Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35755 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Today we have naming of parts
Vintage British Shotguns: A Shooting Sportsman Guide

This book is very well produced - good quality paper, excellent colour photos in the middle, good black-and-white photos throughout. So good, in fact, that I was disappointed it was not in a larger format. It hits all the right notes, emphasising the importance of wanting such a gun for use rather than ornament, and acknowledging the importance of the social connotations of the English country-house weekend as part of the appeal. The author writes directly (and ruefully) from his own experience of the weather conditions in which the English shooting party is often expected to operate, and explains how this has had an influence on the design of the old-school English shotgun.

Surprisingly, there is no mention of one of the principal reasons for the relative cheapness of fine-quality guns in the UK as opposed to what they fetch in the USA, i.e. the rigorous gun control which has made it increasingly difficult to be a gun owner in the UK. And, given the wealth of illustrations which characterise the book, I found it strange that nowhere is there an "exploded diagram" of a shotgun clarifying what all the arcane terminology refers to - if you don't already know where the "fence" is, for instance, this book won't tell you.

I noticed one mistake. As a Londoner, I can say confidently it is not true that the Army & Navy shop in Victoria Street is "the only department store operating in the Mayfair district" (p204). Its rivals include Harrods, John Lewis in Sloane Square and Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge. But at this point the book had clearly deviated from its area of expertise. Buy this book if your primary requirement is a good accessible introduction to the subject in hand, and one which happens to double as a "coffee table book" to show your friends into the bargain.