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Sam Pikula's AR-10 book available on Kindle


Josey Wales

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Just a head's up to the community that Sam Pikula's seminal work on the Dutch Armalite AR-10 rifles is now available on Kindle. Copies of the original
have regularly traded in recent years for hundreds of dollars and this is a great way for enthusiasts to get access to the material without paying an arm and a leg for a hard copy, even when one can be found.

While Collector Grade Publications recent offering on the Dutch Armalite's was of course well received by the community, it only supplants Pikula's earlier work, it does not replace it, and there is a difference between a book written by someone who has "been there, done that" and one written by an author with no actual personal experience. There are plans to reprint Sam's book (as he has been urged to for many years) but in the meantime, a Kindle copy is an easy, efficient, and cost effective method of having access to the material. If you've never had the opportunity to read this book, don't pass this up.

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I'm happy to see a scarce book reprinted.  I went ahead and purchased the Kindle version.  

Optical character recognition (OCR) is a useful tool.  I spent a couple of years OCR'ing a book after I helped the original author regain the rights to his book, and the revised edition was published last year.  He did not have the original manuscript, which was written before computers were available, so OCR was the easiest way to regain it.

However, proofreading after OCR'ing is highly recommended.  I'm not sure Mr. Pikula read the first paragraph after he OCR'd the book.  This could definitely be improved.  That being said, I am glad he made the book available via Kindle.  I just want folks to know they will find awkward translations and misspellings when they read the Kindle version.

The following excerpt is shared as a preview of the book on Amazon, and is the first paragraph from the "preface" section, which is the first paragraph from the old book.  It is the same in the full Kindle download.  I share it as a limited book review.  

"Most firearms enthusiast’s know very little if anything about the ArmaLite AR-10 series of rifles. Few have even seen an AR-10 much less owned or fired one. This is unfortunate as the AR-10 was as much of a groundbreaking weapon as the Thompson Sub-Machine Gun, M-1 Gar and, or the 1898 Model Mauser Rifle. Until the AR-10, half of a rifle consisted of a dead tree, and the other half was made of steel on the verge of oxidizing. The AR-10 ions the first standard infantry rifle to be constructed using plastic instead of wood for the stocks, pistol grip, and handguards, and the first to use rust proof aircraft aluminum in the receivers."

I look forward to reading the rest of the book, but when I saw the two errors in the first paragraph from the old part of the book, and others  as I began to read it further, I realized the Kindle version of the book had not been effectively proofread.

David Albert
dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

 

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Mr. Albert,

Thank you for buying my book and I apologize for the errors. When it comes to things I care about I'm a closet perfectionist and nobody is more pained by those mistakes than myself. Going in I thought having the book scanned would be a relatively easy process-it wasn't. Following my graduate degree, I'd finished writing a book on my ten years working in Iraq; and while waiting upon approval from the DOS and DOD for publication authorization I staked out some time to reprint my AR-10 book. Unfortunately in this wondrous age of digits and widgets things aren't as easy as they should be. I had my book professionally scanned and converted to ePub but it was a long and laborious process as much of the scans garbled and jumbled large portions of text and pictures. The "Gar" "and" lept out at me but for some reason the imaging service just couldn't splice those two syllables together. Incredibly it was FAR easier to have my book printed in Lithuania from scratch a handful of years after the Soviets left than to get it scanned in 2016/17 America! It got to the point I'd do screen shots of mistakes and e-mail them to the imager for correction. When an old mistake was corrected, a new one would pop up. It was akin to ten steps forward and nine steps backwards. I am not chastising the imaging service as they worked hard and spent a great deal of time making "crooked things straight".  However I was starting my second masters degree, writing my third book, and had no time left. When I reached the 99% solution I had to launch. 

I hope you like my book, and I also hope all those folks who paid $300.00 plus dollars for my original book aren't too mad at me for doing a reprint ;-)

Sincerely,

Sam Pikula

 

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6 hours ago, Sam Pikula said:

Mr. Albert,

Thank you for buying my book and I apologize for the errors. When it comes to things I care about I'm a closet perfectionist and nobody is more pained by those mistakes than myself. Going in I thought having the book scanned would be a relatively easy process-it wasn't. Following my graduate degree, I'd finished writing a book on my ten years working in Iraq; and while waiting upon approval from the DOS and DOD for publication authorization I staked out some time to reprint my AR-10 book. Unfortunately in this wondrous age of digits and widgets things aren't as easy as they should be. I had my book professionally scanned and converted to ePub but it was a long and laborious process as much of the scans garbled and jumbled large portions of text and pictures. The "Gar" "and" lept out at me but for some reason the imaging service just couldn't splice those two syllables together. Incredibly it was FAR easier to have my book printed in Lithuania from scratch a handful of years after the Soviets left than to get it scanned in 2016/17 America! It got to the point I'd do screen shots of mistakes and e-mail them to the imager for correction. When an old mistake was corrected, a new one would pop up. It was akin to ten steps forward and nine steps backwards. I am not chastising the imaging service as they worked hard and spent a great deal of time making "crooked things straight".  However I was starting my second masters degree, writing my third book, and had no time left. When I reached the 99% solution I had to launch. 

I hope you like my book, and I also hope all those folks who paid $300.00 plus dollars for my original book aren't too mad at me for doing a reprint ;-)

Sincerely,

Sam Pikula

 

I picked up a copy of your AR-10 book around 20 years ago when I stumbled upon a 'Heinz 57' AR-10 built on a Hahn re-welded AI receiver.  Your book is a wealth of information.  Thank you.

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