I reviewed that book for SAR / SAotW
https://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=2511
(Can you see all four reviews, or only a snip of the first one, Military Sniping?)
A Collector’s Guide to MILITARY RIFLE
Disassembly and Reassembly
By Stuart C. Mowbray and Joe Puleo
304 pages, color throughout, color softcover
$39.99, plus $4.50 shipping
A Collector’s Guide to PISTOL & REVOLVER
Disassembly and Reassembly
By Stuart C. Mowbray and Joe Puleo
280 pages, color throughout, color softcover
$39.99, plus $4.50 shipping
Mowbray Publishing,
54 East School Street,
Woonsocket, RI 02895
www.gunandswordcollector.com
These two companion books are beautifully illustrated reference resources. Each book features crisp clear professional photographs of each gun, laid out step by step. Each particular firearm has an overall photo followed by many detail photos of the disassembly process. Specific details are noted with arrows and text, alerting the reader to potential issues. Reassembly hints are given in many cases as well.
There is very little background history given, but that is not really an issue, as that info can be found easily elsewhere. These books focus exclusively on the proper disassembly steps.
The Military Rifle book (published 2007) was the first of the two published. Immediately upon release, the authors were bombarded by requests for a Pistol and Revolver book. They freely admit that they did not originally plan to do so, but quickly got to work on the second book (published 2011).
The two authors are staff writers for the NRA collector magazine publication Gun Collector, with Mowbray being the editor and Puleo being a contributing technical editor. As such, they have a large body of experience and knowledge to draw from.
Both books are laid out in roughly chronological order, starting with the oldest designs first. The rifle book begins with the French M1866 Chassepot, and concludes with the Egyptian Rasheed, with a total of 44 rifles featured. The pistol book begins with the Colt Model 1873 SA Army revolver and wraps up with the Czechoslovakian CZ-82, with a total of 51 guns featured.
Both are a full 8.5” x 11” and printed on high quality glossy paper. Both are soft cover. The rifle book is 304 pages, and contains over 1,500 color photographs. The pistol book is 280 pages, and contains over 1,200 color photos.
Obviously, not every military rifle or handgun can be featured, and the authors acknowledge as much. Aside from that, I found these books to be very well done. They should appeal to collectors, re-enactors, students of history, and fans of beautiful books.
This article is part of SAR V18N3
