reference books fo guns

[brian]

anybody else into them, as much as the guns themselves, if not more??

just ordered four more.
one for the last steel warrior
one that covers all US weapons of the first world war
another for K98k's
and a general ak and it's varients book

i'am a huge book worm. i was into books about guns longer than i can recall. there was a time i should have been buying the guns themselves, instead of just the books.
these days i can't hardly have a gun without having some sort of reference book for it.

another sore spot is the little odds and ends that were issued with the weapon....

[deafsmithco]

How can one not have a good gun library? Most of mine are Winchester, Colt, S&W and loading manuals.

[Mrs. Pa Patriot]

PA has some gun books. I have the historical fiction and nonfiction books. Everyone has a good library at their disposal.

[TaePo]

One I always liked and have two copies:

Small Arms of the World.

Just about any pistol or rifle/shotgun is pictured and given a blurb.

I don't have it handy now so cannot give more info on it. (it is not Jane's BTW!)

[Garpman]

Yes, I have the Mosin Nagant and Enfield No. 4 and No. 5 books from the "For Collector's Only" series. I also have the Small Arms of the World book and another Military Firearms book for a price indicator, along with several other gun price books. I have 4 Kalashnikov books and 1 book solely dedicated to Kalashnikov bayonets.

I also like to collect bayonets and I'm thinking of getting into inert ordnance as well in the future.

Gun reference books are an absolute must for anyone into more than just appearances and shooting, although I'm not a super anal collector that needs to have all variations (except for AKs) of a rifle and examples from all factories, etc.

[brian]

"For Collector's Only" series.

you need to watch them.

the book on krags is supposed to be top notch.

however the '03 springfield book from the same series is good for pictures, but the info inside is largely made up of the author's own speculations.

[brian]

I have 4 Kalashnikov books .

mind sharing titles and authors?
i'm looking for more info about them.

[Garpman]

mind sharing titles and authors?
i'm looking for more info about them.

Thanks for the heads up on the Springfield book from that series. I don't own one yet, but I guess that'll be one to avoid when I finally get the rifle and the book.

The AK books that I have are:

"AK-47 and AK-74 and Kalashnikov Rifles" by Joe Poyer - there are a few inaccuracies in this book but it's still OK for pictures and reference

"The AK-47 Story" by Edward Clinton Ezell - this is an older book that came out before the Wall came down and also has some info lacking, but is generally very good for history and development, pics are in B&W

"AK-47 & Kalashnikov Variation" by Masami Tokoi - commonly referred to as the Japanese picture book because it has the most detailed pictures of nearly all the Kalashnikov variants ever assembled in one book, it is all in Japanese and is pretty thorough, but also has a few mistakes here and there. You'll need a English translation comparison guide to go along with it. This book is out of print, and if an actual hard copy is found, you can expect to pay a lot for it. I paid $200 for mine (dedication or stupidity? both I guess). You can also view it for free online (not available when I bought mine) if you search hard enough for it, or if you sign up for theakforum.net where they have it stickied.

There is also another Japanese AK book I have that I don't think a translation exists for. It's not as good as the Tokoi book anyway.

The bayonet book is by Martin D. Ivie simply titled "Kalashnikov Bayonets".

The best source there is for the AK rifle though is theakforum.net. If you spend your time reading through the subsections, you'll get more than you'll ever expected to know about the platform.