Not Howdy Doody time.
I promised I wasn’t going to do any more gun books until “Day of the .45, part 2.” went up. Now that I have posted it, I have a large stack to go through, including more than one Samworth, so I’m going to start trying to knock some of those off.
First, some ground rules:
I’m going be posting some newer books, ones that are readily available on Amazon or from the usual suspects. For those, I will be posting Amazon affiliate links, and I will be posting commentary if I’ve read the book, but I won’t be posting cover photos or a lot of bibliographic detail. The Amazon links should give you enough information to order the book, or to find it from some other vendor, if you’re really interested, and photos of readily available contemporary books will just make these posts longer.
One of my side projects that I won’t be documenting in a lot of detail here: I’ve decided that I want to try to accumulate a complete set of Gun Digest. I’ve found that GD frequently has interesting articles on either gun or gun book history, and I think it would be useful to have them around for reference. I probably won’t be documenting those here, though I may mention them in passing.
My self-imposed limits for this project are: I’m buying them used, in very good to excellent condition, and I’m trying not to pay more than $10 for each one. So far, I have the 1998 edition (which has a very good article on the Winchester Model 52) and the 2005 edition (nice article on the guns of Roy Chapman Andrews). The 2010 edition (with the profile of E.C. Crossman) is on the way, as is another Samworth book by Crossman.
With those ground rules set:
I’m going to give this one pride of place. Also, it fits in with part two of the .45 posts.
A Rifleman Went to War, Herbert W. McBride. Small-Arms Technical Publishing Company, Marines, Onslow County, North Carolina, 1935. Riling 2175.
This replaces a Palladium Press edition (that I’m willing to get rid of: contact me here if you’re interested). I’ve touched on this book briefly before: Captain McBride was a competitive shooter who enlisted in WWI early (with the Canadian Army), participated in many of the major battles of the war, and even went to an early sniper school. As I’ve noted, this is a pretty influential early sniping book. And if you’re interested, some more background on Captain McBride…shall we say, fell off a truck? (I don’t want to get the friend who sent this to me in trouble, though I do appreciate his contributions.)
Per Smith, the Onslow County impression and the lack of a date on the advertising page mark this as a true first printing. But the rear dust jacket shows Plantersville, South Carolina instead of Onslow, and lists some books published in 1940 and later. I think this is characteristic of a second impression dust jacket, which perhaps someone swapped onto the book.
More photos:
It has some wear. That jacket protector hides a few sins, but you can see a couple of places on the back flap that were mended with tape and there are a couple of little divots at the top and bottom by the jacket flap. But I don’t believe this is an ex-library copy. It seems pretty clean and tight for an 88 year old book. I don’t feel like I have anything to apologize for.
Except maybe the price. I paid 90 pounds sterling plus 13 pounds shipping from a dealer in the UK (G & S Books), which works out to $135. Lawrence is laughing at me, but that’s the most I’ve paid for a Samworth. So far. I’ll talk about that in a future entry.
Ammunition, Demystified: The (non) Bubba’s Guide to How Ammo Really Works, Jeff Siewert. Haven’t read this yet, though it is going in my carry-on for a flight next week. But the guys at the the Hornady Podcast interviewed Mr. Siewert a while back, and were pretty enthusiastic about his book, so I figured I wasn’t taking much of a chance purchasing this.
(Technically, and since I know someone is going to call me on this, they’ve interviewed Mr. Siewert three times. The second time was on cartridge cases, and the third was on barrels.)
If you want to get a taste, or if you’re generally interested in the subject, Mr. Siewert also has a website: Bulletology.
The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World, Nathan Gorenstein. Finally got around to picking up a copy of this, haven’t read it yet.
Down on the Border: A Western Lawman’s Journal, Bart Skelton. Ordered this after Bart Skelton’s death, read it, thought it was okay. Don’t really want to say much more than that.