Why do I give this book 4 stars, but still give a critical statement about it in the title of my review. Well, for starters, this book is written in magazine style as I call it. The author typically puts out a lot of information in the style of a magazine article. What this means is that as problems crop up, you are ushered to a purchasable solution at your local store. Why is this NOT a good writing style, because it costs you unnecessary money and shows a gross lack of thought and research on the part of the author. It is almost like the author did a lot of research, but has not had a lot of practical experience on the subject that he writes about.

What I did not like about the book at hand was that it recommended full length resizing of the cartridge casing (fine if you are using it in an automatic rifle, NOT necessary at all if you are using a bolt action rifle). Full length resizing stresses the cartridge too much, compared to neck sizing it. This leads to premature cartridge casing failure (if you do not periodically ANNEAL the cartridge case neck) Annealing is NEVER mentioned in the book. What the author recommends is full length cartridge case resizing, no annealing, inspect casing for damage, discard damaged (which could have been prevented by ANNEALING). Thanks, more stuff to BUY. Us old guys neck size cartridges and anneal them every 4th or 5th loading to preserve our brass. BUY is a word used by marketing driven magazine writers, NOT old reloaders who know their stuff. Further more, Once a cartridge is fired in a rifle it has had its headspace perfectly adjusted for that gun. Just neck size it and periodically anneal it by standing the cases up in a pan of water and heating the neck red hot before knocking them over. Then deprime, neck size, reprime and reload them. Cases can last a lot longer and shoot a lot more accurately if this procedure (not mentioned in the book) is followed.

In the books defense, it is a decent read and will give you a lot of good information about reloading your own bullets.

Happy reading, Darian Paganelli

Great book for your library of reloading manuals and books. Has great detail and lots of good information about the specifics of reloading.

Probably a good book for raw beginners, but not much use to a seasoned re-loader...I'm sure the beginner should be the audience...

This book seems to be as comprehensive as possible on this subject. It covers reloading for pistols, rifles, and shotguns, and covers all kinds of safety issues, even lead poisioning. Considering the price of doing something wrong when you reload cartridges could be your hands or your eyesight, everyone who plans to reload cartridges owes it to themselves to spend a little bit of money and read this book first.

This book is a very useful manual for all reloading aficionados. It is clearly written and gives all necessary information on the most current ammunition. A good and informative complement to more specific reloading manuals. A must...

Very good basic book for those just starting our with reloading. The only thing it didn't have was a list of basic load data for the various caliber weapons. It did get me started in reloading and helped with selection of essential equipment.

This book is a group of articles that have been put together from older publications but the information is still very useful.

I am currently learning how to reload and this book is a great start with. It breaks things down fairly easy to understand. Using this book plus watching videos on youtube really helped me understand the whole process of reloading. I would highly recommend this book for beginners

I won't belabor the very good comments made by other reviewers who liked this book. I agree with them, and even agree with some of the mild criticisms. I post my review to reiterate the basic point: this book is an EXCELLENT first book to read if you want to get started reloading. DO buy it and enjoy the read, if you want to start reloading.

I would also recommend Lee's "Modern Reloading 2nd Edition" as the next book to read, after finishing Bill's great introductory tome. A bit "sales-y" with the Lee products, but Richard Lee has done some incredible things during his many decades (!!) of reloading, and you will benefit greatly from his quirky but enjoyable exposition, and anecdotal information to be found nowhere else (eg: where is the biggest lead exposure hazard to be found while reloading?). I especially enjoyed the story told of the time he loaded a load so hot, so fast, the bullet, traveling at over 4000 fps, melted and vaporized in flight, leaving a grey trail of lead vapor in its path!

Unlike many books in print, this one is worth buying. Has a lot of practical info in it. Get a copy of this, and Lee's reloading manual, and between them and the internet you should have enough info to get started.

A "must have" for reloading your own ammo. All the ins and outs of "how to".

This Book is very informative and I would say an excelent source of information for the beginner.

Great book, just what a new handloader should read first. But I'd suggest that you order it from MidwayUSA. That's because they will ship it out the same day it's ordered. Amazon took more than two weeks to ship, then said it had been lost in transit (it hadn't). The book finally arrived, and so did a replacement book, which Amazon "generously" said they had shipped first class. In the meantime, I was halfway through the book I'd ordered from MidwayUSA. I only wanted one book, but now I had three. I refused the second book from Amazon, but that still left me with two books. Would I order from Amazon again? Not if I could buy a book someplace else.

This book has a plethora of information for all types of reloading. The sections discussing some of the safety concerns with primers was particularly helpful. I am currently limited to loading pistol ammunition, but this book helped expand my horizons to consider other possibilities.

This is a good overview for someone who has never reloaded. I don't think it answers every question, but I think it tells you all the steps you need and more than enough knowledge so that you know you need to even ask the question. At lot of the reference manuals are just lots of tables, but lack the overview of how to put that information to use. The combination of the two would be great.

This book is a must-have for anyone who reloads whether they are a novice or an "old-hand". The information is informative and very easy to understand. I did find it rather humorous that a great portion of illustrations were hand drawn...sort've like drawing it out as your sitting at the reloading bench. This book is well worth the price of admission.

This was a good book. I was looking for something which was a little different from what I found. I wanted a book which would talk to a beginner who knew very little but wanted to have intermediate knowledge by the end of the book. I guess I was looking for a review of different loaders and tools along with how to use them but the book only throws out information which leaves you short if you are such a rank beginner as myself. (I wanted the book to tell me what I needed in the form of which loader to buy, etc., this just did not happen.) The reason I rated the book as high as I did was because it gave me food for thought, not specific directions, with enough details I was able to form my own ideas on what I needed to know. It was up to me to go get the knowledge myself so I was able to gleam a large amount of knowledge from the book as I (Yes here come a Dr. Phil quote)"didn't know what I didn't know."

Based on the title, I expected a progressive flow of information that would culminate in competency reloading. This is a series of articles involving reloading bound under one title. Not useful.

This book should be No. 1 on anyone's list contemplating reloading brass cartriges. This is the best overview of essential information I have read.

This is a very comprehensive and interesting manual. I would recommend it to all.

I've been reloading for about 15 years for everything from practical pistol to NRA highpower, hunting loads for military surplus guns and everything in between. I have the reloading manuals put out by reloading equipment manufacturers (such as Lyman and Lee) as well as those put out by powder and bullet manufacturers (e.g. Speer, Accurate). So compared to a beginner, I am a fairly advanced reloader. Nevertheless, I always want to know more, get new ideas, and so forth.

This book is comprehensive in that it puts forth a great deal of information relevant to reloading rifle, pistol and shotgun. But it doesn't just cover the basics -- it also goes into a great deal of depth on subjects not covered in other reloading manuals.

One example is one of the most perplexing questions facing a new handloader: when the powder manufacturer gives a particular "starting" and "maximum" load for a given bullet weight, and the bullet manufacturer gives different information ... whose do you use?

This book also describes practically every imaginable piece of equipment you might want, goes into important detail about concepts such as "headspace" and includes specific advice for handloading for different purposes such as big game hunting or varminting.

I recommend this book highly for both beginning and experienced reloaders. For beginners, it will allow you to start with a level of knowledge that would ordinarily take years to acquire. For more experienced reloaders, it gives valuable information on the peculiarities of some of the new cartridges and bullet offerings.

This book is well worth its price and then some -- it belongs on your bookshelf if you are considering reloading.

GREAT PRODUCT, GREAT INFORMATION. I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANYONE WHO IS JUST GETTING STARTED WITH RELOADING. FROM BEGINNING TO END THE BOOK IS WELL LAID OUT AND WRITTEN. FROM BASIC SAFETY, TO BUILDING YOUR OWN RELOADING BENCH, TO SPECIALITY LOADS ITS ALL THERE FOR NOVICE AND EXPERIENCED. GREAT BUY FOR THE MONEY.

I had no knowledge about reloading until I got this book. I was planning on loading my own cartridges since my vintage P08 Parabellum pistol is rather picky when it comes to ammunition, but I had no idea how much is involved. This book gave me a good basic education in the field of reloading and is easy enough to read that even the newcomer can understand it. I highly recommend it.

I read the ABC's of reloading to learn about reloading shotshells and pistol ammunition. It is a great book, well written with lots of info and great pictures. I will read it again and again, and it will be used as a reference book as well. This book is a must have for anyone starting to reload, or as a reference for anyone who has reloaded for years. This is truly the bible of reloading.

The Author served as reloading expert for the NRA for years. The book is written with a "safety first" format. The author keeps newbies out of trouble with pictures of reloading gone bad.

This book will save you a lot of grief, by learning from others mistakes, rather than your own.

This book will give the reader a great start on learning to reload. It will also help the experienced reloader who may have forgotten a few pointers.

This is a well known article and the sellers discription was perfect as well as the condition of the book. very easy to read and understand with plenty of photos. Iam allready making my reloading table from the diagram and material list in the book.

As a beginner to reloading, I was looking for a book that covered all the details. Believe me, if its about reloading, this book covers it. I would highly recommend this book to the beginner.

I found this book to be fair in all respects. However not worthy of five stars. The body of the work is dated and the end is an assemblage of articles previously written. It does contain a lot of info that is not covered in other intro manuals. From what I gather it represents the best that is out there.

I don't reload, and really do not plan to start. However, I was curious just what reloading involved, and why anyone would do it given the initial start-up cost, along with the significant attention to detail required to come close to duplicating factory ammunition accuracy. This book addressed all of my questions, and ultimately saved me money by preventing me from getting into reloading. The chapter about duplicating factory ammo accuracy was the best chapter by far. For the money, why reload if you can buy accurate ammunition!!!

If you are thinking about reloading or curious why people spend hours trying to perfect a cartridge, read this book.

Very good book on the subject of reloading metallic cartridges. A little simple, but 100% as advertised.

I wanted to get started in cartridge reloading and chose this book to begin educating myself. It was a good choice. I have since purchased several other books, but this one was extremely helpful. It's well written, though sometimes repetetive in it's warnings - but it does get the point across that safe comes first. I recommend this to any with interst in reloading.

....passed on from my brother in law....learn the most about your ammunition and guns from this updated book. He loved it!

For one who has been reloading for a few years, this book is still good to have. It has allowed me to shore up my foundation with a better understanding for reloading.

Now I believe over the years the editor of this book has changed. I have a 6th edition. Chapters in the book are written by different authors, however, the editors did a wonderful job of putting together information that will make you feel a lot more confident about reloading.

The book covers everything from casting bullets, to the differences of powders. And since it is not about just one companies products, suggestions like the homemade powder dipper, abound. It also explains such facts as why working out your own loads for your own guns will give you better accuracy. And gives an in-depth look at how to tell if a bullet case is bad and shouldn't be used. And it is much more readable than a manual.

I also recommend getting a copy of Learn Handgun & Rifle Reloading in Under 41 Minutes: 2007 Edition. This is the only video I've found that covers every step in the reloading process, so you can see what the manuals are talking about. With both the book and the video you'll not only understand what you are doing but know exactly how to do it.

This book provides background information as well as the practical information a reloader needs whether you are a beginner or have experience with reloading ammunition.

This book is an excellent introduction to reloading. I had read a lot of the material on-line, however, having a definitive source for the material is most comforting. The author makes excellent points about safety. This is not a reloading guide in the sense of providing recipes, but rather, an introduction to the topic, and a discussion in depth. The author clearly spells out that every reloader will also need not one, but several reloading manuals. As one who never contemplated reloading before, I found the material very understandable. This book both validated my research on the subject and gave me the confidence that I was going about reloading the right way.

This is the book I used when I got started reloading about 10 years ago, and this book gave me just what I needed. When I first got the itch to load my own ammunition, I was overwhelmed by the amount of information and terminology involved in this fascinating field/hobby. It was very difficult to take all the individual pieces of information that I had and form it into an understandable process. I was snowed in under a blizzard of data that I was piecing together through chat rooms and web sites. Everyone was very helpful - basically shooters are the most helpful people I know - but still I was just getting fragments without a solid, complete overview. Phrases like "roll crimp", "seating and sizer dies," and "headspace" came at me in a blizzard. I could look up each phrase, understand each one as a piece, but still the whole picture was fuzzy. In essence, that is what this book will do for you: turn it all into a coherent, linear whole. The writing is very solid and clear, the illustrations are well done and helpful, and the information is very complete. After reading this book, the entire process made sense to me, and more importantly, I was fully warned about the does and don'ts of the reloading world. The coverage is very complete. Primers, powders, bullets and cases are explained with regard to nomenclature and history. All necessary tools and accessories are discussed and explained. This is just a great book. It won't make you an expert (only actual reloading for years will do that), but it will put you on the right road if you wish to become one. --Mykal Banta

This book came highly recommended by members of a forum on reloading. I was not disappointed. I will recommend it myself. The book covers the bases and is easy to read. You will need to add other books to your library, ( such as load data for specific calibers ) but this is a very good place to start.