Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ken Water's "Pet Loads"

I know, but it will not have all my notes in there, that took 20 years to figure out and write down!!!!!!

I keep my complete edition in the "reading room," page through it every morning, and almost always learn something.

I have always found Pet Loads to be very helpful. I always reference it when loading for a new cartridge. I've spent many enjoyable hours just reading about all the different cartridges and different rifles that were used in the testing.

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....

I do have a question about Pet Loads, and Mr. Waters. I know that he said that for the 7mm-08 Remington used/uses 48-48.5 gr. of non cannister W760 powder with a 140 gr. bullet.

All the manuals EXCEPT speer says that max is 46 gr. Who is right???

Huntbear - the standard answer, which helps you not at all, is all of them.

A safe maximum load doesn't just depend on bullet weight, but the specific bullet used--plus the lot of powder.

which means, work up your own max loads (using manuals and load data as a guide). There are just too many variables to accept someone else's work.

It's unusual for the various manuals to agree on a particular cartridge. I just take them all into consideration, and start low, gradually going up a grain at a time. No two rifles are identical, and even two of the same make and caliber can show different velocities and accuracies.having said that, Ken Waters has always been an informative source.

I have the entire collection and love it. Being a reloading newbie its the first book I pick up. Besides that... its just good reading.

Ken Waters' Pet Loads is to reloading what Hatcher's Book of the Garand is to shooting M1 Garand's and Roger Rule's Rifleman's Rifle is to collecting WIN M70's - essential information. I wouldn't want to be without any of those books, and cherish my reading time with all of them.

I have learned more about reloading from Ken Waters than just about anyone else, or anything else except experience gained from trying what he talked about. I only wish I had come across him and in particular his article on the Pet loads for the 300 Savage sooner than I did. I have never had a 300 Savage. But his rifle was a model 99. If I had had the good fortune to have read that when it was published, I would have saved myself from selling a rifle I will always regret selling, a Savage 99F in 308. Ken's discussion on setting up sizing dies for the Savage chamber would have told me that there was nothing wrong with that rifle, but there was everything wrong with the way I was approaching sizing for it. Well, I can use the excuse that I was a young dumb guy not very far away from my teen age years.

Over many decades of reloading for more-than-a-few hunting cartridges, I've found that my maximum loads will almost always fall exactly halfway between Waters' and Bob Hagel's top loads. Check your own range notes and see if you don't agree....

Well, this thread inspired me to pull out Pet Loads, and thumbing through it, lo and behold a piece on the .303 British in a Smelly Enfield. I had totally forgotten that he'd written the article in 1976 - and then bought a SMLE four or so years ago. Guess I'll have to see what I can make of this old Brit, now...

Can someone look in there book and see if he goes over the 7mmSTW before I purchase this. Thanks Rick

My eighth edition does not have the 7mm STW.

Still well worth buying though.

� still pondering that puzzling comparison with continuous carping about a difference of opinion in the thrust of a single magazine article or book chapter �

� still unable to see beyond the yawning abyss between (a) the single mention of a felony and (b) repeated bitching about a writer's report of his experience (and opinion) with a specific cartridge

Ok thanks. Rick

I must say, it is quite refreshing to read a disagreement with a civilized tone to it. Thanks gentlemen!

Maybe the disagreements here were generally more civil back in 2002!

It is nice though.