Is there a particular manual you would recommend as a first manual or best manual? I'm loading 38 special, 357 mag and 40 s&w.

I hear most folks say the Lyman is best but I haven't seen that one myself.Lee is a good one.

Lyman. Definitely. It isn't produced by a particular bullet manufacturer or powder supplier, which generally only list info for their individual brands. The Lyman manual is very complete with it's reloading process section, and uses various bullet and powder companies for their loading specs sections.

I have a whole library of them from way back and add to it every chance I get. With that said if I were to start all over and just wanted load data and not the "how tos" I would go get every free online loading manual I could find.
Accurate ARms
Alliant
Hodgdon
Ramshot
Nosler
and others offer some ...free of charge.

Next I would be caliber/chambering specific and call Sierra and talk to their techs. They will send you free of charge data that is reproductions of their loading manual. Granted it is for their bullets but hey...the price is right and the data safe.

I have all this stuff and still get more.

My only manual is the one that came with the reloading kit. And I've consulted it from time to time, no only for reloading information, but exactly how to set up the various dies. Same co. manual; same co. dies;

As for other information, I've used the internet sites for the powder companies, whose powder I used. Formerly used the brochures available at gun stores. If company y says to use their powder for a particular caliber and bullet weight, I don't try to reinvent the wheel and come up with my own independent study. I start with the minimum and work up towards the max.

It's not rocket science. For those reloading rifles, I'd find out the COL - the cartridge overall length. That I find important with accuracy besides powder loads.

all good info. Sounds like the Lyman is a favored manual, should go well with my Lyman press. I've been using the documentation that came with my press, dies and powder measure and getting load info from the Hodgdon site as I've been loading with Titegroup. But I would like to have a nice manual so I think I'll pick up a Lyman manual.

I agree if I only had one manual, it would be the Lyman in the # 46-on up version..........

Lyman's 48th. It is better than the newest (49th) because the 49th has excluded some of the loads the 48th has.

I prefer the Lyman # 47, it doesn't give the potentially most accurate load info but it does give factory duplication load data. That being said I buy the manuals for most of the bullet manufacturers. I currently have Nosler's 6'th, Lyman's 47'th and 48'th, Sierra's 5'th, Hornady's 5'th and Speer's 13'th. I also download the powder manufacturers data also.

There are a number of good manuals. The reason I like the Lyman is that they don't have any powder or buillets to sell, so they give even treatment to many different component sets.

For your use, the Lyman would be good because of their treatmwent of cast bullets, which work very well in handgun ammo.