A Break in the Action
Our days are busy. Professional, family and personal obligations fill our schedules. You’re invited to take A Break in the Action of your day and escape to a place filled with sights of highly figured walnut and rich, vibrant case-color hardening. Intoxicating scents of wood smoke from a perfectly laid fire and spent shotshells fill the air. The only deals we broker are for new-to-us shotguns and our only appointments are for chilly mornings and impatient bird dogs. Here, our currency is memories and we consider ourselves wealthy.
The goal here is simple, to provide a place to escape, a place to learn, a place to reminisce, and a place to relax - be it through our podcast or social sites. Our focus will reliably be on vintage and modern shotguns, best-in-quality gear, accessories, and experiences that complement the sporting lifestyle.
Our days are busy… take A Break in the Action.
A Break in the Action
The Story behind the Stories: Shooting Sportsman magazine
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
I’ve been reading Shooting Sportsman for more than twenty years. For a long time, I assumed the magazine was the product of careful planning by fully staffed departments and committees responsible for long-range strategies mapped decades into the future. But the more I’ve learned about the people behind it, the more I’ve realized something else entirely.
What exists between the covers of Shooting Sportsman today is the result of good judgment and of restraint. Of primarily two individuals willing to move slowly, trust their instincts, and protect a standard—even when faster, louder options were available.
Today, I’m joined by those two individuals: Ralph Stuart and Thierry Bombeke. Between them, they’ve seen the magazine grow, thrive, struggle as the digital age emerged, recover, and then hold its ground and grow again while nearly everything around it changed.
This episode won’t be a highlight reel but instead a rare look behind the curtain. A conversation about how decisions get made when taste and business might not always agree. About what it means to care for something long enough that it becomes less about ownership—and more about stewardship.
In this episode:
Our Sponsors:
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
Bird Camp
Joe Schwenke
The Orvis Hunting and Shooting Podcast
The Orvis Company
Birdshot Podcast
Nick Larson