Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Figured I'd dig up the links to free downloads of some public domain books that could be of interest .

"Helmets and body armor in Modern Warfare"
1920
by Bashford Dean, Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://books.google.com/books?id=6OeO9_ ... &ct=result

Plenty on the state of the art personal armor up till WW1 and shortly afterwards

I'll try to add a link or two every day, and sort them out by subject .
Takes awhile to look through my documents and figure out where I got them to begin with.


"the 131st US Infantry in the World War"
by Joseph Brown Sanborn, George Nathaniel Malstrom - 1919 - World War, 1914-1918 - 723 pages


http://books.google.com/books?id=ycsLAA ... &ct=result


International Military Digest Annual 1919
by Cornélis De Witt Willcox, Edwin Roy Stuart - Military art and science - 1919

http://books.google.com/books?id=eoMDAA ... st+journal

cool

Bumping to add
To the Mountains of the Moon : Being an Account of the Modern Aspect of Central Africa and Some Little Known Regions Traversed by the Tanganyika Expedition, in 1899 and 1900:
http://books.google.com/books?id=eypXAA ... &ct=result

Should be of interest to those interested in Lee Enfield sporting rifles of the turn of the century, and those interested in big game hunting in africa.

A couple more oldies but goodies
The Gun and its Development
by William Wellington Greener - 1907 -
http://books.google.com/books?id=3HMCAA ... &ct=result

The Encyclopedia of Sport
by Henry Charles Howard Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire ... - 1897

http://books.google.com/books?id=tgoMAA ... &ct=result


The Book of the Rifle
by Thomas Francis Fremantle, 1901
http://books.google.com/books?id=eHQCAA ... &ct=result

Bumping this because I found an extraordinary and valuable reference work that should be of great interest to our Springfield 1903 Rifle collectors and shooters, and to anyone interested in the processes of old time quality gun manufacture on a mass production basis.

http://www.archive.org/details/unitedst ... 00colvrich

"United States rifles and machine guns : a detailed account of the methods used in manufacturing the Springfield, 1903 model service rifle; also descriptions of the modified Enfield rifle and three types of machine guns (1917)"

PS
Adding this book written during the early stages of WW1. It has a good honest rundown on the qualities of major military rifles in use at the time.

"Rifles and ammunition and rifle shooting" By H Ommundsen and Ernest Herbert Robinson
1915
http://books.google.com/books?id=kd_NAA ... t&resnum=1
Read online or use the PDF link at top to download free for future refference.

Really neat reference works. Thanks, Gun Nut, for doing the research.

For any that enjoy "Audio Books" there are thousands available in the public domain free of charge at the link below...

Lots of good manuals here for free, donations accepted. Also a god site if you are looking for NFA stuff.

http://www.biggerhammer.net/manuals/