I can still remember the first cartridge I handloaded. In the dingy trailer of a young cop I met at the local firehouse where I volunteered, I churned out lots of .41 Magnum ammunition during my teen years. Under his tutelage, I learned the very basic skills of handloading: the mechanics of sizing and priming, how to refer to data and select components, how to measure powder and the importance of safely working up a load, and how to seat a bullet.

Firing those first shots was exhilarating. I can’t remember if I hit anything, but I do remember the immense feeling of satisfaction that returns every time I fire a handload. (Pete, if you’re reading this, thanks for teaching me.)

As I came to learn, handloading is not undertaken to save a little money on ammunition. Nor is handloading the only way to shoot high-performance bullets or to have more accurate ammunition. Today, handloading is a labor of love—a pastime taken up by shooters who enjoy everything from the satisfaction of doing it themselves to the breadth of ballistic understanding gained from “rolling your own.”

Modern handloading is no longer limited by the bounds of ignorance. Instead, affordable equipment for measuring pressure, velocity, and even computing safe loads without so much as firing a shot has safely opened doors to experimenters who might otherwise have been limited to data published only by component manufacturers. New tools make it possible to measure consistency to the nth degree and then to correct for any inconsistency to make not only a perfect cartridge, but lots of perfect cartridges—one with every pull of the press handle.

I personally get off on the knowledge I gain from handloading. In old loading articles you can find gallons of ink spilled on observations a shooter supposedly can make to determine cartridge pressure. Some are actually fairly accurate, others are a joke, but overall it takes more effort to educate yourself to the old ways so you can separate fact from fiction than it does to simply hook up your rifle to an Oehler Model 43 PBL and really measure cartridge pressure.

When a chronograph is used in conjunction with published loading data, handloaders today are able to find if they are hitting their target velocity with lower and safer powder charges.

Modern tools such as the PBL are commonly available and relatively affordable to average shooters and allow today’s handloaders to expand beyond the limits of factory-tested data and to delve into new territory. Today, we’re able to work up safe loads with bullet and powder combinations that are not necessarily found in loading books and to check the too-good-to-be-true ones found on the Internet.

That’s something I like because when a manufacturer comes out with a new bullet, be it something like a Hornady InterBond or a Barnes Triple- Shock, handloaders can make maximum use of those bullets right away instead of waiting for the next release of that manufacturer’s loading manual.

As with pressure, I’ve seen old published “guesses” at velocity increases based on such nonsense as “the shot sounded louder.” But as much as I’d like to, I can’t ridicule that as complete foolishness because handloaders didn’t know any better back then.

Today, personal chronographs are priced so affordably that every handloader should own one, and judging from the number of PACT, Chrony, and Competition Electronics units I see at the local Izaak Walton League’s range, it looks like it’s headed in that direction. When a chronograph is used in conjunction with published loading data, modern handloaders are able to find if they’re hitting their target velocity with lower and safer powder charges than the data calls for or if their combination of components results in velocities so high as to call pressure into question.

When it comes to bullets designed to perform over a range of velocities, handloaders have never had it so good. Today, a handloader needs only to choose one of the premium pistol bullets to get reliable expansion, penetration, and accuracy.

With accurate velocity knowledge, today’s handloader can compute the actual bullet drop or wind deflection of their loads. It’s not easy finding a range measuring 300-plus yards to shoot and see exactly how much bullet drop you get with a load. You can figure it out mathematically or by referring to ballistics tables if you know the muzzle velocity of your load. But, golly, you can be way off if you accept the velocity published in a loading manual because it was measured using a test barrel, and they’re typically longer than sporter barrels, resulting in higher velocity.

Even without pressure-testing equipment or a chronograph, today’s handloaders are liberated from the same old thing by computer programs such as “Load from A Disk” or “Quick Load.” As with the old Powley Pressure Calculator slide rule, a handloader simply plugs the variables into these computer programs to get a list of suggested powders and charge weights for a given bullet.

Target shooters have it even better. With new technology, advanced bullet designs, such as Hornady’s A-Max, can be produced with utmost precision and tight tolerances, which gives handloaders the ability to build ultra-accurate loads.

Advantages with the computer are that you can print out and store data, instantly change variables, and get updated suggested loads. And as long as I’m on the subject of computers, I should note that today you can pick just about any cartridge and “log on to load up.” You may not always find tested loads by searching the Internet, but you will find loads even for weird and obsolete cartridges.

I also find it beneficial to check the various message boards and chat rooms to see what combination of components other shooters around the world are using. Every handloader should be familiar with the classic .38 Special target load of 2.7 grains Bullseye powder and a 148-grain lead wadcutter bullet, but what’s the load shooters are using for bowling pins, IPSC, cowboy action, or IDPA? You’ll find lots of that kind of data on the Internet.

Another thing that makes handloading more interesting and different today is the array of bullets available to handloaders. Factory ammunition as a whole is much improved, more accurate, and more varied than it ever was before, but I’m a diverse and avid rifle and handgun shooter, so it’s important to me to be able to select bullets specifically for my task at hand.

Bulletmakers’ efforts to outdo each other in recent years have resulted in bullets designed to perform in very specific ways over the range of modern, super-charged impact velocities. Gone are the days of silly things like the Herter’s Wasp Waist bullet that could hardly fly much less perform or loading .38 Special hollowbase wadcutters upside down as so-called “manstoppers.”

On the rifle side, clearly the Nosler Partition is the granddaddy of all the high-performance bullets. It was designed to combine explosive expansion with deep penetration—two characteristics that were for the most part mutually exclusive prior to the Partition. I believe Partition’s level of performance has in part sired the effort manufacturers have put into making other partitioned bullets, bonded and tipped bullets, and even bullets designed to perform at reduced or ultramagnum velocities.

Handgunners have it even better. Previously, it took the pressure risks and wear and tear of +P ammunition to make handgun bullets perform, and even then their performance was often unpredictable. Today, a handloader need only choose one of the premium pistol bullets, such as Speer’s Gold Dot, that have come out as a result of the famous FBI bullet tests to get excellent and reliable penetration, expansion, and accuracy at safe and manageable levels not possible before.