Carl, et al., (that’s “and others” for you iron collectors),
I stand by my assessment of “Projectiles II”. I try to refrain from this topic when it comes up, because I fear it will appear no more than “sour grapes” coming from me since I am the author of a similar reference book. However, the topic was presented by others, and I obviously have serious feelings regarding the repetitive presentation of incorrect information in reference materials.
Carl, your very own words seem to support my views: “while it might not any longer be THE book for bullet identification…” and “there are now more accurate and more complete choices for reference.” We are discussing REFERENCE books here, so the latest factual information available should be what any collector seeks. So by using past tense in reference to Projectiles II you prove my case.
Do not confuse my statements about the contents of a book with feelings about the authors! It seems any bad word about this book is seen as a personal attack on M&M. I most certainly agree that this was an important and ground-breaking reference. It was also my first “bullet book” that I happy admit I wore out thumbing through the pages. Even in the more recent past, prior to smart phones and the internet, this book was very useful, not for the identifications (as there were still many errors), but because as we all admit, everyone had a copy. You could converse with fellow collectors and simply mention the M&M# and all involved could view the specimen in their respective books wherever they were. But now, we can just send a bullet “selfie” to friends for comment or identification thus eliminating even that use.
But new research (probably unavailable to M&M) has come to light. And while many identifications have yet to be discovered, that doesn’t validate older “educated guesses”. The subject of this thread is “Recommended Reading”. So, when asked, do you recommend a source with the best available information, or the book you had as a kid that was written by two great guys?