Robert "Pete" Petersen (1926-2007)

Robert Einar Petersen, the gun col- lector who founded Guns & Ammo magazine and helped shape America's gun culture, died March 23 in Santa Monica, California, after a brief illness with cancer. Petersen, who lived in Beverly Hills, was 80. "He only discovered he had neuroendocrine cancer at the end of January," said Ken Elliott, a lifelong friend and co-founder with Petersen of the Bismuth Cartridge Co. "He endured a month of suffering." Petersen, the chairman of Petersen Publishing, started Hot Rod Magazine in 1948 (when he was 21), a time when rodding was considered unsavory and restricted to time trials on dry desert lake beds.

By hawking Xeroxed copies at 25¢ each, Petersen spawned an industry, launched a publishing empire (which later included Motor Trend and Teen magazines) and lent hot rodding respectability. Like many gear heads, Petersen was also a gun nut. In 1958 he launched Guns & Ammo. The premier issue featured a Colt revolver on the cover and a feature on James Purdey & Sons inside. Both were favorite makers of Petersen's and featured in his collection. Other magazines followed: Petersen's Hunting, Petersen's Bowhunting, Handguns and Rifle Shooter. In 1996 he sold his publishing empire for a reported $450 million, but he couldn't stay out of the business. The next year Petersen's Shotguns, The Shotgunners Journal, appeared with a cover featuring a Fracassi-engraved F.lli Rizzini built "for a prominent collector." That collector was Petersen himself. The same issue included an article on the benefits of bismuth shot as a nontoxic alternative to steel. (Petersen was said to hate steel because he thought it wounded ducks.) Along with Joe Brown, Ken Elliott and British cartridge manufacturer Eley, Petersen spent a great deal of time and money developing the Bismuth Cartridge Co. to bring one of the first nontoxic alternatives to the market. Petersen loved British guns and rifles and owned more of Holland & Holland's "Products of Excellence" series than any other collector. "I was very sorry to learn about Bob," said Daryl Greatrex, managing director of H&H. "He was a great supporter of H&H and a good friend of the company. As you know, he had an extensive collection of our guns and rifles and owned many of our exhibition pieces. As a great collector of fine guns and supporter of the British gun trade and friend of the company, he will be greatly missed." Petersen's collection was just as famous for its anomalies. He bought William Evans and Cogswell & Harrison guns too, reasoning that they were of London "best" quality and considerably less expensive. Despite great wealth, Petersen never forgot his humble origins. The guns that turned his tumbler most were not British bests but the single-action revolvers worn by the stars of 1950s Warner Bros. Western TV shows. His favorite may have been the Colt .45 Peacemaker carried by Richard Boone in "Have Gun Will Travel." The future of Petersen's collection is uncertain. At one time he and his wife of 43 years, Margie, formed a foundation with the idea of donating the guns to a museum. I recall his chagrin when the City of Los Angles was unwilling to house the collection. (In 1994, while on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, he did fulfill a lifelong dream of establishing an educational museum paying tribute to the automobile.) The guns still will go to the foundation, but when asked about their ultimate fate, Ken Elliott said, "No one knows." Petersen is survived by his wife, Margie. Tragically, their two young sons were killed in a small-plane crash in 1975.