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Old 11-07-2011, 08:42 AM
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Maximumbob54 Maximumbob54 is offline
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I really don't think there is a "best" reloading manual. And I agree with the above comment on COAL when it involves bullet seating depth. Then you have to sort through the reviews of the various products. I don't see very many negative reviews of the Hornady books unless you listen to the talk about how they don't have very much data that doesn't involve their own bullets. I can't say that is really a bad thing or a good thing, it's just something to know before you buy that book. The Speer books are very similar in that they give the bulk of the data to cover their own bullets. So if you don’t like the Hornady books then you very likely won’t care for the Speer books either. I know the Castboolits guy trash talk both the Lyman reloading book and the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook. My view is that they do it for the same reason that many guys trash talk most modern reloading data. Everyone seems to think that published data these days had been written by lawyers and not shooters. My take on that thought is that we used CUP data for a long time. From what I have read up about how CUP is measured, it isn’t a very exact science. Now we are using PSI as measured from some fairly high tech and pretty accurate machines that cost a boatload of money. So load data used to be not so accurate, there are a lot of worn to heck revolvers out there, and you still get the guys that want to keep adding more powder until they see flattened primers, and the Ruger/TC/BFR type guys demand still more lightening to come from their barrels. So I think this becomes another case of “You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”…

All of that being said, I’m slowly buying all the manuals that I find. I recently burned myself by not checking all of those that I have and went ahead and loaded some possible +P to +P+ type ammo. I even weenie out this last weekend on even trying a couple. I just boxed them up and set them aside for further thought later. Then I tried loading some .223 using data from the Hornady book. Did all the case prep, started to dump some powder, looked in the loading block, and there were lots of uneven levels. I poured a bunch of them into the 505 scale only to find they were all pretty spot on. It’s the cases that have the pretty wild difference in volume. And that isn’t covered by loading data in any book that I have.

I’m even working on my own personal reloading book. I write down what components I use in what loads and when I find a load that works well in one or more of my guns then I write that down. I write down that a load in my Combat Magnum works great but my Security Six doesn’t like that load. I write that my tumble lube bullets work great in this revolver and this rifle, but they lead in this or that gun. I write pretty much anything and everything down that I can think of for review later. Call it OCD, I just enjoy my reloading time and seeing the end results.
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