When Mike the Musicologist and I were running around over the weekend, we swung by the Half-Price Books in Cedar Park. And I found a couple of interesting things for $7.99 (plus tax) each…
The Gun Digest Book of Firearms Assembly/Disassembly Part IV: Centerfire Rifles. I try to pick up these books (and the NRA volumes) whenever I see I them, even if I already have copies. You never know when you (or a friend) are going to pick up some off-the-wall rifle that didn’t come with a manual, and that you need takedown instructions for. (There are newer editions of these available as paperbacks and Kindle books: I have never seen one of the 4th edition versions, and have no idea what they cover. Here’s a link to the books – both new and used – on Amazon.)
Greatest Guns of Gun Digest, Dan Shideler. You should actually be able to find this with ease: the link goes to Amazon, which has a fair number of copies listed for less than I paid. (However, the shipping will bump it up.)
This is a collection of articles from Gun Digest, put together about 2010, and contains some articles relevant to my interests. Among them:
- “America’s First Cartridge Revolver”, Herschel C. Logan. The early Smith and Wessons.
- “A Man’s Sixgun”, Col. Charles Askins. This is his somewhat legendary review/test report of the S&W and Ruger .44 Magnum revolvers. “Word reaches me that some joes, probably with lace on their panties, are putting on gloves to shoot it…How soft can we get? I shot the big .44 all one afternoon and found the recoil nothing more than stimulating.”
- “The .44 Magnum…One Year Later”, Elmer Keith.
- “The Smith and Wesson .38 Master”. Also known as the Model 52. (No, I don’t have one. I do kind of want one, but there are other Smiths on the list ahead of it.)
- “Remington’s XP-100 and the 221 Fireball”, Les Bowman. Previously on WCD.
- “The First Magnum”, Keith R. Schmidt. The early S&W .357 Magnums.
- “The Ruger 10/22 Carbine”, T.R. Rusfel. Who doesn’t love the 10/22? (I have one regular 10/22 and one 10/22 Carbine.)
- “Great Guns! Winchester’s Model 9422s”, Jon R. Sundra.
- “The Model 70 Winchester 1936-1963”, Kam Nasser. This whole book is like a catalog of my obsessions.
- “The Winchester Model 94”, H.V. Stent. Like I said…
- “Those Plastic Remingtons”, Donald M. Simmons. One of these days, I’m going to finish that Nylon 66 write-up.
And that is, by no means, an exhaustive table of contents.
Winter is coming. This would be a good book for browsing by the fire on a cold night.
Next time: I expect to pick up some more books from the Post Awful tomorrow. I also have a couple that I haven’t cataloged yet, and I want to throw some love in the general direction of the author’s family. So we’ll see how things go.