Very good but some 'infractions'
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This book is an excellent guide for those of you who are into the world of guns. Contrary to 'major tom' the mp-5 base model is included in the 2005 edition. however, despite my high praises for this book it would be nice if the weopons in it were kept more up to date i.e. more recent weapons, but the old guns should stay in! There are various (now) common use assault rifles which have not even been mentioned in the text, as you have to check each description for the sub models and variants. Some of the weapons included for instance, the israeli magal, barely saw service since there were problems which forced it to be withdrawn from service, so blatantly should be omitted. However, this book is a worthwhile buy, especially at the price it is sold on amazon (£11 as opposed to £20)!
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Very good, but not quite good enough.
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First up I'm going to echo what everyone else has said about Jane's Guns - "every firearm in use today."
Eh?
Off the top of my head it's got no HKMP5 (but does list the MP5K), only lists one Thompson submachine-gun (variants have important differences). The Sten MK3 is no longer present. The revolvers section is full of ancient Beaumont - Adams revolvers and old pre-war Webleys, but it does not list the WW1 Webley MK VI Service Revolver and the Colt Peacemaker which are surely more common than these other marques. Strangely, the Webley MKVI was featured in older editions of Jane's Guns. There are no Mateba Autorevolvers. There is no Enfield SA80K, though it does list the L86 DMR (on the cover) and the L85A2 (SA80). The Colt Commando shortened M4 Carbine is removed. Some bolt action rifles are missing. There are many other omissions.
Conversely, the section on Machine Guns is as vast and exhaustive as ever, even pre-WW1 designs are featured. Surely these are encountered more rarely than a Colt Peacemaker or an HKMP5. There doesn't seem to be much consistency.
Also, some detail is incorrect. This would be understandable if it was a cheap, toilet-dwelling, time-passing throwaway reference guide, but it's an expensive identification book and you'd expect more quality for that kind of money. And if not quality, quantity.
On the plus side, it is well written, there are some darkly amusing passages, especially in the Machine Guns category and despite the omissions it still lists a huge amount of firearms and accurately explains (in the main) how to identify, unload and make safe the vast majority of guns in the world. Until someone gets fed up and makes another better guide, there is no better reference book for small arms in the world. Unfortunately.
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not much changed
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this book is much the same as the previous books only the size has changed it gives the basics but never mentions pro's/con's of weapons its users,diffrent models,too many pistols not many modern weapons the ex warsaw pact states weapons,new czech army rifle,hungarys AMD but has many obsolete pistols ww1 webleys, is very similar to the first two books
i was hoping for something new but did not get it,more new guns and less old that have been covered in every other book.
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Good, but not good enough!
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As a book which is advertised as being an essential guide for those who need to be able to recognise weapons, customs officers, police etc. It just doesn't cut it! At first it appears to be an excellent guide to recognition, not cluttered by too much detail of the tech specs of each weapon, however once you scratch the surface the errors start to appear. In the cover picture, should the cocking handle of the MP5k be on the right?
Pictures that are quite obviously not of the weapons claimed (FN CAL), weapons wrongly named (Barrett M90 labelled as M82a1), write ups that don't match the weapon (M16a2) and there are many more.
I counted nearly 50 mistakes in this book, and for a book by Ian Hogg this just isn't good enough.
Enough of the negatives now, this book does the job that it is intended for, and the section in the back about markings on weapons has helped me ID many obscure old/ rare revolvers and other weapons.
Hopefully the new 2002 edition of this book will have rectified these faults and will cut the mustard with those in the know!
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Good but not what I expected
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This is a very good book, but it didn’t have all the firearms I expected, e.g. Steyr Scout and Remington 700, which are along the lines of what type of firearm this book has. It would have also been nice to have seen more information on the firearms, but saying that there is a lot there! I would have given this book a lower score because of the errors and the fact it lies on the cover as it says “Every firearm in use today”, which it obviously doesn’t, as it doesn’t even include under levers and well known tactical rifles like the Rem’e 700 and Steyr Scout. BUT there aren’t many books like this around and give information on this level, be it a smaller ‘I know what this weapon is and a little it about it’ level and NOT a detailed ‘that’s how it works’ or ‘smeg me it takes a 20mm cannon’ level. Defiantly a book to have if your interests sway in this direction, but be warned it doesn’t have all the weapons you probably would like to read about, but hay, there is still a good amount there, and what this doesn’t have is gained by what it has! But, yes another but, if you are looking for pics and detailed information there is just too much in here for the author to have written about! Don’t let that put you off it is still a good but, I am just trying to give you a heads up.
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