Small Arms of the World: 12th Edition [Hardcover]

Edward Clinton Ezell (Author), Thomas M. Pegg (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 894 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books; 12 edition (December 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811716872
• ISBN-13: 978-0811716871
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.8 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,517,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars About as good as it gets, July 13, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Small Arms of the World: A Basic Manual of Small Arms (Hardcover)

I highly recommend these Small Arms of the World books, due to the good coverage of Curio and Relic firearms, how you can take them apart to clean them, how they operate, pictures of individual weapons, interesting diargrams of some popular guns, and just simply the most information you are going to get on semi-automatic and full automatic firearms, at least that I can find. Seems that especially machine gun technology is some kind of restricted information somehow, at least in newer books, but at least these Small Arms books can help a former U.S. Army machine gunner like myself understand a little better how the guns I was checked out on,actually worked in principle. So, if your quest for knowledge is machine guns, then I defintely recommend these books. And if your quest for knowledge is Curio and Relic classified firearms, then especially the older versions of the Small Arms books are what you need. The newer ones kind of water down really old technology, while paying special emphasis on what was hot technology at the time, like a early seventies Small Arms will talk in depth on current American small arms like the M16, but will have minimal space on bolt action rifles, for instance.
I definitely recommend the 1969 9th edition as a good all around "get you by", if you just wanted one edition on older Curio and Reic Firearms, if you are a collector of Curios and Relics like me.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The one and only guide to small arms, September 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Small Arms of the World: A Basic Manual of Small Arms (Hardcover)

I am an individual who has worked in the realm of the governments and military's of the world. This is the one and only unclassified guide to small arms of the world, outside of Jane's defence publications. Ezell and Smith have published the only book that is widely used by small arms enthusiasts and people who rely on small arms information in their daily work. I only regret it is out of copy.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important To Have, December 3, 2000

By 

Fuzzbean (Nangoku, Japan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Small arms of the world: A basic manual of small arms (Hardcover)

For the person interested in modern military small arms, this book is the place to start. It presents the material well, with good photographs, understandable diagrams, and interesting text. Hopefully an updated version will come out someday, but I don't think anyone will regret buying this one now. In fact, I have an older edition from the 1960's that I treasure for it's better coverage of now-obsolete firearms, special emphasis on World War 2 German designs, and more complete history of firearms through the centuries. This edition, on the other hand, gives more attention to weapons developed during the 1960's and 1970's. No doubt, after some future edition finally brings us up to date on modern high-tech weaponry this book will still be a valuable snapshot of the variety of arms in use throughout the world during the final decades of the 20th Century.

I highly recommend this book as the starting point for a good understanding of the small arms field, or as plain old good reading for the relatively technical-minded gun enthusiast.