Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Best books - getting started reloading.

The Hornady, Nosler and Sierra books are all good resources. Buy them all and read twice each before starting. Also, order the Big Book of Gun Gack by Mule Deer. Some good practical advice and some insight into the peculiarities of handloading.

Also, having an experienced mentor to help you get started is always a good idea.

I'm often tempted to say there is no best and many good enough. Here I'd have to say buy a bunch of books and that might be good enough. To my mind too many of the books, especially the introductory bits at the front of the data books are like learning by watching You Tube - there's a lot unseen and unsaid.

I am frequently confirmed in this opinion when folks on this and other boards ask questions that I think should have been answered before they started playing with primers and gun powders. Doesn't mean folks should wait forever to get started but I do think folks should have a reference library that answers those questions when they start.

In this company I have to say the best of the data books is The Big Book of Gun Gack from John Barsness but notice Rifles and Recipes sells several books as rifles and handloading and an equally useful CD. For a handgun specific book I'd suggest Patrick Sweeney's Reloading for Handgunners. In addition to the Zediker book mentioned above add everything he's written especially the newest TOP-GRADE AMMO. From Safari Press Metallic Cartridge Handloading (Sc) by M.L. "Mic" McPherson. Fred Sinclair did a nice book on precision loading that went through ten editions and is out of print. Precision Shooting published many good books including one on loading large quantities for competition Precision Shooting Reloading Guide as by Dave Brennan now showing absurd pricing. Designing and Forming Custom Cartridges for Rifles and Handguns | Ken Howell is available from Huntington Die Specialties at a fair reprint price along with other useful books.

In order to get beyond what I consider to be too often abbreviated and superficial page limited books in today's market I think starting with a couple of oldies but goodies is the only way to get a complete and sophisticated understanding of the hobby over the years so Earl Naramore on Handloading Ammunition and Phil Sharpe Complete Guide to Handloading each cover things later writers take for granted. Out of copyright and available in cheap reprints. Data is of course meaningless to dangerous for today's readers. Then George Nonte and John Wooters each wrote a fairly complete book on handloading. Bob Hagel Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter and others is maybe not reliable on data and pressure but the man knew a lot and did some useful original work. Sad to think that nobody since Hagel attracted mainstream publishers like Knopf. Nobody like that today. If Bob Hagel then Ken Waters Pet Loads for some different notions. Again newer data should be consulted.

Better not to take old books by now dead men as the gospel. I have a Hollywood Universal turret with a 4 position priming punch turret I bought because Elmer Keith said it was the best. It's been a long time since I saw a domed primer - smiley - but I'd miss a lot never to have read Keith. Bottom line there is no single or short list to replace wide reading. Guns and gunpowder like motorcycles and airplanes demonstrate that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Not to worry too much; guns often blow without that much extra damage.

^^^^^^^^^^^VERY IMPORTANT !!^^^^^^^^^^^

This is also called ' partial full length sizing '

That's even MORE important when sizing Belted Mag cases.

Jerry

This.

Brother Clark,

This is a good online tutorial...seems to be the "how to" part of the Sierra manual. They do a nice job of explaining how to adjust a resizing die for "partial full length sizing".


http://www.exteriorballistics.com/reloadbasics/index.cfm

I learned to hand load by reading the Speer manual, the Lee manual, "The ABC's of reloading", and watching videos on YOUTUBE. I don't know anyone who reloads, much less an "experienced" person so I was on my own. My process was to read the manuals and then watch people on YOUTUBE do what I read about. I think if you will do something similar and stick to book loads, you will be fine. I read and watched until I was confident I understood the basics before I bought any equipment.

The reloading manuals are all very similar. They have a section dedicated to explaining the process and, in some cases, telling you how great their equipment is, the rest of the book being load data for all the different cartridges. Be aware that Hodgdon, Barnes, Nosler, and maybe others have load data on their websites.

I'll add another vote for the Lyman manual. It was recommended to me when I began,and it served me well. I also read several others that were mentioned here. I'll second the recommendation to read each manual twice.

Have fun.

The Barns (#4) has a lot of great technical information on reloading. But it only has a limited number of powders, six or seven, for each load.

Here's a trick I found about setting your sizing die. Get a butane lighter and light the end towards the mouth. It leaves a black residue. Then when you size the brass you can actually see how far down the sizing die is going. I neck size only. Once the die is set lock it in place.

I got the new RCBS automatic powder measure and digital scale, last year. It's a little expensive but well worth it! Once you replace the tray it automatically loads the next amount of powder. So by the time you're done seating the bullet the powder measure automatically fills the tray.

The Complete Book of Practical Handloading by John Wootters, 1976.

The best book I've ever seen is The Precision Shooting Reloading Guide which was published about twenty years ago. There are chapters on most of the rifle disciplines with good explanations on how to do it rather than just a lot of charts giving velocities with various powders.

Precision Shooting went out of business in 2012 and I happen to know that there are a lot of these floating around out there somewhere. No idea where but I wish I had bought them from the company when it went belly up. I really need to track them down and find out what happened to them.

FWIW there is one on eBay for sale right now... for aprox $300.00. Makes me really wish I had bought them when I had a chance.

Dick,

That's very interesting!

Apparently I'm going to fund a considerable portion of my semi-retirement by selling books purchased new for $20 or $30 that are now selling for several hundred.... :-)

Lyman gets my vote.

John,

Back in the day I was on the PS board of directors. I checked when Brennan closed the doors and we had a lot of them in stock. I could have bought the lot for about $5000.00. Wish I had. There's an interesting story about how that book came into being. Someday...

I have a lot of gun and hunting books here. Some are worth a lot of money now. I wish there were an easy way to sell them for something approaching what they are worth. If something happened to me, there's no one in the family that would have a clue. I wouldn't be surprised if you had the same situation.

Dick