Looking Back on 1955
It’s a long way from the corner pharmacy
Jan Stevenson and Massad (above). Mas and Bill Jordan (below).
I was a little boy whose bedroom bookshelf’s centerpiece was a much-thumbed copy of the 1947 Stoeger Gun Bible. I looked at the magazine rack in the Corner Pharmacy in Concord, NH and was riveted by the sight of a by-God gun magazine, the first of its kind to hit the newsstand. The comic book rack instantly disappeared from my attention. Yes, there was American Rifleman but it went only to NRA members and we had none in the family. That would be rectified …
The magazine was, of course, GUNS. Well, actually, “Guns” at the time as you’ll see elsewhere in this issue. The January 1955 issue was heavier on Western history than today. The cover guns were a pair of Great Western single actions, homage to the Peacemaker, thanks to cowboy shows riding high on television at that time. John Taffin would later get his hands on those two revolvers and write them up in his usual compelling style.
In the early years, the magazine focused more than it does now on human interest stories: champion shooters, unusually interesting gun owners, that sort of thing. Over the years, reader feedback demanded more gun tests, but GUNS never lost its human touch. As I grew older, my dad started taking me to Sprague’s Gun Shop in Hooksett, NH where he would buy me my first Colt .45 auto at age 12.
I couldn’t help but notice later in the first issue of Guns, readers learned Wild Bill Hickok acquired his first six-shooter at the same age. Sprague’s had a box in the corner where old issues of Guns could be had for a dime and I think I bought just about all of them. Sprague’s was directly across the street from what would become New Hampshire’s most famous gun emporium, Riley’s Sport Shop, and that connects with this story in a minute.
Jan Stevenson and Massad (above). Mas and Bill Jordan (below).
A Stable of Thoroughbreds
Editors make a magazine and publisher George von Rosen knew it. Over the years, the various helmsmen steered the magazine to excellence. They, in turn, knew the writers made the magazines, too. Over the years Guns hosted the work of the men we now consider the great past masters of gun writing — Elmer Keith. Col. Charles Askins, Jr. Major George C. Nonte. Bill Jordan. Under his given name of Charles Skelton, “Skeeter’s” first article appeared in Guns. Jan Stevenson, whom Nonte himself called “the most erudite of gun writers.” Col. Rex Applegate. John Taffin, Mike Venturino, Mark Hampton, Tiger McKee, Will Dabbs and many others. Being primarily a handgunner, I focused mainly on these writers.
I met all of them eventually. Keith, in a receiving line in the mid-’70s in Chicago where he didn’t know me from Adam but gave a crushingly powerful “.44 Magnum” handshake and yes, he had the 10-gallon hat on. Charlie Askins was affable and never withheld an answer from a question. I learned a lot from him. I met Bill Jordan in the mid-’70s at a police training seminar where he picked me to be the victim of his famous quick draw demo, and I took the opportunity to interview him as an introduction to his new position as Shooting Editor at Guns. He became a mentor and wrote the foreword for my first book in 1978, Fundamentals of Modern Police Impact Weapons, where he made the classic statement “it’s easier to convince the court that you didn’t shoot your opponent too much than that you didn’t hit him too hard.”
Nonte was a veritable encyclopedia of the gun and friendly in person. Likewise Col. Applegate: He and I disagreed on point shooting but he could “disagree without being disagreeable.” Skelton was a wonderful guy and his stories were even better in person. Venturino was surprisingly shy and humble when I met him. Mark Hampton and I corresponded but never met face to face; we once tested the same gun for two different magazines and he got better groups than I did. Sadly, none of them are still with us.
At this writing, fortunately, Taffin, Dabbs, Miller, Anderson and Stevenson still are. Taffin in person is the exact same classic gentleman you see in his writing, and Dabbs, the same happy-go-lucky but knowledgeable guy you sense in his work. Anderson and Miller are both all-around gun guys and good guys. Jan Stevenson went on to produce the outstanding Handgunner magazine in Great Britain before the anti-gunners killed it there. In person, he is brilliant and a ton of fun to be with. Which leads me to …
Rex Applegate sharing stories.
Been Here A While
1977 was the year I was hired as “handgun editor” for GUNS, replacing Jan: This column first taking shape as Handguns Today in the April ’77 issue. Earlier in the 1970s I started writing feature articles for Guns. Back in Hooksett, NH at Riley’s Sport Shop, the resident master gunsmith was Nolan Santy, whom I met there and became friends with.
The moviemakers producing a flick called Gordon’s War hired Nolan to make their 1911s and Luger and such work with blanks, and my article on that endeavor was among the first and perhaps the very first of my articles for editor Jerry Rakusan. No one was more formative to my career than Nolan Santy, who introduced me to bullseye pistol competition and then PPC. I owe him a lot.
Back in the ’70s, I was Features Editor of Illinois Trooper magazine and Guns was headquartered in a suburb of Chicago. I got to visit Rakusan there regularly. I’ve occupied the handgun column space since … and have enjoyed every bit of it. When one 1990 magnum opus I wrote on the GLOCK covered both the high points and the low points, the then-head of GLOCK USA demanded I be fired or they’d pull a million dollars’ worth of advertising out of this and its sister magazine. Publisher George von Rosen replied that truth to the readers was more important than advertising dollars. The advertising got pulled, I stayed. GLOCK fixed the problems I wrote about, eventually fired the exec who had given the ultimatum, and later paid me to write articles for their own magazine. Anybody wonder why I’m still loyal to GUNS magazine?
Editor’s Note: Photos from Massad Ayoob’s Combat Shooting book, Gun Digest Publishing.
