Handloading

I wish I refered to the bible as often as I refer to this book.It has the SAAMI chamber and cartridge drawings with tolerances that is missing from all of the other 50 load books I own.This has been a big help to me in gunsmithing.I have started collecting copies of this book and giving them away.

Although no longer in print, this very readable book has a wealth of information on topics such as cartridge development, safety issues, choosing reloading equipment, reloading for accuracy, muzzle energy, powder and bullet selection, ballistics, reforming cases, corrosive vs. non-corrosive primers, and numerous other aspects of cartridge reloading and shooting. The book also has ballistics tables for Federal, Remington, and Winchester factory-loaded cartridges, along with reloading tables for a great number of rifle and pistol cartridges, which, being dated in the early 80's, includes rounds such as the 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano and the 7.7 Japanese, but doesn't cover more recently popular cartridges such as the 9mm Markarov, 10mm Auto, the 40 S & W, or the new Short Magnums. Hopefully the NRA will see fit to publish a new edition in the near future with these recent developments included as well. One section I found very useful has the SAAMI drawings for popular American AND European cartridges, i.e., various Mauser cartridges, the 7.62 x 39 Russian, etc., along with standard dimensions for cartridges and chambers (although this isn't included in some of the earlier editions from the late 60's or early 70's). An excellent book all in all, in fact, I'm going to buy two more for Xmas gifts for some of my shooting buddies...

I've used this informative manual for years and rate it far higher than any of the manufacturers reloading manuals. It breaks down the recipes into logical groups by action type which didn't get into the manufacturer's manuals until fairly recently. This is particularly important when you load for older actions. I am fond of old Mausers, pre-98s, Trapdoors and Rollers with smokeless powders. I also like the objectivity of the book. Where else can you go to get chamber dimensions for most popular cartridges? If I had to live with only two recipe books, it would be the NRA Handloading and the Lyman Handloading. No one else covers lead and jacketed bullets as well in my opinion. On the negative side, the book isn't up-to-date for the latest cartridges and the spine tends to split when used alot. Maybe the spine problem is because my erstwhile shooting friends have abused the book making Xerox copies of the loads and chamber data that they need. Nah, they wouldn't do that. I really wish that the NRA would update this manual. I'd be first in line for the new one. JPM