Vintage ctg conversion book for $1 worth it?

[mwells72774]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161029/656c7fcd218439a8ec5dff321254f495.jpg

[William Yanda]

May not have more recently introduced cartridges, but the dimensions of those included ain't 'goin to change!

[jrmartin1964]

In a word, yes.

[mwells72774]

Just browsing there's soooooo much knowledge in there even the super hard to find 7.62x45 info

[MaLar]

WOW that was a surprise! Vintage I have that book and never ever thought it was vintage. I bought it new. Guess what that makes me?
That book will be worth every cent of your buck.

[reed1911]

It is an interesting browse even if you never use the data in it. Allows all sorts of information, but a good one. Not all cartridges are correct, and most of the data comes from Barnes (cartridges of the world).

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I've got mine, but there is a new edition of 2011

[mwells72774]

I think it's a 1987

[pertnear]

As far as cartridge conversions go, be sure to snag this one if you see it for a dollar!
http://i63.tinypic.com/6nz1vo.jpg
(1967)

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I think it's a 1987

I've got mine, but I've never seen the 2011 edition, so I don't know how significant the difference is.

All cartridge reference books have errors, and sometimes I think the only alternative is not to have cartridge books at all. Donnelly copies Barnes as Barnes copied Datig in making the 7.7 x 60R 2.49in. long. Well 60mm. is 2.36in., and my Mannlicher agrees! They give an impossible shoulder diameter to the .40-70WCF, disagreeing with Winchester's own drawings, which make it virtually a heavy-bullet name for the .40-82. There are probably a lot more.

But it is a book well worth having. It gives length to the shoulder and length of shoulder, which lots don't. It isn't so much a question of whether it is worth the dollar (Can you buy a newspaper for that nowadays?) as whether it is worth the time you will spend with it. I think it is.

[Hardcast416taylor]

The copy of your find that I bought back in the early `90`s cost me between $20 - $30 as I recall, and it also was used.Robert

[GONRA]

GONRA sez - its only a DOLLAR - get it....

[Shawlerbrook]

If you have an Ollie's discount store near you, they usually have the yellow covered version of the Donnelly book for $6.95.

[merlin101]

If you have an Ollie's discount store near you, they usually have the yellow covered version of the Donnelly book for $6.95.

Oh, I'm going to go check that out! Thanks for the tip.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

If you have an Ollie's discount store near you, they usually have the yellow covered version of the Donnelly book for $6.95.

The cheapest on my life support system, www.bookfinder.com (http://www.bookfinder.com) , is well over double that. It wouldn't take much of an improvement on the original to make the $5.95 worthwhile.

[lotech]

I bought the Donnelly book when it came out. Great reference source. However, try to verify information before you use it. Allegedly, the book contains a number of errors. I contacted Donnelly a long time ago and he intended to put out a revised edition. Don't know whether this ever happened. Probably the best of these books is the one by Ken Howell. As for the George Nonte book, most would find it of little value.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Modern or nearly modern commercial cartridges can be checked on the SAAMI and CIP websites. I believe everything used in a lever Winchester from the 1886 onwards has a diagram, usually Winchester's own, in Clyde Williamson's "The Winchester Lever Legacy".

[DocSavage]

My copy is at least 30 years old. I bought it on a lark for no other reason than curiosity. Had a few people ask me on where to get/make various cartridges and managed to astound the curious.

[alamogunr]

I have all three books mentioned. Like DocSavage, I acquired them mostly out of curiosity. I just like the technical details of firearms and cartridges. The Donnelly book was the last one I got. It is a 2004 edition and shows Donnelly and Bryce Towsley as authors. Inside Towsley takes credit for only adding a few cartridges and updating some of the equipment. Nothing was said about correcting errors.

The Nonte book is the oldest and to me very interesting just because of its' age.

From what I have read the book by Ken Howell is most accurate. The only information I have used is to form 7.65X53 Argentine from .270 Win. and that only because I had some .270 Win cases and no gun. Most brass is available, at least most of what I might need. Dr. Howell was going to issue a Volume 2 of his book. I don't think that has happened mainly due to health issues. I haven't heard anything about him for several years and don't know if he is still with us.

I might acquire a book even if it only contains a smidgen of info that I might be interested in at the time. I've slowed down a lot recently due to lack of space.

ADDED INFO: I googled Ken Howell and found that he passed away about 12/30/15. Also his book is available again after a period of absence from:

http://www.huntingtons.com/store/product.php?productid=19665&cat=0&page=1

I would imagine any of the three could be found on the used book sites. I got the Donnelly book on Abebooks. It is interesting to see the wide variation in prices. Sort of like Ebay in that anything considered "vintage" is also considered by the seller to be valuable.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

eBay is the place, though, where books sometimes go much more cheaply than on the specialised bookselling sites. The one-week or one-week listing period sometimes reduces their tendency to charge a silly price and wait forever. You can set up a followed search with e-mailed notifications (I think including your choice of price limits), and be told when one turns up. I've found books (or prices) after waiting years that way, and such things as the replacements for a damaged volume in my childhood encyclopaedia and the single missing edition from the Time-Life "British Empire" bound magazine series of the 1960s.

One thing on which Donnelly was always particularly good was on the processes and equipment for case conversions.

[jsn]

Another thing on the eBay scores. Sometimes guy stuff auctions expire when other more popular guy stuff is on TV.

If you're going to sell guy stuff on eBay, NEVER have an auction expire during popular sports or TV events (like the Walking Dead season premiere). I always had mine expire on T/W/Th at somewhere before 10:00pm EST so that the most people could bid in a reasonable time.

[alamogunr]

Ballistics is right about the bookselling sites except sometimes the stores that populate those sites don't have a clue what they are trying to sell. Some will value a book at many times what it is worth and other times at a fraction of its' worth.

I got several of the more uncommon books in my "library" on Ebay over 15-20 years ago. Those bargains are in the past for me. I wasn't aware of the followed search feature he mentioned. I don't go to Ebay any more. Not much there that interests me.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

[QUOTE=alamogunr;3830595]Ballistics is right about the bookselling sites except sometimes the stores that populate those sites don't have a clue what they are trying to sell. Some will value a book at many times what it is worth...[QUOTE]

There is a perfectly logical reason for that. They want the money. On eBay I think fewer of them check the website to see what the book is selling for (or having more asked for it) by other sellers. Sometimes there is no reason for a high price but copying one another. I stalked this gentleman's rather ordinarily bound 1960s autobiography for over a year while they asked up to hundreds of pounds for it, till I got it for £4.95. He was what Japanese sword collectors term a living national treasure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wintle

I also got for a very similar amount the autobiography, "The Dark Invader", of Captain von Rintelen, who led the sabotage of the American arms trade to the Allies in 1915. He became a personal friend of Admiral Hall, who caught him, and attended the wedding of Hall's daughter with his own daughter serving as bridesmaids, and eleven British admirals as fellow-guests. Now there is a wall I wouldn't have minded being a fly upon.

[mwells72774]

I bought the Donnelly book when it came out. Great reference source. However, try to verify information before you use it. Allegedly, the book contains a number of errors. I contacted Donnelly a long time ago and he intended to put out a revised edition. Don't know whether this ever happened. Probably the best of these books is the one by Ken Howell. As for the George Nonte book, most would find it of little value.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161106/ef68c50e3ab1277d42c19b92eb398b08.jpg

[Bent Ramrod]

My reading of Donnelly's first edition left the impression that it was rather hastily thrown together (it does cover a lot of ground) and a checking of dimensions and recommendations against other references like Cartridges of the World and Nonte's conversion book would be needed. But of course, this is warranted in any case, just as loading recommendations need to be checked through multiple sources.

I don't agree that Nonte's book is of limited value. It was written before the rise of the everybody-else-is-responsible-for-whatever-fine-mess-I-get-myself-into litigation industry, and lists forming techniques that are deliberately left out of Howell's otherwise much more comprehensive book. If one is cautious, as Nonte's recommends, cases for light cast boolit loads can be made by these techniques.

I have all three books, and could probably find room for a revision of Donnelly's first edition, if I came across a copy. We are fortunate that all three are becoming somewhat obsolescent in spots because of the reissue, by specialty companies, of a lot of the brass cases that used to have to be formed.

[blackthorn]

In my estimation ANY gun book has to be worth a dollar! I have never gotten a gun book that I did not get at least a dollars worth of information from.

[Pavogrande]

I agree with bent ramrod about nontes' book --
my copy is 1961 and it was really the only publication available then that addressed cartridge conversions.
Yes, it is outdated in some ways but as BR pointed out he shows many politically incorrect ways of getting the job done using rudimentary methods -

This was a time of a lot of really cheap old military weapons on the market with virtually no ammo. No 11mm mauser, berdan 1,7.5 swiss (90), or a score of others available anywhere --

my ha-penny

[tchepone]

If mwells72774 post is "vintage" what do I call my original "The Home Guide To Cartridge Conversions" - ©1961, by George C. Nonte?

180682

[Ballistics in Scotland]

My reading of Donnelly's first edition left the impression that it was rather hastily thrown together (it does cover a lot of ground) and a checking of dimensions and recommendations against other references like Cartridges of the World and Nonte's conversion book would be needed. But of course, this is warranted in any case, just as loading recommendations need to be checked through multiple sources.

I don't agree that Nonte's book is of limited value. It was written before the rise of the everybody-else-is-responsible-for-whatever-fine-mess-I-get-myself-into litigation industry, and lists forming techniques that are deliberately left out of Howell's otherwise much more comprehensive book. If one is cautious, as Nonte's recommends, cases for light cast boolit loads can be made by these techniques.

I have all three books, and could probably find room for a revision of Donnelly's first edition, if I came across a copy. We are fortunate that all three are becoming somewhat obsolescent in spots because of the reissue, by specialty companies, of a lot of the brass cases that used to have to be formed.

Yes, the Donnelly book does seem to have been put together at high speed, though there is so much that it could still have as many man-hours in it as a slimmer volume. One thing that may have been difficult to get around by computer graphics in 1987 was that the drawings for cases are standard ones for rimmed, rimless, bottlenecked, straight etc., and not to scale. Nowadays even I could alter a standard drawing to scale in a few minutes per cartridge, using AutoCAD (very expensive) or something like Draftsight (free from, of all people, Dassault Systems, or a cheap DVD on eBay:

https://draftsight.en.softonic.com/

Donnelly says in his foreword that all the dimensions he has taken from other sources have been checked. Well maybe they have, in the sense of making sure that is what people really wrote. There are certainly errors which come from Barnes, and probably others before him. On obsolete cartridge dimensions you have to walk softly and expect a big stick. He does include rim thicknesses, as few others do.

I have never even seen George Hoyem's books, which I believe are very good. In general though, reference books on cartridges are partly aimed at the forensic market, and how often are crimes committed with rifles? Both of these are extremely good, except that they give the extremely wide range of dimensions in which cartridges can be found, which may not be what the reloader wants:

Brandt, Jakob H.: Manualof Pistol and Revolver Cartridges (Journal-Verlag Schwend, Schwabisch Hall,Germany, single volume edition in English 1998.)

White,H.P.,Munhall,B.D. and Bearse , Ray: CenterfirePistol and Revolver Cartridges (new edition combining Vols. I and II,A.S. Barnes and Co. CranburyNJ, 1967.)

Brandt is a very expensive book, and the only object of value I have ever had chewed by the infant whose portrait I have on my coffee mug. It covers and probably copies the material from White et al., so you'd be disappointed by buying both...

180686

The only book of Nonte's I have read is "Pistolsmithing" - principally out of curiosity, as I have done hardly any pistolsmithing. I was impressed by his attitude to what can be done, what is worth doing, and whether shortcuts can be found.

[Texas by God]

I'll give you FIVE dollars for it!!! Best, Thomas.

[jcwit]

Have one, paid alot more than a dollar. Get it!

[ascast]

Book is well worth the buck. However, be forewarned, they make some conversions from donor brass that is expensive, maybe more expensive that resulting brass could be found. This book kinda predates Bertram, Starline and the European makers. Just shop around before you invest in some big project. IIRC, some of his solutions were NOT the cheapest or fastest way to either.

[mwells72774]

There have been a few that I had to scratch my head about the parent case.

[Bent Ramrod]

I have three of the Hoyem books. They are more for collectors than users, with full size photos of cartridges and their variations, pictures of the packaging, the history, including that of the gun and ammo manufacturers, catalog reprints, applicable patents and so forth. Few mentions of dimensions, and those mostly concerning length, and no tables.

Impressive books though. They were never cheap, and seem to go for ridiculous money nowadays, but if you want to know what something looks like, it's in one or more of them.

[paul h]

In my estimation ANY gun book has to be worth a dollar! I have never gotten a gun book that I did not get at least a dollars worth of information from.

Absolutely! Even books I've read at the library I'll pick up at the used book store if the price is right.

[ascast]

In my estimation ANY gun book has to be worth a dollar! I have never gotten a gun book that I did not get at least a dollars worth of information from.

yes I have one gun book from a popular auction site that is printed up side down backwards and contains material not related at all. Worth a buck just for laughs.

[beezapilot]

I've done a lot of business with this company- it is nice that no matter how many books you order S/H is $3.50
https://www.hamiltonbook.com/Fishing-Hunting/the-handloaders-manual-of-cartridge-conversions-fourth-edition

https://www.hamiltonbook.com/Fishing-Hunting

https://www.hamiltonbook.com/Collecting?power_search=Start+Search&cat_id=FKN

[alamogunr]

[QUOTE=alamogunr;3830595]Ballistics is right about the bookselling sites except sometimes the stores that populate those sites don't have a clue what they are trying to sell. Some will value a book at many times what it is worth...[QUOTE]

There is a perfectly logical reason for that. They want the money. On eBay I think fewer of them check the website to see what the book is selling for (or having more asked for it) by other sellers. Sometimes there is no reason for a high price but copying one another. I stalked this gentleman's rather ordinarily bound 1960s autobiography for over a year while they asked up to hundreds of pounds for it, till I got it for £4.95. He was what Japanese sword collectors term a living national treasure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wintle

I also got for a very similar amount the autobiography, "The Dark Invader", of Captain von Rintelen, who led the sabotage of the American arms trade to the Allies in 1915. He became a personal friend of Admiral Hall, who caught him, and attended the wedding of Hall's daughter with his own daughter serving as bridesmaids, and eleven British admirals as fellow-guests. Now there is a wall I wouldn't have minded being a fly upon.

Coming back to this thread due to a email notification of a recent post, I went to the linked Wikipedia article. Probably the most interesting Wikipedia article I have ever read. I can see why you spent more than a year chasing his autobiography.

Holy Moly! Just went to a book search site looking for the autobiography. Cheapest I found was $195. I'm satisfied with the Wikipedia write up.

[John Boy]

FREE Spreadsheet conversions 1406 calibers, for your computer files ... http://www.castpics.net/subsite/Conversions/Conversions.xls

[mdi]

I don't do any wildcatting nor do I need to make "odd" or hard to find brass, but I really enjoy my copy of "...Cartridge Conversions".

[sprinkintime]

I think it's a 1987

I think your right on the 1987, but was copyrighted again in 2011

[nvreloader]

Guys

There is another good wildcat book by,
Richard F Simmons, Wildcat cartridges, 1947 era,
lots of info and the making of wildcat cases.

Very hard to find thou....... but well worth it.

Tia,
Don

[lotech]

I've not seen the Simmons book, but it's probably a good one. He used to write articles for GUN DIGEST years ago. As I recall, they were well done and informative.

[alamogunr]

It would have to be a "good one" and full of information I was interested in to pay the prices the on-line dealers are asking.

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&an=Richard+F+Simmons&tn=&kn=Wildcat+cartridges&isbn=