Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles, 1866 – 2016
This is pretty definitely going to happen, since it’s been in production for years now and also because it is (at this moment) at nearly $40,000 of its initial $25,000 kickstarter target. So there are already a lot of pre-sales.
I am more excited over this project of Ian’s than anything previous, both because I know the man personally and think the absolute world of him, and because I was one of the copy editors. I’ve done a lot of editing and proofing of ponderous tomes on technical topics over too many decades, and I know engaging writing when I (rarely) encounter it. It’s rare enough in fiction: In non-fiction it’s an oddity. But I’m telling you I read hundreds of pages of the text-only document on a subject that frankly isn’t one of my passions, and it only confirmed what I already knew: Ian McCollum is a skilled and delightfully witty writer. And that was before I saw the page layout and photography, which I now have, and it is first rate.
Ian has established himself over ten years or more as the first name in peculiar and obscure firearms, but what his many fans (1.2 million Youtube subscribers and rising) may not all know is that his particular interest is – well, French military rifles, the subject of this book. Chassepot to FAMAS is a collector-grade book written for rifle collectors, and as such goes into exhaustive and sometimes maybe exhausting detail on all the things a collector would need to know on every variety of every rifle fielded by the French army and navy between the Franco-Prussian War and the end of their colonial period. And while I may have just made that sound as interesting as a treatise on the chemistry of latex, here’s the thing: I had to study the text of this book, and I frankly wasn’t looking forward to the experience. But Ian, may the gods bless him, made the subject interesting.
Yes, it’s a specialized and rather expensive book. I’m not going to suggest that all TUAK readers rush out and buy an advance copy. But check it out. If you’re a rifle enthusiast, you might well find it worth your time.
Full Disclosure: No, I’m not being paid to write this. 🙂
ETA: Gun Jesus speaks!
I shouldn’d spend $85 on a book, I don’t really care about French rifles … But damn it I want a copy of this book.
You know, something I should have thought to put in the post: What I found so interesting in the text didn’t really have anything to do with the specifics of those particular guns, which are really just developmental European tomato stakes. But that period covers the whole drama from black to smokeless powder and the revolution in gun design it made inevitable. The perfection of breechloading systems, the move from paper to brass cartridges, the development of the primer, of the jacketed bullet. Needlefire/pinfire/rimfire/centerfire, the evolution of the bolt action, the devolution of the bayonet. Why was obturation a big problem and what did they do to solve it? I’d never heard that word before I read this book but it turns out to be the key to the whole thing. It’s really the story of a major upheaval in the history of firearm development, encapsulated in one nation’s line of military small arms during that period. It’s fascinating.
You are not helping me resist spending money.
Damn, you just made me spend $92, Joel.