By the time I was nearing hunting age I had become a rifle enthusiast. This became an obvious gap between myself and most other shooting enthusiasts in a shotgun county such as Warren County where most people who shoot regularly shoot trap or sporting clays. There have been some attempts to bring more interest to rifle shooting, but the primary result has been rusting silhouettes. Rifle shooters now go to Elk County to compete.
That does not mean that sportsmen in Warren County do not take their rifles seriously, though. They may not compete, but they hunt. Do they ever hunt.
Every one of these local sportsmen who take hunting or any rifle shooting seriously should, in my opinion, consider 'Shooter's Bible Guide To Rifle Ballistics', by Wayne Van Zwoll a must have book. If you have any interest in rifles, if you need a guide for choosing rifles for any purpose, if you want to understand how rifles shoot, you will appreciate this book.
'Shooter's Bible Guide To Rifle Ballistics' is the latest, to my knowledge, in a lengthy list of outstanding 'Shooter's Bible' books. My own library contains several of them dating back three decades. All instantly become favorites among readers with shooting interests. None, perhaps, have such wide appear among the target readership as this one because it covers the subject so thoroughly and understandably.
There has been a tendency for writers to make ballistics seem very complicated, maybe as a monument to those who do understand it. Either that or no one, before now, has been able to address the subject as well.
Van Zwoll is the perfect choice to write this book. He brings many years of writing and shooting to this 216-page authority on the subject of ballistics. This is a subject that very easily could be dull, but is saved from that by the author's comfortable writing style.
Few books cover a subject, a very long and complicated subject, as thoroughly. Van Zwoll takes readers from the beginnings of ballistics with a brief, entertaining history on the subject, to the latest information that all shooters can use.
This book can help anyone make decisions on which rifles they should buy. This can be a very complicated subject if not treated as carefully as is done here.
Just a brief sampling of questions answered in these pages goes something like this:
What goes into rifle cartridges and how do they work?
What does the burning rate of gun powder mean, from the basics to choosing one for handloading?
Why are there so many kinds of rifle bullets? Is it just a sales gimmick?
Are magnum cartridges better than non-magnums?
How does bullet trajectory work?
The latter question gets to the heart of the matter, what ballistics can be related to and how ballistics are applied. Spending time at shooting ranges, and listening to conversations about rifles, over the past several decades has shown me that shooters who understand only a small amount of ballistics get things wrong. This book has been needed for a long time.
The book concludes with the most extensive set of ballistics tables I have ever seen, and a glossary to help anyone understand the words that are needed to converse about ballistics. I suggest that readers take a look through the glossary before reading the book, then consult it whenever the need arises. I will be the first to admit that it helps me to understand ballistics more thoroughly.
I give it my highest recommendation to anyone with an interest in rifles and shooting.
'Shooter's Bible Guide To Rifle Ballistics', by Wayne Van Zwoll, published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., is a soft cover book with many color photos and historic drawings. It sells for $19.95.