You know...I have been reloading for well over a year now. When I first started, I got a lot of my "pre-purchase" advice from lurking in the forums on here. Just like guns, reloading equipment owners are highly biased to what whey purchased. So finding objective advice was painful. So I just read a lot of the "how to do it" articles and then, when I felt I understood what I needed, I just jumped in and went with Lee products. I am not unhappy at all. I feed my need and save significant money do it. My equipment functions well and I know where I need to improve.
Getting to the Lyman manual: I will not sit here and say reloading manuals are not necessary. But yeah, they seem to be highly biased themselves. Pushing only what they have some reason to push. Yeah I own a Lyman 49th Edition. But for the most part these days, I just scour the forums looking for advice. I reload .45 ACP, 9mm and .308. Now that I am into .357, I find that once again I am looking toward the experience of other re loaders for help. I did check the Lyman, but they only give loads for certain combinations that I don't have.
In this time of Obama Gun Hate Panic, supplies are kinda scarce. Lucky I am well stocked for .308, .45 and 9mm supplies. It took me forever to get the .357 components, and then I paid a higher price. Grafs took a month to send it. Hopefully this panic wears off by the end of summer, when, once again, I will be seeking supplies for some calibers. But I am going to ration my shooting...see how the panic fares. I always check the local Wally world to check the temperature of the panic...right now it's off the scale!!