This book was first printed in 1928, well after the trade first put on climbers. Since it's first printing it has been THE textbook for the lineman's trade. It has been used in virtually every apprentice program and was the companion of self taught linehands from the '30s on. Frequently updated, it remains the one place a linehand, beginner to veteran, can go for help. It has progressed with the technology of the trade, the regulations and codes, the materials, and the processes for doing very dangerous work in well thought out procedures that enable electric customers to maintain their service and even be unaware of the work of the power lineman.

This book is THE comprehensive guide that no Line man should be without. It is also an excellent source of information for anyone working with distribution and/or transmission system operation, construction, and maintenance.

This book gives a detailed legal (constitutional) argument demonstrating that our present monetary system is a contradiction of what was intended and what is expressed in the U.S. Constitution. The book also describes the legal history of the Supreme Court cases that brought the system to this point.

This book is a continuation of the series that up dates the latest developments. Most of the information in it is useful and needed. The only reason I rated it down to 4 stars is because of chapter 16, the evaluation of the new personal defense ammunition. I feel like they are backsliding on their original opinions of ammunition in this chapter. My opinion of this ammunition is not nearly as high as theirs. I believe that the muzzle velocities are too slow and the resulting energies are too low. The Fuller index gives ratings that are way too low which shows that it is not properly designed for personal defense. The chapters on shotgun slugs and Triton ammo were excellent. As usual, the was no information on the distance at which the ballistic gelatin was shot. This is a needed addition to the series. A section on effective ranges of the listed cartridges would be most helpful. As it is, all of these books only give evaluations on point blank range. Overall, this book is a needed update and is well worth the money for students of terminal ballistics.

Unscientific, uncorroborated, invalid and completely discredited by various forensic experts in various papers. Just do a quick Internet search for "bullet stopping power" and I'm sure you'll come across one of these articles.

The main purpose of this book is to determine which handgun calibers are the most effective, and which cartridges are the best in a given caliber, and to determine how this stopping power can be prediceted. There is also some related information, created as a by-product of the study.

Let's begin by examining the main issue: defining the stopping power of given cartridges. The authors have reasoned that to really be able to define the effectiveness of a bullet, one has to examine the real shooting cases. That is sound reasoning, and I believe that the authors are absolutely right about that. Unfortunately, that creates a problem that is very hard to overcome: The problem of adequate reference material.

In a shooting case, there are numerous variables, which all contribute to effectiveness of a bullet, and most of the variables are not dependent of the bullet itself (like the size of the subject, physical condition of the subject, mental state of the subject, the beliefs of the suspect, whether the subject is under the influence of durgs or alcohol, what kind of clothes the subject is wearing, and so on). You can safely say that there are dozens of such variables, and some variables have more profound effect than the others.

The authors have tried to overcome this problem by limiting the shooting cases eligible for the study by stating that only torso hits have been counted, and those cases have been omitted where there have been more than one bullet hit to the subject. But this is hardly a solution at all, because the authors have stated themselves that "it's not important that you hit something, it's important that you hit something important". In this book they have counted only torso hits, but in reality there are no "torso hits", because it has a tremendous difference, if a bullet hits heart or spine, or if the bullet goes just into abdomen not hitting anything vital. But still these variables are not taken into consideration in this book.

As I stated, there are dozens of variables in a shooting concerning "stopping power". When one considers that most of the one-shot stop -percentages are calculated based on just couple of dozen shootings, how can these values be considered statistically reliable? You can determine the unreliabliness of this data yourself by comparing this data from 1992 to a newer data, with more shootings. In some cases there is substantial difference between old and new street results. And the one-shot stop percentages are calculated to an accuracy of 0,01 %. This is ridiculous considering the fact that in some cases there are more variables than there are shootings! The biggest number of shootings for a given round is 462, which might just be big enough of a sample, but in majority of cases there has been less than 100 shootings, which is a way too little database to achieve reliable results consirering the vast amount of variables. And in some cases the calculations are based on just eleven shootings!

So it's clear that these one-shot stop calculations are not statictically reliable. A fact that is emphasized by the fact that there is no reference material in this book. A surprising feature in a book that is supposed to be a "study".

However, there is also some useful information, and this is where we get to the by-product part of the book. The authors have collected information about exotic handgun ammo, like exploding bullets or sabot rounds. And there is also some important considerations about tactical penetration.

There is also some information that is not so useful, but can be of interest to the reader, like presentation of different ways to determine the effectiveness of a bullet used in the past. Also, the authors have included some shooting cases, arranged by the caliber of the gun used. These stories are interenting to read, but they are just anecdotes, and they can't be used to proof anything.

The authors have also created a way to predict the effectiveness of a given bullet before there are any street results available for that round. This formula ís created by comparing known bullet performance on the street to tests conducted in ballistic gelatin. This is a very interesting way to predict the effectiveness of bullets, but the reliability of these formulas suffer from the same thing than the "street results": There is not sufficient data available.

In conclusion I would say that paradoxally, the portion of the book that handles the main issue (stopping power) is of questionable value, and the support material is the most valuable part of this book. I believe however that this will change as the authors get more data from new shooting cases.

Comprehensive research. Opinions are grounded in the assembled data. The conclusions will not make everyone happy. Those with a favorite caliber might be surprised with the data in the tables in the back of the book.

This book is pure [nonsense]. The authors promote a "one shot kill" theory that favors (surprise!) light weight high velocity specialty ammunition.

The problem is that they cite fictional sources (such as the Strasbourg "goat tests") that have never been pubished or reviewed. They also mis-cite several other published studies out of context and wrongly. Oh, by the way, several professional statisticians who have reviewed their data have concluded that it is fabricated.

A few of the reviewers are scathing in their remarks. I'd appreciate it if they would suggest alternative titles or sources!

You hear a lot of misinformation and myths when discussing wound characteristics, ballistics, and the effectiveness of various calibers & loads. This is true even when talking to "gun nuts" at Gun shops and shows. This book provides you with in depth comparisons across calibers, loads, and even types of guns(at times). Has great chapters on .40 SW and the new .357 SIG calibers. Book includes ballistics research compiled from Goat tests, actual field results, and gelatin testing. The book is geared more for the enthusiast than the "novice" but I am a novice and found it to be great. Weak points of the book include the silly autopsy reports and several overly dramatic briefing on prior shootings.

Not many people have read this book, for good reason. Hargrove's look down his nose style effects his writing and the fact that he really doesn't say anything that James David Barber had not said long before him.