I was more into the outdoors-oriented reviews (especially Brian Griffin's & Steven Dick's). I was not into the Gunny column at all (this was a big old "WTF?"), but was willing to put up with it for the sake of the magazine itself.
For the last few years, I've been the editor of the North Star Blade Collectors Newsletter, which is, from what I understand, the last monthly club newsletter in the U.S. Publishing the newsletter is a major expense for the club -- fortunately the club members still think it's worthwhile. For those of us who like to read & write about knives, any periodic publication is nice, or at least it's better than none. Tactical Knives has been a guide & an inspiration to me in my knife collecting, knife writing, and newsletter editing -- this magazine was the best one there was.
I'm in the fortunate position of not having to worry about alienating advertisers, but I have still been known to write glowing reviews about knives & tomahawks. Why? Because I really like knives & tomahawks. Yes, there are some I don't like, some that I despise, & I wholly recognize that not all blades (or steels, or sheath systems) are created equal. But if we weren't cutlery lovers, we wouldn't be reading or writing about knives, & the same can no doubt be said for all of the TK authors -- not to mention those at Blade, Knives Illustrated, & Knife World. Getting a little effusive about the knife being reviewed is pretty natural for any of us, because we tend to like knives in general -- but that doesn't mean we don't see limitations or drawbacks. And I've read about some knife limitations & drawbacks from writers in TK, as I recall.
And TK also had some incredible knife photography (I could be wrong about this, but in my own mind I give credit to Terrill Hoffman & Steven Dick for that, which seems to have influenced the entire industry -- custom & manufactured -- into seeing the value of a well-photographed knife). TK was likely not the first to publish really cool photos of knives, but it seemed to me TK really set the standard and set the trend of well-photographed knives.
Bums me out to see Tactical Knives come to an end.
