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Just like with incumbent politicians, IMO, put a few years under the boots of a well-known gunwriter and almost all lose their connection to the needs, interests and spending power of the rank and file of their readers {"constituents"}. This is particularly the case today, with the amounts of money and new products that pour out from manufacturers. I guess it is an occupational hazard.

IMO, Craig Boddington and Terry Wieland vie for first place as the The World's Most Boring Gunwriters ever to ink a page, but in general, I've been impressed with Boddington's vast knowledge on myriad non-technical hunting and gun-related subjects and his resistance to dive into hyperbole to sell a piece. Wieland hasn't been around as long, but he seems generally informed on most subjects, even if he succeeds in making me reach for a soft pillow in only a page. He generally also avoids hyperbole which I am beginning to believe is an executive order from all modern editor's.

Not so with the old timers, and that made for fun AND informative reading. It was hyperbole that added character and diversity to the past generation of writers with Keith and Askins topping the list there.

But the old timers were a good read, where Boddington just puts me into almost immediate REM sleep. Boddington's stuff reads like an entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica WITHOUT the technical detail. He is an insomniac's dream.

As for Wieland, I've read a bunch of his stuff, and the book mentioned above, and there is something about his writing style that does not catch my interest though he, too, appears generally competent. Not even sure how to put it. He seems to have an almost giggly zeal for some topics but he never seems to pass that zeal on to me. I think it is a writing style I just don't connect with, mostly or maybe it is stuff like the inane '96 report that makes me leave my pennies in my pocket when faced with the option of buying his stuff.

The report about the 96 Mauser is really poor in my opinion. Blowing up {a term he doesn't even describe in any detail at all} two actions without stating ANY of the technical details {he doesn't even describe what actually "blew up"} and then because the bolt lugs didn't let go proclaiming the gun action "strong" is stupid. Anybody familiar with the 96 action at all knows it is a "strong" action. "Safe" and "strong" are terms that must be described and applied to action types. The thing that really mystified me was that we know that the very two action types that he used have functional safety issues that are dramatically impacted by factory of manufacture, a fact that never mentions and from reading the passage leads me to believe he maybe didn't even know! There are differences between HVA and CG 96's, and differences between Win, Rem and Rem/Eddy '17's that have to be addressed in any strength discussion. What was he thinking, or wasn't he...?

He makes no mention of gas deflection which is the main bug bear of the '96 action. I don't want to rant on and on about that "test" or whatever it was, but it was really a worthless endeavor. This discussion has been worked over at length on the Swedish Commercial Arms Forum with very interesting input from many sources and is very interesting, but Wieland's efforts added absolutely nothing of value to the available information on the subject.

I am admittedly not particularly knowledgeable about the broad range of DG rifles, especially doubles. So when a gunwriter does such a poor job of writing up a subject I know a bit about, I am left wondering what to believe of his writing about the subjects I know little about.

What is the assessment of Wieland by you DG Rifle Nuts?

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