Summary
Some things are difficult to improve on. The .45 ACP cartridge is one of those things. Here's a look at a new Gun Digest book offering the most comprehensive look at the cartridge available.

At 400 pages long and featuring hundreds of photos, the Gun Digest Big Fat Book of the .45 ACP is a good value for the price.

Over the last century or so that this cartridge has been in use, shooters and manufacturers have amassed mountains of experience and information about the round, information that is now available in one place: The Big Fat Book of the .45 ACP, authored by Patrick Sweeney.

Whatever your interests in firearms and cartridges, there is something you will like in this book. Interested in the development of the round and the firearms that use it? This book has it, covering the turn of the 20th century—a period of great change and innovation—with plenty of photos documenting the evolution of the firearms and cartridges of the time. Interested in modern firearms chambered for our favorite round? This book has that, too. And it’s well illustrated throughout.

The real meat and potatoes of the book, though, are the chapters on ballistics and reloading. Starting with the case design, dimensions, and material, and devoting a chapter each to bullets, powders, and primers, the book contains more reloading and ballistics information than one man could ever want to know.

Rounding out the book are chapters on home defense, tactical uses, and competitive applications. See? Something for everybody.

Designed nearly a century ago, the .45 ACP cartridge has earned a well-deserved reputation as a superbly accurate, slap-‘em-down handgun cartridge. An honored veteran of two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and lesser conflicts across the globe, the .45 ACP is now more popular than ever for competition shooting, law enforcement and self-defense.

At 400 pages long and featuring hundreds of photos, the book is a good value for the price. A casual glance through the pages makes it clear that the author put in a lot of time cultivating a collection and in traveling the country shooting photos from private collections and museums.

A section on ammo factories shows how the big boys run their loading operations. If you like to tour manufacturing plants, you’ll appreciate the detailed tour of one of Finland’s top manufacturers, Sako.

Another chapter I enjoyed features information and photos on ballistic gelatin testing and chronograph testing, two of the more scientific ways to find out how much butt a round can kick.

To order the book, call Krause Publications at 800-258-0929 or visit http://www.gundigeststore.com.

The author, PATRICK SWEENEY, is the author of many of Gun Digest books’ best-selling titles, including Gun Digest® Book of the AR-15, Gun Digest® Book of the Glock and Gunsmithing: Pistols and Revolvers. A master gunsmith, Pat is also Handguns Editor for Guns & Ammo magazine and a featured guest on Guns & Ammo TV.