Posted: 1/18/2004 6:36:01 AM EDT
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Do any of you subscribe to this ? They claim to take no advertising dollars and no guns for testing from manufactures. Lets hear what you think of them ? TIA SaFe ShOoTiNG Jerry 
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I had it for a year and thought it sucked! They sometimes run out of guns to review and have redo's. Then they do a complete 180 like they did with the highpoint carbine. First it was a POS then the 2nd time around it beat the Ruger hands down! I wouldnt read it if they sent it for free! |
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I'll second what TC and John said....I had them about a year and while I admired their "no advertising=no undue influence" policy in theory, the writers didn't really strike me as the most competant of people. Also, the writing was weak....technical writing can be informative without being deadly dull. Just my 2Cents |
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I have subsribed it for years. It is not a perfect magazines to talk about guns. However, it did offer you some opinions which you don't see on other magazines because they do not take their money and kiss their butts. I think it is worth reading. Take whatever you wanted to take. |
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I decided to subscribed to it rather than another "never met a gun that we didn't like" magazine. I agree with the above opinions. It does offer a differnt perspective though. When they do get a dud, or a gun with a cosmetic problem, you then wonder if it was just a fluke or an indication or poor quality control. They do seem to get MORE than their share of duds in my opinion. |
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Helldog's right, they are not necessariy gifted writers or as knowledgeable about the subject matter as one might like-I like it and have subscribed for years on and off. They are honest and say a gun sucks, which means THE ONE THEY GOT sucks, but still I think it's better than the regular gun rags which are mostly whore articles. Overall I think it's worthwhile, if the article is about ARs, or some other gun you know a lot about, expect to have some groans about their boo-boos. But hey they were publishing about problems with Springfield armory rifles a couple of years ago-and Gun Tests and Arfkom are the only places I have seen that mentioned, you certainly won't read anything about that in Guns and Ammo. |
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Quoted: but still I think it's better than the regular gun rags which are mostly whore articles. Amen, I've been a subscriber for about 4 years now and I think sometimes that they try to pass over quality for cost savings (if they had their way, Ruger and Savage would rule the world) but overall I find it worth the subscription cost. |
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I recently got an offer for a reduced-price subscription to Gun Test. I was actually considering it, until I began to read the info about the mag (rag) and it's reporting style. What got me to decide AGAINST getting the scrip was: 1)They trashed Browning Buckmarks. I have one, it operates perfectly(OK, I DO occasionally get a FTE, but I use rifle .22s, not pistol), the quality is hard to beat, it is accurate as all get out. 2)They trashed Mossberg mod. 500s. I have a mod. 500 20ga and I'm completely satisfied with it and it's operation. Use it to hunt and bust clay pigeons. No complaints. 3) THEY [i]LIKE[/i] AMERICAN SPIRIT AR-15s! As far as I'm concerned, even if they send me a free years' worth of issues, I'll use them to line the bottom of our bird cage. |
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helldog pretty much nailed it. Several times i got the feeling the writtter was completely clueless as to the proper function of the firearm he was testing. The result.. A failure Yea they will call a gun a POS but typically they can't explain why the gun failed. mike |
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As with any opinion, we have to take their's with a grain of salt. They aren't afraid to issue a "conditional buy" and point out what they consider to be the shortcomings of a particular firearm even when it's a big manufacturer. I like that. Remember that they only take 1 specimen of each gun and that one is sometimes flawed. By the way, I actually bought the hi-point due to their recommendation, and low and behold the thing has never FTF and can get 1 and 1/2 inch groups at 50 yards. Yeah, it's assembled with a lawnmower bolt as the bolt pull, but the thing is all that they claimed it was at a price that was even better. Opinions are just that...opinions. It helps to get many. |
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I was a big fan of Gun Test until they nit-picked about a 1/10" difference in accuracy between two pistols, earning one a 'Don't Buy' rating. Too many factors could've reversed the decision and made me think that was a ridiculous way to keep someone from purchasing a good firearm. I cancelled my subscription with the comment: "Until this magazine can be better written and they don't nitpick so much, we move it from a 'Conditional Buy' to a 'Don't Buy'." |
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I think they are overpriced for what they give you. All they offer is reviews, i rarely see thoughtful commentary on political or interesting stories about historical figures with guns, all of which i get from other gun mags at around a dollar an issue when subscribing in long term like two years or so. I'm not gonna pay more money to get less, even if it is "unbiased". I can get more quality reviews and significant info just by asking here about a gun then at guntests. save your guntests subscription, send it to arf.com! |
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I bought a lifetime subscription to Gun Tests some years back and got a "free" USP.45ACP compact sent to my local FFL with the subscription.(don't even ask what it co$t) The writers expect a gun to work when they take it out of the box.They only buy one, and don't like to work on it.They sometimes will retest a failed gun at a later date. The magazine consists of reports and is only entertaining if you are interested in that gun. Keep in mind their writers won't know ARs or AKs like our board members think they do. It is a pricey publication and not for everyone, but worth the money to someone who likes to stay informed. I don't agree with or like all their reports, but I don't like everything I see in Consumer Reports either and I subscribe to that also and too many other magazines. |
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Never read it, but fromothers comments I've heard they don't really have standard testing methods...including some pistol reviews where they complained about accuracy without even using a rest to see if it was the pistol or the shooter. If I want gun reviews done by amateurs that don't have a policy to ensure standardized reviews, I'll read them online at places like ar15.com. At least here they're free. |
| Much as already noted, they are not the best writers, and their shooters do have their biases, but I think there is far less whoring going on. When they trash a gun, they are usually trashing THAT gun, not all guns, just the sample they tested so to whine that they trashed a gun doesn't mean that every sample of that model is bad. They do not get special samples, they get the samples off the rack. The don't have a problem pointing out problems they experienced with expensive guns. If they think that they got a particularly bad sample, sometimes they go back and retest to give the model a second chance. I also got the lifetime subscription and a Compact USP in .45 with the deal. There is no space wasted with advertising, stories, and sports/political commentary other than an editors note and reader's letters in the back. Sometimes the testing methods can be questionable as well. But for every problem or issue I have with the mag, I can easily match it with one or more from the standard magazines. I only read the standard magazines to inform me of new products as I find most of the rest to be biased crap with a few pretty pictures. |
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A lot of varied opinions here. I'm a subscriber and I like the magazine. I think you have to compare them to the "competition". The commercial magazines are really just advertisements. I trust the writers at "GunTests" to be honest and I think they are. But they can be wrong. They only test one example of each gun they review so their sample is not statistically relevant. It does, however, give the gun buyer some fairly useful guidelines. It can be a usefull aid in purchasing guns if they have tested several similar guns by the same manufacturer. This was very helpful to me when I decided to buy a Bushmaster AR because I was able to reread approx. five seperate articles they had written on Bushmasters over the past several years (they consistantly liked them. And mine turned out to be good as well.). I disagree with the people who claim that the writers are not knowledgeable about firearms. Ray Ordorica has been around the block MANY times and is quite knowledgeable. The others I'm not as familiar with, but Ordorica probably wouldn't be hanging with them if they were a bunch of fools. Again, I think you have to compare them with something. I really can't stand most of the reviews I read in magazines like "Guns & Ammo" and the other commercial rags. I don't feel that I can trust anything that they say about their reviewed guns. I think they get "special" samples to test from the manufacturers and they have a strong vested interest in saying only good things in order to maintain their advertising revenues. |