Firearms Manuscript (1 results)
Guns designed & built and articles written -- 1957-72-73-74 [Manuscript scrapbook photo album]; Most basic design gun 14 mm (.53 caliber) recoilless pocket artillery M8/78 [illustrated shadow box].
[FIREARMS -- MANUSCRIPT & OUTSIDER ART]. RAMSAY, Robin S.[tuart].
Published by Robin S. Ramsay, 1955-1974; 1978]., [Corona, CA; Los Angeles, CA; & Germany:, 1955
- Hardcover
- Signed
Seller: Zephyr Used & Rare Books, Vancouver, WA, U.S.A.Zephyr Used & Rare Books
Contact seller5-star sellerFourteen parts in 2 vols. [8]; [40]; [26]; [36]; [34]; [34]; [22]; [30]; [24]; [30]; [80] pp. Illustrated manuscript title page, 13 photographs sized 2.5 x 4 in. up to 8 x 10 in., with 105 colour plates, colour text illustrations & drawings (several large folding), black & white text illustrations, blueprints, diagrams, pen & in…k drawings, several blueprints, colour manuscript endpapers. Gold linen, manuscript paper label on spine (wear to corners, offsetting from glue marks on covers for adhering fabric to boards, inner rear hinge starting, many manuscript notes in ink & pencil), VG; 4to. 8.5 x 12.25 in. shadowbox, w/ mounted examples and actual samples of the barrel, ramrod, front & rear supports, primer, cartridges, and hand-done manuscript illustrations of the weapon, 1970 Mercury cougar, signed and dated by Ramsay, covered in blue-green couch cloth, w/ hinges at gutter margin. These unique volumes, containing manuscripts, drawings, cartoons, and shadowbox combine elements of Rube Goldberg, Joseph Cornell, and dystopian "Steam Punk" were produced by a southern California gunsmith, gun designer and arms enthusiast. His early manuscripts detail the armaments developed and invented by Hiram Maxim, drawings of weighing scales in the Norco Hills, CA under fire; 7.92 mm. German 43 machine gun; a series of machine guns and light machine guns he intended to be produced by a "Bwana Arms;" a series of proposed designed weapons for NATO including a Cal. 30 Zona 95-K machine gun with 900 rounds per minute rate of fire, a Belcher BURP 9 mm machine gun, a fanciful "Troop Lawn Mower, Swath Cutter Zip 18-K, 8000 rounds per minute, and even a design for the Vampire Mk.IV light armored tank. His efforts also include multi-barreled crossbows, pig guns, and a 7 barrel muzzle loader first test fired by Ramsay at the Lake Mathews Area in August, 1965. He also includes designs for a curious six-shot revolving cannon for black powder, test-fired in March, 1965; a design for a personal auto-gyro strapped to the back of the soldier; and an extensive illustrated manuscript of the Arabian .41 caliber revolving battery gun; as well as detailed notes and blueprints of what he termed an "Egyptian Revolving Battery Gun 10mm. Model 65-71;" as well as the "Hamm's Beer Keg Can Rocket" fired in 1974. Ramsay has also included his correspondence with the National Rifle Association concerning which of his weapons could be classified as "machine guns," and that crank-operated, gear-driven cam action weapons are classified as machine guns according to the California Penal Code. Some of these were just designs, and renderings, but others he appears to have actually constructed and test fired, such as the .53 caliber Recoilless Pocket Artillery gun mounted in the trunk of a 1970 Mercury Cougar, as reproduced in his shadowbox, and numbered 1 of 1. Ramsay (1939-2016) was the adopted son of a Los Angeles steel worker, a California native, gunsmith and gun enthusiast, attended Corona High School, served in the US Army in German from 1960-1962, and appears to have experimented as cartoonist and gunsmith.