A litle help deciding on which book!

[KeithET]

I started with a Speer book 30+ years ago. It covered everything pretty well. Got my first Lyman book a couple years later. Over the years I have used many books but always go back to Lyman or Speer. I have the latest Lyman #49. Sad to say I have not updated my Speer book in a few years. With that I would say Lyman and Speer first and second would work to start with. Eventually you will be getting books from all the bullet manufacturers that you use. It just makes things easier. I have Speer, Sierra, Hornady, and Nosler. Those are the most common bullets I use outside of cast which I use the Lyman Cast bullet book for. In reality its a never ending process. I have a pretty extensive library, some old some new. All heavily used.

KeithET

[alfred1222]

Lyman and hornady are what I use

[gigante]

Besides the Hodgdon site, I use Hornady, Lyman, and Lee the most. I have Sierra's and others as well.

[stilly]

I know everyone has an opinion which is why Im asking..

Think back to when you first started reloading.. Now think of all the books you have read on the subject since then. Now decide which would be the first and second book on reloading you would buy if you had to start as a noob again...

I have 2 Dillon presses on the way, a 550b and a 650xl and most of the stuff to load 223, 40, 9mm and 308. They will be delivered on Tuesday next week so Im starting to hunt for powder, primers and bullets, but I also need to get my hands on a few good books to help me out. I have a friend who has been reloading for about 12 years who will also be helping me out but would still like some good reading material..

Thanks for your input.

I have read 1 book and that was enough. The rest of the information I got from folks here or my friend who reloads.

If I had to recco a book, I would suggest the Book of Lee because of the HUGELY ENORMOUS, EPIC section of LOADS and PHENOMINAL RECIPES...

But as for actually reading for instruction, I would have to say either Lyman or Hornady.

The BoLee is kinda fun to read though because it talks **** on other products made by other maufacturers...

[Cheap Shot]

My recommendation

I haven't see the lyman book yet, looks like it or the lee abc book (which I have).
Regardless of which of those you pick, I recommend also getting the book put out by the bullet manufacturer you are going to use (I use Sierra the most).

[popeye4]

Glen Zediker's book is fantastic. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to get serious about reloading for rifles.

I like the Speer, Hornady and Nosler books. I own pretty much all of the available books, with several editions of each, but those three are the ones I use most.

^^^This^^^

I started with the Speer book many moons ago, but have also looked over the books from Hodgdon, Hornady, Sierra, Nosler..... Each has a "beginners" section that will get you oriented. I second and third the nomination for Glen Zediker's book, you will get a much greater understanding of the whole process, including how the round will interact with the firearm. It isn't just for highpower competitors (but it probably is useless if you are just loading for pistol).

[popeye4]

"Handloader" magazine from Wolfe Publishing is also an interesting rag, at least subscribe for a while. I find that my handloading is now pretty well focused and refined, and I don't get much from the articles, but it is still a good read once a month.

[Javi]

Glen Zediker's book is fantastic. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to get serious about reloading for rifles.

Would it help me better understand figuring out bullet seating depth, "bumping" the shoulder, etc? Some of that goes right over my head.

[GeoffLinder]

Would it help me better understand figuring out bullet seating depth, "bumping" the shoulder, etc? Some of that goes right over my head.

If you are loading for rifle, it will greatly expand your understanding of the whole system even if a lot of it is above your head at first.

As far as bumping the shoulder goes, here is a quick run down.

The round is a tad shorter than the chamber (in most cases). Headspace is determined by distance from point midway in case shoulder (known as datum line) to breech face, cases should be one and a half to two and a half thousandths shorter than this. This slop is what headspace is. It is required to ensure proper chambering and allowing bolt to fully close and lock reliably.

When a rifle round is fired, here is what happens. The primer strike from firing pin "typically" drives round fully forward so case shoulder contacts chamber shoulder and the headspace slop is now all between the case head and breech face. When pressure wave drives bullet out of case and into rifling, case is expanded so it sticks to chamber walls from pressure tension, the space between case head and breech face then gets filled up as case is stretched out to push case head right up to breech face.

When bullet leaves bore and pressure drops, brass relaxes and springs back just slightly to release from chamber walls. This tiny amount of springback allows for extraction of fired case.

After firing, the case is now almost exactly the same size as chamber because it has been blown out to fill chamber dimensions and stretched to length of datum line to breech face.

When you resize to reload, you squeeze case mouth and case OD in forward area down just slightly to allow for easy chambering next time and bullet holding tension in case mouth. You also need to bump the case shoulder back at this point to restore the headspace noted above to the .015" to .025" range.

Rifle cases grow in length because of this stretching. Cases are stretched at base and metal moves forward during resizing and case neck is what grows in length. This is why rifle cases require trimming back in length every couple firings or they grow too long in neck area and will jam in chamber and cause pressure issues.

After a number of firings the case base wall area starts to get thinner due to the forward metal migration and case head separations can start happening if you do too many reloading cycles on cases.

Bolt actions require less shoulder bump than semi-autos do for feed and chambering reliability in dirty chambers. Rifle cases used in semi-auto should be resized in small base dies which size the case walls down further back than standard rifle dies do. For certain applications like target and high accuracy loading, neck size only dies can be used for bolt action sizing. These only squeeze case mouth ID/OD down in size and do not bump the shoulder back. This mode of neck sizing only extends case life for bolt action use.

Setting proper headspace is best done using a comparator case gauge to properly set this to .015" to .025" range rather than just screwing the size die in all the way till it contacts shell plate like most people seem to do.

I highly recommend the LE Wilson one shown in link below. A PDF set of instructions for using it can be found there.

http://www.lewilson.com/casegage.html

As for bullet seating depth, depth of seating effects pressure and you should always load as long as possible to minimize the pressure effect. Too long though and you risk having the bullet jammed into the rifling when chambered, this can cause an unsafe pressure rise. Best seating depth is when there is a small amount of bullet jump allowed for into rifling. Usually in the .001 to .0025 range. Always follow recommended OAL in manuals for a specific bullet type rather than just for a general bullet weight as bullet taper profiles vary and different bullets of same weight can have different jump distances even at same OAL because of their shape profile.

As an example, 55gr to 62gr .223 rounds are best kept in the 2.130" to 2.145" OAL range for semi-autos. 2.145" to 2.155" are best OAL range for 69-77gr in .223 for semi-autos.

Hope this helps.

[ar15barrels]

The primer strike from firing pin drives round fully forward so case shoulder contacts chamber shoulder and the headspace slop is now all between the case head and breech face.

In guns with a bolt-mounted spring-loaded ejector, the cartridge will already be at rest against the shoulder before the firing pin strike.

[GeoffLinder]

In guns with a bolt-mounted spring-loaded ejector, the cartridge will already be at rest against the shoulder before the firing pin strike.

Correct, but cannot cover every exigency in a single forum reply. Otherwise they won't buy my book LOL

Thx Randall :-)

[AlexKintner]

Lee is mostly blah blah about how great they are. Data is decent. My next will be Hornady due to garand section.

[Javi]

Wow! Great post, Geoff! I'll have to get the book soon. The whole reason I wanted to reload was because I bought a Swedish Mauser & I can't afford to shoot it often. I'm basically looking to make affordable plinking/target rounds so I can be able to take it out of the safe. The Lyman manual kept things pretty simple as far as the rifle section. It wasn't until I read posts on here about the shoulder where it seems more complicated than the manual makes it out to be.

[GeoffLinder]

Wow! Great post, Geoff! I'll have to get the book soon. The whole reason I wanted to reload was because I bought a Swedish Mauser & I can't afford to shoot it often. I'm basically looking to make affordable plinking/target rounds so I can be able to take it out of the safe. The Lyman manual kept things pretty simple as far as the rifle section. It wasn't until I read posts on here about the shoulder where it seems more complicated than the manual makes it out to be.

It's not that complicated, it just requires understanding the process and making accurate measurements so you are not just arbitrarily setting the shoulder back.

For the Mauser I would suggest a very light shoulder setback of no more than .001 (if any at all) and not using a small base die. This will minimize case working and constant case blowout back to full chamber dimensions to allow for more reload cycles before the cases are unsafe to load any more (case base wall stretching and overall brass working).

I kind of doubt SB dies are easily available for the Mauser anyway

[Old Scribe]

I probably use Lee's Modern Reloading the most. Good information, good coverageof calibers and I like using Lee equipment.