whats your favorite vintage loading manual

[pa.frank]

Mine happens to be Lyman 45.... and I have them going back to Lyman 43 in think up to date. and every other bullet/powder manufacturers manual as well.

I've gone through 3 Lyman 45's so far in the last 50 years,,, as they fall apart, (the weakness with this book) I have been lucky enough to find a replacement in good shape..

So whats your go-to manual?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Not necessarily "go-to",
but my favorite vintage manual is the "Professional Loading of rifle, pistol, and shotgun cartridges including pressures and velocities and Reloading Data for, Gun and Ammunition Manufacturers, Professional and Amateur target shooters, Game Hunters and Guides" - George Leonard Herter 1970 Revised 4th Ed.

[Plinkmeister]

I like Speer #7. No particular reason, it's just the first one I started with.

[Bryan Austin]

My most favorite is the load chart sheet wrapped around the powder can from 1899!
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[oldleadhead]

Another vote for the Lyman 45th edition...

[Eddie Southgate]

Lyman #45 and #40

[curiousgeorge]

Lyman 45 and Hornady 2nd Edition. The two I started with. I have Lyman manuals back into the 1950s. Pretty neat to see almost all the pistol and rifle data with cast lead bullets, hardly any jacketed.

[15meter]

Probably Phil Sharpe's book on reloading. Lots of obscure weird info. Or Hatcher's Notebook. Not a reloading manual, but a lot of old weird info.

[Noah Zark]

The one I started with, Lyman 45.

Ken Waters' Pet Loads and supplements have been indispensible.

Plus Sharpe's and Narramore's books.

I have a number of books that once belonged to Phil Sharpe, one of which is Hatcher's Notebook. The margins are annotated in red pencil by Sharpe, chiding Hatcher for mistakes, and recording his agreement and dissent with various points Hatcher made. Sharpe was known amongst his peers to insufferably opinionated.

Noah

[dale2242]

Some very early Lyman manuals that I picked up at the H&G estate sale.

[relics6165]

Speer #8 if you want 'em hot, otherwise the red brick from Ken Waters.

[relics6165]

Noah, that's interesting about Phil Sharpe's marginal notes in Hatcher's Notebook. I had a copy of JG Benton's Ordnance and Gunnery from 1862 with marginal notes of my this and my that in it............I finally figured out "my" was none other than Edward Maynard. Thomas Publications ended up reprinting that one, notes and all.

[Walla2]

Ken Waters Pet Loads.

[curiousgeorge]

Noah,
Thanks for reminding of the Ken Waters book. I bet I have 35 or 40 pages marked with little scraps of paper sticking out the top.

I was given a hardback copy of Keith's "Sixguns" by an older gentleman back in 1998. He and Keith had written several letters back and forth in the 1960s and 1970s regarding load data and experimentation they had both done in the 1940s and 1950s, especially regarding the .44 Special. When Sixguns was published Keith had sent him a copy and signed the fly leaf, "To my good friend (name here)" and signed it " Your friend, Elmer Keith". A very precious book to me because if who gave it to me, but sometimes we forget that Keith, Skelton, Wooters, and others were just people like all of us. I'll never forget the night back in the early 1980s tha Joyce Hornady called my house to answer an inquiry I had made earlier that day when he was out of the office regarding an old surplus powder they had sold. It's why I cherish the friends I've made here. You don't have to be famous, but even if you are, you can be still be a great source of knowledge and friendship to others.

[bangerjim]

I own all the books. But rather than wear them out, I Xerox just the pages for the cal / weight / powder I use and make my own 3-ring binder book that I refer to. If the pages wear out. I just re-copy those pages. And can easily include prints-outs from the net easily in the binder, indexed to the topic/cal/power/size!

An added benefit is I can write notes and reminders to myself without fear of ruining the original copies!

Right now, my binder is about 1.5" thick with all the pages and tabs in there.

banger

[Bazoo]

For vintage, I am partial to the Lyman 46th. It has some great information about vintage loading gear and bullet moulds. Still has relevant data as well.

[jonp]

Mine happens to be Lyman 45.... and I have them going back to Lyman 43 in think up to date. and every other bullet/powder manufacturers manual as well.

I've gone through 3 Lyman 45's so far in the last 50 years,,, as they fall apart, (the weakness with this book) I have been lucky enough to find a replacement in good shape..

So whats your go-to manual?

I have a Lyman 45 at my hunting camp I'm looking at right now. It's my "go to" I guess

[Bazoo]

I've been wanting to pick up a copy of the Lyman 45. I hear tell it's got some good articles in it.

[M-Tecs]

Lyman 45 is what I started with and while the powders are somewhat dated it's still one of the better manuals to start learning to reload with. Easy to understand without being overly complicated.

Lots of loads for the old goto powders from the 60's and 70's. I collect older manuals just for that reason. The Lyman 45 is at the top of the list of the 50 or so manuals that I own.

[Bent Ramrod]

I've "got 'em all," and enjoy reading 'em all. But when I have a modern cartridge I want to reload for the first time, I generally go to the 1968 Pacific "Rifle and Pistol Cartridge Reloading Manual."

For the old stuff, of course, it's "Pet Loads," Sharpe's book and the older Lyman books (started with Lyman's 44th Edition), and of course getting into modern powders and stuff I look through Speer, Hornady, etc offerings, but for some reason the Pacific manual seems to have a lot of good stuff in one place to start with.