Vintage American Rifleman Magazine Collection has tons of milsurp info

AdrianM

AdrianM

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Hi,

I recently joined a rifle club and I shoot target there on sunday nights.

I noticed a ton of old magazines in the corner so I asked about them. A club member collected American Rifleman since the 60's and he kept them all in order. They are at the club now and have been for a while.

I was told to take some home if I wanted them. I grabbed a handful from the early 60's and took them home to flip through.

I am amazed. There is a monthly column on handling semi auto pistols, and it's all milsurp. Luger, p38, tt-33, steyr's, CZ's, Nambu, etc. It's got great info. There is also a featured rifle each month. So far I've seen the No.4, Mannlicher-Schonauer, SVT-40 and a few others. It even has an exploded parts diagrams.

Great stuff. I'll be grabbing a few more next sunday. It makes great sense when you think about it. This is not long after the war and this stuff would be available at a low cost. Speaking of which, there are tons of the ever-popular ads selling milsurps for crazy low prices. 15 dollar enfields, 80 dollar lugers and 90 dollar Garands, that sort of thing you see posted here now and again.

As an aside, there is also great reading for the 3 position target shooter that I'm taking full advantage of.

Adrian
 
Buy a life membership in the NRA and you will receive a copy each month. I have been a life member for many years and get it.
 
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The older American Rifleman magazines before about 1970 have the best information in them with regards to information on firearms, exploded views and assembly/disassembly intructions, illustrations, and useful tips and modifications that people did.

After about 1970, the American Rifleman went to the slick, glossy, artsy-fartsy type of magazine that most of the rest of the industry seemed to think was more modern. Some of these "hands on" magazines like Mechanix Illustrated, Science and Mechanics, Popular Mechanics, and Popular Science to name a few had a lot of useful information, projects, and lots of things you could make. The number of pages shrunk, along with the addition of more advertising.

When you compare the 1980 American Rifleman magazines to the pre-1960 American Magazines, the older ones win hands down for the variety and amount of information.
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The useful tips section was called "How I did it." It's pretty good. It's homebrew solutions to common problems. Some pretty creative solutions. I guess that's what Gun Nuts did did back before the internet.

Like buffdog said, they are full of info, tons of pages (100+) and very little advertising by today's standards.
 
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