Book Review - Firearms of the American West 1866-1894

Firearms of the American West 1866-1895 by Louis A Garavaglia and Charles G Worman. 1985.

An A4 size book of over 400 pages, with lots of photos in black and white only. With chapters that cover military and civilian rifles and pistols this book gives a lot of detail about the guns in common and less-common use. While it does cover the more well known makes like Colt and Winchester it also give a very good introduction to the lesser know makes including the European makes that found their way to America.

Many of the pictures are period shots that show the firearms in historic settings, as well as contemporary photos of the guns alone. However, the small size of some of the photos does mean that some details are lost.

While the book is of coffee table size the lack of colour photos does go against it. But this more than made up by the range of weapons covered, many not covered in other books on the period that often just cover the better known firearms.

A good addition to the bookshelf of the more serous historian of this period.