Rifle Building Books and/or DVD

[Wild Ed]

If a fellow wants to learn to build flinters which books and/or DVDs do you guys recommend?  Thanks, ET 

[old salt]

ET
I can't give you a defiant [sp]list of books or DVDs but I suggest you get a hold of the folks at

  AMERICAN PIONEER INC.
  P.O. BOX 50049
  BOWLING GREEN KY 42102-2649
 
  1-270-846-3538


Or check our their web site

http://www.americanpioneervideo.com/index.html

[Dogshirt]

I'll second what Harry said. I have their DVD set on building Hawken rifles, and even my wife found it
interesting. Herschel House presents it in a straight forward easy to understand way. Plus, you get to SEE
what he's doing as he's talking. Books are great, but they can not convey things the same as watching
someone doing something.

[pilgrim]

     The one book I have is, The Art of Building the Pennsylvania Longrifle, by Dave Ehrig, Dave Miller and Chuck Dixon.    Although I have never attemped any type of build.  I like to read on how thing are done.  BUT I am a wood butcher may as well use a chain saw   

[mongrel]

Ehrig, Miller, and Dixon's book is probably the best choice if a person will only be buying one book on the subject of building. Herschel House's videos are great -- I have those that deal with the construction of long rifles.

One thing to bear in mind, and this is of immense importance -- every builder writing a book or a magazine article, or putting together a how-to video, has his own way of doing things. "The Art Of Building The Pennsylvania Longrifle" for example deals exclusively with the use of hand tools, no electricity (unless a more modern edition than the one I owned and loaned out and will never see again, includes updated follow-up chapters). A series of excellent articles by Fred Stutzenberger, in "Muzzle Blasts" magazine, proceeds on the assumption that we all have milling machines and lathes for our metalwork. Herschel House makes use of a spindle shaper for cutting his barrel channels -- it took me a number of years to even find out what a spindle shaper WAS, and no I don't have one.

What you need to take from any source you choose to refer to is WHAT to do, and the fairly standard order in which to do it. HOW to do it is another matter. Every how-to text I've read states, correctly, that the first part to be inletted into a stock should (almost has to) be the barrel. Not a single one of those sources, except a few paragraphs in a final chapter of Jim Carmichel's "Do It Yourself Gunsmithing" (from which I took the technique) describes how to inlet a barrel the way I inlet one.

In other words, if you start studying up on building and find you don't have and/or can't acquire the tools for certain of the processes necessary to putting a rifle together -- but you look at the process and have a pretty good idea how to go about it with tools you DO have, or can get -- don't be put off or dismayed. Do it the way you can instead of holding off for who knows how long because you can't do it the way someone else does. Unless you're dedicated to the notion of a 100% PC building technique, done solely with tools powered by muscle and sweat, the method isn't nearly as important as the result.

[Red Badger]

Mike, Ya mean I can't look at the directions and then look to Bulldog Lady and say "I really want to build you this one dearest... but I need $35,000 for the milling system to do it.... Christmas is only 360 days away... it could be an early christmas present......"         



(help me!)

[old salt]

Sorry Badger but you are beyond help

[Dogshirt]