Hornady Reload Man 8th Ed

[ExAgoradzo]

OK, so you guys talked me into buying a reload manual. My friend who is helping me as the old Lyman and Speer books (they look pretty old ).

If I buy the Hornady, will it also give me 'standard' loads for other bullets (like Nosler, speer, and Barnes, etc)? I need Hornady because I'm using their GMX bullets.

Is this a good 'first buy' if my friend already has the older 'standard' books for when I start doing this on my own?

Thanks,
Greg

 

[cfullgraf]

No, the Hornady manual only has Hornady bullets.

But it is a good manual.

You will find that true of any of the bullet or powder manufacturers who publishes data, their manual will only contain their products.

Lyman #49 has a mix of bullets and powders since, except for cast bullet molds, they do not manufacture bullets or powder.

 

[AndyL51]

When I reload a cartridge I have a number of manuals that I refer to. They don't all use the same powder for the same weight bullet and some of the newer powders aren't listed either, for obvious reasons. I get new manuals periodically, not necessarily every new edition but I don't get too far out of date, stuff changes. The Hornady #8 manual is a good manual, it doesn't have the ballistics tables of some of the other manuals because the authors expect you to go online and use Hornady's online calculator which seems to be pretty good.

 

[BYJO4]

Lyman is a good manual that gives load data for various makes of jacketed bullets along with data on cast bullets.

 

[helotaxi]

Buy the Lyman manual, regardless. It really is the best general loading manual published. It may not have all the latest and greatest data; you can find all that online, but it does have the widest variety of loads and the general reloading information in the front of the manual is probably the best published.

 

[ExAgoradzo]

Thanks guys,
I bought both: Lyman's 49 and Hornady #8. I kind of feel like I spent $30 to loan the one bullet I have from Hornady, but if I'm going to keep reloading (and live in CA where I have to hunt with copper) then I'm going to keep buying Hornady bullets.
I appreciate you all helping the noob out.
Greg

 

[beatledog7]

My Hornady 8 was part of the LNL Classic press kit that got me started. I use it a lot because I like the price/quality ratio of many Hornady bullets, and the book has specific data for them. I bought my initial stock of powders based on which ones Hornady tested for the calibers I wanted to begin loading. The Hornady's generic reloading guidance is pretty good, too.

Sometimes I cross-reference Hornady when loading someone else's bullets, but I usually shift to Lyman, Lee (which is a compilation), or the on-line data published by the bullet maker or the powder maker.