Older reloading manuals

[wolfe28]

There are a couple of used book stores in my area, and one of them has an early 80's set of Hornady reloading manuals. Being somewhat financialy embarassed (insert broke as hell if you like), these look like a good idea due to the price, but what about the data? I realize that there will be some useful information in just about any reloading manual (within reason), but is there a particular age at which the load data should no longer be used?

Thanks,
D

 

[JDGray]

Get the freebees at the supply stores, or get data off line. Every year the data in books seem to go down on charge weights. Dont know if its lawyer stuff, or better pressure testing. Better safe then sorry

 

[armoredman]

Ditto - get the manuals for techniqes and tricks, but do NOT use the data. I fell into that trap with an old Hornady book, and Accurate #2 loads, and discovered that Accurate had completely changed thier powder manufacturer since the book was written, and all data had been recompiled. What I though were mid range loads by Hornady, were actually over max with the new formula.

 

[hoghunting]

The older manuals are still good for learning about and how to reload. But as the others have stated, don't use the tables. You can visit the powder manufacturer's site and get the current data.

 

[SASS#23149]

Circle the data you have verified online

Than when you aren't near a computer,or it is having a bad day,you have useful verified data right at hand.
My computer is upstairs,and my loadbooks are right by the bench.get it?
color me lazy.

 

[ball3006]

I never pass up an old reloading manual.....

You can never have too much reloading data. Alot of the data in the old books can be more detailed than in the newer books, aka legalese................chris

 

[steveno]

I have a couple of old Lyman manuals that are over 40 years old I refer to a lot. as with any manual just use some common sense

 

[Nortonics]

Those older manuals are valuable - back during an era when publishers didn't worry too much about their clients suing them because the "max load" was truly the "max load". Nowadays things are a little more tame. Compare some identical loads from between those many years and you'll find some interesting trends in published data.

Members on the dedicated handloading forums (like handloads.com) are always keeping an eye out for old manuals.