As a collector i want the stuff that i collect perfect, as a poor guy i am stuck with the obscure lower grade guns usually in poor condition, as a smith i know to restore these lower grade guns, and it all works out happily.


(before the picture below shows the gun after some restoration - an ebony ramrod was made later.)


( I got lucky with this gun, pretty, well made and fast handling by Calderwood of Dublin )

Generally as a history nerd and some what of a collector i am more interested in Hammer guns, pinfires, percussion guns all made as part of the british gun trade. Would really like to have a double flinter but they are just so expensive so at the moment i just have the idea of collecting up some parts to make one as a kind of test of skill and just for the enjoyment of it.

Anyway its a lot of writing there. I am a reader and i love shooting, but most of all i love smiting particularly the wood working aspect of it. I am very practically minded and can do anything when i put my mind to it ( pretty much ). I could read anything on guns and find it interesting.


( loss under a lock plate, mistakes happen and i managed to lose the orientation of the grain while i was making a repair as can be seen in the next image )


(it was so nearly a good repair. Luckily once it was darkened to match the rest of the wood you could not tell.)

Believe me the lists have been helpfull from my searching on your suggestions; gun craft by vic venters looks like it could be of interest and also Richard Game Guns and Rifles: Percussion to Hammerless Ejector in Britain London certainly looks to be interesting. So i think I'll go with those two to start with.

I'm looking to back up what i know from learning from the old boys and from my collecting and other reading and so on with that which is written academically. My collecting has not lead me to one specific maker, at the moment i just collect different mechanisms, bites, bolts, locks, which leaves me a good open field for my collecting on such a limited budget, kind of anything goes.

I think for future reading Michael McIntosh's 'Best Guns', as someone mentioned it also covers European and American guns of which i know very little about and its always good to broaden knowledge but i don't think I'll go for that one at this time.

Hopefully the pictures broke up the monotony of this post.