PISTOLS & REVOLVERS From 1400 to the Present Day, by Martin J. Dougherty. Published by Amber Books Ltd., Dept. TGM, 74-77 White Lion Street, London N1 9P, UK. Price: $34.95. Available through Amazon and some bookstores.
This 224-page hardbound volume contains a half-dozen chapters, from Early Handguns to The Cold War & the Modern Era, an illustrated introduction, a short glossary, a good index, and scores of illustrations. (Even the endpapers are illustrated with WWI soldiers holding M1911 pistols.) Throughout this tome the handguns are in full color, with only a few of the period photos being black and white; this includes some advertisements, instruction sheets, etc. (There are a number of cut-away photographs, of popular or unusual handguns, so the internal mechanism can be observed.)
Although promoted as a Collector’s Guide this volumes usefulness is being able to compare a handgun to a photograph. There is text, but often the text is not on the same page as the photograph, or there’s a photo but no textual information or explanation. As an example, the Soviet PSM pistol is shown, but without explanatory text; the text on that page is on Czechoslovakian pistols, such as the CZ 75. (Each handgun illustrated does have a specifications sidebar to provide basic information, including Country of Origin, Date, Calibre, Weight, Overall Length, Feed/Magazine, and Range.) Remember this is a British publication so some of the spelling is a bit different. Dimensions are provided in both the metric and English systems, such as the caliber of the PSM is 5.45mm or .215 in.
The difficulty with a book of this type is including a representative model of each type of handgun ever produced is impossible, even if the author knows a specific model exists.
As examples, this reviewer knows of the following handguns, which do exist, but which are not mentioned or illustrated in this volume: L.E.S. copy of the Steyr GP, Merrill, MOA, Olympic, Remington XP-100, Savage Model 101, Weatherby, Whitney, and Wichita, which except for the autoloading L.E.S., Whitney and Olympic models, were single shot pistols. The Astra M900, but not the 901,902, and Model F, and Wildey pistols are mentioned, but not illustrated. (Remember, this is an English publication, so unless it was extremely popular, unusual, or distributed in Europe, if may have escaped notice, although the Astra pistols were popular in China and Europe in the post-WWI era.)
This is an interesting volume on handguns. It does not cover all models, but does include some handguns, such as the Gyrojet and Dardick, which never sold well, nor were many manufactured, but they were unusual. The Gyrojet fired small cartridge-size rockets, and the Dardick utilized triangular shaped cartridge
holders and could be converted into a rifle or handgun of a different caliber. How about a handgun firing the .38 Special cartridge and then a switch to a .22 rimfire rifle? With the Dardick it was possible.
This tome is worthy of reference shelf space, although a few more handguns could have been covered. As with most Amber publications the illustrations are excellent and sectioned handgun photos are superb; some handguns have the cartridge they are chambered for shown alongside.
