I recommend these books without reservation (get them from Amazon or ABEbooks): Kuhnhausen - shop manuals. 1911 and Colt, Smith, and Ruger revolvers. Six volumes total. Whelen - Small Arms Design and Ballistics (2 volumes) Sharpe - Complete Guide To Handloading Sharpe - The Rifle In America Hatcher - Hatcher's Notebook Hatcher - Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers Mann - The Bullet's Flight From Powder To Target Fryxell - From Ingot to Target Boothroyd - The Handgun Keith - Sixguns Keith - Hell I Was There! Smith - Book of Pistols and Revolvers Wilson - Textbook of Automatic Pistols Vickery - Advanced Gunsmithing Several of these can be found free for download. Also, the following volumes of Handloader Magazine contain indispensable reliable handgun load data (all available from Amazon): 76, 170, 217, 218, 233, 236, 241, 246, 253, 255, 264, 270
Okay, time to get serious on a book-by-book basis. The Kuhnhausen books are the first and last word on 1911 tinkering. Volume One (sometimes called Volume One and Two combined... hard to explain) is the one book all 1911 owners must own. They are both available for free in PDF format: Kuhnhausen Volume One Kuhnhausen Volume Two Alternate source for Volume One: Here Alternate source for Volume Two: Here Paperback reprints of both books are available from Amazon and other sources. Some folks are critical of the Kuhnhausen books, but they are really all there is out there. I have all the other books as well, and these are the ones I use to do my hammering and sawing on 1911's.
Thanks for the links looks like they might be better quality than the revolver one that I bought years back it was so poor of print you could not make out a lot of detail and that has kept me from buying these on the 1911.
Glenn Fryxell wrote the ultimate book on bullet casting, bullet selection, lubrication, sizing, seating, and related topics. He made the book freely available to the public via the website of his then shooting club: From Ingot To Target
Franklin Mann made an exhaustive study of everything that influences the flight of a bullet, and published the completed study in 1909. The book was promptly forgotten until Julian Hatcher, Chief of the small arms division of the U.S. ordnance department, declared it to be the most important book ever published. It is an especially difficult book to read, but deserves all the attention you can give it. It will be a revelation to anyone hoping to engage in long range rifle shooting. The book is in the Public Domain: The Bullet's Flight From Powder To Target
Major General Julian Hatcher decided it was his patriotic duty to make sure that the vast amount of stuff he learned would not be forgotten. Truly one of the four or five greatest books on small arms design ever written: Hatcher's Notebook
Phil Sharpe had a hunting buddy by the name of Colonel D.B. Wesson. Then one day, while shooting at some food, they discovered the 357 Magnum. Another one of the indispensable gun books. Phil Sharpe got a raw deal from the Elmer Keith fan club, who insist on crediting every damn thing to Ol' Elmer. Another of Phil Sharpe's shooting buddies was a fellow named Harry Pope, whom Franklin Mann credits with providing him with numerous "Gilt-edge" rifle barrels. What I'm trying to say is, Phil Sharpe is The Man: Complete Guide To Handloading
Here's a bunch that I've managed to get by constantly scouring the book sites and only buying when I could get something for under $25:
I have enough loading manuals to stand on and see the parade. It's interesting how, occasionally, a powder maker will silently drop bad data, like the data for using AA9 under light bullets in small pistol cartridges
