Handloader Magazines

[abunaitoo]

Anyone else collect Handloader Magazines?????
Just something else to take up space in the house.
Still holes in my collection.
Took a box to the Gunshow this weekend, and only one person even looked at it.
Kind of sad.

[Bazoo]

I collect them. I have a small start. I mostly collect the ones that have articles that interest me though. 44 special, 30-30 at the moment. If I attended a gun show and found a box of handloaders, I’d pick through them right after I asked how much. If they were $5 each I’d buy 1-2. If they were $10, I’d have to be mighty interested. If they were $1-$2 each I’d whoop out a twenty and have at it.

I also collect gun digests and the like. I’m thankful that a member here a few years ago passed on a collection of gun digests and guns and ammo annuals to me for the cost of shipping. I forget who he was, but I am slowly working through that stack and enjoying all the old info.

[Bazoo]

Now that I think on it, I collect hunting books and such too and you sent me some books for shipping once. Backpacking and trophies and whitetail hunting. They are upfront on my shelf for small books. Some of them I’ve looked at and some are in line to read.

[skeettx]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive

[15meter]

I annoy my wife with my stacks of old Handloader. I get myself into old reloading projects that the newer conventional reloading manuals completely ignore.

280 Ross anyone?

Dug through the stack and came up with several articles that helped.

And even with my reloading manual collection taking up 5+ feet of bench space, The boxes of Handloader still gets mined for information even on more conventional cartridges.

[alamogunr]

I've got all of the Handloader magazines except for the most recent. Mine hasn't arrived yet even though several have posted about articles in the issue.

When I ordered John Taffin's latest book, Wolfe included several fliers with back issues. I kept the Handloader flier and use it as a guide to back issue content. Not complete but better than going thru each issue looking for something.

[Soundguy]

Anyone else collect Handloader Magazines?????
Just something else to take up space in the house.
Still holes in my collection.
Took a box to the Gunshow this weekend, and only one person even looked at it.
Kind of sad.

I got 2 bookshelfs full of those and the handloaders digersts...

[pertnear]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive

Call me compulsive too, as I save all Handloader's. So I guess Rifle Magazines are collectible also? Do they get the same demand & pricing as back issues of Handloader?

[dannyd]

I have them all on DVD's got the set for Christmas one year, so just order new DVD at the end of each year after that. Have them from 1966 to 2020.

[Bent Ramrod]

Handloader and Rifle used to be “Journals of Record;” you could go back to decade-old articles the way you go to reference books for data. And like the reference books, the data was still timely and useful.

Then they got new people in who wanted more pizazz for newsstand sales. Suddenly there were animal pictures and large-cap enticement lines on the order of “SHOOT-OUT!! Which is Better—The 9mm Or The .38 Special??” on the covers. The content went increasingly toward infomercials, gushy product reviews and puff pieces. They have a stable of regular writers who grind out 1500 words on this or that, and the amateurs/semi-pros and their experimental work that used to be most of the magazines’ content were (as far as I can see) told their submissions were no longer welcome.

I dropped my subscription after a few months of this, but used to look through the individual issues on the stand at the grocery store or Wal-Mart or wherever for the in-depth article of interest to me that might come up every couple months or so. If they looked good, I’d spring for the newsstand price, maybe a couple times a year. I do like Venturino, Pearce, and a few others, but a lot of the content just doesn’t interest me. I stick with old powders, old calibers and old designs, so I don’t get much out of the new offerings.

I can’t find either magazine any more on the racks where I generally go to shop. I get the impression that maybe dropping their special-interest audience and competing with the rest of the hunting/shooting/self defense pop lit might not have been a good idea after all.

I still have a shelf full of the old issues, and refer to them frequently. But there are only a dozen or so of the new versions in there. The stuff that used to be in the old magazines is now on Internet forums like this one.

[dannyd]

Just ordered 2021 DVD, so I will be almost up to date. The Handloader has changed over the decades but so have I.

[dannyd]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive

Not at all; I have about 10 years of rifle on dvd's someday I will order the rest.

[Bazoo]

I don’t see that handloader is just playing to the crowd. I see plenty of articles that the common folk have no interest in.

[cwlongshot]

I save them as well. Along with a couple
Other magazines I enjoy.

[alamogunr]

I got 2 bookshelfs full of those and the handloaders digersts...

I resemble this post.

[sailcaptain]

Like others here have said. I have mostly the ones that interest me or have the “how to” articles for the calibers I reload.
As it would happen, we went through the 100 year flood, “ that never happens” and suffered through an 18 inch flooded basement. Of course the shelf of my Handloaders was the bottom shelf and the .455 Webley Cover story issue was one of the casualties.
So you have a great collection, my suggestion, put it high on the upper shelf.
No one knows where we are in the 100 year event cycle at any given moment.

[quack1]

I have Handloader from #1 to current
and Rifle from #1 to current

I AM excessive compulsive

I'm excessive compulsive too.
When they started publication, the local gun shop carried both magazines and I bought them there for the first couple years, then subscribed to both, and have kept up the subsections since then. They have been "dumbed down" over the years, but are still better than other magazines.
I use them for reference pretty often. In fact, a buddy was just here last week, going through them for data for a new gun chambered for a cartridge he never loaded before. I wish there was a searchable index online, would be a great help. I have copied the yearly indexes, which helps when searching for something, but after over 50 years of publication for each magazine, it still takes a lot of time to go through all the index copies.

[shtur]

I have from Number 1 to approx Number 220 with some gaps. In the 1990's back issues would sell for $5.00 at guns shows. I tried selling them at a local gun show and didn't get any buyers interested in them for $5.00 an issue. Either the market is flooded with them, or people prefer the DVD versions.

[cwlongshot]

I collect them as well. Not the same magazine it used ta be... I still subscribe. Many holes in my collection. I havent done a gun show in decades. Around here they have been neutered to military patches cots & canteens.

CW

[lotech]

Handloader and Rifle used to be “Journals of Record;” you could go back to decade-old articles the way you go to reference books for data. And like the reference books, the data was still timely and useful.

Then they got new people in who wanted more pizazz for newsstand sales. Suddenly there were animal pictures and large-cap enticement lines on the order of “SHOOT-OUT!! Which is Better—The 9mm Or The .38 Special??” on the covers. The content went increasingly toward infomercials, gushy product reviews and puff pieces. They have a stable of regular writers who grind out 1500 words on this or that, and the amateurs/semi-pros and their experimental work that used to be most of the magazines’ content were (as far as I can see) told their submissions were no longer welcome.

I dropped my subscription after a few months of this, but used to look through the individual issues on the stand at the grocery store or Wal-Mart or wherever for the in-depth article of interest to me that might come up every couple months or so. If they looked good, I’d spring for the newsstand price, maybe a couple times a year. I do like Venturino, Pearce, and a few others, but a lot of the content just doesn’t interest me. I stick with old powders, old calibers and old designs, so I don’t get much out of the new offerings.

I can’t find either magazine any more on the racks where I generally go to shop. I get the impression that maybe dropping their special-interest audience and competing with the rest of the hunting/shooting/self defense pop lit might not have been a good idea after all.

I still have a shelf full of the old issues, and refer to them frequently. But there are only a dozen or so of the new versions in there. The stuff that used to be in the old magazines is now on Internet forums like this one.

Those are perhaps the most insightful of the comments here on this subject.

I'm glad HANDLOADER and RIFLE are still published even if they aren't what they used to be. Like other paper publications, they struggle to survive. The best editors Wolfe Pub. had are long gone, but they still have writers like Pearce, Barsness, and one or two others that remain the best in the business.

It appears many shooters / handloaders today have little or no interest in technical or accuracy-oriented articles perhaps because they lack the handloading background to understand such work. They much prefer shallow and quickly accessed YouTube material, often presented by less-than-knowledgable people who couldn't get an article published in a paper magazine if their very life depended on such. The "watchers" (as opposed to readers) are content with superficial material. The gun magazine publishing folks are aware of this and have lowered standards to the point of accomodating some of these folks but not all. And then you still have that faction that refuses to pay for any printed material, thinking everything can be had for free on the Internet. They'll never know that's not true nor do they know they miss out on a lot, but that's how they unknowingly perpetuate a second-rate knowledge of handloading.