Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Nosler Reloading Guide # 9

"IN-COMING"

Nosler is very fair about using powders NOT made by Nosler, primers NOT made by Nosler, and shooting in barrels NOT made by Nosler. I believe Nosler didn't grow the trees for the wood pulp or produce the ink used in the manual, either. Asking more of them is really pushing it.

I buy reloading manuals because I'm a Fudd and my handloading predates the time Al Gore invented the internet--I actually own most of the well known and a few not so well known hardback/spiral bound manuals published for North America since WWII.

Sometimes it is easier to use and compare various manuals when starting with new to me cartridges, or bullets, or powder, rather than use the internet.

Every manual carries old data forward.

No bullet company can test and list all the available powders, no powder company can test and list all the available bullets.

If Nosler left out a large portion of the new IMR and Alliant powders then they screwed up.

With the advent of a fair number of new powders and various new cartridges, I think the Ackley Improved and wildcats are not nearly as popular as they were even a decade or so ago, and consequently will see less of them in future manuals.

I like every current manual from bullet and powder companies, and every one has important and relevant data missing for popular cartidges, it's veritable "WTF?", when they do that.

Powders from Hodgdon have always been noticeably sparse in the Nosler manuals. I've decided Nosler doesn't like Hodgdon--whether I'm right or wrong it sure seems like it.

Thanks for the write up "RussianFighterJetGuy" mine will get here via Graf's sometime this year.......I hope.........



As an added note I hope Hodgdon's makes good use of Western Powders pressure lab, because I heard it was state of the art. Maybe Hodgdon will keep both of their labs open.

Lyman 48th or 50th. Readily (well, before current panic hoarding frenzy) available components in real world barrel lengths, velocities that consistently match my observations, and I use the pressure column a lot because I like to adjust loads to the action strength I may be using in a given cartridge. No point in running an 8x57 for instance at SAAMI pressure in a strong action. So it's a pretty handy book any way you cut it. If you are a Nosler fan boy, you need the Nosler book, 'cause Lyman doesn't have a load for every Nosler bullet.

Good point!

Considering that Nosler publishes a Load Guide about every 5 years. That amounts to a couple of cartridges a week.

So doable with anyone, or company, who has a little ambition.

And to put it in your own words, Bob,



Well Pop, this Son just turned 63 and 'handloading' since '73. There's still fire in the tank and high expectations are for those who live life to the fullest. I can still climb the mountain btw.

Just a side-note that www.riflesandrecipes.com will be carrying Nosler #9 as soon as the copies that Eileen ordered several days ago arrive. In fact it can be ordered right now, as the website's all set-up, and she'll ship any orders when the books get here.

Right now she's out of Western Powders manuals, and evidently their transition to the Hodgdon team is causing a glitch in getting more. But she's working on it....

I have several old manuals from Speer, Sierra, Hornaday and the first Nosler manual. It's interesting to compare the loads from them to the ones in current manuals. I don't think a new manual is needed every year.

Thank you huntsnshoots for your admiration of my inadequacies.

To clarify, Nosler is out to sell their brass and bullets, like Sierra, Hornady etc. Hodgdon is out to sell powder that they dont even make.

A true reloading manual should be had for one thing, data, not the promotion of their wares. Now I do have other manuals, but only Lyman and Lee build data using everyone else's products, like brass, bullets, powder and primers.

Also, when using Nosler data gleaned from their website ,also realizing that no two rifles shoot the same load the same, (velocity and accuracy) that my data always falls short of Nosler's claimed data (velocity)

If I must write every post here like I'm trying to explain something to the village idiot, then that's what I'll do.

I have Nosler manual #2,#7,&#8. and I have other manuals.

I find that Nosler’s most accurate load to often be the best or one of the best loads in my rifles for accuracy.

The jacketed bullets I use are mostly Hornady Interlocks or Nosler Partition anymore. Except varmint bullets which I’ll use what’s available and accurate. Also the bullets for the old cartridges such as 35 Remington, 30-30, 30-40, 32 Special, 45-70, 45-90, and other similar cartridges work fine with the old cup and core bullets.

The new powders - loads are important to me when they are improvement over old. Copper fouling and temperature insensitive powders in particular. With more emphasis on temperature insensitive powders for me, which is very important.

I liked Ken Waters articles on pet loads and his write ups, except he often used bullets or powders that I find to be not as good as what’s available today. I like the Lyman manual mainly for cast bullet loads. I own the excellent gun gack books and refer to them often.

In my opinion, for the more modern center fire cartridges such as 17 Hornet through the ultra modern 416 Rigby the Nosler manuals and the on-line Hodgdon manuals are very good.

I have always found it interesting that Nosler data has powder charges in .0 or .5 increments, but velocity is a precise number. Hornady has odd weight powder charges, .7, .2, etc, but velocity is a nice even number, 3000, 2500, 2750, etc. Not that this is true for every load in both manuals, but it sums up about 95% of the data in both books.

Sierra also follows the same format as Hornady. Could make some guesses about why, but dunno.

No Reloader 26 in 7mm Rem Mag with 160 AccuBond.



P

Which is why my collection of loading manuals always includes all the latest. There isn't one single loading manual (or one source of on-line data) that includes every new bullet or powder.

If more companies published all their latest pressure-tested data on the Internet this wouldn't be a problem. But a few companies don't, because they make money selling printed manuals. I have considerable sympathy for them, due to Eileen and I publishing printed "recipe" books ourselves. But there's more to handloading (or game cooking) than just recipes, which is why mere data doesn't answer all questions.

So you think Nosler #9 is a bit sparse with new powders and data, eh?

Just received my Lyman #50 last night and perused a dozen cartridges. Not a single Enduron powder to be found. They don't even have RL-26 listed anywhere I can find, either. As far as I can tell, they haven't tested a new load since the previous #49............

I bought my copy of #50 when it first came out. Was very disappointed that there was so little data for, among others, Lil Gun, especially in the .357 mag, where it really shines. H4895 is also pretty much missing; other stuff as well.

The worst part was that instead of helpful, informative articles in the front, they used pretty much the whole space on a bunch of pieces on past manuals and other self-congratulatory drivel. That stuff would be better placed in a separate book on Lyman history, fleshed out with info on old molds, dies, etc. Might even buy something like that myself.

I took note of that also. I'm pretty sure it's the only new part of the entire manual.......

Casey,

Yeah, I got Lyman 50 a couple years ago, and noticed a lack of, say, Enduron powders. This seemed a little odd, since #50 appeared in 2016 and the first Endurons appeared in 2014. I know that because of being assigned an article on IMR4166 for the 2015 Annual Manual, and the deadline is always around September 1st of the year before the date on the Annual Manual.

I just got my copy today. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to whine about in support of Rooskie Fighter Jet Guy's well written OP, but just flipping around for 10 minutes I see some glaring omissions that the advancements over the last few years should have compelled Nosler to run the data with their bullets - powders that have been no-kidding game-changers:
- Didn't take a look at RL-26 with their 140 and 50 grain bullets in the .270 Win.
- Didn't take a look at PP 2000-MR in the .35 Whelen.
- They dropped the .358 Winchester entirely! Despite making one of the best bullets ever for it, the 225 Partition (still listed for the Whelen). Blasphemy. The .358 WAS in #8. Dropped the 9.3x64 and 9.3x74R too since #8, but I'll get over that.
- Dropped a couple powders from America's Cartridge, the 6.5 Cre... I mean, the 30-06, but didn't replace them with anything new, that I can see. Just as it's been since #3 back in 1989, you can still get over 3000FPS with 63 gr RL-22 and a Nosler 165 gr. Yooou Betcha.
- Some things are just plain weird that almost look like they wanted it to LOOK like they reran the shooting runs, for instance. 11.5 gr H110 with the 40 grain bullet in the 22 Hornet went from 2794FPS to 2793FPS. But then in the 6.5x55, 43 grains of IMR4350 under the 140/142 jumped from 2730' to 2780'. And honestly, though I love it the 6.5x55 is certainly one of the rounds I would not have expected them to reshoot.
- Added the 6.5 PRC. Probably added a bunch of others I've not yet noted.
- One other odd thing is for many, many, of the listed loads, there is no change whatsoever from #8 (same components, same water capacity, same charge weight, and identical velocity), only the load density percentage numbers are changed by a percent or three. This looks like maybe a computer rerun. Noted this a lot in the 30-06 data.
- Lot's of fine new powders I've yet to find represented (Superformance, and have not yet run into many Endurons.)

Regardless, I am glad to have the book - worth the $22 I gave to SPS I reckon. I'm sure I'll enjoy reading it. But dropping the .358 Winnie?? As we said in my old job, YGBSM!

Cheers,
Rex