Are there any really good magazines for handloaders out there? I don't want to pay a fortune to get a magazine and it be filled with nothing but advertisements.

It really depends on what you are loading and what you are shooting at.

Precision Shooting is probably the best handloading magazine on the market. At $37.00 per year it is not cheap and it is difficult to find on News Stand individually.

http://www.precisionshooting.com/

If you have an interest in cast bullets you must belong to the Cast Bullet Association. At $17.00 per year for six issues. I consider the Fouling Shot to be a bargain.

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/

Here is the Cast Bullet Association forum.

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum/

Small Caliber News is a good one for the .22 caliber and smaller cartridges. At $22.00 per year it is a bargain.

http://www.smallcaliber.com/

Handloader and Rifle magazine from Wolfe publishing are good magazines. I should admit I have let my subscription to Rifle drop as I find it no longer relevant to my shooting.
Handloader still has a few things that interest me but I admit Handloader is becoming more of a gun magazine than a primarily handloading magazine. Handloader is still one of the best values around when it comes to gun magazines. $23.00 for six issues.

http://www.riflemagazine.com/home/index.cfm?CFID=3746870&CFTOKEN=31718547

IHMSA is $35.00 per year and has some good handloading information for handgunners.

http://www.ihmsa.org/

Most of the other available gun magazines have little detail and few in-depth articles on handloading.

Thanks for the info

I should have mentioned four books from Wolfe Publishing every handloader must have:
Ken Waters Pet Loads, get the latest edition with all of the supplements.

Wildcat Cartridges, again, get the latest combined edition.

Big Bore Rifles and Cartridges.

Varmint Rifles and Cartridges.

All of the above are reprints of Handloader and Rifle articles. The pictures are bad but the rest is good.

Depending on the printing of Varmint Rifles and Cartriodges you happen to get you may find three articles missing their first pages. This chapped my backside and I was hard on Wolfe when I wrote them several years ago. The lady who proof read the book wrote and sent copies of the missing pages. She was very nice and I learned one of life's lessons. :o

Another extremely good source of knowledge is The Varmint Hunter Magazine. You get six issues a year by joining the Varmint Hunters Association, and they are full-color issues of 200+ pages! Even if you aren't a varmint hunter (but read the magazine and you soon might be!) the sport places very strong emphasis on high-accuracy, high-precision shooting. The reloading articles mirror that. Plus, there are ads in that magazine for products and services you've never even heard of. Priceless. http://www.varminthunter.org/

I dropped the VHA's mag several years back. The articles got a bit repetative.

The best value for your dollar is right where you are.
Got trouble? Have a question? Have a tip to pass on?
This is the place!

Cheezywan

The best value for your dollar is right where you are.
Got trouble? Have a question? Have a tip to pass on?
This is the place!

Cheezywan
Magazines print more photos than the posters here and Magazines have editors. This is one of the better sites, true, but print is not quite dead yet

Magazines print more photos than the posters here and Magazines have editors. This is one of the better sites, true, but print is not quite dead yet

I mostly agree. Prefer books over magizines. Prefer authors over editors. Sell me a thought or concept. Not a product!

There is stuff to learn from all sources. Must sort through it.

Cheezywan

Cheezywan, as an (ahem) author, I'll take that compliment. Although if your preference is a rule, I'm probably the exception, LOL!

Seriously, I've always preferred printed matter over anything else. (Probably what got me started writing.) But those who don't have the kind of mind that absorbs printed matter may do better with other media. Minds are wired different ways, we know. Some work best with print, some with pictures and some with verbal input. I lean heavily to print, then visual, then verbal. I taught myself how to fly from a book and had it almost mastered long before my first flight, as an example. It took only a few times seeing it and I soloed.

That's getting off topic, but the mental images in books are stronger for me than if the same tale is made into a movie. The movie always pales in comparison to the mental version the book creates.

I read books by authors that I like over and over Rocky Raab. I can't get tired of the words they wrote, and the pictures that "they painted in my mind".
There are folks here on this forum that know alot, but don't speak well. Others speak well, but do not know alot.

I prefer big erasers on my pencils.

Cheezywan

Cheezy,

I make time to both read and write, every day. I am not very accomplished at the writing but I have the reading part down pretty well, at least the sitting in the chair :)

My wife is fond of saying I have a pencil on my eraser :eek:

Handloader by Wolf Publishing is a darn good one, I have tried quite a few of thier loads and they work great. Les

I tried to subscribe to CBA yesterday through their website , and it didn't want to know me . So I then tried with straight email ---- same result . I will give it a few days and try the website again . Have you heard of any one else having this problem ?
Rgds
Stan Douglas .It really depends on what you are loading and what you are shooting at.

Precision Shooting is probably the best handloading magazine on the market. At $37.00 per year it is not cheap and it is difficult to find on News Stand individually.

http://www.precisionshooting.com/

If you have an interest in cast bullets you must belong to the Cast Bullet Association. At $17.00 per year for six issues. I consider the Fouling Shot to be a bargain.

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/

Here is the Cast Bullet Association forum.

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum/

Small Caliber News is a good one for the .22 caliber and smaller cartridges. At $22.00 per year it is a bargain.

http://www.smallcaliber.com/

Handloader and Rifle magazine from Wolfe publishing are good magazines. I should admit I have let my subscription to Rifle drop as I find it no longer relevant to my shooting.
Handloader still has a few things that interest me but I admit Handloader is becoming more of a gun magazine than a primarily handloading magazine. Handloader is still one of the best values around when it comes to gun magazines. $23.00 for six issues.

http://www.riflemagazine.com/home/index.cfm?CFID=3746870&CFTOKEN=31718547

IHMSA is $35.00 per year and has some good handloading information for handgunners.

http://www.ihmsa.org/

Most of the other available gun magazines have little detail and few in-depth articles on handloading.

I should have mentioned four books from Wolfe Publishing every handloader must have:
Ken Waters Pet Loads, get the latest edition with all of the supplements.

Wildcat Cartridges, again, get the latest combined edition.

Big Bore Rifles and Cartridges.

Varmint Rifles and Cartridges.

All of the above are reprints of Handloader and Rifle articles. The pictures are bad but the rest is good.

Depending on the printing of Varmint Rifles and Cartriodges you happen to get you may find three articles missing their first pages. This chapped my backside and I was hard on Wolfe when I wrote them several years ago. The lady who proof read the book wrote and sent copies of the missing pages. She was very nice and I learned one of life's lessons. :o
Please provide me with the current contact details for Wolfe ( I got them from this forum a month or so ago , and have misplaced them) . I would also like to suggest Wolf's book on loading for the Trapdoor . I found it most useful when starting out loading 45/70's ,for my other rifles , not just for my Trapdoor .
Rgds
Stan Douglas

Here is the link to Wolfe publishing and to the Cast Bullet Association forum.
I would post your trouble on the forum. If you don’t want to join the form – its free – let me know and I’ll post your problem there.

http://www.riflemagazine.com/home/index.cfm?CFID=3746870&CFTOKEN=31718547

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum/

I am a fan of Handloader. Sadly, it only comes out every other month. I got more enjoyment out of it when Ross was the editor. None the less, Brian Pearce's articles are very informative. I am not willing to say that I prefer either magazines or books. However, magazines do tell of new products and developments which is an enjoyable part of shooting to me. I may give the fouling shot a try. I have heard a lot of good reviews about that organization but how much new info can you print about casting? What are some of the articles like?
Mark J

“I may give the fouling shot a try. I have heard a lot of good reviews about that organization but how much new info can you print about casting? What are some of the articles like? Mark J”

Mark, hang out on the web site for a week or so and try the CB-L at Yahoo Groups. Charles Hamilton runs a tight ship on CB-L and it is all cast bullets.
The Cast Bullet web page has a Fouling Shot index for all issues since day one. It is very handy. Many of the articles are written by the membership. Writers such as C. E. Harris, a Beartooth Forum member write of their experiments and help answer questions. Ed Harris has written quite a bit about .38 Spl rifle loads and recently has written several very interesting articles on his .32 H&R Magnum rifle.
There are postal matches, club matches and the results are published along with information on the rifles, scopes, cast bullet, lubricant, group size, score, velocity etc for each load.
About every cartridge you can imagine is represented. Some of the accuracy results are amazing. There are also military rifle shoots, levers pumps etc.
Most of the articles are short but interesting.
If you purchase some of the early years of the Fouling Shot there are very interesting articles by Veral Smith and others whose names you will recognize. Everything has been tried, every problem has been looked at and there is generally more than one solution for problems. It is a small magazine but there is always something interesting to read.

Shooting Times had the best reloading editor in the business - Rick Jamison. Rick published a lot of cutting-edge info.After Rick filed a suit against USRAC for copying his short-beltless-magnum concept,Shooting Times dropped him.
Their current reloading editor appears to have less experience and knowledge that many of it's subscribers,but they still have Layne Simpson and Ken Waters on staff.They frequently have good articles on reloading for specific cartridges.
If you are interested in Shooting Times,you can get a year's subscription off eBay for about $8.50.
Precision Shooting and Varmint Hunters mags are good,but not cheap.

I'll frequently pick up Handloader or Rifle magazine when I see it on the stand but it seems over the past several months both have been pretty stingy in the articles department. I'll have to check out Precision Shooting and Varmint Hunters.