Author: Michael McIntosh
Publisher: NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK, Dec 2008
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 0-89272-776-4
Synopsis
Subjects covered are wide ranging, from the earliest firearms to the author?s current favorites, & from technical discussions of barrels & ejectors to shooting techniques. McIntosh?s erudite & approachable style is familiar not just from his previous books but also from his columns in Shooting Sportsman magazine. Will appeal to hunting & gun enthusiasts everywhere. 6x9 inches, 240 pgs.
More Information
Following the success of his acclaimed books Shotguns & Shooting & More Shotguns & Shooting, Michael McIntosh continues his celebration of the shotgun in Shotguns & Shooting Three. As with his earlier volumes, the subjects covered are wide ranging, from the earliest firearms to the author?s current favorites, & from technical discussions of barrels & ejectors to shooting techniques. McIntosh?s erudite & approachable style is familiar not just from his previous books but also from his columns in Shooting Sportsman magazine. This book will appeal to hunting & gun enthusiasts everywhere.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
MICHAEL McINTOSH is one of the world?s best-known & most highly respected writers on fine guns & shooting, He has written more than two dozen books & is a regular contributor to such magazines as Shooting Sportsman, Sporting Classics, The Double Gun Journal, & Wildlife Art. He lives in Pella, Iowa.
Table of Contents
Part 1: Shotguns
From the Stone Age
Sisters in the Wood
The One I Love to Hate
Rediscovered Treasure
The 28-Gauge Renaissance
The Honor Roll
The Versatile Gun
A Good Closure
Chambers
Ejectors
The Long & Short of Barrels
The Second-Most Interesting Rib
Bringing Them Back
Like a Spaniel Without Ears
Some Old Wive?s Tales of Gunning
A Century of Guns
Part 2: Shooting
Methodology
The Arrow & The Indian
A Full Quiver
The Eyes Have It
On the Flip-Flop
A Show of Hands
Swing, Mount, & Shoot
Use Your Head, but Don?t Move It
Learning to Read
Touchy-Feely Stuff
Panic
Paralysis by Analysis
No Quarter Asked or Given
Incomer
One Short, Swift, Honest Chance
The Gunner?s Grail
A Step in Time
Making Allowances
Sin & Temptation
Distractions
Steady to Flush
Apples & Onions
Fit for a Fitting
Optimal Loads
Size Matters
Smallbores & Sportsmanship
The Danger
Upper Management
Excerpt
Excerpt from Chapter 1, ?From the Stone Age?
The substantial lapse of time between the trigger & the bang -- whether the mechanism lowered a smoldering fuse to a priming pan or set a serrated wheel spinning against a chunk of pyrite -- so dimmed the chances of hitting an object flying at any angle other than straight away that few gunners even bothered to try.
The change began about 1570 in The Netherlands, where gunmakers devised the snaphaunce lock. It combined the best features of the older systems with the new notion of igniting a powder charge through a striking action?the same concept on which firearms are still made. In the snaphaunce, it involves a chunk of flint gripped in the jaws of a cock. When the sear is tripped, a stout mainspring drives the cock forward, rotating on its axis, so that the flint strikes a steel plate -- variously called the hammer, steel, battery, or frizzen -- & showers sparks into a small pan of priming powder. The flash from this passes through a small vent in the side of the barrel & ignites the powder charge inside.
By the time the new system reached the full extent of its evolution, it not only represented the first truly great age of the sporting gun but also in great measure established the form of the classic gun as we know it today.