Nosler 7th Edition Review

Here's the second part of my two-manual review (Hornady 9th ed. is here).

Nosler 7th edition Reloading Manual
This is a big book compared to the first six editions of Nosler's manual. There are over 860 pages in this edition.  There is a good bit of information on their bullets, including very good cutaway photos and fired bullet photos, which may be a bit propaganda, but also can be helpful if a particular hunter is fussy about what he wants his terminal ballistics to look like as an end result.  They included a larger basic reloading section than in the past, (though still not anything like Lyman's, the best manual for the beginner, in my studied opinion).  There is a larger powder burn rate chart than found in most manuals, with 178 powders.  Each cartridge has a one-page write-up by a well-known gun celebrity, gun writer, or Nosler staff member (except 14 cartridges that have been moved to the appendix as obsolete cartridges), and as in the past, one of the features of a Nosler manual is the in-chart accuracy recommendations at one of three load levels, plus an overall 'best powder
tested' notation for each cartridge.  I've found from past experimentation that the accuracy loads found in the Nosler manual tend to match my own reality better than some of their competitors.

There are universal drop tables to 600 yards by ballistic coefficient (not enough to plan a shot with, but good enough to get you on paper if you are long-range shooting).  There are also energy tables and there's now a one-page manual for Nosler's ballistics app for iOS products (everybody now seems to have an app for the iPhone, even the shooting sports.  I can't imagine taking my iPhone out just before shooting at a trophy elk, but that's a topic for another, probably humorous, blog post.). They also throw in a handy glossary at the end of the manual.

As usual, Nosler tends to focus more on rifle cartridges than handgun cartridges, but their handgun bullet selection continues to grow.  Here are the changes since the 6th edition.


New cartridges (rifle)-
17 Remington
17 Remington Fireball
204 Ruger
5.56x45 NATO
6.5 Creedmoor
6.5 Grendel
6.8 Rem SPC
300 AAC Blackout
30-40 Krag (dropped from 6th, in prev.)
30 TC
308 Marlin Express
308 Norma Mag (dropped from 6th, in prev.)
300 RCM
378 Wby Mag (dropped from 6th, in prev.)
416 Ruger


New cartridges (handgun)-
none


Deleted cartridges (rifle)-
375 Wby Mag
444 Marlin
450 Marlin
458 Win Mag
458 Lott


Deleted cartridges (handgun)-
454 Casull