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Volume 38, Jan/Feb 2006
Issue  I
want to start out this year by telling you about our plans for 2006
as well as look at where we have been. We have now been in operation
six and a half years and this is our 38th issue.
In our second year we purchased Trail's End and their
assets and we acquired some new subscribers and advertisers through
that process. Though sometimes it is a trial to get the magazine out
on time while attending shoots or trying to proof our next book, it
has always been exciting, challenging, and most of all rewarding.
The people we have met, shot with, told stories with, received
articles from, and who have provided guns and gear for us to test
and write about is what makes this an effort of love. An important
part of our effort is supporting the shooting sports, our Second
Amendment, those in the Western-action shooting industry, and
helping others. It is a rare day when I get up in the morning and
think to myself, "I really don't feel like going to work." In
fact, I can't think of the last time that occurred. I hope, and
believe, that most of my staff feels the same way. They all take a
personal interest in the magazine and try their very best to make
sure it is the greatest Western-action shooting publication there
is. Without you, the reader, as well as our advertisers and
supporters, and the excellent internal and external staff I have,
the magazine would not be what it is today. I thank each and every
one of you for making my work exciting and a joy.
This next year will see a number of changes or
enhancements to what we provide our readership. First, we increased
the page count to 120 pages total with the September/October 2005
issue and we plan to keep it that size in the future. This is more
pages than the vast majority of gun and shooting magazines that are
published today. We plan on continuing to maintain a minimum of 60
percent editorial content. I know that some people would like to see
more but without advertising there would not be any magazine.
Our backlog of articles, as well as interesting
subjects to write about, and book reviews to publish, continues to
grow, so please be patient if it seems to take an extra long time
before you see something you submitted in print. Sometimes we just
do not have room to put an article in the magazine. This is
unfortunate, especially if such an article is time sensitive.
However, we are now including some of these articles in our Table of
Contents in the magazine and then putting the article on our
web-site. We hope this will allow us to provide more articles to our
readership in a timelier manner. In some cases, especially shoots,
we will put a much larger number of photos up on the web-site than
what we can publish in the magazine.
Our article content and the categories listed in the
table of contents will remain as they are for 2006. There are some
areas we will definitely be enhancing and others that we would like
to include more of, such as hunting with period firearms, which we
are lacking material for. We will be expanding our genre slightly to
include, in a very limited manner, companion bolt-action or
semi-auto firearms to our existing Old West guns. This applies
mostly when considering such combinations as a companion .22 rifle
to a Single-Six .22 when out hunting, or the reverse, a companion
.22 semi-auto when out hunting with a period correct rifle. Please
don't worry, these types of articles will run on an occasional
basis, we are still dedicated to Western-action shooting and do not
plan on changing this. We are also planning some more historical and
gunsmithing pieces.
We will continue to provide one Getting Started
article each issue. We have completed an extensive series on mounted
shooting, a number on CAS, and plan others. Knowing that all items
cannot be covered in detail, we are greatly expanding our Getting
Started section on our web-site. This will have already occurred
by the time you read this, yet we will continue to increase it
during the year.
We plan on publishing at least one book in 2006 along
with two Special Editions. The book is titled Old Guns and
Whispering Ghosts and it is amazing (read the book review by
John Taffin on page 57.) One of the Special Edition magazines is
titled Junior Shooters and it will be all about juniors in a
variety of shooting sports. The other is our usual edition about
SASS's World and National Championships. Another book is planned
on Mounted Shooting but will probably not be available until early
2007. Our first calendar is planned to be available in the summer of
2006 for the year 2007 and it will include an events calendar at the
end of the 12-month calendar so you will want to make sure we have
your club event information up-to-date. Talking about events, our
event listing has gotten so large that we have finally decided not
to include it in the magazine itself. It will be listed under the
Table of Contents with a note that the full listing is on the
web-site. Please remember that it is up to the clubs to ensure that
we receive updated information.
We also plan to continue ongoing surveys on our
web-site in which we give out prizes. We are adding another
readership survey that is on the web-site. Though prizes are not
always offered when answering this one, it is a demographic survey
and we would appreciate it greatly if you would fill it out for us.
All of our surveys help us understand what you, the reader, are
interested in (this particular survey has ended). We will also be continuing our
Mernickle holster giveaway in which each issue a paid subscriber is
randomly drawn to win one of these great gun rigs.
Our Cowboy Benefit
raffle, which benefits a cowboy or
cowgirl or their family in need (both medically and financially)
will continue (see the article in the September/October 2005 issue
Vol. 36 on page 78). We have had a lot of support from many companies who
donated prizes and we greatly appreciate their effort. The 2006
grand prize is a special sixgun called the High Plains Drifter in
honor of Clint Eastwood, donated by
Cimarron
, and a custom gun rig by Gordon Davis.
The concept was created by Dave Sample, aka Captain Eagle,
who also completed a full action job on the sixgun.
You can view these prizes on our web-site. The list for the
winners for 2005 will be posted on the web-site in January 2006, and
in the magazine in the March/April 2006 issue. We have not yet
decided on the beneficiary or beneficiaries for the raffle for 2006,
so if you know of someone in need, especially if they are suffering
due to hurricanes Katrina or Rita, please send in your suggestion.
All suggestions are reviewed and research conducted on the most
promising. Please send your beneficiary recommendations, along with
as much information on their story as possible, to editor@shootmagazine.com.
The SHOOT!
Mercantile continues to see more products added. Please note
that the selling of products on our mercantile is open to all
manufacturers (except gun manufacturers - we will not sell
cartridge firearms) after a review of the products and manufacturer
to ensure they are applicable and meet our market, quality,
operational, and processing requirements.
We now have our own SHOOT!
Magazine online forum. You can connect to it through our home
page at www.shootmagazine.com
or by visiting www.cascity.com,
an excellent site that has supported CAS shooters for many years.
Our forum is hosted by
CAS
City
. Smith n' Jones, Penelope Jane, and I monitor this site on a
regular basis and encourage all of you to use it. Don't be
surprised if some of your questions end up in our Letters to the
Editor column in the magazine.
We look forward to another great year of
Western-action shooting and providing you with the very best in our
industry.
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