An old book.....

[BLTsandwedge]

My brother gave me an old book called "Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers" by MAJ Julian Hatcher. Hatcher wrote this book through the years 1934-1935. The content includes the introduction of the S&W .357 Magnum and essays about barrel leading, lead alloys, powder burn rates, early electronic chronographs, early chamber pressure devices and mathematical equations that support such devices.

There are (obviously) outdated data- and some misleading. But in 1935 Hatcher seems to have had a good grasp on the issues we discuss here each day. Has anyone read this book.....or books like it? We're not 'all that' in our 'modern enlightenment' as we may think- Hatcher wrote this 80 years ago. I'm impressed.

[Artful]

Lucky find - I have not seen that book - And I agree some of the old timers knew quite a bit about what to do to get their guns to shoot.

[mongoose33]

Has anyone read this book.....or books like it? We're not 'all that' in our 'modern enlightenment' as we may think- Hatcher wrote this 80 years ago. I'm impressed.

If you like that book--and I haven't read it--you might look for a copy of "Hatcher's Notebook." Very interesting treatment of all sorts of firearms-related subjects from different powder compositions to unusual firearms to triggers to....well, lots of stuff. There's a great section that talks about the search for the source of barrel corrosion, how it eventually was traced to the primers, and efforts to create noncorrosive primers.

It's greatly added to the depth of my knowledge.

I recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Hatchers-Noteb...8X0KBGY0SDW9GV

[Blackwater]

I have that one. It's currently available, I believe, as one of the many volumes in the NRA's "Classics Library." These are reasonably priced, leather bound and gold leafed volumes printed on acid free paper so they won't self-destruct down the line, that are worth more than than their price. At least they were last time I checked. EXCELLENT reading, and a pretty good education. The older books provide a good history lesson as well on the firearms of a now bygone era. By getting one a month or every other month, anyone can afford a really good firearms library. Dillin's book on the Kentucky rifles will open your eyes on what can be done with those guns, and instill a real appreciation, if not sheer awe, at what those old 'smiths were able to do with their hands and very little "machinery," most of which was made of wood. Pictures of some old rifling and boring setups will make you wonder how in the world they EVER managed to construct and tune some of the most beautiful rifles ever created by the hands of man. Old Samurai swords are like that, too.

I think they still have Dr. Mann's "The Bullet's Flight" as well. Haven't been there for a long time. Have had my set for many years, so it wasn't a place I needed to go. Just a FWIW.

[pworley1]

Congratulations on you acquisition.

[Mal Paso]

Another Amazon Buy is Elmer Keith's Sixguns at under $14. 330 pages of everything revolver and part of a chapter on bottom feeders. I got lost on the section on reloading presses just now. The supplement in the 1961 edition has the entry of the 44 Magnum Cartridge. A lot of the 44 development is included in previous chapters. Sixguns Cartridges and Loads is another good buy under $13.

Very Cool Gift Tom! Summer is here, I can't see the ocean.

http://www.amazon.com/Sixguns-1961-E.../dp/1477661697

http://www.amazon.com/Sixgun-Cartridges-Loads-Elmer-Keith/dp/0988836807

[shooter93]

I have that one and somewhere over 100 old shooting books and reprints. I joined both the Firearms Classics and Frontier series from the NRA since the beginning. Tons of great stuff there. Virtually everything we have "discovered" recently was tried long ago by groups like this one here as far as materials and things like that allowed them to go. We do have things they didn't have like the high tech coatings but they did try coating bullets with various things. It all seems to come and go through periods of interest and is forgotten until a new group comes along. When I was doing most of the experimenting I've done there was no internet but a huge number of written letters and phone calls between like minded people. And of course people were a great deal more polite with letters or phone calls when discussing differing opinions. The old books are great reading.

[Ole Joe Clarke]

I also have Hatcher's Notebook, and have just finished re-reading it. It has a ton of information about development of firearms, powder, primers and other interesting data. If you don't have it, you need it, if you have it, you need to re read it.

[BLTsandwedge]

Cool stuff! When reading the book that I mentioned in the OP, we can see that a scientific approach hadn't quite gotten to the shooting industry... i.e. using human cadavers hung by their necks to see a bullet impact and then judging the effectiveness of 'stopping power.' I don't think we'd use those metrics today....but the experiments are 110 years old. Amazing reading!