my mid 70's having eaten lead shot meat for most of my life, sometimes more than three times per WEEK  !  Having said that,  I have read in recent Sporting Gun magazines a couple of excellent articles by Robin Scott condemning those people who are jumping on the 'ban lead' bandwagon and the constant propaganda we are being fed. He highlighted the fact that BASC have conducted a couple of interviews with Swedish shooters to inform us all as to just how good steel shot is, once we 'learn' how to use it. He then makes the point that IF steel is so damned good, why do parties of Swedish game shooters coming here to shoot, not ensure that steel shot cartridges are available for their use   ?  I have said many times before that WHEN I stop getting water supplied through lead pipes, I may consider not using lead shot. Unfortunately it appears that the next generation of shooters have already fallen for ban lead campaign, hook, line and sinker. (lead alternative, of course).

good post.

[lancer425]

2 hours ago, adzyvilla said:

I've been moved to write this after casting my eye over the latest issue of sporting gun magazine. I would be interested to know others thoughts on the following. 

I have been an occasional reader of shooting magazines since I was old enough to understand them, firstly second hand copies of shooting times when father had finished with them, then on to airgunner, and more recently all sorts of titles. Generally, if people can't think of what to buy me for birthdays, they will get me a shooting or motoring magazine subscription. Some are better than others, but regardless of the title, I begun to notice a trend a fair few years ago which seems to be accelerating as time goes on. 

So what is this all about? Get to the damn point. It began when pro steel shot articles first appeared, often as advertorials or obvious puff pieces. Nothing wrong in that, manufacturers need to raise awareness of new products and as shooters we are normally eager to give innovations a go. But over time, gushing pro steel morphed into anti lead, the writer going to pains to empathise the damaging effects of lead and all the benefits of its (now evidently) chosen successor. I can't remember similar articles extolling the virtues of bismuth or tin (please correct me if I'm wrong). 

On another subject, articles bashing driven game shooting appear to have become deur rigeur in recent years. It was first noticeable to me when articles on raptor persecution were featured rather heavily, almost condemning accused gamekeepers without fair trial. Then questions were raised about bag sizes, tarring all the big commercial shoots with the same brush and inferring slaughter on an industrial scale. Then it was how high is too high?, then the ethics of releasing game, and now to the latest line of attack, about how simulated game is better than the 'real thing'. 

Taken in isolation, it is absolutely right that all of these aspects are explored and debated, and I think as a sport there are uncomfortable facts we need to confront. But this should be done in the open, and fairly. Not like some cold War era psyop designed to alter our thinking subliminally in a drip... drip... fashion, as it seems to me is the way our august publications seem to be going about it.

Are we being subtly (or maybe not so much) guided into a way of thinking and acting, being prepared for a future that has already been chosen for us? (see the lead shot phasing out for further details). Years of pro steel/anti lead propaganda in media, then all of a sudden our representative bodies decide to abandon lead shot. Now that the future of lead has apparently now been decided, is it the turn of game shooting to follow the same fate? Are we being conditioned to accept a time when gameshooting is openly derided by shooters, like lead shot is now? 

Maybe I've got too much time on my hands as a result of covid-19 curtailing my freedoms, and the conspiracy nut in me is coming to the fore. As I have said above, what does everyone else think? 

As an aside, but in a related fashion, did anyone else read the article in last months sporting gun by Mark Avery? Why bother giving an avowed enemy of country sports a two page spread in a shooting magazine? He will hardly persuade anyone over to his way of thinking like that as his views and that of wild justice are already well known. It seemed a very odd feature to me and I waited to see if any letters to the editor mentioned it, but there was nothing printed. Might as well put a centre page of a great big juicy T bone steak in the next copy of vegan monthly. 

Many thanks for reading. 

Not read sporting gun in at least 20 myears. nor the shooting yimes. i barely read the Shooting and conservation either.

 So i can not make any direct references to the pro steel or anti lead aspects. But basically i could easily imagine anyone getting to grips with steel to be come a die hard convert in a relatively short time.

I hated steel in the early 2000s. i was struggling to get it to work, the factory offerings were terrible, and After market chokes were few and far between. But once i saw the importance of the choke choice and load development and selection. i actually became a strong advocate of steel shot.

 My experiences with steel as a waterfowl shot initialy morphed into pigeons fox and other shooting. i use steel for much more than just wildfowl now. I have not totaly given up on lead just yet, but i will openly admit to seeing not  a single aspect  of Lead  that makes it more appealing to use than a well developed steel load in a suitable shotgun.

 It could be your writers bias is in fact the dawning of a heart felt realisation of the merits of steel he wants to share, and just wants to pass on his positive findings to other less steel enlightened shooters in our midst.

Steel is not bad in fact its good. Very good.

[andrewluke]

11 minutes ago, lancer425 said:

 My experiences with steel as a waterfowl shot initialy morphed into pigeons fox and other shooting. i use steel for much more than just wildfowl now. I have not totaly given up on lead just yet, but i will openly admit to seeing not  a single aspect  of Lead  that makes it more appealing to use than a well developed steel load in a suitable shotgun.

 

 

so why are you still using lead?

Edited May 29, 2020 by andrewluke

[WalkedUp]

I used to buy the magazines as a young teenager. My mum read one once and laughed at the writing, asking me how I could read such drivel. Even in the 1990s they were awful, I was just too young to see it. I buy one a year when I go up to Scotland but it is painful to get through. I actually prefer looking at the advertisement listings with prices to see if I can find a bargain. 10 years later, yet to find a bargain. 

[Konor]

I have not read shooting times for as long as some here I started reading around about my last year in primary school ,about 1971. I notice now that I am less enthusiastic to read them and maybe read around half the content ,sometimes the articles appeal more one week and less another.

I have noticed a more pro steel anti lead comment for a while now. David Tomlinson writing on gundog training is keen to let you know how anti lead he is. In the 13th of May issue he wrote “ Bismuth cartridges perform well in traditional game guns so those whingeing that they will no longer be able to shoot with their lovely old side by side guns are wrong” he then goes on to write that the increased cost of bismuth will be no bad thing as it will “ likely lead to more sensible and thus more accurate shooting” he was “delighted by the recent announcement by our shooting organisations that they would like to see a voluntary shift to non toxic shot within the next five years”

Alasdair Mitchell on the back page has said he has moved over to steel and is a convert.

I think all the comments are agenda driven.

As this change is to be voluntary I will not be participating, rather I will be buying up sufficient lead cartridges to see me through my rough shooting life. While I am happy to use a non toxic mix for my 3 1/2 inch wildfowling beretta semi automatic and will probably invest in a semi 10 bore for the geese I am not prepared to put steel through my 2 1/2 inch chambered game guns.I will continue to use lead. I have taken quite a bit of woodcock and snipe with Grand Prix 7s Pheasants with Grand Prix 6s and 5s and duck and inland geese with Eley Maximum 4s.Those cartridges have given my old Damascus barrelled 12 bore a versatility that I have enjoyed for many a year and that heritage and connection to the past is a major source of my enjoyment. I won’t be giving that up to shoot a Spanish clunker that I’ve had opened up to accommodate steel shot. 

[WalkedUp]

1 minute ago, Konor said:

Alasdair Mitchell

Every year I despise his back page articles. There is no internet or signal up where we stay so it is a great chance to get enraged over nothing, which is what I miss greatly when disconnected from wider society. 

[Konor]

I used to enjoy reading Alasdair Mitchell a while back. I don’t even read his articles now. I think either his articles content has changed or that increasing age has made me more intolerant. 

[adzyvilla]

I must state, that I did not intend this to become yet another pro/anti lead argument thread. I merely used it as an example of the shooting press tail wagging the shooting community dog. I feel that my other examples about the increasing (perceived) subliminal attacks on game shooting are more worrying, as in the end, the change from lead whilst another cut on the way to the death of 1000, is not going to stop us enjoying shooting, but move against game shooting will signal the end of live quarry shooting in short order. 

Thanks for all your comments so far. 

[Scully]

1 hour ago, adzyvilla said:

As a matter of fact, yes. On a couple of occasions I have written to ST and received no reply. Even saw the current editor Patrick galbraith at the game fair last year who was very concerned (not), too busy chatting to the totty at the subscription stand. 

But this is by the by, do you have an opinion regarding my post? 

I haven’t read either for quite a few years now, so have no idea if there’s a hidden agenda or not. 

It’s worth remembering that magazines depend almost entirely on advertising for revenue; if a manufacturer is plugging steel shot due to shooting organisations calling for the demise of lead shot, then it’s not really surprising the virtues of steel over lead are being highlighted. 
That’s just one aspect however, of your suspicions, so just keep plugging away, someone will respond eventually, especially if you don’t let up. 

[lancer425]

6 minutes ago, andrewluke said:

 

Using up what i have in stock, and in this at the same time buying time to develop modern heavier than lead ammunition, that can out perform Lead in every count from a performance angle. Lead is headed for the history books like tea clippers and Steam trains . The alternatives are there, its just many do not want the change.

[adzyvilla]

Just now, Scully said:

I haven’t read either for quite a few years now, so have no idea if there’s a hidden agenda or not. 

It’s worth remembering that magazines depend almost entirely on advertising for revenue; if a manufacturer is plugging steel shot due to shooting organisations calling for the demise of lead shot, then it’s not really surprising the virtues of steel over lead are being highlighted. 
That’s just one aspect however, of your suspicions, so just keep plugging away, someone will respond eventually, especially if you don’t let up. 

Thanks Scully. You are absolutely right, the piper calls the tune now more than ever, and readers subscriptions don't even pay for the rent on the office these days. I just wish they would be more up front if they are writing a piece on behalf of an advertiser so we can make our own minds up. 

I actually think the latest article in sporting gun re: simulated days being better than the real thing is merely a long winded advert for the shoot host. 

[andrewluke]

1 minute ago, lancer425 said:

Using up what i have in stock, and in this at the same time buying time to develop modern heavier than lead ammunition, that can out perform Lead in every count from a performance angle. Lead is headed for the history books like tea clippers and Steam trains . The alternatives are there, its just many do not want the change.

 you mention "heavier than lead ammunition" ,this wont be steel!,steel will never out perform lead