-
Headstamp's Second Book! Thorneycroft to SA80: British Bullpup Firearms
I am very excited to be able to announce that Headstamp Publishing's second book, "Thorneycroft to SA80" is now in stock and shipping! As the name suggests, this is a study of British bullpup firearms, written by the Keeper of Arms & Artillery and the British National Firearms Centre, Jonathan Fe...
-
Book Review: SS Contract Walther PP/PPK
I have done some videos previously with Tom Whiteman from Legacy Collectibles - mostly ones about his area of specialty; German WW2 handguns. Well, he has now published a reference book compiling more than 20 years of research on SS-contract Walther PP and PPK pistols. Thanks to records captured ...
-
Book Review: The Guns of John Moses Browning, by Nathan Gorenstein
John Moses Browning is, without argument, the greatest firearms designer in history. While we have had many brilliant designers who had their names forever connected to guns (Maxim, Luger, Kalashnikov...), Browning invented whole categories of firearms. Gorenstein's new book "The Guns of John Mos...
-
Thunder-Studded Battle Pits: Nuances of Chinese Translation w/ Henry Chan
Henry Chan of 9 Hole Reviews was a big help to me throughout the writing of Pistols of the Warlords, helping me translate a variety of really interesting Chinese markings we found on various pistols. So when I decided I wanted to translate the title of the book into Chinese to embellish the back ...
-
Book Review: The Green Meanie - L96A1 by Steve Houghton
Following up on his 2018 "The British Sniper: A Century of Evolution", Steve Houghton has now released a followup book on the L96A1 in particular: "The Green Meanie". This rifles was a paradigm shift for sniping rifles, and a tremendous success for the British military. It is also a quintessentia...
-
Book Review: The Complete Book of Tokarev Pistols
The Tokarev is a pistol that does not have much written about it in the world of firearms reference literature - largely because it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact that many of the. variations. became accessible to Western collectors and researchers. What we hav...
-
Book Review: Vickers Guide SIG SAUER, Volume 1
The most recent addition to the Vickers Guide series of books is SIG Sauer Volume 1. This is 460 pages covering SIG's handguns and submachine guns from it's very first contract (the Mannlicher 1894 blow-forward pistols) to the recently-adopted M17 and M18 US military handguns and SIG's other ongo...
-
Book Review: Into Helmand with the Walking Dead
"Into Helmand With the Walking Dead" is a newly released memoir of the war in Afghanistan, written by my friend Miles Vining (whom you may recognize from Silah Report, among other places online). It is an intimate look at one Marine's experience from enlisting right out of high school, going thro...
-
Book Review: Vickers Guide to the AR-15 Vol 1, SECOND EDITION
When Volume 1 of the Vickers Guide to the AR-15 sold out, Larry Vickers and James Rupley decided not to simply print more copies. Instead, they chose to go back to basics, and massively expand the book. The new Second Edition has 300 pages more photographs and content than the original book, comi...
-
Book Review: U.S. Small Arms of World War II by Bruce Canfield
Bruce Canfield's newly released book, "U.S. Small Arms of World War II", is a book that attempts to cover a huge amount of material from bayonets to mortars and recoilless rifles. Where most books of this type end up providing only a rather shallow view of a large number of subjects, what Canfiel...
-
Book Review: Textbook of Pistol Technology and Design
Peter Dallhammer is a mechanical engineer who works for the Walther company, and has written an excellent book on firearms manufacture. If you were going to design a university program around the design and production of small arms, his "Textbook of Pistol Technology and Design: Production, Princ...
-
Book Review: German Pistols & Holsters 1934-1945 by Maj. Robert Whittington III
I'd heard some negative things about today's book before I picked up a copy, and I was happily surprised by its usefulness. The book is German Pistols and Holsters 1934/1945, by Major Robert D. Whittington III. It is a pretty straight-forward work, written to aid collectors and historians in unde...
-
Book Review: The Book of Rifles
This is an excellent book to start a firearms library with. It has a lot of great information for a very affordable cost - I found my copy for $3 at a gun show, but it can be bought on Amazon for not much more.
-
Book Review: The 1903 Springfield Rifle
Today we're looking at three different books on the 1903 Springfield rifle. Which one is best for you? That depends on what you're looking for...
-
Book Review: Swiss Magazine Loading Rifles
Swiss rifles offer a great place for a new collector to put together a set of rifles with mechanical and historical interest, that are in great condition and still available for reasonable prices. The Swiss used three main variations of the Schmidt-Rubin type rifle, and all can still be found tod...
-
Book Review: Volcanic Firearms - Predecessor to the Winchester Rifle
The Volcanic repeating pistol was the first direct step along the development path of the lever-action rifle that became an icon of the American West. Introduced before the advent of modern brass-cased cartridges, the Volcanic was notable for both its repeating action and the self-contained ammun...
-
Book Review: Veteran Bring Backs by Edward Tinker
The book (pair of books, actually) we're looking at today is a bit less rigorous than our usual material, and more humanistic. It's a pair of books entitled Veteran Bring Backs and Veteran Bring Backs Volume II, by Edward Tinker. Both volumes are compilations of firearms (and a few other related ...
-
Book Review: The World's Assault Rifles by Gary Paul Johnston & Thomas Nelson
Gary Paul Johnston and Thomas Nelson's The World's Assault Rifles is always one of the first books we turn to for information on automatic rifles. At 1200+ pages, it's a huge tome and a massive amount of research went into it. Mr Nelson previously published two volumes on submachine guns and a bo...
-
Book Review: The Winchester-Lee Rifle, by Eugene Myszkowski
James Paris Lee began designing and patenting firearms in 1862, but it was not until 1875 that any of his designs were put into limited manufacture. He would ultimately see four of his rifles adopted by the US military (M1879, M1883, M1885, M1895), plus a large royalty from the British government...
-
Book Review: The Whitney Wolverine by Antonio Taglienti
The Whitney Wolverine (aka Whitney, Lightning, or Hillson Imperial) was a very space-age looking .22 automatic pistol designed by Robert Hillberg in the 1950s. It made novel use of materials (aluminum castings) and many clever design subtleties, and was a remarkably good pistol. However, the comp...
-
Book Review: The Sterling Years by James Edmiston
The Sterling submachine gun is one of the better submachine guns ever built - a lot of throught and engineering work went into its design. It is light, compact, ergonomic, very durable and reliable, and uses one of the best magazines ever made for submachine guns. It may be a gun overlooked by a ...
-
Book Review: The Parabellum is Back!
The final chapter in our continuing Luger series is today's book, The Parabellum is Back! While Sturgess' three-volume encyclopedia covers the pistol through 1918 and Simson Lugers takes us through Weimar, that leaves a lot still to learn. Luger production continued in World War II, and afterward...
-
Book Review: The Evolution of Military Automatic Pistols
Today we have a book with a wider appeal than most, as it covers a broad range of different gun designs and has lots of good information for both the very technical collector and the casual pistol enthusiast. It's Gordon Bruce's new book, The Evolution of Military Automatic Pistols: Self-loading ...
-
Book Review: The Dutch Mannlicher M.95 and the 6.5x53.5R Cartridge
In the 1880s, the Dutch decided that their single-shot Beaumont rifles were obsolete and needed replacement. They started a program to modify them with 4-round magazines, and simultaneously set about finding a more modern rifle to adopt. After trying with some difficulty to test out new designs (...