.
Good question, and there are answers. First, Handloading For Competition (HLC for short) gained the reputation as “…the best book ever written on the topic of precision loading…” and that wasn’t me or one of my cuzzins who said that. It’s been a few folks, more than a few times. HLC is an epic work that dissects and details every influential aspect of understanding what goes into a world-class, world-record round of ammunition. It may bring about nearly as many questions as it will answers, but it is full of answers, and the insight toward answering other questions is also pretty well detailed. And, yes, all the answers are in that book. It’s a lot to sort and sift and organize in your own mind to arrive at your own set of conclusions, your own set of standards and methods and processes.
Top-Grade Ammo, I think, has done all that for you!
Ever since I wrote HLC, I have had literally hundreds of phone calls and emails and letters telling me how much they enjoyed that book, but… But, they still wanted to know, “What do I DO?” That kind of puzzled me until I came to see that I think it’s really necessary to talk about reloading step by step. That’s how the answers fall into place. It’s not everything all at once, it’s one thing at a time. Each aspect, checked off, one a time. That’s how Top-Grade Ammo rolls.
Top-Grade Ammo is a better book, in my belief. It’s the book I originally conceived before I wrote HLC. I wanted to do a book that took its readers through the entire process, start to finish. Starting with a thorough and essential understanding of the dynamics associated with a firing cartrridge, and then moving toward component selection, tool selection, tool set up, adjustment, and use. And then it goes WELL beyond that but building from a solid, comprehensive foundation. Step-by-step. Top-Grade Ammo relays the process I follow to load my own ammunition.