Fighting Iron: A Metals Handbook for Arms Collectors

It doesn't matter whether you collect guns, swords, bayonets or accoutrements - sooner or later you realize that it all comes down to the metal. If you don't understand the metal, you don't understand your collection. And, since most of us aren't metallurgists, we need a guide to help us. A guide that is easy to use, explains things in simple English and covers all of the different historical periods that we are interested in. "Fighting Iron" has nine illustrated chapters and four appendices, as well as endnotes, a bibliography and a detailed index. Topics include iron in antiquity, iron products of interest to arms collectors, steel alloys, non-ferrous metals, the working and forming of metals, heat treatment, corrosion, and "the laboratory."