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Old reloading manuals...

milktree

milktree

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Do old reloading manuals have any value, even if just for collectors?

I picked up a bunch of gun books from someone and they include some reloading manuals that are 30+ years old:

- Handloader's Digest, "new sixth edition",
price: "Five Dollars and Ninety-Five Cents"
Copyright MCMLXXII

- Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading, Third Edition
© 1980, fourth printing 1985

- Speer Reloading Manual, number 11
© 1987, third printing September 1988

- Basic Handloading (an Outdoor Life Book)
© 1978

- Handloading (a publication of the National Rifle Association of America)
© 1981

Obviously none of the recipes should be used now, since the newest book is 35 years old, but I can imagine someone might like them for historical value.

Are these just recycle material, or can I give them to a loving home?
 
I'm pretty sure there's guys who still use old manuals, at least for research. Sometimes obsolete manuals have data for unusual calibers that were popular at a specific time in history, like say 6.5x.257 Roberts for converted Arisakas or 8.15x46r for Wehrmannsgewehrs.

If I was selling those, I'd either throw them up on here and ask buyers to make an offer (double check the rules if "make me an offer" is ok for WTS/WTT posts) or put them on Gunbroker starting at $0.01. You could Karma them off on here, as well.
 
Another benefit to the Reloader Digest books is finding what something is. As mentioned above, sometimes I get a basement full of stuff and there is almost always parts or old tools that we don't use anymore. Flipping thru the digest, you can find out whats what.
 
Some powders have changed but not as much as rumored.
Such as 2400. It’s rumored to have changes and it either faster or slower now can the Hercules days.
A well known member on CastBoolits that has pressure testing equipment has laid to rest the myths of powder formulation many times.
He has tested powders like Hercules 2400 vs. brand new Aliant 2400 and found no more of a variation that would be found from one lot to the next of current manufacture.

The real issue is more so with the load data and how it was tested. CUP pressure was not as accurate a testing method as transducers or strain gauges so some of the loads were way too hot back then and still are now.

We just have better ways to test and know that shot to shot and lot to lot variation can have issues with stacking tolerances and factor that in now I’m sure more than ever.

I’ve run countless scenarios in quick loads with old and new data and in most cases can see why the modern loads have been reduced.

That being said if it’s old data with a modern powder I do like to check the new manufacturers recommendation before loading.
However the old books show things like reduced cast Bullet rifle loads with powders like Unique or Red Dot that you don’t see now a days. I’ve read articles from manufacturers saying that they removed some of this data because we have so many choices for powder now that there’s no need to do something such as load 357 Magnum with Bullseye. Though it’s possible it’s really working at the upper range. At the time there may have been 15 commercially available pistol powders and they tried to get the most out of them. Now that we have probably 4 times that amount we can omit the ones that might be riding too close to the edge.

Then there’s nostalgia and of course the “gotta have them all” factor in reloading manuals.
So yes don’t toss them. Offer them up for sale or do a karma to let someone stroll down memory lane.
I just picked up a Speer 13th a couple weeks back. Not because I needed it but because it was the first manual I ever bought and lent it to someone and never got it back. It was nice to flip through and see the pictures that I used to look at nightly while perusing data.
 
they can be handy to have, i kept all of my dad's old books, the load data is fine, nobody should be using max loads out of a book anyway unless they've worked up to them to see if they get any high pressure signs.
 
i refer to my old lyman book all the time, published in 1970 as well as my lyman cast bullet handbook. i think my newest manual i purchased is 25 years old. i buy old manuals for a buck or two if i see them and they can offer something new, i certainly don't want it if someone is asking more. you can get all the manuals published online now anyway.
 
jpm said:
Why on earth would you do that? If you're going to look it up online to do your loading, why would you bother with the old book at all??
Click to expand...
That was my response to anybody who was too much of a Sally to trust an old loading manual. If you're so nervous about it, double check online or with a newer manual. Or don't.
 
I still use Speer number 11 from 1988 and Hornady 3rd edition from 1985. Since I'm still using powder and primers I bought pre 1990 I guess the recipes are still valid. For the hell of it I just looked up my loading data for my target loads. The current info for .38 spl 148 grn hbwc is exactly the same as it was in 1985. And if you look up the info for the Bullseye powder the only specs I see that aren't exactly the same are the lot numbers, and I'm willing to bet a small pistol primer from cci today is identical to a small pistol primer from back when I still had a Cheryl Tiegs and Linda Carter posters in my reloading room.
 
jpm said:
Because the powders change over time. A recipe for powder ABC123 from the 80s may be completely different that powder ABC123 from 2020.
Click to expand...

Lol this makes no sense- if the composition of the manufactured powder changes over time enough that it would create an issue, that would be a huge liability problem for a powder company, they're not going to do that without the product being called something different.

Also like @PatMcD indicates, its not really that hard to cross reference the recipe with other references and see if its in the same wheelhouse.
 
jpm said:
Why on earth would you do that? If you're going to look it up online to do your loading, why would you bother with the old book at all??
Click to expand...

Because you can use it to sanity check the load. And find out how much lard and lawyerism is in a given data source. Or also to see how dumb it
is, one way or another. Some books are conservative to the point of being almost unusable and others are not so much.
 
drgrant said:
Lol this makes no sense- if the composition of the manufactured powder changes over time enough that it would create an issue, that would be a huge liability problem for a powder company, they're not going to do that without the product being called something different.
Click to expand...

There is at least one I remember reading about that this applies to. I think it may be an IMR, either 4895 or 4064 if I remember right.
 
Like others have said, the powders are the same, but pressure measuring equipment has gotten better, and when they retested some of the loads, some of the manufacturers had a few "OH SH!T" moments.

Also, they've learned that some powders had pressure issues at certain temperatures and had to modify the data. (I seem to recall Blue Dot having a pressure problem at low temperatures).
 
All those pressure issues would be solved by using a railgun. For the sake of it, I am trying to find out how much energy one requires, but everything I find talks about pretty big military railguns launching projectiles for 100s of kilometers. Not a smaller gun launching a 100 grain projectile for 1K yards or less.
 
Broccoli Iglesias said:
All those pressure issues would be solved by using a railgun. For the sake of it, I am trying to find out how much energy one requires, but everything I find talks about pretty big military railguns launching projectiles for 100s of kilometers. Not a smaller gun launching a 100 grain projectile for 1K yards or less.
Click to expand...
(Searching...nope; I guess it must have been Instapundit/Disqus where I wrote that)
one of the scariest things I ever read was Hellstrom's Hive.
Underground Bee People who could cause earthquakes
anywhere on earth (a la Our Man Flint)
to brush back even nuclear powers who didn't toe their line.
Their hives too deep to dig out with nukes.
Reproduction via procreative stumps:
headless female torsos kept alive to gestate embryos for the colony.
Kept me occupied trying to think of some workable countermeasure.

It just occurred to me that it's gonna be interesting to see
the Deep State's reaction at 8:01AM on the morning
that Elon Musk drops a few titanium rods from orbit on something
as a demonstration of what happens to countries that don't follow orders.
 

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