Some folks consider the Gun Digest and the Shooter’s Bible to be competitors, but actually, they are both good sources for cross-referencing the latest guns and their prices.

Within this book's 836 pages you will discover how crossbows came about and indirectly led to the discovery of gunpowder, the evolution of muzzleloaders and finally the custom built and mass-produced factory guns of today. Original line illustrations plus black and white photographs and early ballistic charts make this an authoritative look into the not-so-distant past of firearms technology.

This is one of those books I had often heard about but rarely saw. I was elated to finally locate an early hardcover copy at a gun show. Today, this ninth edition is more readily available as a reprint from Lyons Press.

4. Lyman Reloading Handbook, 49th edition (800-225-9626).
As a guy who still uses an old Lyman 310 reloading tool, I am living proof you don't have to be an avid reloader to be fascinated by the new 49th edition of a book that was first published in 1878 by the old Ideal reloading company. Today, it has matured into a 464-page treasure chest of ballistic information.

Edited by Thomas J. Griffin, Lyman's technical services manager and head of the company's ballistics laboratory, this perennial softcover is also available for the first time as a hardcover. Of course, many of us still have our older spiral bound editions. After all, these are not things you get rid of; at best, you pass them along to a fellow shooter.

In addition to chapters on the basics of reloading and how to get started, the current edition has ballistic and reloading data for every centerfire metallic cartridge, as well as loading data for black powder cartridges used for both long-range silhouette shooting and big game hunting, like the .45-120.

In short, if there is brass available, you'll find powder, bullets and technical data for any cartridge that currently can be chambered. Plus there are informative articles on powders, cast and premium bullets and gun cleaning. As Tom writes in the opening pages, "…Since we do not produce any of the components used in our handbook, we are free to develop data with a variety of brands." And that's exactly what you'll find within those pages.

5. Cartridges of the World, 11th edition, Gun Digest Books (888-457-2873).
The front cover states that this 552-page softcover is "A Complete and Illustrated Reference for Over 1500 Cartridges," but that hardly does justice to what lies between the covers. Practically every cartridge known to the shooting world is listed, broken down by categories, which include current and obsolete cartridges, military, British, European, sporting and rimfire cartridges, .50 BMG wildcats and others. There are also chapters on cartridge nomenclature and identification, but it's the illustrations, case dimensions, ballistic information and historical synopsis of each round that I find invaluable.

And even though it is published every year, this is another of those books that you just don't get rid of. For one thing, as the list grows with each new cartridge, some information on the more obscure rounds gets edited out in the interest of space. Thus, when checking out a .44 rimfire, for example, it pays to leaf through the pages of a past book as well as to read the information in the current edition.

To be sure, producing a "bible of bullets" by the late Frank Barnes and currently edited by Stan Skinner is no easy task. But that's what makes this an indispensable read for someone who wants to know more about the cartridges he shoots other than what's printed on the ammo box.