An excellent new airgun resource book
by Tom Gaylord
A great new book!
For Christmas I received a copy of Richard Middleton's new book, The Practical Guide to Man-Powered Bullets, published in 2005 by Stackpole. This exciting book delves into all sorts of arcane questions relating to airguns and ultimately, I learned a lot from it.
If you're a serious student of airguns, you need this book.
The author isn't afraid to experiment, and he's also not bashful about telling his many mistakes. They come in the form of warnings, and are explicit enough to be rather effective - at least for me!
Middleton is a Brit, transplanted to the U.S., so he brings the British sense of humor and writing style but is now free to experiment with airguns to his heart's content. He is also a reader of Dr. Frank Mann's epic book, The Bullet's Flight, from Powder to Target, so he's done his homework and isn't likely to reinvent the wheel.
Towards the end of the book he ALMOST discovers Splatology, but misses by a hair.
Should I republish the R1 book?
Reading this great book makes me wonder whether I should have a second run of the Beeman R1 book. I see where the excess copies have just about dried up and people are starting to ask me where they can get one. We published 2,500 copies in the first run and it took 7 years to get rid of just that few. That's why I'm reluctant to take another plunge. I'll speak to some publishers at the 2006 SHOT Show next month and they may help me decide.
posted by Tom Gaylord @ 1:30 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Re R-1 book - How about redoing it to include all Beeman spring guns. You could title it "Master Manual of Beeman Spring Guns". Cover the tuning, disassembly and minor repair of the HW series and you would have something every HW gun owner would want in their possesion. What do you think? I believe you could sell 2500 of such a book.
Thank you for your kind comments. Actually, the R1 shares so many features with other HW guns that they are pretty well represented right now. Not completely, of course, but some are remarkably close. Putting in the other guns would entail as much work as writing a completely new book, so I doubt I'll do it.
Unfortunately, 2,500 book sales is too small to republish. I have to show a demand for 10-15K at least. That was what kept me from completing the TX 200 book I started.
But thanks, again, for your interest,
Tom
Would it be easier to republish the R1 book to a computer CD format?
I for one would love to see a collection of all of the old issues of "Airgun Letter",
re-issued in a CD format.
That valuble info isn't getting any newer, ya know!
Still current enough for people who have an interest in, or like to buy older (used) airguns though.
Dave
Dave,
Edith and I have talked about putting the Airgun Revues into some sort of lexicon and bringing them back. And the idea of doing the same for The Airgun Letter has come up.
The trouble is, I'm now writing about four times as much as I was back then, which leaves very little time for anything.
We'll see.
Tom
I just paid $65 to replace a copy that was destroyed (along with my collection of 32 airguns) in a flood. At that price, you'd make a killing! Publish it - please...
Post a Comment
<< Home