Gun Mart
Gun Mart is a British monthly magazine for shooting sports enthusiasts, published in Colchester, Essex, by Aceville. Established in 1981, it describes itself as the UK's biggest and best shooting magazine and as the biggest and most diverse shooting publication in the country: the only magazine that caters for sports shooting, gun collecting and the militaria market in a single title. Every issue carries more than ten gun tests alongside news, reviews and specialist sections covering airguns, firearms, shotguns, antiques and militaria, knives and tactical equipment. Its website, gunmart.net, is presented as the largest online destination for shooting enthusiasts, supported by the Gun Mart TV video channel.
Established in 1981
Gun Mart has been published since 1981, giving it more than four decades of continuous service to the British shooting community; by its January 2022 issue it was marking 41 years as a shooting magazine. In that period British shooting has changed around it, through successive firearms legislation, the growth of airgun sport, the expansion of practical and target disciplines and the professionalisation of the gun trade, yet the magazine's basic formula has endured: comprehensive tests and reviews, written by experienced shooters, covering the full breadth of legal shooting sports and collecting. Longevity in a field where trust and technical credibility are everything is the foundation of the title's authority with readers and advertisers alike.
A big magazine: format and scale
Gun Mart is a physically substantial magazine. An independent profile of the January 2022 issue recorded 164 pages at 297mm by 230mm, on matt paper with a heavyweight gloss cover, perfect bound, at a cover price of £4.75, published monthly by Aceville in Colchester. Earlier issues were larger still, with some editions in 2017 running to well over 250 pages. The cover of that profiled issue carried a full-bleed image of a rifle, two further gun images and nine coverlines, plus promotion for a 20-page Shooting Sports insert. The same profile counted around 100 customers in the advertisers index, a measure of the magazine's role as the trade's marketplace in print: manufacturers, importers, dealers and service providers buy space in Gun Mart because the whole shooting market reads it.
Inside the magazine: the section structure
The contents of a typical issue are organised into established departments. News opens the coverage, followed by a comprehensive test section. Airguns covers hunting and target air rifles, air and CO2 pistol reviews, lamping and night vision equipment and scopes. Firearms covers hunting and target rifles and everything from ammunition to scopes and reloading equipment. Country & Shotgun carries tests, reviews and news for the game and clay shooting world, together with a clay shooting ground guide and major event coverage. Antiques & Militaria, also presented as Militaria Mart, serves antique weapons collecting, re-enactment and military history. Field Cutlery devotes several pages to knives and other edged tools. Practical & Tactical rounds up equipment and clothing for heavy-duty outdoor pursuits, military and law enforcement use. A Shooting Sports insert adds further gun, ammunition and scope tests and practical how-to material, including detailed guidance on reloading.
Testing at the heart of the title
Gun tests are the magazine's core promise, with more than ten in every issue. Reviews are presented with technical specifications, contacts and prices, and supported by box-outs, photographs and captions that let readers compare equipment in detail. The editorial style is hands-on and evaluative: guns, ammunition, optics and accessories are shot, measured and judged by regular contributors whose names are familiar to the readership, such as long-standing testers Pete Moore and Mark Camoccio. That reviewer continuity matters in shooting publishing, because readers calibrate a test against the tester: they learn a writer's preferences and standards over years of issues, which makes the verdicts more useful than anonymous scores. Independent comment on the magazine has praised the engaging display of its expert editorial and the confidence and competence the package exudes across all areas of the shooting range.
Serving every branch of shooting
What distinguishes Gun Mart from narrower shooting titles is the breadth of its parish. A sporting shotgun shooter, an airgun hunter, a target rifle competitor, a practical shooter, a collector of antique arms and a militaria re-enactor can all find a dedicated section in the same issue, and the magazine explicitly claims to be the most comprehensive title in its field for that reason. That breadth reflects the reality of British shooting, where many participants cross disciplines, shoot several types of gun across a season and take an interest in the history of firearms alongside their modern use. It also gives the magazine commercial resilience: when one discipline quietens, another fills the pages, and advertisers across the whole trade share one platform.
gunmart.net: the online marketplace and archive
The print magazine is complemented by gunmart.net, described as the largest online destination for shooting enthusiasts. The site draws on the collective expertise of Britain's shooting magazine stable associated with the title, including Gun Mart itself and related publications and guides such as the Sporting Airgun Handbook, the Essential Shotgun Guide and What Gun, bringing their reviews and knowledge into one searchable online resource. For readers, the site extends the magazine's tests and advice beyond the monthly issue and provides a marketplace function in keeping with the Mart in the title's name. For the publisher, it converts the authority built in print since 1981 into a digital property that serves shooters daily rather than monthly.
Gun Mart TV
The brand also produces Gun Mart TV, a YouTube channel bringing shooting sports to life in video, with around 20,000 subscribers recorded in the early 2020s. Video suits the subject: a gun test can be watched as well as read, handling, recoil, operation and sound all communicated in a way print cannot, and familiar magazine contributors presenting on screen carry the title's trusted voices into a new format. Seasonal content, such as the testers' selection of top airguns and firearms of the year, shows the channel working as a genuine editorial extension rather than a promotional afterthought, and it introduces the magazine to younger shooters who discover shooting media on video platforms first.
The British shooting context
Gun Mart operates within one of the most tightly regulated shooting environments in the world, where firearms are held on certificate, shotguns under their own licensing regime and air weapons subject to increasing control. A responsible general shooting magazine in Britain therefore does more than entertain: it models safe, legal practice, reports legislative and licensing developments its readers must follow, and represents the public face of lawful shooting sports. The magazine's decades-long presence, its relationships across the gun trade and its comprehensive coverage of game, clay, target, practical and collecting disciplines make it a central institution of that world, read in gun shops, clubhouses and dealers' counters as well as at home.
Publishing in Colchester
The magazine is published monthly by Aceville from Colchester in Essex, a specialist consumer and trade publisher, and sold in print across the UK, with subscription offers including international delivery for overseas readers who follow British shooting publishing. Twelve issues a year maintain a constant presence in the market. The title's scale in print, its advertisers index of around a hundred trade customers and its busy cover of tests and features all reflect a healthy specialist market in which a well-established magazine can still anchor a commercial ecosystem of makers, importers, retailers and grounds.
Why Gun Mart matters
Gun Mart matters because British shooting has no other publication quite like it: one monthly magazine, published since 1981, that tests more than ten guns an issue and covers airguns, firearms, shotguns, antiques, militaria, knives and tactical kit between the same covers. Add the gunmart.net website and Gun Mart TV, and the title forms a complete media service for the lawful shooting community, in print, online and on video. For a directory of UK magazines, it stands as the definitive generalist voice of British shooting sports and collecting.
