Surplusrifle.com retiring/shutting down
For those of you into milsurps of all types here is some sad news. Here is an open letter form the website.
Thanks Jamie et al. for having for hosting the best milsurp site I've ever seen.
Goodbye
By Jamie Mangrum
I have pondered for the past month as to how I would put my thoughts down on this matter in an article. I started writing mentally while lying in a hospital bed over a period of thirteen days. I had a lot of time to think. The question? How do you close the door on something you have enjoyed and loved for the past five years? Surplusrifle.com has become something much larger than I ever thought it would. It has become a large resource of information, a community, and a business. The last part is what drives my decision. Surplusrifle.com has become a business. A necessary business that pays the bills for all three sites. We now average between 50k and 70k visitors per day and those visitors read and download a lot of megabytes. The main site is so large and now has so much daily traffic that we cannot be on anything but a commercial server with unlimited bandwidth.
Please let me state at this juncture that I do not want anyone to contribute money to me to keep the site up and running. If you respect me and wish to honor me then please honor my wishes. I appreciate any concern and thoughts to this end but my mind is made up.
The three sites have become a monster that eats my wife's and my time every single day. Some days for an hour, some days for four to eight hours. What is sad to me is that I have not had the time or energy to write and publish my own work in over three months. The business of the site consumes all of my free time. It may be selfish but writing is the sole reason I got into this venture to begin with. I enjoy sharing my thoughts and experiences with you.
I started a new and very demanding day job this year and I knew that some day I would have to make a decision between the site and my job. The problem is the decision came too soon because now there is a new variable in the mix. I have cancer. It started as a more treatable form of cancer that we thought we had caught in time and later learned that it had spread and spread quickly. Since then I have had three major surgeries and have gone through hell (s) that I would not wish on my most dire enemy. I now face chemo therapy and even now they tell me I am facing a 70% survival rate. My mind is true and hopefully soon my body will be also. I really do not want to elaborate on this anymore.
I would like to take a moment and thank my wife Donna. If it were not for Donna Surplusrifle.com would have ceased to exist some time ago. Donna tirelessly pays the bills, fills orders for CD-ROMS and Manuals, prints and binds manuals, burns CD-ROMs, handles all shipping and receiving, and while I have been sick she even attempted to answer your emails. Sometimes as men we take our spouses for granted. I am guilty of this and am ashamed. She does not even like firearms. She has done all of this because she loves me and knew that the site was important to me. I owe here a debt of gratitude that I will never be able to pay. Oddly enough if you are reading this or have used information on the site...then so do you.
I have made the decision to shutdown Surplusrifle.com on March 30th, 2007. I picked this date because it was the last date I was contractually bound to any of the sponsors. I am grateful to the sponsors that have supported Surplusrifle.com over the past five years. Some have become friends that I will count as friends for the rest of my life. Thank you all. John Huber and Tim Jones thank you both for all of the support. John you are a generous and kind man. You were both there from the beginning and stuck with me till the end.
When the site shuts down the content will no longer be available online. This is why I created the BIG CD-ROM II. I wanted folks to be able to have a complete version of the site even though the site is no longer in existence. Basically if you have the BIG CD-ROM I and II you have very single book, article, manual, and video we ever published on two CD-ROMS. I am working on a deal that will allow the CD-ROMS and manuals to be published and sold by Tennessee Gun Parts after the site shuts down. I will let you know how this proceeds.
I knew I was sick when we had the California shoot. The shoot was more special to me than you could have ever imagined. It was my way of meeting a lot of you for the first and last time. Thank you all who came. I really enjoyed myself and all of you. Randall, Paul, and Ralph thank you for helping me pull it off. I really appreciate it.
The friends I have made with Surplusrifle.com have been my greatest reward. There are so many that I cannot name them all. I wish to thank Mark and Ted for all of the articles they have submitted over the years and for being there for me to share ideas, jokes, and general complaining in email and on the phone. You are my friends and I thank you for that. I wish to thank my moderators who have made the Surplusrifle.com forum and chat room one of the most civil places on the internet to share ideas and discuss military firearms. Thank you all.
Don, thank you for being a friend to Surplusrifle.com and myself. You have been very patient with me over the years and have supplied most of the fine rifles and pistols we used on the site. Thank you very much.
I am not going anywhere. Mark, Ted, and I are starting a new website that will have articles on firearms in general. It will cover military firearms which is our first and foremost love but it will also cover firearms in general ranging from new commercial to what ever we want to write about on the subject of firearms. The new site will not have sponsors and will not sell anything. It will cost almost nothing to run and will afford me time to write and publish articles again. I will publish the URL address on Surplusrifle.com to the new site when it is ready to launch. We already have at least half a dozen articles in the hopper for the unveiling that all readers of Surplusrifle.com will enjoy.
Five years is a long time for a home grown web site to run. I have had a lot of fun and I hope you have too. Please know this was not an easy decision to make or article to write. Since my illness I have really turned into a girl when it comes to my emotions. I had better end this article so I don't break down.
Jamie
By Jamie Mangrum
