Those of you who read the last “Words of Wisdom” and did not sleep through high school English  will no doubt notice the foreshadowing of this review.  Lest you should be surprised by the appearance of such a sophisticated literary device, bear in mind the many times I have told you there is nothing short about this operation. – Ed.

Anyone passingly familiar with hook-and-bullet literature has read the first-hand account of a peerless sportsman who has performed some amazing feat of outdoor prowess.  Perhaps he hiked alone into Montana’s Bitterroot Range, lasered a bull elk at 400 yards with a custom rifle based on a wildcat cartridge of his own design, quartered the animal and packed it back to base camp, and then lit a campfire by striking a match on the stubble of his grizzled chin.  Or maybe he caught a 1,000-pound marlin from a kayak on a hand-tied fly dangled from an 8-weight rod he built himself.  Who are these demi-gods of the outdoors?  Not Bill Heavey.

Heavey, an editor at large who writes the humor column for Field & Stream, is more recognizable to us ordinary mortals.  As fellow F&S editor David Petzal writes in the foreword, “Bill is an everyman who may be the most inept sportsman ever to grace the magazine’s pages.  On the other hand, he may simply be the most honest . . . In short, his boneheaded mistakes are our boneheaded mistakes.”

The quote in “Words of Wisdom” epitomizes Heavey’s writing.  Note that he does not expect to see a deer.  Note also that like many of us late in the season, he is out there freezing anyway.  He begins the same chapter with, “I never expected to say this, but here  goes:  I’m glad the season is almost over.”  This combination of enthusiasm and fatalism is the essence of why we do it.  We are disappointed when we don’t succeed, but not overly much, because we really didn’t expect this time to be any different than the last.  But next time, just maybe, next time . . .

Heavey’s misery is not confined to hunting season.  Of fishing, he writes, “Did you ever have one of those days on the water when you happened to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and caught fish until you were sick of it?  Me neither.”  Instead of a demi-god, we find in Heavey an actual human being.  We find ourselves, which is what we really seek in all literature if you believe certain critical analysis.  “Like many ineffectual people, I am addicted to the transitory endorphin buzz that comes from impressing somebody besides my own mother.”  Folks, that’s me, that’s probably you, and that’s certainly armchair.

Should you wonder for a moment whether Heavey has the true humor writer’s faculty of gently  ripping your guts out with a serious tale, read the shattering “Lilyfish,” an account of the passing of his baby daughter.  If weeping openly before others bothers you, maybe save this one for a private moment.

In short, Field & Stream continues its tradition of disgustingly good writing and Heavey makes his own mark on a publication that’s been around longer than all of us have been alive.  That in itself is no mean feat, Mr. Heavey.  Your mother and the rest of us are impressed.

(Note: The U.S. edition of the book bears the subtitle, “Collecting, Restoring & Shooting Classic Firearms,” in place of, “For the Modern Shot.”)

I must begin this review with a disclaimer: I met the author and he is a thoroughly decent fellow. I had the pleasure of making Mr. Hadoke’s acquaintance at a gun auction in Columbia, South Carolina, and he was good enough to autograph a copy of the book to me. Don’t get any ideas; I gave the full ticket price for it. There’s no payola on this site, not that I haven’t tried at every opportunity to encourage it. “Dig,” as his friends call him, was even good enough to accompany Raimey and me to lunch with some other friends after the conclusion of the auction. It was therefore with some trepidation that I undertook to review the book. What if it were disappointing in some way? I could not break bread with a man and then savage his work, nor could I very well tout something as a good read that left me cold. As it turns out, I needn’t have worried.

Vintage Guns is a rare gem and a solid contribution to the sporting literature. Pedagogical without being pedantic, exhaustive without being exhausting, the book traces the development of British sporting shotguns and explains their form and function in meticulous detail. That said, it is no desiccated history lesson. The aim of all the data is to enable someone with no knowledge of these functional works of art to purchase one and actually take it out into the field and use it. The pages fairly reek of leather and gun-oil with a little wet dog thrown in, and if that doesn’t appeal to you, this is not your book.

The author’s own 1889 Purdey sidelock ejector graces the cover, and if these terms don’t mean anything to you, they will after you read the book. Bear in mind this is not a museum piece, it is the author’s preferred shotgun for hunting. Hadoke describes and exemplifies a personality type he calls the “practical eccentric.” A psychologist might say “obsessive compulsive,” but the classification as the author uses it is not pejorative. The notion is that one can take great pleasure from learning the history of these old firearms and by restoring them, using them, and caring for them, one can become in some measure a part of that history.

Diggory Hadoke certainly deserves his place in that rich history. Toward the end of the book, he lists his “top ten” volumes for a gun room library. Humility and modesty prevent him from adding his own work to that list. Let me do so now.