Book Review: The Handloaders Manual Of Cartridge Conversions


I’ve had this book for a couple of years, If i remember correctly I paid about $50 for it on Ebay.
It has a section to start with that goes into great detail about the equipment needed to replicate and load wildcat and rare or hard to find ammo, it goes into detail about how to make some of the equipment too.

it covers hundreds of different cases laid out in a clear format as shown bellow. I have personally used the info in here to convert 30-06 brass into both 8mm Mauser (8x57mm) and 7.7 Arisaka with great results. I have also resized .303Brit into .303-25.

There are 10 pages like the one bellow which should give you an indication of just how many cartridges are covered in the book

This book inspired me to buy a mini lathe and to start experimenting with things like converting berdan primed brass and converting .50bmg into heavy duty shotgun shells.

All in all its a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in reloading for wildcats, old milsurps and historic firearms.

I am also happy to help people with info on any specific cartridge that they my be interested in.

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Now that would have some interesting info…

Converting berdan primed brass hey… I’ve got 450 odd berdan primed . 310 cadet rounds loaded with FMJ projectiles that came with a cadet rifle I picked up. Some of the brass is corroded and probably scrap value only, but some of the brass looks to be in reasonable condition. I was going to buy some new brass and pull the projectiles and reload them into new brass but if it’s actually viable to convert the brass that might be an option for me… Just how much stuffing around is involved?

I’ll post a full how to after dinner

sorry it took so long mate but here’s a write up on how I convert the Berdan brass.

Old post I know but you can still get the book on EBay. I just ordered one and paid $55.93 including postage.

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