doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: Gun writing gone bad?

I read the article in question and Mr. Helmsley's comments and I too, thought MMC's reply was unnecessarily rude. I also read the article where he referred to the 28 ga. as a "square load". My eyebrows raised on that one too. If "square load" means the shot charge is as long as it is in diameter, as most of us agree as the meaning, he's way off on that one, too. Lately, both MMC and Tom Roster have been cranking out some fact-challenged columns. I'm sorry to see it as I respect both men as pretty good writers. On something a while ago, I sent Tom Roster an email arguing with some point. His private reply back to me, was somewhat rude, as well.

Daryl, I don't think there is any clear indication of 'bad journalism', right from the get-go it sounded like a difference of opinion. Certainly nothing as clear as mis-labling a gun photo. You should have taken it up with the magazine, the vast majority of errors I've seen have been photo captions which I am very carefull to get correct and I never see prepub proofs of. I'l bet it was the magazines fault and not McIntosh's. (Let's see how they do with your Hiawatha gun?) And how long ago was that?
I think you are mis-reading my reply, I in no way condone mistakes, and I do like to know if I've made an error, but I don't appreciate know-it-all's taking pot-shots at writers just cause they can. Which, in my opinion, is what Helsely (and the original poster) did. I am sorry to hear that you imagine it's all about making deadlines and getting checks, it really is much more personal than that.

GJZ, I'm tremendously flattered you have collected all of my works! You'll notice I have edited my original post.
(Anyone, please criticize and correct my spelling and grammar, I've no editor here)

To respond to the original thread, let me first say I read neither the original article, the reply or the re-reply. As I understand it though the writer gave info which the responder felt dis-credited pioneers in the facts presented & courtesly pointed this out, giving easily checked references in the process. The writer then "Arrogantly" responds with a put down to the responder. This I find to be totally unacceptable & feel the reader has the right to have his responce as public as the original. I note the only ones who seem to disagree are "Some", not all, other writers. I will note these writers who feel this way & not purchase publications which will give support to them. One in particular had already been previously written off in my book.

I have read them all. What we have here is a reaction to the obvious: Another 'hero' that believes his own line of _ _ _ _. His response irritated the hell out of me too. But, what the hell do I know....I don't have a shoe or pipe tobacco named after me, and I certainly don't write for some snobby rag. Yes, I'm jealous. And disappointed. Time to look for a new hero...
Rick

One should recognize one's mistakes with the utmost dispatch and in a chivalrous manner. I would think.

JC

I have no tobacco, for I do not smoke, but I want everyone here to know that I have gone into my closet and named a shoe after each of you.

I'm more amazed by the fact that people read all that technical stuff in the first place. Yawn.

I agree.. reading to much tech. stuff, either shotgunning or golf can make you miss/shoot bad every time.

The headaches are in the details. Don't think a "popularizing" press editorship thinks that exhaustive recitation of evidence and excruciating qualification of argument sells magazines. There was a time a couple decades back when I could not "follow" a good deal of what I saw in Scientific American due to my limited training and aptitude for the language of mathematics. Not so now; scans as easily as Popular Mechanics while you wait for a haircut. I'll stand with MM even still; how could one develop a passion for depths if he had no interest in the surface? Popularization--every man's ten minutes of casual introduction to a new subject--provides a gateway to explorations and pursuits which might not be discovered otherwise. Not everyone takes the next step and pays to see the show; not the fault of the barker at the gate.

jack

Good morning Chux,

Gospel!

JC

First of all, published writers--no matter the field--have to get used to taking incoming rounds. It's part of the package. And all of us are guilty of mistakes. The oft-sainted Jack O'Connor wrote in his "Shotgun Book" that LC Smith didn't make any .410's. In view of the fact Jack was around when Elsies were being made, that one sort of jumps out at you.

Sometimes copy editors do you in. In a discussion of the conversion of good bird habitat to crop ground, I mentioned a "tiling machine"--for putting in drainage tile--which the kind copy editor changed to "tilling machine". My farmer friends had a lot of fun at my expense over that one: "Hey Brown . . . tilling machine . . . is that what you outdoor writers call a plow? Har har har!"

Then there is the "reinvention of the wheel" syndrome. Many folks credit Sherman Bell with discovering that it's perfectly fine to shoot 2 3/4" shells, loaded to appropriate pressures, in a gun with 2 1/2" chambers. Fact is, Burrard, Thomas, and an American with long experience in the firearms business named Arthur Curtis all said the same thing. Decades ago. No knock on the material Sherman's written, but that's one wheel he did not invent. I have an excellent book by a French gun guru named General Journee. The late John Brindle gave Journee due credit for his work on ballistics, but Journee is almost forgotten today, at least in the English-speaking gun world--mainly because no one has ever translated his book into English. (I thought about taking a shot at it, but it's way too technical for me.)

And although I'm also certain Mac's 250 pheasants with a 28 in a single season were indeed preserve birds--or at least the vast majority of them--we have to be careful when we say "couldn't have happened". The Iowa pheasant season opens Oct 25, closes Jan 10. 78 days, 3 pheasants per day. Seasons in the Dakotas and Minnesota open before Iowa's, and the Kansas season (you can shoot 4 a day there) runs to the end of January. So it's certainly mathematically possible to kill that many wild roosters in a season, if not practically. I once killed half that many without ever leaving Iowa, and when I look back at my notes from that season, I wonder how the hell I did it. But I didn't kill any with a 28ga.