Another book question

[mattsccm]

I like a good book. Big, shiny but  fairly technical are best. Diggory Hadoke or Donald Dallas types of thing. Any recomendations?

[Old Boggy]

I can fully recommend either Diggory Hadoke`s `Vintage Guns for the Modern Shot` or Donald Dallas`s `The British Sporting Gun and Rifle-Pursuit of Perfection 1850-1900`

Both beautifully illustrated.

OB

[Dave at kelton]

Westley Richards & co in pursuit of the best gun

[Walker570]

3 hours ago, mattsccm said:

I like a good book. Big, shiny but  fairly technical are best. Diggory Hadoke or Donald Dallas types of thing. Any recomendations?

The Mars Mysteries.  Makes you rethink all you have been taught.

[button]

The Shooting Man's Creed

[JohnfromUK]

The British Shotgun by Ian Crudgington and David Baker:  3 volumes, dealing with the patents and technical variations in the development of the breech loader.  Not picture books, but a serious study of all (and there are a great many) of the strange twists and turns as the shotgun developed.

British Gunmakers by Nigel Brown: 3 volumes. Rather more pictures than the above, and more about the businesses rather than the guns.  Much data on serial numbers, dates, address movers etc.

Both of the above are serious pieces of research and represent a massive collection of knowledge - as well as a vast amount of work by the authors.  Unfortunately they are expensive and not often found second hand.

As a much cheaper suggestion, various 'repro' copies of the old standard volumes such as Greener's "The Gun and it's Development" and J.H. Walsh's "The Modern Sportsman's Gun and Rifle" (both early 20th century) can be found second hand, as can the volumes of Gough Thomas's Gun Book etc. (1960s and 70s).

[wymberley]

On 11/03/2023 at 07:04, JohnfromUK said:

The British Shotgun by Ian Crudgington and David Baker:  3 volumes, dealing with the patents and technical variations in the development of the breech loader.  Not picture books, but a serious study of all (and there are a great many) of the strange twists and turns as the shotgun developed.

British Gunmakers by Nigel Brown: 3 volumes. Rather more pictures than the above, and more about the businesses rather than the guns.  Much data on serial numbers, dates, address movers etc.

Both of the above are serious pieces of research and represent a massive collection of knowledge - as well as a vast amount of work by the authors.  Unfortunately they are expensive and not often found second hand.

As a much cheaper suggestion, various 'repro' copies of the old standard volumes such as Greener's "The Gun and it's Development" and J.H. Walsh's "The Modern Sportsman's Gun and Rifle" (both early 20th century) can be found second hand, as can the volumes of Gough Thomas's Gun Book etc. (1960s and 70s).

These are starting to become fewer and further between with an associated price rise, so a good mention. Ideal reading for anyone wanting to get a better handle on lead in order to work out what's best come the day of the NTS. Yep, appreciate that this is not what the OP is after, but it is a sensible heads up and although there's a good while yet before it happens, there's not too many books. (Try and find a matching set of Burrard)

[mattsccm]

Cheers all . Been thinking about Browns books. Got all the Hadoke stuff and some Dallas. Burrard now sorted. What I really want is Climbing the North face of the .410

[wymberley]

25 minutes ago, mattsccm said:

Cheers all . Been thinking about Browns books. Got all the Hadoke stuff and some Dallas. Burrard now sorted. What I really want is Climbing the North face of the .410

Re Burrard, nice one.

[JohnfromUK]

1 minute ago, wymberley said:

Re Burrard, nice one.

I have repro/reprint copies of Burrard.  It is very solid, and Gough Thomas pointed out that it is not always accurate.  In particular, his description of the Beesley (Purdey) action is plain wrong.

[wymberley]

Yep, even GT had to confess that he wrote things that he conceded that he should not have done. This because of knowledge gained during the studies carried out about the time of the introduction of NTS.