Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats A very cool reference book

After two months of screwing around with a barely functional internet book seller I finally got my hands on a fairly rare book:



It is mostly high quality black and white photos of rifles and a few shotguns stocked by Al Biesen, Lenard Brownell, Winston Churchill, Jerry Fisher, Dale Goens, Gary Goudy, Richard Hodson, Monte Kennedy, Earl Milliron, Maurice Ottmar, Philip Pilkington, Duane Wiebe and Robert Winter. The conventional side photos are included of course, but other aspects are included (like straight down on the butt, or straight up under a Winchester Hiwall action and its two piece stock to see how the wood and metal flow.) It is a real study in the details that give each stockmaker their signature look.

Published in 1979 by Dove Press of Enid, OK. First (and I think only) press run was 2000 copies numbered and signed by the author. It is one worth keeping an eye out for.

I had the privlege of meeting the author at an NRA show in KC, MO a number of years ago, I purchased a copy of his book then.

Looks like a book to have. I've put the feelers out.

I have a copy of the book I bought from Jim Wisner, I believe.. he carried it to conventions and shows and whatnot. He had the makers listed in the book sign their respective chapters.

That would be impossible to do these days, as several have passed away. I would be surprised if you had Brownell's signature, as he died in about 1983, only a few years after the publication of the book.

Very cool, nevertheless. Only thing cooler would be to have a stock or rifle from each of the people covered in the book.

My friend did the same thing at a shot show years ago with this book. He didn't get all the signatures but quite a few.

I have a copy (not numbered) signed by the author to Grits Gresham in December 1979. It has some water damage. I read somewhere a large number of copies were water damaged in storage.