Reloading 101 Part I: the all-important manual comes first

Guns Magazine, August, 2008 by John Taffin

You've made up your mind. After several years of buying factory ammo and shooting your bolt-action .30-06 rifle and .44 Magnum sixgun you've piled up hundreds of rounds of empty brass for each and have finally decided to start reloading and your only problem is how to start. The starting point is not asking questions on the Internet or buying reloading presses or dies, but rather investing in a good, up-to-date reloading manual. In fact, I would suggest you purchase not less than two and preferably three brand-new manuals.

There are many ways in this life to save money, however cheap can often be way too expensive. The same is true when it comes to reloading manuals. There is no shortage of older reloading manuals at gun shows, however the chances are pretty high they will be out of date. How can a reloading manual be out of date? Components change and ways of measuring pressure change. When it comes to shooting I want to make sure the loads I am shooting are based on the latest technology and especially have been assembled with data matching the powder I am using. Today's 2400 powder is not the same as the 2400 I started using 50 years ago and current manuals reflect that change.

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OK, you're convinced and you're going to buy a brand-new reloading manual, but why would I suggest more than one? Every manual is not arrived at by using the same bullets, same lot of powder, same measuring equipment, and especially not the same firearms. I find it very helpful to be able to cross reference from manual to manual. Most manuals are offered by companies who also sell bullets, reloading equipment, and powder so their manual will be concerned with their product. This could have a great bearing on the manual you select if you have a certain preference for brands of bullets or powder.

It has been more than 50 years since I bought my first reloading manual. It is from Lyman and dates back to 1957. I have a collection, more like an accumulation of reloading manuals, and I especially find some of the old ones very interesting. The oldest one I have is a Lyman dated 1936, which is definitely not to be used.

Using data from older manuals such as this can cause serious problems as the much of the brass used in those days was of the balloon head style instead of the solid head found on today's sixgun brass. Using Elmer Keith's original .44 Special load with 2400 powder and today's brass can take it apart. In fact, I saw exactly this happen locally with a fellow's single action sixgun. The old manuals are interesting and I will always pick them up especially if I can get them at a good price, however they are for information of days gone by, not for reloading today.

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Let's look at the current crop of brand-new reloading manuals all published within the last year. It is no easy task putting a manual together. In fact my good friend, Allan Jones, has assembled the last three Speer manuals, each of which took the better part of a year with all of his time totally dedicated to the task. I would assume the same thing is true of the new Hornady and Sierra manuals which have also just been published.

Hodgdon

Hodgdon takes a different path. Instead of publishing a hardback or loose leaf manual every five years or so, they have switched to a magazine format allowing them to offer what they call the Annual Manual. By doing this yearly bringing information up-to-date is less of a job and they can also price their manual at a most reasonable $7.95. The Annual Manual covers a wide array of jacketed and cast bullets using Hodgdon and IMR powders covering 144 rifle cartridges and 82 handgun cartridges. They also have extensive data available at their Web site.

Speer No. 14

Looking at the different manuals we find the Speer Reloading Manual 14 consists of 1,150 pages covering 97 rifle cartridges and 45 handgun cartridges. They used an assortment of powders, however, only Speer bullets are used for the data compiled. For each cartridge in addition to loading data they also have a dimensional drawing of the cartridge case. As an example showing what data is available, let's go back to the .30-06 and .44 Magnum brass ready to be reloaded. We find extensive data for 29 Speer bullets with the .30-06 and 13 bullets, including bullets cast from RCBS molds, for the .44 Magnum, as well as shot loads assembled with Speer shot capsules.

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A reference section contains both short and long range tables showing velocity and trajectory as well as a glossary of terms. There are also articles on Speer bullets, cartridges and components, reloading safety, energy and pressure, step-by-step reloading, troubleshooting, loading black powder cartridges, using progressive presses, and a very important article concerning light loads and their inherent problems for use in Cowboy Action Shooting. The Speer Manual is priced at $36.95.

Sierra

Sierra Reloading Manual Edition V also contains 1,150 pages with coverage of 111 rifle cartridges and 72 handguns. The latter is divided into standard handguns and single-shot pistols. It has an advantage or disadvantage according to your point of view over the hardbound manuals as it is in a loose leaf format. This makes it larger than the others and not quite as easy to go from page to page or flip open to a section, however, individual pages can be removed and used at the loading bench.