As a college student I first encountered Pet Loads, helping Dad load for the many odd calibers he had collected. The .44-40 Hercules 2400 loads I brewed for a Colt SAA clone were a triffle too hot for a revolver, even if they were well under Mr. Waters' maximums.
Dad still talks about them 28 years later.
That said, I found much of his writing about vintage calibers to be fascinating. They were thoughtful and scientific, yet not dry. He got into the quirks of his firearms, just as an everyday handloader sometimes encounters. I still have one letter Mr. Waters answered on the .32-40, and it was typed, well after the advent of word processors.
Reading some of the old posts in this thread, I can tell you the load development method I use:
1. Buy factory ammo for a new caliber and new gun.
2. Shoot it over the chrono to make sure it is up to snuff on velocity. I have learned this check the hard way, after discovering a batch of .25-06 that was 300 fps under spec.
3. Take the case pressure ring readings for reference, ala Waters.
4. Handload, with appropriate bullets and powders.
5. If the factory ammo is near max for the caliber and firearm, do not exceed that pressure ring reading by more than .0005, again ala Waters.
6. For old guns (Great-Grandad's Krag) special applications (.45 Colt in a Ruger Blackhawk) use judgement and multiple references.
The next gun to get this treatment will be a new to me Ruger #1 in .222. Yes I know there are now transducer systems available, but like a lot of folks I am no hurry to glue things to rifles. I have also seen enough bogus data out of transducers over the years in engineering to take them with a grain of salt.
And speaking of great-Grandad's Krag, I think it's appropriate to show what a student of Waters can do. 100 Yard group....
