Rating  - REQUIRED READING FOR EVERY SHOOTER
EXCELLENT BOOK FOR ALL SHOOTERS, FROM THE 22CAL. ON UP !! NOW I REALLY UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY 9.3X57 AND THE 30/06 CARTRIDGE.
Rating  - A bit out dated
A lot of good information but the author seems to be behind in the modern day cartridges. Russ Haydon of the Woodchuck Den has really brought the 20 cal. into public view. With the several 20 cals. out there the author mentioned the 204 Ruger (an outstanding round), but very little else in that caliber.
Rating  - Frank is gone and no one has picked up the torch.
Frank Barnes was one of the great old timers that we have lost. A gentleman of seemingly infinite knowledge concerning ammunition and firearms. Much like his late friend John T. Amber, he willingly shared it with all.
For much of the life of this book I would have easily given it five stars. Indeed if you have never read this book, and have more than a passing interest in cartridges, it still rates five stars. However I have been collecting and shooting guns for over fifty years, and have picked up a few prejudices along the way that color my judgment of the current work (11th ED.).
My main gripe is that the publishing company seems to be trying to turn this into their cash cow by printing new editions in such short order that they actually show little or nothing new.
The entire "Proprietary Cartridges" chapter is another problem. The chapter seems to be little more than an advertisement for JDJ/SSK Industries, Lazzeroni, A-Square, and several other minor players. What makes a cartridge "Proprietary" seems to change from cartridge to cartridge. Indeed some cartridges listed as "Current" would seem to be "Proprietary" and vice versa. Better to scrap this entire advertisement er... chapter, and put the whole mess under "Wildcats" and quit playing at semantics.
With all of the various Short Magnums and Super Short Magnums that have been introduced in the last ten years we seem to be once again in an era of reinventing the ammunition wheel. Whether any of these new cartridges will stick is still up in the air. You would think that this amount of change in the civilian market would spur any number of interesting articles in a publication such as this. Wrong. Instead we learn about the needle gun. Interesting, but hardly timely.
I suspect this publication will continue to flounder as long as the current set up exists. Hopefully someone will adopt the concept as their baby and completely rewrite and edit it closely. This is what it deserves, and what Frank would have wanted as well.
Rating  - Great information, but scale drawings would make it much better
This is a great, encyclopedic review of more cartridges than any one shooter is ever likely to see, let alone shoot. Maybe Mr Barnes missed some cartridges, but I think he hit everything important and/or interesting. But why not use scale drawings? It would have taken little more effort to make all the technical drawings life-size, and it would have increased the usefulness of the book greatly. As it is, comparisons between cartridges require a scale and some math, which is a nuisance. Granted, a few of these rounds would need more space on the page, but not many of them. A 50BMG SHOULD have a bigger entry than a 30-30, but instead it's shown reduced. But this is a technical complaint about a very excellent encycopedia. The writing is entertaining, too.
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