Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Henry M. Stebbins

Anyone here remember a writer named Henry M. Stebbins? I have a copy of his Rifles: A Modern Encyclopedia, presumably picked up on Amazon. Published by Stackpole, 1958. Can’t recall him from any other books or articles, but the book is pretty good, better than most of that type. Amazon has one copy just now.

When I searched the name, I found mentions of two books, the one I have and a similar one on pistols. I also found mention of him in an article by Ayoob, here:

https://www.backwoodshome.com/marlin-336/

That site has possibilities. Gonna bookmark the home page for later.

Reminds me of Mother Earth News.

Yeah, I remember him because I'm an old fart like you Pappy. To my knowledge he only wrote those two books (and like you I have copies of them and admire the utility of them), but he also wrote magazine articles. Don't ask me where, I remember reading them but not when/where. He had a folksy no-nonsense style of writing, kind of like a mentor speaking to a student which struck home to my young inexperienced self. I remember checking the books out of the local public library and devouring them.* I had kinda forgotten about him until a couple years ago when a good friend mentioned him during a cross-country phone conversation. I turned around and snagged the books off the internet, re-read them (delightedly), and put them into my own library.

*Oh for the days when public libraries had very complete sections devoted to gunnery. Ours, in Hagerstown, MD, must've had a couple hundred such books - and I probably read them all as a teenage kid. (The hell with Shakespeare, Steinbeck, and Hemingway when I could be reading Whelen, Sharpe, and Stebbins!!) They even had one, published in the late 1920's, devoted to the science of pyrotechnics - chock full of recipes for explosives, fireworks, bombs, and other amusements. I remembered that book when a couple decades later I paid a home call on my old favorite place, that library, and was shocked - shocked, I tell you - to not find it still on the shelf!

Yeah, Kinda, sorta but more practical. More on guns. It was originally centered out of Gold Beach Orygun, they had real off grid methods and tips. I still have a homemade Pelton wheel generator I built from their plans. And an outdoor smoker resembling a Motel 6. The best canned albacore recipe ever came off the pages of that magazine. I eventually met Mac McPherson on a fishing trip over there, we spent the best part of an afternoon gabbing about cast bullet methods and results. He was the real deal. I see now it's out of Corvallis, that's some red flags right there...or blue flags, LOL.

Henry M Stebbins was one of Paul Matthew's mentors in shooting pursuits. Paul probably mentioned him 1/2 dozen times in the various books I've read of Paul's. Mb

That book is full of little nuggets of information. Found one last night in the chapter on imported sporters. I have a Heym 98 .308 I found, on GI IIRC, in North Pole, Alaska. None of the other Heyms I’ve seen are quite like it, and even Mike from the USOG channel said he’d not seen one either. Anyway, Stebbins wrote that Heym was the only maker at that time making 98s in Germany. Mine is very close to a military pattern action, thumb cut, C-ring, clip guide, and a slide-off floorplate with locking screws in the guard, two-position safety on the left, and a bolt handle forged to clear a scope. Barrel is numbered to the action, has F. Wilhelm Heym in scroll-ish characters, and decent open sights. Nice little piece, lighter than the 336 I had a couple years ago.

You’re correct about his writing style. Folksy, or maybe conversational, but not stuffy or snooty at all like some from that era.

Just snagged a couple of other books of his to add to the pile my children will have to cart off someday…..

He also wrote How to Select and Use Your Big Rifle.

I believe Stebbins beat EVERYONE else into print with a mention of the .30-30 Ackley I mproved cartridge in his Rifle Encyclopedia.
Stebbins even beat Robert Hutton who wrote the introductory article for Guns & Ammo.

I believe I have a Stebbins book on varmint rifles. He wrote a number of GUN DIGEST articles into the '60s as l recall.

Yup Stebbins begged him to stop shooting his 45-70 handloads in his early manufacture 1886 Winchester. Said they were dangerous. Matthews wrote Winchester and they said stop shooting them immediately. Matthews wrote Elmer Keith and Uncle Elmer said "you can't get enough 3031 in a 45-70 case to blow up an 1886. Early model or not" So Matthews went right on shooting them. 😂

Those are the ones I picked up today.

Yeah, but did any of them slap a strain gauge on their guns to see just exactly what kind of pressures they were dealing with? Not bloody likely back then, and submitting ammo to White's Laboratory for pressure testing was damned expensive. Show me the real world data before I go believing any of 'em. Stebbins (I'll bet), as well a host of others wasn't a wild-eyed velocity nut, choosing as most rational shooters do - to err on the side of safely going through life with both eyeballs intact in his head.

Scovill wrote about folks pushing 76s I believe and they get by until they don’t. Surprise! IIRC those failed at the threaded portion of the barrel, not the toggle link as one might expect.