I am interested in getting into some gunsmithing for myself, nothing professional or anything.  I'm looking for a good illustrated book.  What do you guys use?

Keving67

Hoo, boy. Got a few thousand dollars?

Depends on what you're working on.

Good general books:

Gunsmithing by Roy Dunlop...

The Gun Digest books of Gunsmithing...

Gunsmith Kinks I-IV...

just to name a few.

Do this: get a Brownells catalog and go through and check out all of the books. Prices are high, so if you see one you need, try to look elsewhere. A very comprehensive selection in the catalog, though.

Edited to add: the catalog will usually come with coupons for their exclusive books, which will save you a bundle.

Well, what I am looking to do is to go buy a cheap VZ24 Mauser with a nice reciever and bolt and strip everything off, get a fat bull barrel in 223 and a timney trigger and a tactical/varmint stock and bed it and all the bells and whistles. Thanks

Keving67

What facet of gunsmithing are you interested in?

Like I said in your other thread, the Kuhnhausen shop manuals are tough to beat for the best information.

I own many gunsmithing books...some of them aren't good for anything but ideas, others contain good information if you have a basic understanding first.

The Roy Dunlop book is a good recommendation.  
Patrick Sweeney has a book on gunsmithing for rifles that isn't bad.  But it's heavy on pictures and kind of light on information, IMO.

If you're looking for info about customizing that Mauser, the AGI video that deals with the subject is not bad at all.

Edit:  Had to go answer the phone, and you'd already posted again before I got back.

For .223, you will have to weld up the bolt face.  That's not something you're going to learn how to do in a book.  You'll likely need to make some rail and feedramp mods, as well.  Again, experience and mistakes will be your professors.

Just my recommendation, but I'd choose a less ambitious conversion for your first project.

Yep, I've got the Kuhnhausen shop manuals on order at my local book store but I was looking for a good book that covers all facets of gunsmithing.  I've got a couple of rifles that could use some customizing and maybe a trigger job and some bedding.

Get Jerry Kuhnhausen's Book Mauser Bolt Actions, M91 through m98 A shop manual, this book should fill the bill for what you're planning, ads selling it and his other books are in shotgun news... looking at a copy of S.G.N, the company that sell these books website is www.gunbooks.com as a off the cuff suggestion, maybe consider the 22-250 instead, reason being, no invloved work on the bolt face will be needed as the rim dia. of the 22-250 is close to a 8mm dia rim,and would probably work as is, could save time and money.....

Hey, thatnks for the tip.  I completely forgot that the bolt face was going to have to be altered for the different cartridges.