June 22, 2005

Dear Dave, I received it!!! My God, my man what a fine publication and the absolute shock of seeing my leather so prominently displayed was an absolute mind blower. I can not even start saying how much I appreciate your confidence in using this humbled mans work, but I will say a great big THANK YOU! The pictures turned out wonderful.

Your articles, especially on the types and qualities were very well done, I was especially gratified by your findings on the EMF Great Western II, as the owner is a friend of mine, and we served on the SASS Board "The Wild Bunch" together.

Again, it is a great publication, and very well done!

Thanks again, Dennis; aka Wes Terner, SASS #36 (owner Wes Terner Outfitter's)

ONCE AGAIN David R. Chicoine has come out with a Outstanding work ! June 25, 2005

Reviewer: John W. Culligan (Hamden, new york United States)

For those contemplating entering the popular ever growing COWBOY ACTION SHOOTING sport, Chicoine's new book is the best I've seen too date. This reknowned gunsmith/writer gives you a wealth of facts on the popular firearms of that period and moves right into the modern offerings and clones of those original firearms with outstanding details and thoughts on each. He covers the most popular handguns, percussion & cartridge,Colts,S&W's,Remington, Starr and others,the popular and most used rifles in the same thorough style, and shotgun too. I doubt you'll have many questions left to answer if you read this one, about making personal choices.

The book reeks with QUALITY,the book is filled with absolutely wonderful photographs of original firearms, clones,new offerings,leather goods for them,a color photo section that is breathtaking.

He then combines all this with a bit of history on the CAS sport, ammunition available for these, tests with the new guns & ammo,lovely photos of CAS shooters right up to the latest items just coming onto the market like the Colt Lightning slide action rifle. If this great book doesn't "fire you up" to get into this wonderful sport or for your own at "home" shooting ,nothing will. Daves books always seem to "come out" of the box being "classics" before they get around, This one is no different. The best I've seen on this topic to date

. . .and a personal message from the same reader: 6-25-05

Dave, Outstanding, I started in this morning, first off the pictures are simply great, they catch your eye. Love the ones of all the guys in period dress, they do enhance it, the firearms photos, leather, that colored picture section isOUTSTANDING, geez you got my mouth watering for that new Colt Rifle been wanting one since I heard they were coming out LONG time ago.  Just from the above the book shows QUALITY, top notch, and then you're coverage is just great, the first time I've read anything anywhere that covered each original and then the clones and leaves nothing lacking about these newbies. You're lucky I don't live near you because I'd have to volunteer to help you test stuff for the next one. Just impressive is all I can say, I think a perfect combination of facts, photos,"romance" of the old west. Reading it certainly fired me up to get out and do some shooting out back that I haven't done in about 2 years now, it sure should be required reading for anyone contemplating getting into CAS and for those already in it. GREAT WORK! Thank you. John Culligan

Author's reply: Tom,  I am delighted you like the book!  I too would like to have included about a dozen more guns but we were confined to a specific size and short time frame for this first edition so we had to limit the number of guns we tested. Given that, we tried  to pick most of the guns that for the most part are in popular use. The plan, if this goes as well as we hope it will, is to add another 12-15 guns in the 2nd edition including what you mentioned as well as guns like the new Spencer, Armi-Sport 1892, Traditions Remington 1875, etc. Thanks again for your support,  Dave