American Rifleman’s Editor Explains How This Historic Title is Staying Relevant

As the new editor in chief of American Rifleman—and former editor in chief of Shooting Illustrated—Ed Friedman has the critical and challenging task of bringing this storied title (it is 103 years old under its current name, though its lineage dates back to 1885) into this digital age.

American Rifleman, as well as American Hunter, now print quarterly, but there is an issue published every month—eight issues are now digital only.

“There are benefits to this change,” said Friedman. “The biggest one is that now we can deliver content that you can’t have in a paper magazine. You can’t watch a video on a paper magazine. We can embed videos in the digital magazine every month ... . And we’re doing that [for] every gun we review—you’re going to see a video of us shooting it.”

Friedman also explained that “we’re modernizing the content inside the print magazine and the digital magazine to include more things that people are interested now like training for self-defense. And every month we have a drill that you can shoot either with a handgun or a rifle.”

He said that members who subscribe to American Rifleman will also see someone shooting the drills the magazine writes about so members can say, “‘Oh, okay. I can read about it, learn how to set it up, but then I can actually watch someone shoot it in a video and see how it’s supposed to look.’ That’s something we couldn't do when we were just print. So, that is a huge benefit to the NRA members who get American Rifleman.”

Many of the writers who wrote for Shooting Illustrated are now writing for American Rifleman—these include some of the top names in outdoor writing, such as Steve Adelmann, Tamara Keel and Richard Mann—but members will still find the writers they know and enjoy in the pages of the magazine.

So, this historic title is being modernized to reach new members, to better teach gun skills, and to show guns being tested, but the title itself is staying in step with its pedigree as “The World’s Oldest and Largest Firearm Authority.”