Do-It-Yourself Gun Repair [Hardcover]

Edward A. Matunas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2003

Now you can learn to diagnose and repair a wide variety of hunting firearms in the convenience of your home workshop–and save yourself a bundle of money, too. Worn or broken parts? Less-than-perfect accuracy? A crack in your stock? No problem! With the detailed information and clear, step-by-step illustrations in this authoritative guide, you’ll learn to identify and correct common problems quickly, easily and safely. Find out what tools you’ll need, how to set up your work area, which supplies to keep on hand, how to make basic and advanced gun repairs and more. You’ll also find instructions for the disassembly, repair and assembly of seven of the most popular firearms–the Remington 700, 1100 and 870; Winchester 94; Savage 110 and Marlin 336 and 70–much of which can be applied to other guns with similar actions. Each entry is lavishly illustrated with photos, drawings, exploded views, a parts list and more. If you’re a hunter or shooter who wants to keep your rifle, shotgun or handgun in top working order, make space for this book on your library shelf.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Learn how to diagnose and repair a broad selection of popular hunting firearms, including rifles, shotguns, and handguns, safely and inexpensively. Also included is a special section covering disassembly, repair, and reassembly of seven of the most popular firearms. The instructions are highlighted with over 200 photos and 50 illustrations as well as exploded views and parts lists.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

For gun collectors and gun enthusiasts alike, if you want to do your own gun repair or simple maintenance, this book is what you will need. Excellent, detailed description of each task is accompanied by superb close-up photos. We printed this book in a large format just so you will be able to keep it open while following along with a certain project. If you currently work on your own guns, or are thinking about doing so, then this book belongs on your shelf!

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Woods N' Water Inc.; First edition. edition (August 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972280421
• ISBN-13: 978-0972280426
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Terrific value at this price, May 31, 2007

By 

Joe D "RealGuns.Com" (Raymond, ME) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Do-It-Yourself Gun Repair: Gunsmithing at Home (Outdoorsman's Edge) (Paperback)

Most of us have come to understand the differences between performing routine maintenance and accessory installation, and chambering and fitting a new barrel. If you are standing in the midst of expensive machinery, and you know how to use the equipment with a quality result, you don't need this book. If you'd like to install your own scopes, recoil pads, replace small parts and tinker with a gun to improve its accuracy, you would probably find this book to be useful.

"Do-It-Yourself Gun Repair" is presented into five logical parts: An Approach to Gunsmithing in the Home Workshop, Basic Maintenance and Repair, Disassembly - Repair and Reassembly of Popular Firearms, Advanced Techniques, and The Final Steps. The book begins by showing ways of assessing if your firearms need work or maintenance, then it move on to a chapter dedicated to determining the scope of work that could reasonably attempted. There is a chapter presenting common and useful hand tools and a brief section covering frequently used power tools. The section that follows, which addresses the work area, special tools and parts supplies is pretty sketchy. A chapter titled "Thinking Like a Gunsmith" is thoughtful, but not substantial enough in content to assist someone in acting on some of the suggestions.

"Basic Maintenance" is more of a page filler. It mostly advises how to clean a firearm, something that could be found in many sources, including packaged in a cleaning kit. A follow on section covering analyzing and correcting accuracy problems is well written and, based on my own experience, would be very useful to almost anyone. "Ten Easy Gunsmithing Projects" is OK, but the projects are a little specialized and most lead to purchasing tools or material Brownells. The section isn't bad, I just believe there are more universal and common projects, and I am not taking a poke at Brownells. They are one of the best tool and material sources out there for us gun owners.

There is an excellent section regarding proper scope mounting that results in centered optics and proper hardware alignment, and included the proper use of shims under mounts for the purpose of leveling. This is an area so fundamental to good accuracy and frequently people don't take the time to perform this task correctly. The section on various firearm disassembly and assembly is actually very good. The author includes popular firearms, very good illustrations and photos, assembly tips, and coverage of common problem correction for each specific firearm.

Some of the information offered in other sections is not so directly useful. You are not going to learn how to checker from half a page of text and one picture of a checkering tool; artistic craft work takes a lot of talent and practice to master. There is an eight page chapter, chapter 23, dedicated to drilling and tapping a firearm for sights that is decently done, but you would need to purchase a $160 B Square Professional Drill Jig or a $400+ Foster Scope Mounting Jig to do the job, and you would have to possess the basic skills of drilling and tapping and how to properly set up fixtures. There is a good information addressing the repair of stocks and fitting a recoil pad, but they all presume prior woodworking and machine operating skills and the use of some specialized machinery and fixtures. Work of this types, to justify the cost of fixtures, needs to be a frequent requirement or it is easier and less expensive to drop the gun off with a good gunsmith. Still, it doesn't hurt to know what you are asking a gunsmith to accomplish when you purchase services.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Love the book, not the author, August 20, 2005

By 

Shakey_Sam "Sam" (Rural Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Do-It-Yourself Gun Repair: Gunsmithing at Home (Outdoorsman's Edge) (Paperback)

This is a great book for people aspiring to become a professional gunsmith. It may have some usefulness for the normal gun owner as well. The detail and comments provided show this book was written by someone with an extreme amount of knowledge and experience in the subject. Unfortunately the author realizes this and wrote this book to reflect it. His egotistical lectures of exactly what the reader should do go beyond what I expected to gain from this book. Then there are the contradictions that lead me to not believe in the author's knowledge as much as I did when I started.

If you want a very technical guide on how to become a professional gunsmith, this is the book for you. If you want a Do-It-Yourself Gun Repair Manual (Gunsmithing at Home) look elsewhere.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good reading, October 6, 2005

By 

S. R. Karby "recon1911" (NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Do-It-Yourself Gun Repair: Gunsmithing at Home (Outdoorsman's Edge) (Paperback)

A great general reference. Ed did a great job with this one. I can say confidently, I enjoyed this book. Not a bad investment if you want to get a small taste of the craft. Enjoy, and thanks Ed!