• Hatcher's Notebook (by Julian S. Hatcher)

    Hatcher's Notebook
    Author: Julian S. Hatcher
    Publisher: The Military Publishing Service Company (1947)
    ISBN: 978-0-8117-0350-5 (Hard Cover Edition)
    Format: 636 pages including plates (Electronic Version)


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    Observations extracted from Amazon description of hard copy version

    Starting with the '03 Springfield and '17 Enfield, this authoritative guide describes the development of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, explaining how they work, barrels and experiments with obstructions, strengths and weaknesses of military rifles, receiver steels and heat treatment, headspace, recoil problems, gunpowder, corrosion, triggers, and the Pederson Device. It also covers noted gun makers, tips to match ammunition, interior and exterior ballistics, velocity variation, measuring methods, weights, overloads, and ranges. Invaluable information for shooters, gunsmiths, collectors, ballisticians, and hunters.

    Wikipedia reference-linkJulian Hatcher was a retired U.S. Army major general, technical editor for The American Rifleman, and author of Machine Guns, Pistols and Revolvers and Their Use, and Textbook of Firearms Investigation, Identification and Evidence. He was director of the National Rifle Association from 1922-1946.



    Collector's Comments and Feedback:

    1. Hatcher's Notebook is also available for preview reading on-line at Google Books (Click HERE). ...... (Feedback by "Badger")

    2. A unique feature of this electronic version of "Hatcher's Notebook" is the capability to search and preview any of the 636 pages. This is due to the Adobe PDF file format used to create the electronic version. It makes it very easy to find content throughout the book. As an example, say you wanted to find all pages that referenced "heat treatment", this can be accomplished much faster with full text searching than one could do with a hard copy version. ...... (Feedback by "Badger")
    Comments 4 Comments
    1. Gordp56's Avatar
      A friend of mine bought an original hardcover at a swap meet, got me hooked. GREAT book.
      I got a new, revised edition, all there plus updates, from Amazon, about $30
      Here is the link if anyone wants a paper copy:
      Amazon.com: Hatchers Notebook, Revised Edition (Classic Gun Books Series) (9780811703505): Julian S. Hatcher, Ned Schwing: Books
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    1. oldmartins's Avatar
      I have a 3rd printing copy dated 1967, it is, as described, fascinating reading. Everyone on this forum would likely find something there that grabbed their interest. All failures on 1903 Springield's that the author could find
      were documented, it's full of photos of him trying out various machine guns and rifles. I found it fascinating how poorly we were prepared in terms of machine guns for WWI. There was still so much skeptical thinking
      on behalf of the powers that be in the military regarding their value that we were sadly out-gunned at that point. French machine guns were a disaster, the Pancho Villa raid across the mexican boarder in 1916 makes for great
      reading as we used the Benet-Mercie guns against him.. get a copy and read it. It's jammed full of stories that only someone there could tell. It may be the most important work relating to many of the guns we collect and
      maintain in existence. Thanks for pointing it out Badger.
    1. RT Ellis's Avatar
      I acquired reprints of both "Hatcher's Notebook" and "Hatcher's Book of the Garand" which I was first aware of from library copies. Both of these books are very interesting first person accounts with illustrations, and I recommend the "Notebook" to anyone interested in firearms and ballistics. For those interested in the M-1 rifle Hatcher wrote his personal experiencs and observations (unlike the current herd of C&R writers), and is very interesting reading.
    1. 303tom's Avatar
      I have a Hatcher's Notebook, great read !..................
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