Sad news from the ASSRA Forum.
Laurie

Michael Petrov died this morning at the Providence Medical Center in Anchorage after fighting cancer throughout most of last year. It came back very aggressively this year. He had a lot of very complicated things happening in his body but he passed peacefully.

He was a great researcher and author of several columns in magazines as well as his two volume books on the Custom American Gunmakers. For any of you that had the opportunity to view his collection in person, it was incredible. Not just the firearms and accessories themselves, but the stories behind each gun. There was no such thing as coming over for 20mins ...

Michael will be greatly missed by many friends and families and is survived by his wife and daughter Charity.

No word on services yet ...

Respectfully ...
Joe Dobrzynski
Anchorage, Alaska

I wish I could have met him in person. Luckily, he left quite a bit of research that would have otherwise been lost.My condolences to his wife and daughter. Your husband and father will never be forgotten by me.

He was a generous man to a fault, never a question too small and each answered with grace, but he was also at heart like a young boy on a treasure hunt looking for the next clue. One of the neater things, to me anyway, was that he shot those many rifles and knew exactly what they could do. He sent me pics after the internet became a reality of some of the targets shot when he had them out at the range. Many of those targets spoke as well for the man shooting as they did the guns' capabilities, though he would always down play his own skills as a shooter. Only within the past few weeks I have received an autographed copy of his last book and note. He leaves us with a legacy of having had a wonderful demeanor and as much of his vast research knowledge as he was able to get organized to his satisfaction and in print.

I never met him personally, but he was a very kind and noble person with a fine sense of humor and we once shared some interesting and funny research over a period of some years regarding two dif gunsmiths, w/the same name as it turned out.

I expect that now he has the answers to those many questions and puzzles that he sought to solve.

God speed, Mr. Petrov and thank you for your interests and making us all smarter in the process my friend.

Sad news indeed. Michael was an expert and so very kind and generous in sharing his knowledge. He was a true gentleman and we'll greatly miss him here. I only had a couple of opportunities to correspond with him, but his insights saved me from making several costly mistakes.

God bless him and comfort his family in this time of grief.

Very sad news--I had the privilidge of corresponding with him and greatly enjoyed his articles in Precision Shooting. Godspeed Michael, and thank you.
PS: Very shocking to me, because I sent him some ivory strips from my grandpa's piano store, and he said he was going to make front beads from them, only 3 weeks ago.

Visited the museum at what's left of the old Mauser Werks this weekend. Afterward had a beer outside of a gasthaus and toasted Michael. If not for him, we would know so much less.

God rest your soul, Michael. I have his first book, and he helped me confirm that a 1903 Springfield I had was indeed an actual Springfield Sporter.