Gunsmithing Made Easy: DIY Projects for Home Gunsmiths | Firearm Maintenance & Customization Guide for Beginners

The phrase in the title of this review is a quote from the second chapter of this book and epitomizes the practical, wise and accessible approach of the author.No book can be all things to all people, and a book on home gun smithing will necessarily reflect the types of guns the author already has in his collection. Though there is a great deal in this book that is generally useful, its primary focus is on bolt action rifles. Likewise, the audience of this book is people familiar with tools and generally familiar with firearms but with zero experience doing their own gun smithing.Understanding its focus and audience, then, this book is absolutely fabulous, and I consider it to be one of the best in its genre.This book is filled with the sort of information that helps you short-cut the experience curve by learning from the author's experience rather than your own. Having learned some of the material in this book the hard way, I can really appreciate the value of what the author is offering.I do a considerable amount of home gun smithing on a wide array of rifles, but there are some things I haven't done, such as shortened and re-crowned barrels, because I lack equipment such as lathes. This book explains precisely how to accomplish these tasks without lathes!He starts at the very beginning by explaining not just what tools you need, but why you need them and how they are used. He also includes a number of excellent tips won from his experience, such as using rosin to hold a barrel in a barrel vise. This book goes from basics such as installing recoil pads all the way through building a custom rifle using a short-chambered barrel and an in-the-white action. Along the way, he covers Duracoat finishing, glass and pillar bedding, trigger work, rifle maintenance, how to choose used rifles and more. This is all painstakingly documented with excellent (and I mean excellent) photos.Will this book turn you into a superb gunsmith overnight? No. Mastery of any field takes about 10,000 hours of work, and no book can give you that. But this book will get the beginner off to a great start while helping to avoid common pitfalls. Safety (both gun safety and shop safety) are stressed throughout.This is a great book and I highly recommend it for those interested in maintaining and enhancing their own rifles or rehabilitating old rifles.