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Old January 17, 2013, 12:49 AM   #1
Jay24bal
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Most Comprehensive Manual For Loads?

I am relatively new to reloading as I have been doing it for about a year now, and have a quesiton in regards to different manuals.

When I began reloading, I made the decision to go with mostly Lee Precision equipment and I follwed suit with Modern Reloading (2nd ed.) by Richard Lee. While the load data is certainly plentiful, I find it lacking a bit. For example, Alliant claims that Power Pistol was designed for 9mm and 40 S&W and Unique is supposed to be a very versatile all-around powder, yet the manual does not list loads in the common weights of 115 gr. or 124 gr Jacketed Bullets for 9mm, or 165 gr. or 180 gr. Jacketed Bullets in 40 S&W. It only list these two powders for the weights in XTP (defined by Lee as Hornady XTP, Speer Gold Dot or Remington Golden Sabers). I don't know about other people, but for general plinking/target ammo, I do not generally load expensive HP bullets.

While I know calculations can be done to figure out a safe starting load based on the XTP loads or various loads can be found online, I would prefer to see them in pubished manuals. I looked on Alliants's website and they list HPs of many varities, but no FMJ rounds for these powders. I like the idea of having a second (or third) manual and am hoping to hear from people with multiple manuals as to which manual they feel has the most extensive list of loads?

Thanks in advance for your input before I pick up a second manual.
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Old January 17, 2013, 02:23 AM   #2
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I like the Sierra manual a lot for jacketed as it has a lot of powders listed, also Nosler, and the Lyman for lead bullets.

Because HP are blunt nose they are usually seated deeper into the case so the bullet tip does not jamb in the barrel chamber/throat. If you seat a FMJ out near max COL you should be able to use any data for same weight HP. Just don't seat the FMJ to the shorter COL listed for the HP as FMJ often are longer and this would cause them to be seated deeper in the case and increase pressures.
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Old January 17, 2013, 02:32 AM   #3
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I have found the Lyman manual to offer a broad range of powders and bullets that generally meet my reloading needs.
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Old January 17, 2013, 03:16 AM   #4
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I like sierra and nosler because that's mainly what bullets I use. Sierra's manual is top notch IMHO.
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Old January 17, 2013, 09:41 AM   #5
Jay24bal
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Thanks for the input guys.

Thank you for the input.

Without ever having seen the other manuals, I was leaning towards the Nosler, Hornady, or Sierra. I figure the bullet manufacturers will list more load data for a wider range of bullets as that is what they do...
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Old January 17, 2013, 10:31 AM   #6
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Yup ... but then for the powder manufacturers you are limited to their powders, and for the bullet manufacturers you are limited to their bullets. It all depends upon what you think you will be reloading.
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Old January 17, 2013, 10:32 AM   #7
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That Lyman 49th is the one I reach for first and most often.
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Old January 17, 2013, 11:27 AM   #8
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You can't have too many references. Most powder manufacturers will provide you complimentary loading manuals listing data using their powders
in popular calibers with generic bullet types and weights.

Bullet manufacturer and nose configuration does not significantly affect safe, recommended loads. A jacketed bullet is a jacketed bullet regardless of nose configeration. A safe load for a jacketed hollow point bullet is a safe load for a full metal jacketed bullet.

My first choices for manuals are Lyman and Modern Reloading for the most versatility, however, I am continually cross checking all relevant manuals when working up a new load.
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Old January 17, 2013, 12:33 PM   #9
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Lyman #49 and Lee's Modern Reloading are my two as well. lI shoot a lot of Hornady bullets so if/when I add another book it will likely be theirs. But for general purpose loads you'll do fine with the first two. You can also cross check data from powder manufacturer mini-books and web sites. Data for plated bullets seems to be scarce in many of the books, but often available at the bullet manufacturer's site.
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Old January 17, 2013, 04:10 PM   #10
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Quote:
Bullet manufacturer and nose configuration does not significantly affect safe, recommended loads. A jacketed bullet is a jacketed bullet regardless of nose configeration. A safe load for a jacketed hollow point bullet is a safe load for a full metal jacketed bullet.
This is not true. Nose configuration affects bearing surface length which direcly affects pressure, and FMJ vs HP affects the tail of the bullet. An open base FMJ will have less resistance to the bore than a flat base hollowpoint bullet, as a solid gilding metal base will compress less than exposed lead.

Always do a load workup. No two components can be treated as "equals."

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Old January 17, 2013, 07:23 PM   #11
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All of the powder manufactures have all of their data on line on their web page and you can down laod all of them for the cost of paper and ink.
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Old January 18, 2013, 05:10 AM   #12
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Quote:
Without ever having seen the other manuals, I was leaning towards the Nosler, Hornady, or Sierra.
Though I don't own one, I've been impressed with the Hornady manual.

I do have the Nosler manual, however, and I don't recommend that one if you tend to be looking for a lot of handgun data. There simply isn't much handgun data in it. Not in caliber selection, not in bullet selection, just not at all worth chasing down if your primary concern is handgun data. Lots of good stuff in there for rifle handloading...which makes sense as Nosler's bread & butter is in the arena of rifles.

For handgun data, look at Speer and Lyman's 49th.
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Old January 18, 2013, 07:13 AM   #13
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I only load pistol ammo these days. I like the Speer and Lyman books. I do check what the powder manufactures say as well. This will give me 3 sources. Most of the time I will just grab the Speer book first to get a general idea of where I want to go. I don't trust one source. If I find conflicting data it is time to pull out another source.
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