America's Gun: The Practical AR15

If you are interested in getting an in depth analysis of the AR-15, this is the book to have. I love how the author has distilled his years of experience into a concise and clearly explained tutorial written in his folksy, down-home style. I especially appreciated the explanation surrounding the gas-impingement system and how its efficacy is impacted by barrel length and other factors. He also goes through various custom builds which differs in purpose and function. He makes specific recommendations on parts he is personally familiar with and which have been proven to be worthwhile. No pussy footing around. He tells you what works and why. Just one of his many tips is worth the price of the book alone.

This is my first Zediker book. The author desperately needs to hire an editor or ghost writer. There are kernels of information buried in turgid prose, such as this sentence (chosen at random): "It might have made sense to organize appearance of each alternative cartridge in what follows by caliber size, but I decided to do a little of that, but also a 'historical' sequence." What does that mean? I got a headache after wading through the first chapter trying to decipher this writing. I gave the book to my 15-year-old daughter. She opened the book to a random page and burst out laughing: "This doesn't make any sense!" The book reads as though it was dictated by a good ole boy into Dragon and converted to text without editing. Little if any organization, stream of consciousness narrative, and lots of made-up words like "daggone" and "furtherer." The author was reportedly a champion high power shooter. His emphasis on precision affects his build choices. He will always choose accuracy at the expense of reliability. He neglects to mention specifics concerning some build issues, instead referring readers to one of his previous books dating back ten years or more (an eternity in shooting development). He is coy about identifying manufacturers, recommending parts, and providing technical specifics, forcing the reader to perform detective work (or buy one of his other books) to understand his meaning. This book forces the reader to expend a lot of effort for very little return. For AR15 specifics, I would recommend any of Patrick Sweeney's  "Gunsmithing the AR-15"  series, which is lucid, well-organized, and easy to read. I cannot recommend this book to anyone but a diehard Zediker fan who has experience with his earlier books and liked them.

First: There is good information in this book.However, I agree that having an editor would enhance getting the information, this is hard to read. There are many expressions such as "dang sho" (dang sure), "one mo time" (one more time),"agin it" (against it) etc. All are decipherable but it makes it hard to read. The black and white pictures frequently don;t have enough contrast to be clear about the details they purport to show.The 1st copy Amazon sent was cut on an angle; the left page text went uphill and the right hand text went downhill.All in all, I expected a better book for $30. I bought due to the excerpt I read elsewhere but will be very unlikely to buy another of his books.

Great book, costing me a lot of money, but still a great book! Very helpful with AR building.

Good info. For me it's not about the "Builds" but about the good information that permeates this book.

good details

This is a well detailed volume on the many facets of the AR 15, including parts, assembly, function etc. I have assembled a couple and this book was definitely a major help. Learned much from it and need to reread the third time. Get it!