Thursday, September 10, 2009

Gun Digest Book of the AK and SKS by Patrick Sweeney

I get the urge to consider/reconsider the AK-47 every now and then but until now never had enough of an urge to actually learn more than what was in a U.S. military manual.  When I did I picked up this book, The Gun Digest Book Of The AK & SKS: A Complete Guide to Guns, Gear and Ammunition by Patrick Sweeney.

It was a good book providing adequate detail without mind numbing trivia and that would be all too easy to do. E.g. I've heard of people building AKs like some build ARs but wasn't quite sure what they had to go through to do so. Now I know. I fully understand how the AK is put together and what the really important differences are such as the rear trunnion affecting which type stock one could use.

If I have a criticism about the book it is that the editor must have taken a day or week off. Particularly towards the beginning there are a number of typographical errors, several of which could have been avoided with proper use of MS-Word spell check. If you can decipher the content despite these errors, and you SHOULD be able to, then it isn't all that big a deal. However, I have to take a moment to say that I think this basic editorial task is all too often ignored in modern day publishing houses as I see far too many such errors.

All in all a good book and a worthy introduction to the AK and SKS weapons systems.

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