American Rifle: A Biography

[74novaman]

Interesting history book on the development of the rifle and its relationship with the development of the country. I'm only about 100 pages in but like it so far. Just curious if anyone else has read it, and I'll update when I've finished the book.

[kragluver]

I read it about a year ago. Its a pretty good book and does a good job of tracing the development of US military rifles. From what I understand, the author was not a "gun guy" and there are a few mistakes, but its a good read nonetheless. I found the chapter on the Hall rifle particularly interesting - I actually had a chance to handle the Hall Rifle that was pictured in the book. I saw it for sale at a local gunstore here in North Texas. Also the bit about James Paris Lee getting crossways politically with US ordnance was interesting - and may be one of the reasons the Krag rifle was adopted over the Lee (which also finished strong in the magazine rifle tests in 1892).