Had to check my files to see what I wrote for SSM: 22 articles from 1999-2006, which figures out close to an article in every other issue. I think I was more or less their blue collar gun specialist: 2 part article on Ithaca SKB's, one on Miroku doubles, 4 on the inexpensive American doubles (Hunter Fulton, Lefever Nitro, Win 24 etc). Plus an article on Faustis when they first started showing up in the States under their own name, one on the Browning Cynergy when it was new, etc. Not sure whether they'd run many articles like that today.
But I know and have hunted with a few of their regular writers: Tom Huggler, Tom Davis, Doug Tate. Good guys all. I still get the magazine, probably skip about as much as I read. But, as noted above, change is inevitable. A lot of us remember when the Big Three were all worth reading. Corey Ford, Ed Zern, Gene Hill, Ted Trueblood, Jack O'Connor . . . lots of good stuff. But, when you stop to think about it, there are way more "niche" magazines of potential interest to us than there were back in the heyday of The Big Three: In addition to SSM, Double Gun Journal, Gun Dog, Pointing Dog Journal, Retriever Journal, Sporting Classics. And a lot more meat about guns and bird hunting in the Ruffed Grouse Society and Pheasants Forever mags than used to be the case. If you're into shotguns/bird hunting/dogs, you've got more content in a single issue of many of the above mags than you would have had in all of the Big Three put together. It's almost an embarrassment of riches . . . which is why, I think, it can be easy to get burned out on the mags after awhile. Not to mention this and other BB's that deal with the same subjects. It's like being able to shop all the doublegun dealers' websites with a click of your computer instead of having to wait for Gun List to come in the mail.
Given that these aren't great times for print publications period, we're probably darned lucky we have so much available--both in print and on the Net.
