Pistols

p.431 - 432 ; When John Weeks and i sat down to write the first edition, we little knew how much works we had created for ourselves; the passing years dimmed the memory, and when I began to re-write this edition, the size of the task came as a shock. In the intervening years, there has been an explosion in development. The original edition contained nothing of the current Berettas; Smith & Wesson had but one modern automatic; and a score of other designs were merely lines on paper. So not only has there agreat deal to add, but to keep the book within manageable bounds, there has had to be some shaving of the existing material. This has led to the removal of occasional comments and minor details to make space for the new entries. It would be idle to suggest that every pistol in the world is within these pages; try as I might, there will be some that have eluded me or, in some cases, have been consciously excluded.