Review:
Book Of The Rifle
Jim Carmichel, best known for being the Shooting Editor at Outdoor Life, was also a top notch competition shooter in High Power, Long Range and Benchrest disciplines. Now retired, he was one of the few truly authoritative gun writers that combined proven, winning shooting skill with a well studied history combined with an approachable writing style.
The Book of the Rifle is his masterwork and remains possibly the best single text on the subject. It is an incredibly complete look at the rifle, its history, development and application. Though primarily focused on the hunter and sportsman, it covers some aspects of military application and competition.
The history of competition shooting is incredibly important to both firearms and marksmanship development and I wish Carmichel spent some more time on it, but I suspect this made his book more approachable to typical hunters and other gun owners.
The section on marksmanship was shorter than I would have liked, especially considering Carmichel had the chops to elucidate further, but his approach was both novel and useful.
If you ever wondered how rifle work, I mean how they REALLY work, and why, this is the book to get.
Firearm User Network 
May 16, 2012 @ 12:34:04
You may be interested to learn that Jim Carmichael, Dean Emeritus of American gun writers, just last month set a new benchrest record in both heavy and light varmint classes.at the 11th Annual Shamrock Shoot in Dublin Georgia. The previous records had stood since 1994 and 1982 respectively. When asked why he enjoyed benchrest shooting, Jim houmorously replyed, “Because old guys can do it!”.
LikeLike
May 16, 2012 @ 16:30:53
Outstanding!
Benchrest competition taught us how to build the rifle. Conventional competition like High Power and Smallbore taught us how to build the shooter. Mr. Carmichel pursued and realized success at both.
LikeLike