T.Rex Arms Is Re-Publishing Useful Military Manuals

Reptile

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You can learn a lot of firearms skills, survival skills, and other useful information from the Internet, but what if the Internet goes down, or you just want a hard copy of all that information because you’re an old-fashioned and practical kind of person? T.Rex Arms is looking to fill that need with a new series of military-issued field manuals that are updated to be more usable.

Re-working the formula​


Note that T.Rex Arms isn’t here to change the content of these classic military field manuals. Instead, they want to simply make them easier to read and learn from, instead of offering the shoddily-scanned-and-printed dreck that so many budget-oriented publishers have sold over the years.

Check out the explanation below, from Isaac Botkin of T.Rex Arms:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gacov0nNLM&t=14s


It’s a very practical way of looking at the realities of field manuals—yes, doing the typesetting all over again is going to be work, but we’re not talking rocket science here either (as Botkin says, it was not a lot of work, but more than he expected). If the end result is a much more useful book, then it’s well worth paying a bit extra to have that in hand. If you’ve picked up some of these government-issued books at a gun show or army surplus store, you know that they can terrible quality, and T.Rex’s solution sounds like something a lot of customers could use.

Not to mention, they’re still offering links to download these books as PDFs for free in their original and unimproved form. See their entry for the Marine Rifle Squad Handbook here; those links are at the bottom of the page. You can’t accuse them of being out to make a quick buck—they’re only charging for their work of publishing and printing.

Have your say​


Botkin says T.Rex Arms doesn’t want to simply reprint the Ranger Handbook or other commonly-published military manuals. Botkin’s X/Twitter post on September 4 said “T.Rex Arms is a publishing company now. We sell books, and we reprint books. It is a small start, but let us know what we should do next!”. So if there’s a field manual you believe deserves a reprint, let them know via comments on YouTube, or social media. Your suggestion could help them get useful, maybe even life-saving, information out there for readers.

 
Did y'all know you can download (unclassified) manuals of that nature for free?

Here's just one: https://archive.org/details/FM2176USARMYSURVIVALMANUAL

It's nice to have a printed copy, in case of EMP I suppose but most of us have underground bunkers with Tempest hardened computers, don't we?
 
Yes and not only that they're written in a way that a typical 18 year old kid can easily understand with just a little basic training. Pun intended.

Kudos to T-Rex for making them conveniently available in print form, but you can get (mostly free, mostly online) manuals on everything from survival to rifleman concepts to relining the brakes on an M35A2. IIRC they literally released (most of) the plans for a Saturn V rocket a few years back. You could 3d print one if you like. You might need a bigger printer...

One of our members here on NES once posted a cache of those he had in a similar thread, years back.

I wonder what the process is to obtain originals from DOD. FOIA at the absolute worst, some Web/FTP site at the best.

NONE of this applies to classified stuff and I'm not dead certain everything is available. But what is makes fascinating, if dry, reading.

I'd be shocked if you couldn't walk into the free library in your home town and get them (couple at a time) through interlibrary loan.

For those that are on the newer side, almost every town / city in this country has a building filled with books that you borrow for free. Everything from Hardy Boys mysteries to auto service manuals, textbooks on AI theory...

I have no idea why I'm being so snarky. Apologies. It must have been the poppy seeds on my "everything" bagel this morning.

Many if not all of these publications are available to the (US) public and readily available if you look around.
 
I think some of you may find this interesting. 4 part series on the history of the ATF. Total listening time a little under 3 hours. I would categorize this more as an editorial than a documentary. I was already familiar with many of the key points along the timeline but not some of the finer points. You might need an aluminum foil hat.

They release them on Youtube, and a little while later audio only goes up on their podcast platform so the 3rd and 4th episodes are only on Youtube at the moment.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmdyQQL-bQY


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILYKprpXYE4


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGaapNA1Gyc


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFGFcklICvo



View: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t-rex-talk/id1529056472
 
I collected a bunch of these manuals at gun shows as a young man. My favorites are the armorers manual for m16 -rebuild and overhaul (realize this was before info was on internet…actually before internet existed) and my other favorite is the comic book story (set in Vietnam) on how and why to keep your M-16 clean and ready to go bang when needed
 
I collected a bunch of these manuals at gun shows as a young man. My favorites are the armorers manual for m16 -rebuild and overhaul (realize this was before info was on internet…actually before internet existed) and my other favorite is the comic book story (set in Vietnam) on how and why to keep your M-16 clean and ready to go bang when needed
M-16A1 Comic Book Maintenance Manual : Will Eisner : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I have a few of those somewhere. There's a whole series of army maintenance manuals by comic book style.

PS: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly (2014-2019) : United States Army : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
 
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