Recommended reading for someone interested in old school gun culture?

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jf89

Member
Joined
May 9, 2015
Messages
71
Location
East Oregon
Go easy on me here, I was born in '89 and did not really get into guns untail about the time of the Magpul DVDS and the rise of the mall ninja stuff.

The last year or so I have been buying up old gun books, so far I have:

No Second Place Winner -Bill Jordan

Unrepentant Sinner - Charles Askins Jr.

Rifle and Rifle Shooting -Charles Askins Jr.

The Art of the Rifle - Jeff Cooper

To Ride, Shoot Straight , and Speak the Truth - Jeff Cooper

Hoglegs, Hipshots, and Jalepenos- Skeeter Skelton


I am mostly interested in stuff on rifles or shotguns but handguns are ok too.
 
All of Elmer Keith's books.
Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting by Ed MGivern
Shooting by J. Henry FitzGerald
 
jf89 said:
I am mostly interested in stuff on rifles or shotguns but handguns are ok too
Click to expand...
I like "Sixguns" and "Big Game Hunting" by Elmer Keith. Although the latter is more about big game hunting than guns, it does include a chapter or two about big game rifles - at least Elmer's definition of "big game rifles," which usually meant large calibers and heavy bullets.;)
 
If you want Gun Culture, get 'Hell, I Was There' by Keith. Shooting and hunting wasn't all he did.
You will realize how long ago that was when he mentions his Father in harness racing with Frank James.

'Rifles, a Modern Encyclopedia' is kind of a buyer's guide but there are a lot of 1958 attitudes in there. And Henry Stebbins was a good writer, a real professor, kind of like an Eastern edition of Jack O'Connor, but nicer. He wrote other books, too.
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripboo...ext=Henry+M.+Stebbins&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

I first saw the term "gun culture" in the FICTIONAL book 'Unintended Consequences."
If you want one writer's take on (violent) responses to an over regulated country, get it here before Nancy bans it.
https://www.amazon.com/Unintended-C...books&sprefix=Unintende,stripbooks,180&sr=1-1
 
Every single book listed above, so far.

My input:

Hatcher's Notebook. ISBN: 9778-0-811709359-5 A dead-stone must have/read.

Wolfe reprints are always a guaranteed success as a gift for me from my family. Very gratifying reads and great reference. If you build a set, note that they were printed in three different binding colors. Here's a reference to the line:http://www.wyomerc.com/wolfepub.html
51ihm8.jpg

GOT'S ta have a Brophy The Springfield 1903 Rifles book.
51ihoz.jpg

"Hell, I Was There" by Elmer Keith ISBN-13: 978-0941540162

"The Shotgun Book" by Jack O'Connor.



Todd.
 
Last edited:
If you want a real taste of "old school gun culture", try to find Pistols-A Modern Encyclopedia and Rifles-A Modern Encyclopedia, books written by my all time favorite firearms author, Henry M. Stebbins.

Edit: I didn't notice Jim Watson's advocacy of author Stebbins in post #5-we're on the same page now. :)
 
Last edited:
Todd

"The Collecting of Guns" by James Severn was the first book I ever had about guns when I was a kid. Still have it too.
 
“Shotguns and Shooting” by Michael McIntosh. He writes with love, much like Robert Ruark, while teaching a lot about shotgunning.

“The Muzzleloading Cap Lock Rifle”, by Ned H. Roberts (the guy for whom the .257 Roberts is named). A definitive book on black powder rifles.

“Firearms of the American West” by Louis Garavaglia, in two volumes; “1803 to 1865” and “1866 to 1894”. An academic history with great photos of rifles, handguns, shotguns, military and civilian, of the day.
 
Jim Watson said:
I first saw the term "gun culture" in the FICTIONAL book 'Unintended Consequences."
If you want one writer's take on (violent) responses to an over regulated country, get it here before Nancy bans it.
https://www.amazon.com/Unintended-Consequences-John-Ross/dp/1888118040/ref=sr_1_1?crid=16K95W1CNFUHY&dchild=1&keywords=unintended+consequences+by+john+ross&qid=1615574181&s=books&sprefix=Unintende,stripbooks,180&sr=1-1
Click to expand...

I can't believe it's still up for sale honestly. I'm going to have to pick one up, also anybody know where I can get a black market copy of "If I ran the Zoo"?
 
America's Premier GunMakers. A four volume set on how Colt, Browning, Winchester and Remington got started and progressed over the years. By K D Kirkland. Very Interesting at least to me. Found mine on Amazon. IMG_20210314_143952.jpg
 
tws3b2 said:
America's Premier GunMakers. A four volume set on how Colt, Browning, Winchester and Remington got started and progressed over the years. By K D Kirkland. Very Interesting at least to me. Found mine on Amazon.View attachment 984643
Click to expand...
My wife just got that set for me for this past Christmas.

Interesting aggregator-style presentation of the Makers. Fun to casually read and use as a starting point for further investigation. Too, I'd love to have a CD of the photos classified and categorized for reference.

fullsizeoutput_77.jpeg
Todd.
 
Jim Watson said:
A hundred and twenty bucks will get you 75 years of Gun Digest on DVD.
https://www.gundigeststore.com/product/1944-2019-dvd-set-75-years-of-gun-digest/

That is half an inch to an inch of articles and gun listings and prices per issue when in print.
Click to expand...

I am always curious about what you will get with something like this because frequently files are stored in some kind of proprietary obfuscated trashcan format, but it claimed to be PDFs. I ordered the slightly-cheaper earlier one covering 1944-2013 ($100 on Amazon) and I am happy to report that the PDFs are not only for real, they are named well so you can read them on any reasonable computer--even Linux.

I opened one at random and found an article in the 1958 issue (widely-held to be the year responsible for the best handguns *and* handgunners) and started an article by Elmer Keith: "The .44 Magnum ... One Year Later." This was a hundred bucks well spent, except that now I want to buy a 1958 .44 Magnum. Pricing will probably prevent that, but it is a great resource and I suspect I will spend a lot of time with this.

Thanks for the pointer--a tremendous pile of reading for the price of a box of 9mm self-defense ammo. All the other recommendations in this thread have been really good too.
 
By the way, using an inflation calculator which I expect is actually wrong but claims to use real historical numbers, the price of a 1958 S&W .44 Magnum revolver ($140) would be $1275 in present-day dollars. I don't have the Gunborker-mojo to find the sold-for prices, but that seems reasonably near the price a new S&W X29 seems to go for today. I imagine the 1958 models have appreciated slightly faster than inflation, though...

If you could even find one. Some day before I shuffle off, I have to get a .44 Magnum of some kind. For some reason I like the Redhawk, but a lot of people whose opinions I respect say that a single-action is the way to go. I have a feeling my wife would not agree with either choice. Sorry for the thread drift.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
  • Locked
How did LE set-up thier leverguns for duty in the old days?
2
Replies
38
Views
2K
shafter
S
Dave DeLaurant
Hoard of old Gunmags (the reading kind)
2
Replies
39
Views
2K
hps1
hps1
hso
It is important to read what is written about us
2 3
Replies
66
Views
3K
bdickens
B
Back
Top