My uncle used to comment that if I could make a lightning bug hold still, I'd back up to it and read a book.
Aside from reading his American Rifleman from 1940 to (at that time) 1950, I found Phil Sharpe's "Complete Guide to Handloading", which was my reloading Bible in those early years. My initial learning of ballistics was from Mann's "The Bullet's Flight from Powder to Target", from the late 1800s. And I read about Harry Pope, the "Human Machine Rest", who reloaded the same case for each shot in a competition match. And about the Wildcatters of the 1920s and 1930s...
Most of my shooting-world anticipated the "Environmental" era: I'm one of the original re-cyclers! Loading tools, guns--and cars, too, for that matter. After all, if I could make a used rifle shoot better than some other fella's new critter, why buy new? If I could load for tight groups with old dies and such, why buy new stuff?
Which is why I chime in when a newbie sez, "I plan on getting started..." and point out that the brand-new stuff is pretty soon "good-used"...
So I have old Lyman and Hornady books, and old Sierra books, and a new Hornady book, and a bunch of more recent pamphlet-type info. And a few downloads...
And I go back an re-read. And compare data between the various companies...
But 52.5 grains of 4064 behind a 150-grain bullet in an '06 has been working for fifty years, now...That one I've memorized!
In the 1930s it was "gun nut"; later, "gun bug". Now, "gun geek". It's all the same thing: FUN!
Y'all be good, Art