First of all welcome to the forum. I too am knowledge challenged. This is a great place to start. Most specific questions here get answered. For general Stuff I bought the following: "The Big Bore Rifle" by Michael McIntosh..."Classic Sporting Rifles" by Christopher Austyn...and "Shooting the British Double Rifle" by Graeme Wright. Most of these are out of print so I found them on Amazon.com. There is a fairly new book published titled "The Express Rifle" by Saul Braceras. It is advertised in "The Double Gun and Single Shot Journal". It is a quarterly journal. I haven't read any reviews here about it, but if I get it for xmas I'll let the forum know what I think of it. The Double Gun Journal is more of a shotgun type of publication but on occasion they will have articles on double rifles. Don't forget the "search" function on this forum, many questions have already been asked and answered. http://www.hallowellco.com/index.html has a definitions and abbreviations section that I have found helpful. I hope that this has been helpful and not too basic. Best of Luck. Armbar.