Book review: Down Range Data by William Falin

[Drydock]

This is a new book, published august of this year, find it on Amazon.

Initial impression:  WTF is this guy talking about?

The book feels a bit disingenuous to start with: despite the cover photo, there is no BPCR shooting being done here.  All data is derived using 5744 loads.  It becomes quickly clear that the guy knows nothing about Black Powder Cartridges, nor much about the rifles themselves, IE there's nothing about setting up the rifle, null points, rate of twist vs bullet length, etc.  Has not competed since the 1990s, and it shows.  Lots of obsolete assumptions.  He likes to plink at extreme ranges, near as I can tell.  He also likes the history of Billy Dixon, though it's somewhat sloppy on his part.

HOWSUMEVER!  If you persevere, what you realize is what this book is really about, and ALL it is about, is how to set your sights.  How to use a Vernier sight.  He looks at these sights the way an old Navy Gunner would look at the MK 8 gunnery computer on an Iowa class battleship.  How to derive data, and how to input data for the desired result. 

Looked at this way, this is a valuable resource, with a great deal of useful information, worth the money.  The charts are excellent, if just a hair off for actual black powder, but will get you close if not dead on.  Windage, drift, precession, all are here in usable format.  Combine this with proper load development from other books, like Venturino and Garbes BPCR Primer, and you can be shooting groups where Falin is shooting patterns.