Kevin Dockery
President and Director of Research
Kevin Dockery has been working with the printed word most of his adult life, having written or collaborated on 39 books, numerous magazine articles, and having appeared on The History Channel, Discovery Channel, and the Military Channel in a number of shows. These television appearances include: The PBS Ground War Series; Discovery’s Somali Pirate Takedown: The Real Story; and Weaponology (2nd Season) appearing in multiple episodes.
The balance of Kevin’s work has been hands on with weapons, first as a custom gunsmith, in the U.S. Military. He served in Company A (The President’s Guard) of the Third Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) where his duty was to maintain a very wide variety of modern and antique military weapons, including 77 Brown Bess flintlock muskets. The latter weapon resulted in him being the last armorer in the U.S. Army qualified to knap flints after training at the Smithsonian Institution and Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.
Kevin Dockery’s further military career included time as a Designated Marksman in the President’s Guard, a Mechanized Infantryman, squad leader on an 81mm Mortar, and Platoon Sergeant in an Infantry Company. He spent time during the first Gulf War as a support contractor on the Fox chemical/biological/nuclear scout vehicle.
Since that time, Kevin Dockery has written several reference books on small arms as well as worked professionally as a custom gunsmith for a number of years. His specialty as a gunsmith was the production of customized pistols with particular expertise in the Smith and Wesson revolver lines and the M1911A1 as well as rebarreling and rebuilding military-style weapons including the AR-15, M-14, AR-10, M1903A3 rifles as well as performing work on a wide range of law enforcement weapons. His gunsmithing skills have allowed him to help maintain several museum collections of small arms throughout the country and he has developed a wide range of contacts with manufacturers and private collection owners. He has become a noted military historian specializing in Naval Special Warfare (the SEAL Teams) and military ordnance. He is the only writer who holds a patent on a new round of 40mm ammunition. He has also written a number of popular magazine articles.
Written Weapon works include:
The M60 Machine Gun, Osprey Publishing; Future Weapons, Penguin Putnam; Stalkers and Shooters; A history of Sniping, Penguin Putnam; Weaponsof the Navy SEALs, Penguin Putnam; Special Warfare – Special Weapons, Volume One, Emperor’s Press; Compendium of Modern Firearms. R, Talsorian Games, Inc.; The Armory, Volume One, Firebird Ltd.,
Harry “Jim” Gentry
Associate editor/producer videographer
and audio technician
As a young man, Jim Gentry was both the News Editor and Announcer for Virginia’s WKJC FM radio station. After leaving the station in 1973, he enlisted in the US Air Force. Among his duties in the Air Force was being assigned to secure a Special Weapons site attached to a B-52 base in the United States. Among other members of his detachment, he was sent to Incirlik, Turkey where he was assigned to the security detachment for the joint US-Turkish Air Base at the beginning of the Cyprus military coup by the Cypriot National Guard. The coup was followed by the subsequent invasion of Cyprus by Turkish forces who secured the island, dividing it along what would be known as the “Green Line.”
During his time in the US Air Force he served as a Precision Measurement Equipment Lab specialist before leaving the Service in 1977. He obtained his pilot’s license in 1980 and has remained an active flier to the present day.
Since 1987, Jim Gentry has been a Federal Firearms Licensee as well as holding a Class Three Special Occupation Tax status. His FFL and SOT have allowed him to maintain an up-to-the-minute level of knowledge and experience with Federal, State, and Local firearms regulations and ordinances. This expertise has allowed him to assist a large number of individuals in the purchase of their first NFA weapon, or the addition of items to their existing collection.
He has worked for a number of years as a Metrologist contractor for Alcyon JTS located at NASA’s John Glenn Research Center near Cleveland, Ohio. In recent years, he has been expanding his firearms knowledge working with Kevin Dockery on the Dockeryarmory.com encyclopedic weapons site on the Internet. His past experiences have made him instrumental in expanding the breadth of the site and insuring the accuracy of the information presented. This expansion will include the future scientific measurement of sound levels for suppressed and unsuppressed weapons for a wide range of manufacturers, agencies, and museums. He is also acting as the primary videographer for the site, aiding in the production of short videos to additionally explain and display manufacturer’s products.