I have been reloading out of manuals for near on to 40 years. I have deicded to try one of the reloading programs and would like in put from those of you that have knowledge and experience in the available programs. It would be best if it is simple to operate, but I do hold mine own with the standard office programs including Word, Excel and other spreadsheets.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

SD Shooter
(lazyhent@lazyhent.com)

SD Shooter,
no reloading program will replace the need for manuals. What they will do is allow you to compute likely trajectory for your loads if you have a chronograph to get the real time muzzle velocities from your shooting at the range. Most will allow you to enter and save your loads and some will let you make comments on the loads. If you don't have a chronograph or you can write a spreadsheet then the software is worthless to you. I keep track of my loads (all of them, including the ones that don't work) on a template in MS Word. It feeds the info into a spreadsheet template that produces the ballistics data that I need. I own a Pact model 1 that I use to get the velocity information for my records. The best software for the price is "PointBlank" found for free at www.huntingnut.com as a download or on the net at the same site and for the same price. It is worth more than some (most) of the reloading programs that sell for $50 and more. No software can tell you how much of what powder you should use in a given cartridge for a given pressure. That is what the manuals are for. Some powder makers do sell their reloading information on disk but it is just a manual in electronic format and too expensive for what you get.

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your reply. I guess that I wasn't very clear with my question. You are, of course, correct. I will always rely on the books, and as I get older, I double check them more often. But I would also like to have the convenience of projecting probable trajectories, storing data, etc. I will pursue the "PointBland" program and give it a try.

Thanks again.

SD Shooter

There are some pretty nice free ballistic programs. One is found on Norma's website: http://www.norma.cc/default.asp?Lang=2#
It is easy to use and appears to be accurate. I have found it very useful.

http://www.eskimo.com/~jbm/calculations/traj/traj.html

This site has many options like finding BC, tradjectory, Max range... I've been using it for about 2 years now and I really like it.

Buy a copz of Quick Load which includes Quick Target. You will NOT regret that investment.