books on gunsmithing

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ShawnRich

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A google search for books on Gunsmithing results in many. Amazon.ca has some but the question is, of course, when buying books, are they any good? Hard to tell when one cannot pick it up and peruse it.

Is anyone familiar with any books on the subject that they would recommend ( or suggest to avoid) ?

Here is my google search results...

Search
 
I have multiples here - going to suggest you consider what you mean by "gunsmithing". For example - 1920's books by Clyde Baker or James V. Howe - chapters on gunstock checkering start with how to make your checkering tools - that sort of approach. How to check and straighten a rifled barrel. Lots of stuff on old school metal work - heat treat, draw temper, etc. Similar to 1950's Roy Dunlap - for a lot of his books, he assumed you knew how to deal with steel - make your own parts with file, etc. Assumed that you could weld, use a heat sink, run a milling machine, etc. Is a lot of projects about "customizing" the cheap milsurps that would have been available then. I did not find "modern" books like by Bryce Towsely or Patrick Sweeney to be very useful - might be interesting to someone who does not know how to file or to grind a screw driver for slotted screws. Jim Carmicheal had some good ones - from the same era as Dunlap, I think.

Is about difference of a "gun plumber" - screwing on parts from a package like at the counter at a gun store, versus a military armourer who has specified procedures to follow and a vast supply chain feeding his work, on a very few firearms, versus a gunsmith who can make a replacement for a failed part, including springs, etc. In the end, I think gunsmith trade is about making a profit to keep the doors open - so like bookkeeper and accountant - a gunsmith likely makes most of his money doing "gun plumber" type jobs - no body today wants to really pay for what a "gunsmith" can actually, or should be able to, do.
 
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What kind of gunsmithing. It's important. Because books about making an accurate shooting 45 ACP Colt, are a different kettle of fish than those that are about making old school wood and blued steel, and even less use to a fella that wants to assemble and tune modern sporting rifles.

For Old School, I can recommend Modern Gunsmithing, by Howe. 2 volumes, and you can likely find it to download on line. Modern, in his case, was about a hundred years back, but he ideas of craft and skilled workmanship, are sound even still.

Got a library Card? Get one, head for the local public library. You can borrow books from other libraries, via an Inter Library Loan. It is a great way to test drive books that you don't know if they will be worth buying a copy of.

A lot of the books written in the 1950's rely heavily upon the availability of plentiful, cheap, and otherwise, unwanted, surplus guns to use as fodder for the shop. They recommend a lot of things that are no longer cheap or very wise, be done to otherwise remaining few of the Milsurps.

Brownell's Gunsmithing Hints and Kinks books are a pretty good read through too.
 
Roy Dunlap gunsmithing. I use to get it from the local library every few months depending on what i was working on the the time, blueing or fixing a stock or milling my p14 feed rails for a 505 gibs ( i scaled it for 500 jeffery)

I do plan to buy it one of these days. Loads of info

This is the same one i had. He has a few with different covers. https://books.google.ca/books/about...Hr8y0C&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
 
I bought a large collection of gunsmith books from an old timer machinist a few years back. I really like the 'Gunsmith Kinks' series, I believe it's a 4 volume set.
 
Modern and higher standard works -
Gunsmithing Tips and Projects, Wolfe Publishing
Professional Stockmaking, Daniel Westbrook
 
Thanks guys. I found in Canada and ordered a 1984 version of Brownwell's Gunsmith Kinks book. I can start with that. I will check our libraries too.
 
ShawnRich said:
I checked our local libraries and found no references to gunsmithing books.
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You pretty much have to go to the Service Desk, with a name and author, or even better, the ISBN, of the books you are interested in.

Been a long time since I dinked around in the Dewey Decimal System, but some searches online should be able to sort you out on where in the shelves the books should be if they have any locally. A quick search says to look around the area of 683. If not familiar, this is the number on the spine tag of the book, that allows it to go back on the correct shelf, in the correct order, when the books are returned.

The big score is in the Inter Library Loan system. I have received books from reference libraries all over North America, on multiple subjects, many which if I was local to the originating library, they would not have allowed me to leave the building with.
Per above, look up the info on line, then see if they can get a copy in, from another library.
 
In Nova Scotia you can use the online portal and order any book they have into any library you want in the province and take it out as far of these gunsmithing books go, I'm sure there are lots of reference books you cant borrow though. and if your kids are homeschooled you get double borrow times and no late fees
 
I think that it is more of a situation that gun books were pulled from many libraries a while back. I am able to search 2 municipal library systems as well as on line sources. The closest I got was that a few books were listed as options for me to "request" they get purchased and then I will be able to borrow them. Only one suggestion is allowed per 7 days. So we will see if it suddenly becomes available for me to borrow.

The link that mojoman supplied looks interesting. I have not used that system before. Thank you.
 
ShawnRich said:
I think that it is more of a situation that gun books were pulled from many libraries a while back. I am able to search 2 municipal library systems as well as on line sources. The closest I got was that a few books were listed as options for me to "request" they get purchased and then I will be able to borrow them. Only one suggestion is allowed per 7 days. So we will see if it suddenly becomes available for me to borrow.

The link that mojoman supplied looks interesting. I have not used that system before. Thank you.
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Yeah. 'Many', not 'all', though.

That was the beauty of the inter library loan deal. It was not just public Libraries, and it was not just Canadian ones, that it was able to reach out to.

I got books delivered that came from all over the States and Canada, from such diverse sources as the Ontario Hydro Reference Library, a NASA library in Florida, and the library at Ames National Research Laboratory.
As long as your Librarian does not think you are a wing nut kid or otherwise up to no good, it should be an option.

I see that if you sign up for a membership, you can "borrow" some of the newer books, on the Archive site, too.
There are several other archives of out of copyright books out there too, a search should find them.
 
SPOKEN FOR - and gone..

Almost FREE (except for the $25.00 CanadaPost flat-rate box mailing cost) - If anyone is interested, I have up for grabs a 1982 edition of Modern Gunsmithing by James Howe, as mentioned above by Potashminer and trevj.
It's the complete 2 volumes in one book of about 900 pages weighing in at 1.775kg, in decent shape and still complete with dust-cover.
Fist to P/M etc. gets it.
 
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DaveF said:
Moderator - If this is inappropriate here then please delete.

Almost FREE (except for the $25.00 CanadaPost flat-rate box mailing cost) - If anyone is interested, I have up for grabs a 1982 edition of Modern Gunsmithing by James Howe, as mentioned above by Potashminer and trevj.
It's the complete 2 volumes in one book of about 900 pages weighing in at 1.775kg, in decent shape and still complete with dust-cover.
Fist to P/M etc. gets it.
Click to expand...

Now, that is a Christmas gift.
 
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