What is your favorite gunsmithing book?
Mine is the NRA book of gunsmithing 1971 edition, it's full of projects and how too's.
Aaron
What is your favorite gunsmithing book?
Mine is the NRA book of gunsmithing 1971 edition, it's full of projects and how too's.
Aaron
Brownell's Gunsmith Kinks books have a lot of good info.
At one time I had the first four volumes of Brownell's Gunsmith Kinks. Lots of good info, along with some humor.
I also like Roy Dunlop's Gunsmithing, also good info.
In all of these books some of the info is getting pretty dated by now, some of the chemicals they mention as being easily available you can't find for love nor money these days.
Robert
New books showing modern tools and techniques are good. Old books with the tools and techniques prior to the takeover of the liability lawyers are good. A big screen tv hooked up to YouTube might be a good next step.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston Churchill
The Modern gunsmith by Howe. I know it's dated and he explains things a bit poorly at times, but you said favorite, not most useful. The prints in that set of books are absolutely beautiful I can't help but be in awe every time I read it.
I’ll second Howe - i bought a used set years ago on Epay and love them for a lot of reasons, but maybe the biggest one is he’s sharing info from back when nearly all the work we do in our garages, basements, and backyards shops was done with the basic tools most of us can plan to own in a life spent “being a guy.”
It’s great to have access to a lathe, or a mill, or even a welder so inexpensively (sort of) these days, but Howe demonstrates ideas and techniques that many of us can still do, no matter what our budget is. When he gets into the really detailed stuff in Volume two, he also shares how we can build the very tools he’s telling you to use.
If nothing else, it let the reader know there’s more than one way to “build” as rifle, and we can backfill that information with what the internet now streams right to our hands.
The best part, though, is when he’s giving “recipes” for different chemicals that, back then, you simply went out and bought and had the local pharmacist mix up for you - some of the names are beyond even my Google-fu. We might not be able to clean out our barrels with the purchase of some mercury from the local druggist, but it’s fun to know we’re part of a much larger tradition.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |