Which books, on buying and/or collecting rifles, should I buy?

[vYu223]

I have never owned a gun. I have never bought a gun. I have never taken one apart. Never cleaned one. I've only shot a rental (ruger 10/22) at a local shooting range. So I know how to take out the magazine, load it, operate the safety, and fire it (I also, of course, know the safety rules at the range). That's it. ... That's not a lot of knowledge about guns, at all.

I'm thinking about educating myself more about buying and/or collecting before I buy a gun...

So, first, I'd like to start out with one book. Then I'll move on to other books. Which should be my first book?

Things I'm looking out for is buying used rifles. What do I look for when inspecting the bore of a rifle; what is good/bad/etc.? What other things do I have to look out for, besides matching numbers? What about the "headspace"? Etc.?

I'm looking for a book that would answer all of these questions (not limited to, but including).

Thanks!

[renardsubtil]

What sort of rifle are you looking to get into ? Semi-auto? Bolt Actions?

I guess I'm not quite a book person, about all my purchases have been made based on my research on the internet.

I'm a "new" collector myself, I just started buying up assorted rifles (and a few pistols) in February of this year. The majority of my research for my older C&R rifles has been on various internet forums (namely Calguns and SurplusRifle dot com)...this researched covered everything from cleaning regiment to collecting, sighting a target, etc. When there wasn't a topic I found, I just posted a new thread, it's not a big deal, that's what forums are for anyways. For something more specific on a rifle I had like dissassembly or parts explanations, if I couldn't find it on the 'net, I'd just purchase a book based on recommendations from the forums I visited.

As far as going out and purchasing stuff...
When i'm usually out on a hunt for a c&r firearm purchase, I'm usually very well armed in my research of the type an selection of models for the rifle I want to buy. I read as much as I can online and if I think it's a nice piece, I'll buy a book on the rifle - for example, recently I picked up book on the Springfield M1903 and it's variations. This book helped me with the approx serial numbers available for the model and the various parts available. Based on the items I found I could kinda figure out the possible condition and worth of my rifle and I'm pretty happy with the rifle I ended up buying.

As far as the factors in buying a used rifle - getting yourself a bore light is always nice but imho the majority of the old rifles not bought from an individual seller tend to all have realyl dirty barrels lol! you really don't know what you're getting until you get home and clean the thing.

Headspace, is always a nice thing to get checked from your local gunsmith...personally, if I know where the rifle is coming from and the bore looks very shiny after I clean it, I'm usually not very worried about this.

Matching numbers? a lot of older rifles will have what appears to be a mixed set of parts - this is where a book comes in handy, most books will give a break down on what parts will have matching numbers or what serial numbers are within appropriate range of the rifle - for example - my Swiss K31 has completely matching serial numbers on it's stock, bolt, and receiver. My HRA M1 Garand had parts from Springfield and HRA and none of the numbers imprinted on the parts matched what was on the receiver, was this bad? not really, they were components made in different factories and stuff and the numbers matched up with the year in which the receiver was produced.

Anyways, I wrote way too much...hopefully this helps a little!

-Marcus

[vYu223]

Thanks; sorry for the excessively late reply... I just haven't been sure about my seriousness about actually buying a gun. I was thinking about how often I'd use it [at the range], etc., etc. I'll go to the range several more times using the rentals, do some more reading, and hope that my parents don't freak out about their eighteen-year-old son buying a gun.

I'd prefer to get a book though. I'll still do a fair share of research on the internet, but I'd still like to get a book.

I'm looking for bolt actions, but I'm assuming the book I'm looking for probably covers both bolt actions and semi-auto. Rifles in particular.

has anyone else here in calguns actually bought a book on buying/collecting? Or did you all do your research on the internet?

Maybe this thread is not in the ideal section; maybe it should be moved?

[renardsubtil]

If you're going to get into C&R rifles, this site below is a good place to start imho.

http://www.surplusrifle.com/

You'll get a complete dissassembly/assembly pictorial for most popular C&R rifles out there and if you view the right panel for a particular rifle write up, you should see a list of related books/articles if applicable.

For my personal collection of C&R stuff, I did most of my reading of assembly/dissassembly and function tutorial reading on the web because there are many very good picture guides to follow. When trying to determine a rifles collectibility and unique features (serial numbers, stampings, etc), I purchased a book on the particular rifle I was interested in.

For example, my recent acquisition of a Remington 1903A3 was sort of on a whim, however I knew that the website above could give me a great tear down tutorial so I was confident I could take it apart and clean it...but that was only "part" of the rifle, the other cool part was the history and I wanted to know what year the rifle was made and why it had so many stamps and stuff on the receiver, so I went out and purchased "The Springfield 1903 and it's many Variations" which gave me a really good run down on every stamp marking on my rifle - I even found out that my particular rifle held a duplicate serial number and that the bolt was made by Chrysler Corporation....

If you're really iffy about the whole gun purchasing thing but still want something to "learn" with, IMHO a nice little Ruger 10/22 is a great rifle to start with and books would be easy to come by about it - the General or Rifleman forum will definitely have a lot of people who could point out what books you could read on it.

cheers.
-M

[gunn]

If you're going to get into C&R rifles, this site below is a good place to start imho.

http://www.surplusrifle.com/

If you're really iffy about the whole gun purchasing thing but still want something to "learn" with, IMHO a nice little Ruger 10/22 is a great rifle to start with and books would be easy to come by about it - the General or Rifleman forum will definitely have a lot of people who could point out what books you could read on it. I'd recommend this gun before building up your own AR-15.

cheers.
-M

These two are great points of advice. I've grew up with guns in TX (dad and his friends always had them) but I didn't start buying my own until about a year ago. Here are three guns I recommend

- The 10/22 is a great platform to learn how guns really work simply because it's cheap ($220 @ Big5 on sale), there's a huge enthusiast following (rimfirecentral.com), and there's a huuge aftermarket. At 2.2c/rd and with a lot of things you can do for a little elbow grease to improve the accuracy of this rifle (rimfirecentral.com), it's the honda civic of rifles and you will learn a lot about shooting and tweaking from this one gun alone.

C&R guns:
* My personal favorite is a Schmidt-Rubins K31. They aren't as cheap as they were in 2001 (so my friends tell me), but you can get one for $200. This was the first C&R rifle I purchased after reading up on how accurate the Swiss made this bolt action rifle (see surplusrifles.com). A really great value and really nice to shoot. Their surplus ammo is similar to what others would rank as "match grade" and runs about 45-50c/rd. With hollowpoints, you can even use this to hunt so it covers three items in my collection (bolt action, military surplus, and possible hunting rifle).

* if you want to start out with something cheap, there's nothing cheaper than the Mosin nagant M44 or 91/30s for ~$79 from Big5 or the internet (once you get a C&R license). It's a piece of history, you can have the experience of picking out your pick of the litter if you buy retail, and its quite affordable to shoot (if you mail order it by the brick). As far as accuracy goes, it's nothing special.

[renardsubtil]

I said to buy a Ruger 10/22 before building up your own AR-15? Lol! I THOUGHT that same thing when I wrote it, how in the WORLD DID YOU READ MY MIND like that?!

[Jarhead]

My three recommendations to start off with, after that a book that specializes on your favorite but to set the ground work nothing better than these three.

http://www.manatarmsbooks.com/smowbrayBA.html

http://www.manatarmsbooks.com/smowbray.html

Bolt Action Military Rifles of the World
by Stuart C. Mowbray & Joe Puleo

plus:

Collectors Guide to Military Rifle Disassembly & Assembly

331 Essential Tips and Tricks

[Hopi]

Unintended Consequences by John Ross

[Sampachi]

+1 on 331 Essential Tips if you want to collect firearms. Doesn't have anything on shooting basics, just collecting.

[Silver Puss]

My first gun book was Smith and Smith's Small Arms of the World. I was 8 years old and it would be years before I bought my first gun. This book made me aware of what was available and enabled me to set my collecting goals early in life. I probably read the book (or at least looked longingly at the illustrations) every day from age 8 to 17. I fantasized about one day owning a Tokarev, Ljungman, Finnish AK, or FAL and now I have them all. Set down in the pages of this book was everything I lived for. During a 15 year period of my life my only reason for going to work was to earn money to buy the guns I craved as a boy. Then I met the "right" lady and married her and virtually overnight my priorities changed.

At age 19 I finally got around to buying my first gun. I read Larry Koller's How to Shoot which describes the various types of firearms and tells how to handle them safely. I did not have a "gun mentor", so everything I knew about firearms came from books. I did not want the big boys to think I was a complete newcomer. In that respect, the book helped a lot.

A friend at the university who was more into shooting and handloading (as opposed to merely collecting) than I was recommended Hatcher's Notebook as a technical reference. The last edition was published in 1962, but I cannot think of a more recent book which is as authoritative in the things that never change (ballistics, headspace, etc). General Hatcher's masterful prose cannot be replicated by modern day gunslicks. In comparison I've seen some really dreadful writing in the CRPA newsletter.

I will now list some other books that I have found useful (or if not really useful, then at least interesting).

Bolt-Action Rifles - De Haas
Semi-Auto Rifles - NRA
AK47 and Kalashnikov Variations - Tokoi
Drei Linien - Die Gewehre Mosin-Nagant - Wrobel
The SKS Carbine - Kehaya and Poyer
The Enfield Story - Skennerton
Mauser Military Rifles of the World - Ball
Mauser Bolt Rifles - Olson
The Mosin-Nagant Rifle - Lapin
Proud Promise - French Autoloading Rifles, 1898-1979 - Huon
Sotilaskasiaseet Suomessa 1918-1988 - Palokangas

[Surfdog]

Unintended Consequences by John Ross

Just finished this book.....absolute required reading for everyone!