In this compilation, McPherson covers every aspect of getting the most out of traditional lever-action guns, through modification, improvement, handloading, and shooting techniques.

He chronicles his custom modifications of Marlin 1894 and 336-based guns. Now retired, during his career he built dozens of custom Marlin lever-action rifles including everything from a 17-caliber varmint rifle (based upon the 1894 Marlin), which launches 20-grain bullets at 4500 fps with quarter-MOA accuracy; to the mighty 510 Kodiak Express (based upon the modern 1895 Marlin), which generates more than 5000 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.

He specialized in lightweight carbines, known by friends and customers alike as, Peggy Rifles, in honor of his late wife and the custom lightweight super-carbine he built for her. These collected works cover many of the custom rifles he built in more than three decades of gunsmithing, documenting his perfection of the Marlin lever-action rifle.

This book covers some of his more complicated modifications, with sections explaining how to build a 41/2-pound Marlin, altering these guns to handle both standard-length loads and significantly longer loads, strengthening the action and buttstock, and improving accuracy.

For completeness, he includes articles on: a custom 35 Whelen Ackley-Improved, Remington Pump; a custom 221 Fireball, 788 Remington; and, a photographic journal of the rifle he and a friend built to launch bullets faster than one-mile per second, with useful varminting accuracy, limited barrel heating, and long barrel life.

Included is his dissertation on personal freedom and understanding why it now exists in some places, if tenuously.