TwoBob;

We are fortunate to have had Donald Dallas to describe all the processes that he has done in the David McKay Brown book. However Dallas does not do this in any of his other books on the gun and rifle makers that he has written about. I am pleased that you and I jointly admire the David McKay Brown book so well, and it is my opinion that this book will go down in the written history of the UK gun trade as a jewel.

As the David McKay Brown history by Dallas is so different from his other books on the gun trade history (except for the beginning of the book with the history of Brown's life and career), I must attribute this to possibility that David Brown himself outlining and prescribing what he thought was important to discuss and illustrate in the book. The fact that the book is in so much detail and even shows photographs of the hand tools used daily by Brown's team of gunmakers will be of great interest to readers 50 and 100 years from now. Such tidbits as Brown's barrelmakers stating that he deposits soot from his blacking lamp on the barrels as a polishing abrasive after the barrels are blacked is something no other barrel blacker I have encountered has ever done or heard of doing.

What I do not look forward to is the next chapter in the David McKay Brown story. He and I were born 2 days apart in 1941, and it only a matter of short time before both of us exit. In Brown's shop I see no one standing by to take up his business and carry it forward. I hope my vision is cloudy and there is someone capable and prepared to take the business and make it even better; and better is not the correct word, I venture to say.

As a side note, back in April 2019 Donald Dallas was here in the USA in North Carolina and I gathered all my Dallas authored books that had not be signed by him and took them to North Carolina and he signed them for me.

Stephen