Produced by the team behind Sporting Shooter and Clay Shooter, Rifle Shooter will compliment Specialist’s existing portfolio of shooting titles and allow Archant to offer a complete marketing solution to its clients, covering every area of the shooting market, says the company.
Editor, Dom Holtam, himself a keen rifle shooter, is excited by the opportunity to launch a new product: “It is great to be involved in a brand new magazine and it reflects the strong performance of our shooting titles in the past 18 months as well as the growing optimism within the industry from a commercial perspective.
“Rifle ownership in the UK is at its highest level since records started, buoyed in part by the fact we have the highest deer population in the UK since the ice age. Hunting abroad is increasingly popular while the target shooting scene – in particular long-range shooting – is also very healthy. Commercially the sector has also been driven by new products and developing technology such as night vision and thermal imaging.
“We have a fantastic team of contributors from the UK and Europe, delivering expert tuition, in-depth tests and reviews and the kind of knowledge you only get from many years of in-the-field experience.
“I want to also offer a huge thank you to all of those involved in delivering the product – from the retail and circulation side to the digital gang and our commercial team… and especially to my editorial crew who burned all that midnight oil to ensure issue one went to press on time and looking so good.”
Peter Timperley, Commercial Director of Specialist, Weddings and SW Newspapers said: “Like all specialist titles, it will succeed only if it delivers the audience to generate commercial revenue. Our experience and existing reach will allow us to get better market penetration than our key rivals from the very start.
“We’ve carried out extensive research and our feedback tells us that there is a genuine appetite in the sector – both from a commercial and a reader perspective – for a title that delivers better quality. That is in terms of the printing, the design and photography and the editorial. Rifle Shooter delivers on all counts.”
