Frank C. Barnes - Cartridges of the World: A Complete Illustrated Reference for More Than 1,500 Cartridges

About the Author

It is not given to many of us in the bookish trades to create perennials, books that go on and on. A fellow named Webster did it with dictionaries, and a woman named Irma Rombauer hit a good lick with Joy of Cooking and Frank C. Barnes made the grade with this very book, Cartridges of the World.

Actually, Barnes was not, at the beginning, very deeply into bookish stuff. He was more of a doer. However, COTW caught him well and truly and held him, one edition after another, for decades.

Barnes died in 1992 and was sick awhile before that. It was during his illness that he handed over the job, sure that the book would go on for decades.

He was born in Chicago, June 25, 1918. He began collecting cartridge data about age 12, which would be about 1930.

Before he began to write of guns and ammunition, he made a living as a geologist-engineer and spent a lot of time in the field in the West and Southwest. He did not go hunting, he said many times, because he was already there. This experience made Barnes a practical hunter/rifleman, entitled to his opinions on rifles and shotguns and their cartridges. Barnes came to the same sort of competence with handguns even earlier; his father was a police officer who let his son shoot his sidearms if he kept them clean. The net result was a practical sort of fellow, and his principal creation, Cartridges of the World, is a practical sort of book. He decided it should cover all the cartridges that count, that it should be a great guide to all of those and not get lost in the esoteric worlds of headstamps and variations. It proved a good plan.

Barnes was a pilot and raced sports cars and rode motorcycles. Eventually he received a Masters Degree in Justice and taught law enforcement matters at the college level.

And he designed cartridges, too, becoming a respected wildcatter. When he generated the 458 American by cutting -inch off the redoubtable .458 Winchester Magnum, Barnes put it into a practical rifle. His shortened big-bore fit very nicely into a short-actioned 722 Remington stocked to the muzzle.

Barnes last project, his last wildcat, was another practical sort of thing. It involved a .416 on the .45-70 case fitted into the Marlin Model 1895 lever-action rifle. This one was not to be, thoughhe just didnt get it finished. He did finish enough in his 74 years, however. If hes remembered as long as this book lasts, thats a lot longer than the rest of us ever count on.

About the Covers

Hornady in the Spotlight

As has become traditiion, a number of Hornadys products grace the covers of this Cartridges of the World 13th Edition. This time we asked them to mix it up a little, focus on the products that truly speak the Hornady name, and thats just what the company did.

Topping the list is the LEVERevolution round, perhaps one of the most exciting creations to ever happen to lever-gun ammunition. The cleverly named round design brings you an innovation in ammunition performance that features patented, state of the industry, FTX (Flex Tip eXpanding) and MonoFlex bullets that are safe in tubular magazines. Before Hornady introduced this design, lever-gun/afficionados were limited to round-nose bullet profiles that wouldnt punch the primer of the round next in line in the tube magazine and set off a gun and body-part altering chain-fire reaction. But long-range and terminal performance of such rounds was limited. No longer. LEVERevolutions high ballistic coefficient delivers dramatically flatter trajectories and amazing bullet expansion at all ranges. It truly is an evolution in lever-gun ammunition!

See that really tiny cartridge in the mix? The shooting virtues of Hornadys .17 HMR (Hornady Magnum Rimfire) are now the stuff of legendhigh velocity, flat trajectory, and long-range accuracy. The devastating V-MAX and XTP bullets deliver characteristics that takes the .17 HMR into the realm of the true hunting cartridge, and its a great choice for small-game and varmint hunting.

Did you notice something different in the front cover? A dash of flourescent green? Thats Hornadys ZOMBIE MAX ammunition and the proprietary PROVEN Z-MAX bullets. Honestly, its been a long time since tongue-in-cheek marketing genius and a genuinely good product have gone so well together. This is the company that got the zombie craze started and these rounds are a force to be reckoned with, especially if youre a prairie dog or a member of the un-deadhave you seen a Zombie? See, PROVEN isnt just an adjective, its part of the bullet name proper!

On a more serious note is Hornadys 6.5 Creedmoor with a pedigreed as storied as it is precise. Developed by Dave Emary, Hornadys Senior Ballistic Scientist, and Dennis DeMille, General Manager of Creedmoor Sports and two-time NRA National High Power champion, this cartridge was designed to allow any shooter to compete at the highest level with factory-loaded ammunition. Built for match rifles, including the Tubb 2000 and DPMS, its case is slightly shorter than the 260 Remington, eliminating any cartridge overall length issues when using .308 Winchester-length magazines.

Another round unique to the wizards at the Hornady laboratories became the .30 T/C (Thompson/Center). According to Horandy, many of todays so-called short mags are nothing more than an attempt to see how much powder can fit behind the bullet in a .308 Winchester-length magazine. Little thought is given to the crucial balance between case volume, bore volume, and the burn rates of different propellants. Well, Hornady and Thompson/Center give the short mags a run for their money with this highly individualized round. Specifically designed for T/Cs Icon bolt-action rifle, the .30 T/C sports optimized case geometry, while advanced propellants deliver (or exceed!) .30-06 ballistic performance in a short-action case.

Finally, on our back cover is a glamour shot of Hornadys Critical Defense line of ammo. Law enforcement and tactical professionals now have a truly advanced handgun ammunition solution that delivers the most consistent and reliable urban barrier performance ever created! The proven Flex Tip design of the new FlexLock bullet eliminates clogging and aids bullet expansion. Its large, mechanical, jacket-to-core InterLock band works to keep the bullet and core from separating, resulting in maximum weight retention and proven terminal performance through all FBI test barriers.

About the Editor

Richard A. Mann was born and raised in the West Virginia hills. He has chased coon hounds until daylight, waited out whitetails while perched high in an oak, canoed the New River, and hunted from the Montana Mountains to the Green Hills of Africa. During service in the Army, and later as a municipal police officer and Special Agent with the Railroad Police, Richard obtained numerous certifications in small arms instruction. He has trained military personnel, law enforcement officers, and civilians in the application of firearms for defensive, competitive, and recreational use. Richard won the West Virginia Governors Twenty Award, the West Virginia National Guard State Pistol Competition, and earned his Distinguished Medal with pistol.