Fiftydriver
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To all,
Was sitting here on a breif lunch break reading a current issue of Rifle Magazine. I don;t read many of the mainstream mags anymore, Reloader and Rifle magazine are about it to be honest. There is still alot of fluff in them but did not seem as much as the others so I do still read them from time to time.
Anyway, I was reading an article titled "Thompson/Center Arms- Pro Hunter Encore" written by Brian Pearce. Why Brian wrote this article is beyond me as he is a revolver and lever action shooter.
This article was talking about the new stainless Encore handgun and mainly 28" barreled rifle. As I read though this article I began picking up things that just did not add up.
First off, he wrote that this was a production rifle and then just after that said it has a crisp trigger which let off at 3 1/4 lbs with a clean break. Red flag number one.
Then he wrote about sighting the rifle in for a Kentucky Whitetail hunt. He said he zeroed the rifle dead on at 100 yards. Red flag #2. What experienced hunter sights their rifle in dead on at 100 yards?
Then he writes of the hunt and how he was hunting a specific 4x4 which he finally got lined up on fourth day of the hunt. The buck was at 200 yards and in thick brush and then suddenly appeared only a patch of the deer which he "could clearly identify as the heart lung area. and took the shot.
My question is this. He was supposedly shooting a 280 Rem using factory ammo loaded with the 160 gr Accubond. I do not know what the muzzle velocity of this ammo was but I would guess in the 2800 fps range in the 280 Rem. Now with a dead on zero at 100 yards, he would be pushing 4" low at 200 yards. Not that it would be impossible or even hard to make the shot on this deer with this sight in but if you could only see a very small portion of the bucks heart/lung area and you had 4" of drop from 100 to 200 yards, I would suspect either the buck was alot closer then he writes or its just a story.
Anyway, the shot was made, the deer ran 60-70 yards and piled up. He writes about the very mature 4x4 being one of the largest bodied deer he had ever shot and then the story was over. I had to look at the next page to see if there was a picture of the buck or not.
This really raise my suspision of the article. These guys go on promo hunts ALL THE TIME to advertise a companies new products. You can not tell me they would not have a camera with them on a promo hunt to show the readers the friuts of these new wonderful products.
All in all, after reading the article I set there thinking, this guy just made up the entire article out of his head and tried to pass it on as legit testing. I can not prove this but it sure as heck smells of stink!!!
So I guess my comment is this, how many of the main stream magazine articles are based on actual range and field testing and how many are total fictional reading. I don't dare say what I really think but I will say 50% actual testing is probably being very gracious to these main stream gun writers.
Now I know they are given assignments on what to write about by the industry, no secret there, thats fine but I get the feeling they are not even actually putting in the time to actually test these products and give a valuable, even though biased opinion of the product.
Alright, done ranting!! Will let my subscription of Rifle Magazine laps next time and just read here on LRH /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif!!
Your opinions welcome, am I being to hard on the main stream gun writers? Let me know.
Kirby Allen(50)
Was sitting here on a breif lunch break reading a current issue of Rifle Magazine. I don;t read many of the mainstream mags anymore, Reloader and Rifle magazine are about it to be honest. There is still alot of fluff in them but did not seem as much as the others so I do still read them from time to time.
Anyway, I was reading an article titled "Thompson/Center Arms- Pro Hunter Encore" written by Brian Pearce. Why Brian wrote this article is beyond me as he is a revolver and lever action shooter.
This article was talking about the new stainless Encore handgun and mainly 28" barreled rifle. As I read though this article I began picking up things that just did not add up.
First off, he wrote that this was a production rifle and then just after that said it has a crisp trigger which let off at 3 1/4 lbs with a clean break. Red flag number one.
Then he wrote about sighting the rifle in for a Kentucky Whitetail hunt. He said he zeroed the rifle dead on at 100 yards. Red flag #2. What experienced hunter sights their rifle in dead on at 100 yards?
Then he writes of the hunt and how he was hunting a specific 4x4 which he finally got lined up on fourth day of the hunt. The buck was at 200 yards and in thick brush and then suddenly appeared only a patch of the deer which he "could clearly identify as the heart lung area. and took the shot.
My question is this. He was supposedly shooting a 280 Rem using factory ammo loaded with the 160 gr Accubond. I do not know what the muzzle velocity of this ammo was but I would guess in the 2800 fps range in the 280 Rem. Now with a dead on zero at 100 yards, he would be pushing 4" low at 200 yards. Not that it would be impossible or even hard to make the shot on this deer with this sight in but if you could only see a very small portion of the bucks heart/lung area and you had 4" of drop from 100 to 200 yards, I would suspect either the buck was alot closer then he writes or its just a story.
Anyway, the shot was made, the deer ran 60-70 yards and piled up. He writes about the very mature 4x4 being one of the largest bodied deer he had ever shot and then the story was over. I had to look at the next page to see if there was a picture of the buck or not.
This really raise my suspision of the article. These guys go on promo hunts ALL THE TIME to advertise a companies new products. You can not tell me they would not have a camera with them on a promo hunt to show the readers the friuts of these new wonderful products.
All in all, after reading the article I set there thinking, this guy just made up the entire article out of his head and tried to pass it on as legit testing. I can not prove this but it sure as heck smells of stink!!!
So I guess my comment is this, how many of the main stream magazine articles are based on actual range and field testing and how many are total fictional reading. I don't dare say what I really think but I will say 50% actual testing is probably being very gracious to these main stream gun writers.
Now I know they are given assignments on what to write about by the industry, no secret there, thats fine but I get the feeling they are not even actually putting in the time to actually test these products and give a valuable, even though biased opinion of the product.
Alright, done ranting!! Will let my subscription of Rifle Magazine laps next time and just read here on LRH /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif!!
Your opinions welcome, am I being to hard on the main stream gun writers? Let me know.
Kirby Allen(50)
