RELOADING FOR HANDGUNNERS
PATRICK SWEENEY
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DEDICATION
For years, and books now, you have seen dedications to Felicia. This book is no exception. Without her life would be different – less fun, less traveled, less productive, and for you the readers, less, period. However, there is an addition. Dan Shideler came on board as my editor for Gun Digest Book of the AR-15, Volume 2. With all due respect to those who labored with me before, Dan was easy to work with, fun to work with, and a veritable fountain of ideas and enthusiasm. For ten books we did our best to provide you, the reader, with information, entertainment, photos and something to look forward to on the bookshelves.
Alas, no more.
Dan left us in the Spring of 2011, too early.
So, for Felicia, who is still here, and for Dan, who isn’t, safe reloading.
Patrick Sweeney
June 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Four: Powder
Chapter Five: Setting up and maintaining your dies
Chapter Six: Statistics
Chapter Seven: Load development & testing
Chapter Eight: Primers
SECTION TWO: Reloading Data By Caliber
Chapter Nine: 9 mm Parabellum
Chapter Ten: 10 mm
Chapter Eleven: .32 Auto
Chapter Twelve: .32 Revolvers - Short, Long, Magnum, .327 and .32-20
Chapter Thirteen: .38 Special
Chapter Fourteen: .38 Super
Chapter Fifteen: .40 S&W
Chapter Sixteen: .41 Magnum
Chapter Seventeen: .44 Magnum
Chapter Eighteen: .44 Special
Chapter Nineteen .45 ACP
Chapter Twenty: .45 Colt
Chapter Twenty One: .357 Magnum
Chapter Twenty Two: .357 Sig
Chapter Twenty Three: .380 Auto
Chapter Twenty Four: .38-40
INTRODUCTION
Why reload? One might as well ask some of us, “Why shoot? Why compete? Why climb a mountain?” Because it is there.
But, existential questions aside, why reload is simple: control. If you wish to shoot and you depend on factory ammunition, you are dependent on: 1) what the ammo companies make; 2) what the store stocks; and 3) what your budget can afford. If any of those three do not fit your needs or desires, you will have a less pleasurable experience at the range. If two fail, you might well not be shooting at all.
One thing we have to get clear right away: you are not going to save money by reloading. Oh, don’t get me wrong, you will recoup your capital investments (whatever they may be, over whatever period of time you spend) but you will not save money. You will not save any for the simple reason that, if you are like the rest of us, any potential savings will be plowed right into shooting more.
That is, if your “ouch” limit on shooting fun for the weekend is $100 of ammo, you will spend up to the point it begins to hurt. With factory ammo, that could be 100 rounds. With reloads, it could be 1,000 rounds. I ran into this same phenomenon when I was learning photography. Buying film in bulk, loading film canisters and doing my own developing didn’t save money. It just meant a whole lot more practice, and practice is what makes you good. And that makes the expenditures worthwhile.
In addition to shooting more, reloading also allows you to shoot some firearms at all. There are f rearms for which one cannot purchase ammunition, but for which ammunition can be loaded. Now, in many cases there is a good reason ammo isn’t available; for one, many handguns should not be fired. And that includes rarities as well as elderly specimens.
This is not your typical reloading manual. What you have here is the collation of my personal experiences of decades of reloading. Some will be obvious, some will not.
I do not try to show some sort of loading data for every handgun cartridge in existence. For one thing, I haven’t loaded them all. And another, I don’t have them all. (Even in my circles there are calibers one just doesn’t see.) What I cover are the ones I’ve done a whole passel of loading for, the ones I find interesting,
