The IBOK's are all over the internet. Seems like Iowegan decided to lock the barn "after" the fox ate "all" the chickens! What most people don't know or understand is that the info in the IBOK's is already out there in various gunsmithing manuals, a goodly amount of it between the American Gunsmith books and articles, Kuhnhausen's books, J.B. Wood's books, George Nonte's Pistolsmithing book, etc., etc. Iowegan compiled a lot of this stuff, threw in his own experience and voila, the IBOK's! I have done the same thing over the years and have 21 three ring binders of gunsmithing info I have compiled for my own use. The difference is in the way I compiled mine. I may have gunsmithing info on 15 or 20 different makes of guns in one binder instead of say just the Ruger GP-100. I took prolific notes as I worked on guns as a good many gunsmiths do unless they have a "photographic" memory! I have them all on a master index so it doesn't take me long to look something up if I can't remember it off the top of my head! Although I have gunsmithed for 43+ years, there are some guns I have not had my hands on in 15 to 20 years so the binders are a good source to refresh my memories. Before anyone asks, no I do not intend to publish any of them! For sure, he put in a lot of work on these but the IBOK's are not the "only" source for working on guns. I would suggest that anyone wanting to do their own gun work start by compiling a good "library"! When I started working on guns in 1966, I already had a pretty good library started and simply continued to add to it as time went on and I gained "experience" as a gunsmith. I had 1050 books in that library when I sold it intact in 2002! I currently have a library of about 160 books. The info is out there, you just have to know where to dig it out! Amazon.com is a good place to shop for gunsmithing books at good prices.............................Dick :idea:
