No more Tactical Knives magazine?

B

BITEME

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Looks like the Tactical Knives magazine is no longer in print,sad to see it happen they had some excellent articles and great photos of knives old and new
 
Agreed, had subscribed at the 2013 NYCKS and was very happy with it. Went to renew my subscription and found out that they were no longer being printed.
 
No wonder I haven't been able to find them on the shelves for several months. I subscribed for years but let that lapse. Sorry to see this. tom.
 
That's too bad, because Blade and KI cover a bit too broad of a subject range for me, since much of what they do goes into the "traditional" and high end custom/art knives area, and something more use-survival oriented was badly needed.

I fondly remember something I think was called "Fighting Knives", in the early to late 90s, and that too went under after a fair run of at least several years... I remember the very extensive coverage they gave, in roughly 1993, to the then just-released Spyderco Civilian, and I thought that was quite memorable and justified. I seem to remember the "experts" made a lot of its limb "trapping" ability, which kind of missed some of the more prominent advantages of the thing, but oh well... It was still a lot of fun to see so much multi-page printed attention devoted to a single knife, something probably unthinkable today... I think the two "tactical" mags even coexisted for quite a while, so we had TWO of those at one point... As early as 1986 I remember there being "Tactical knife" oriented mags, or at least "special editions" devoted to the topic, but not much before 1985: Unlike what is generally said about this, I clearly remember the release of Rambo II was the pivotal element in starting the whole "tactical knife" craze, far more than "First Blood" just a few years earlier.

The magazine racks today have grown quite bare compared to the 90s... The 80s were not bad either, but it is very striking, when you go back to the 70s-80s, how prominent black and white photography was back then...

Gaston
 
There is actually more publishing now—but it is all online.

The Internet has knocked out a few older, established publications for sure.

Tactical Knives is done as a print magazine. But they still do a few updates on Facebook now.

I remember picking up Fighting Knives magazine a few times in the mid-1990s. It got bought-up by another publishing house and phased out a bit later.

Even Blade magazine has been through a few different publishers and corporate buy-outs in the past 20 years.
 
Fighting Knives was owned by Larry Flynt (yes, that one :D) for much of it's run( a company called Turbo had it very early on before that), He was diversify his holdings, and had a number of decent outdoor magazines for a while. He owned SWAT, Fighting Knives, Modern Gun, Full Contact and maybe another one or two. Late 90's Fighting Knives was sold to Blade (under Krause), with Blade taking over subscriptions, and promising to incorporate more coverage into it. Blade itself, having gone through multiple owners over the years(Beinfield, Parker/Voyles, Voyles, etc....).

Toward the end of Fighting Knives, Steven Dick, who was one of the editors for Fighting Knives, was offered the helm by Harris to start Tactical Knives, and slowly brought along a lot of the old Fighting Knives talent(and many old favorites from across the outdoor world) . Greg Walker, who was the executive editor at FK moved toward more mainstream writing, but still dabbles in the knife world. For those new here, he even had a forum at one point, you can look it up in the archives.

This isn't to give short shrift to Knife World, Knives Illustrated, etc.... It would just take a lot of typing to give everyone their due. Even the Gun magazines of the 70's - 80's were very kind to knives in the 70's - 80's. Guns and Ammo, Gun World, and SOF being at the front of the list.

I sometimes wish that the older publishers would offer cd-roms or PDFs of these old magazines for purchase, lots of good stuff in them.

Also just to note, most of the guys involved in the business have accounts here, although many mostly lurk. Greg Walker pops in, Bruce Voyles does too, Bernard Levine, Mark Zalesky and Frank Trzaska from Knife World, Steve Dick is quite active, so is John Larsen, etc.... so that's nice. You never know who might pop in.
 
Also just to note, most of the guys involved in the business have accounts here, although many mostly lurk. Greg Walker pops in, Bruce Voyles does too, Bernard Levine, Mark Zalesky and Frank Trzaska from Knife World, Steve Dick is quite active, so is John Larsen, etc.... so that's nice. You never know who might pop in.
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Jim Ankerson from Knives Illustrated. :)

joe
 
tltt said:
Also just to note, most of the guys involved in the business have accounts here, although many mostly lurk. Greg Walker pops in, Bruce Voyles does too, Bernard Levine, Mark Zalesky and Frank Trzaska from Knife World, Steve Dick is quite active, so is John Larsen, etc.... so that's nice. You never know who might pop in.
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Joshua Swanagon from Knives Illustrated.
 
JSwanagon said:
I should clarify, we are digital only now.

When Bleecker Street Publications bought us (Athlon Outdoors), we cancelled all print and went digital only.

But, that means it is totally free. You don’t need a subscription anymore.

Enjoy.
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That's great JSwanagon JSwanagon I sure do miss the newsstand paper version.
 
Gossman Knives said:
That's great JSwanagon JSwanagon I sure do miss the newsstand paper version.
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Yeah. I am old school like that and miss print as well. Unfortunately, print is on its way out and we decided to get out ahead of it early.

When I was the Editor of Knives Illustrated (2016 - 2019) we were already discussing the future demise of print.

It has held out and continues to do so, but I don’t think it will hold on for much longer. At least not for gun or knife publications. Too many stores have been pulling them from their shelves and subscriptions just don’t cover the cost of print, storage, distribution, etc.

It’s an unfortunate reality for our particular publication topic.
 
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