Jump to content

New Book: H&R Arms Company 1871-1986, by Bill Goforth


Recommended Posts

After many years wait this 628 page book has been published. It covers pistols, rifles and shotguns.

 

I comunicated with Bill Goforth a number of years ago about British purchases of 3,000, 1 1/2 inch signal pistols in WW1. It will be intetesting to see if this infirmation made it into the book.

 

Unfortunalty, Mr Goforth passed away a few years ago so never got to see his book published.

 

The book is available from Gun Show Books. www.gunshowbooks.com

 

Regards

 

AlanD

Sydney

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alan,

 

Thanks for the news on the H&R book. I heard it had been in the works, but was not sure about its status, and thought it might never materialize.

 

I'm just about to submit my order for a copy. Do you have the book in hand already? If so, can you tell me if it has an Reising coverage, from the Model 50 SMG to the Model 65 and later Reising .22 rifles?

 

Thanks!

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will let you know when my copy arrives, I got Bruce from Gun Show books to send me the contents page for Reisings, I dont want to trouble him again.

 

Regards

 

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The book is more of an detailed catalogue of the different models and variations of everything H&R made. There is some good info on serial numbers.

 

I am sure there would be more detailed info around on the Handyguns than that contained in this new book.

 

Regards

 

AlanD

Sydney

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I opened the book last night, and want to provide my observations so far.

  • The book arrived quickly, very well packaged, and shrink-wrapped
  • The binding and construction of the book is of very good quality
  • It has a dustcover, and a large, embossed H&R symbol on the book cover itself

I welcome this book, because it's about a gun company that has not had much written about it. The author, Bill Goforth, passed away 3 years ago, and one of the individuals who contributed to it after Goforth's passing also passed. I'm guessing it took a lot to put this together under those circumstances, and I certainly thank anyone who had a part in publishing the author’s unfinished project.

 

The content I have reviewed for H&R handguns appears to contain good detail, and there are some serial number indexes included. Overall, I believe the author had a great interest in H&R handguns, and not so much of an interest in H&R rifles, particularly the Reising Submachine Gun, and Reising .22 Rifles. As most here know, I have a keen interest in the Reising designed H&R guns, and so I'm a little disappointed in the book's coverage of this subset of H&R firearms. That being said, I did find one piece of information that I had not seen before, which was part of a catalog that I don't have in my collection. Here are some other observations:

  • Most of the book illustrations are from H&R catalogs and manuals
  • There are a few firearm marking comparisons, but photos of actual H&R guns and their markings or variations are few
  • Some firearms have extremely basic coverage

One thing I like about the book is that the author is very frank about what he knows, and what he’s not sure about. He bases most of his dates upon when items appeared in H&R catalogs, and implies that his coverage is sometimes limited based on the content of his paper item collection. This is most apparent in coverage of H&R rifles.

 

Here are some more observations:

  • The author had little interest in H&R military firearms
  • Coverage of the M1 Garand, M14, T48, T223, and Guerilla Gun are limited to one paragraph of text, a scanned catalog page, and two small photos of the M4 Survival Rifle, and H&R manufactured M-16 taken from the internet
  • Reising Submachine Gun coverage is one page
  • The only specifics mentioned about the Model 55 was that it had a folding wire stock
  • It has 7 pages of coverage of the Reising .22 designs, including the Model 65, 165, 150, 151, and 700 regular and Deluxe models
  • Coverage of the Reising .22’s is limited to specifications, and a page from a catalog featuring the various rifles
  • The MC-58 is not mentioned correctly in the book – It is referred to as the Model 58C, and erroneously states its dates as 1944-1945 – There is no other mention about this rifle, except for the erroneous model name and date
  • One piece of new information it provides is that the Model 165 was offered as a special order, but did not appear in catalogs between 1947 and 1958, and then it reappears in catalogs from 1959 to 1961

I’m still evaluating this book from an overall perspective. I’m curious if anyone else has observations they would like to offer up.

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...