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

I have indeed, and it will not suffice for ducks (except over dekes) which must be shot with non-tox shot anyway, crows (for which we use #4's and #5's with tight chokes, late season doves in some fields where they fly high, turkeys, box birds and columbaire, and many FITASC presentations. I could go on, but this is not a thread about the relevance of chokes. I know what works for me after a lifetime of varied wingshooting and will not argue this matter. That was done on the thread I mentioned, which ran well over a hundred posts as I recall.

Ref your post on choke Stan, a couple of years ago I was at West london shooting school getting a lesson from a chap called Mickey Rouse (spelling might be dodgy), he is an ex european ZZ champion. We were on the high pheasant tower (120 feet) and I said to him my gun only had IC in each barrel. He then broke 8 out of 10 clays with it...from the hip !!! That was using 30 gram of no.7 if I remember. He agreed with Macintosh that with modern cartridges 95% of shotgunners would do as well or better with IC in both barrels. Please note I am not talking about long range goose shooting or other specialist jobs, best, Mike

Stan: I think you are giving yourself too much credit. I doubt whether Mac would know you if you were standing side-by-side in a elevator. What happens to Mac and other knowledgeable gun writers who can devote their time to gainful employment elsewhere is the cumulative effect of all the task-takers and quibblers and uninformed web-junkies who are just dying to have their say, but have nothing to say, and say it anyway.

My original point was that if there is some technical matter published by a magazine, like SSM or DGJ, that the item could and should be a simple correction in the next issue, and should not involve debate in the Letters to Editor column.

For this simple policy statement I was called an "apologist" in a posting here, and my preoccupation with the Parker Gun was called "childish" in another, where the poster condemned me for not knowing about a Lindner? or some such gun known to so few that one doesn't need to remove footwear to count all who care about such things. Is it any wonder that recognized experts like Mac have given up in apparent disgust?

Check out parkergun.org (from which I am blocked) and you will notice a conspicuous absence of acknowledged Parker experts (save "Eightbore"). Anybody who is on the BOD or heads up a committee avoids posting like the plague. The co-authors of The Parker Story are never heard from. The content has largely degenerated into bull-session threads, "Me and Joe" went hunting blogging, and answers to frequently asked questions...over and over and over ad nauseum. In this context, the give and take of this Forum is a breath of fresh air. Though there is a downside...

For example, the grousing on another thread about the content of the DGJ and SSM not being up to the high standards of those who demonstrate their own inability to state completely a unified thought. Sometimes I wonder if there aren't a bunch of high-school jokesters on this site, just jacking us around for the fun of it. Most of what is posted doesn't show a real knowledge of the subject matter. Debate is too often not point-and-counterpoint to test a fact stated, but turns personal for lack of case-on-point information.

If it is a fact that Stan drove Mac from this Forum, I say congratulations, not that Stan did anything that in real life would deserve approbation, but, after all, this is the Internet, the most democratic of all media, where every man is King in his own opinion, and through cyberspace it's impossible to tell if he (Stan, not Mac) has any clothes. EDM

EDM, you are reading too much into my post. I did not mean to imply that I drove him from this forum, in fact I was sorry to see him leave. Just because I no longer consider him a serious gun writer does not mean that I would not like to discuss matters with him, or that I do not find his writing occasionally entertaining. I just think he gets carried away from time to time and makes blanket statements that he cannot prove.

I am open minded enough to change my mind regarding choke boring being obsolete if it can be proven to me. However, all it takes is one instance where choke is needed to disprove the claim of obsolescence, and I stated several.

If he did leave here because someone as unimportant as me disagreed with him on an issue he must be pretty thin-skinned. I never attacked him in any way, just took issue with that statement.

It maters not how great or "Expert" a person becomes, they are still capable of making a "Mistake". The mark of a man is not so much being mistake free as in dealing with them once made. A while back I "Politely Questioned" a statement made my Mr EDM concerning the bolt plate of a Parker right here on this board. I will simply say I have never in all my life been so "Be-Littled" in such an ARROGANT KNOW_IT ALL manner. I saw amazingly quickly just "Which End of the Talking Horse Mr Ed is. He simply turned my dis-agreement with the "Facts" he had stated into a Personal attack on me. I have never made any pretense of being anything other than a High-School educated Blue Collar worker. This question was however one of metalurgy & I spent 35 yrs of my life working in the metal working trade. I advanced to a supervisor in a model-making machine shop. Several "Well Educated" Engineers sided with me on the subject, but his tack never changed from one of just a Personal put down directed at "Me" a "Nobody" in "His Sight". I at that time vowed within myself to never again post to any subject in which he was taking a part. The tenure of this thread though compels me to simply state Mr Ed's outlook when he keeps referring to "Peanut Butter Eaters", High School Jokesters" etc. He simply looks upon "HimSelf" as "King" & we should all bow before him & be Grateful for anything he has to Say.
Yes Mr Ed I "Can" get personal too, when necessity calls for it.

The 'reason' many people do not post on the PGCA site is manifold.

As for why the self-appointed 'experts' don't post...I would suspect if there is one reason it is largely one of selfishness. You know - "I already know it, so what's in it for me to educate others?"

Other don't post because they can't use a computer. Others, the board is lacking a useful 'For Sale' section and is run for the good of the few, not all. And some don't post because they lack the requisite demeanor. Still others don't post because they do have any dogs to brag about. Manifold.

The internet, for all its faults, has done something no one 30 years ago would have ever dreamt - it has revived the concept of the forum. Now, the 'expert' is no longer insulted from being called on whatever he claims as fact.

I don't consider that there is a single living person who is an expert on Parkers. Not me, not Ed, not anyone. We're all just spectators by this point. I've found plenty of mistakes in Ed's expertise without even looking.

Greg, I think you dropped a letter there. I read the last sentence above as making better sense if you replace "insulted" with "insulated". Still plenty of self-styled experts getting insulted on the BB's, from what I've seen.

Doesn't surprise me....Markeyhunter/Destry bragged on here that he would ban me on the Parker site a while back and I'm not even a member of it.

jOe, it's like a pre-ban, waiting list deal, be patient

Don't mean overkill on this original topic, but in the spirit of my leading post, here is the content of a proposed new letter:

"Dear Sirs,

I'm new to shotgunning and have recently been reading DoubleGunShop forums. Some of the writing is rather slick; some of it's woven to distract and divert from what is truly being expressed by that poster.

In the end, I feel that parsing the posting's meaning/intent (as to my opinion of what it is) from the chaff is educational. My point here is to emphasize that stifling criticism doesn't work and that criticism should be published. Especially when it appears well-founded. EDM's supposed point that "Letters to the Editor are not the place to critique a writer's work" (my quotes) is at hand. The results of much of this parsing should indicate why I disagree.

In this, I wanted to refer to both my original post that started this thread and the cutting response (EDM's) to it. Right out the start gate, the inference in the response was that my writing sucks. Meaning it isn't worth reading, thereby invalidating my critique. Or maybe meaning that it's an indication that I'm a "criticizer" as defined below by EDM. Or maybe to prove just how hard it is to write articles in a nationally published magazine. I think any critique is permitted to have as many words as can be written, not limited to the length of to what it is responding, and negativity about undue length could infer the reader's having breezed through it, led by his negative preconceptions, or his rejection of its theme. It takes about five page sides of SSM to get through Helmsley's Letter (albeit including advertisements). About half of my critique is a numbered technical-like recitation of prior experiments, much like Helmsley's Letter. Getting back to SSM, McIntosh essentially refers in his reply to these sorts of things as an indication of "techno-wonkism." When you look-up the definition of "wonkism" it applies to stuff that the designer designed too complicated and subtle for the reader to understand. These experiments aren't "wonkism" and I can see why knocking the length of a written criticism seems called for when you can't be bothered by the facts.

EDM's sole definitional references to criticizers are truly that we are "quibblers and malcontents..." "reader[s] with nothing in.... [their] brief case but a peanut butter sandwich... [getting] a free shot at the big guy..." and "complainers." In a later post to another poster, it's implied criticizers are "task-takers and quibblers and uninformed web-junkies" and that a criticizer is where a "man is King in his own opinion." I don't see a positive reference to criticizers. McIntosh alludes to this strain when in his reply he mocks Helmsley with the lines 1.) "There is more in Heaven and Earth - also guns and cartridges - than is dreamt of in philosophy and techno-wonkism" and 2.) "Didn't work out so badly, after all" about the hubbub of his (McIntosh's) educational experience and money-making writing expertise. Are the rest of us all dopes with no solid ground to stand upon, facts be damned?

The response to my original post asked me to "cogitate""revise""proof""edit" and "download to a Word file" supposedly for the purpose to cleanse my material of offending matter. Or to highlight that I am missing a point the reader can clearly understand. Well, if we throw stones then consider EDM's response: "gorillia"; "complaing"; "brief case" (it's one word); a missing apostrophe with "'Why Parker?, ; "truely"; "problemaical"... I include this grudgingly because we can all spend more time correcting the superficial stuff - it's cosmetic and hopefully we can see such errors for what they are. As for making a clear point, I think this forum largely reinforced my post's clarity, however I will indicate that McIntosh used the same allegation at Helmsley's Letter - "it's that every story needs a point, clearly expressed." I felt that McIntosh was unfair to Helmsely in that his letter appeared clearly espressed. I thought of this when I considered the visceral-like allusion in McIntosh's response to Helmsley's Letter about "bogging everything [down] hopelessly;" it echoes that meaningless damnation. Unneccesary attacks? I think so.

McIntosh and EDM appear to see things in a similar vein, and perhaps being published with all that comes with giving a different perspective. I understand that.

I feel people should call attention to portions of writing not suitable for print. McIntosh's bold pronunciation, stemming from either ignoring the truth or faulty research, is not only a distraction, but arguably unethical. Including a pile-on with that brutish reply that dismisses the facts AND the critic was too much. Good writing and deceptive writing both take great skill.

To get to my point way up above, I feel the SSM Editor's choice was wise in this instance to publish both the Helmsley fact-correction Letter and McIntosh's reply - it addresses the truth and doesn't stifle expression from a reader. The Editor surely knows what's going on when he read the submitted McIntosh reply. I think the Editor clearly saw the value in publishing the Letter and enjoyed all of it. Publishing both certainly makes for informative AND entertaining reading which begs me to keep reading more issues.
Regards"