Hand Loader

Hand Loader is a perk in Fallout: New Vegas.

Effects
''You know your way around a reloading bench and don't let good brass and hulls go to waste. When you use Guns, you are more likely to recover cases and hulls. You also have all hand load recipes unlocked at any of the wasteland's reloading benches''.

This perk, as mentioned above, gives you 6 more types of available ammunition that can be made at a reloading bench (7 with the Honest Hearts add-on), each requiring slightly more supplies needed than the standard form, and doubles the chance of recovering a shell/casing whenever you fire off most rounds.

Notes on Ammuntion Terms

 * JHP - Jacketed Hollow Point; a lead-core bullet mostly enclosed by a copper jacket with a recessed nose, allowing the bullet to rapidly deform and fragment after striking tissue, essentially flattening out the bullet in the target, allowing it to efficiently expend more energy instead of going through the target, only making a small hole.
 * JSP - Jacketed Soft Point; a lead-core bullet mostly enclosed by a copper jacket, but with the soft lead tip exposed. This allows the bullet to deform more readily after striking tissue, while retaining stronger penetration than a jacketed hollow point.
 * JFP - Jacketed Flat Point; a soft point bullet with a flat tip instead of the usual rounded tip. Used in centerfire rifles with a tubular magazine, typically a lever action. A happy medium between penetration and tissue destruction. Due to the flattened point of the bullet, it creates a larger wound channel in tissue, but does not flatten out like a hollow point thus allowing it better penetration.
 * SWC - Semi-Wadcutter; an all-lead flat-nosed bullet, originally designed to punch clean holes in paper, making scoring easier in competition shooting.
 * Match hand load - match loads are rounds manufactured for accuracy and ballistic consistency, to ensure that multiple rounds fired from the same weapon will all—all other things being equal—fly along the same path, at the same velocity, and strike the target in the same spot. Typically manufactured for applications such as competition shooting and long range shooting.
 * Super - .45 super is an ammunition load designed for much higher pressures than the gun was originally intended to fire. Muzzle velocity is 20% greater than even +P resulting in much better armor penetration and damage, but causing considerable weapon damage to guns not specially designed to operate these "Wildcat" rounds. In real life the round is lengthened slightly to prevent it fitting in guns not specially designed for the higher pressures.

Behind the scenes

 * The name of the perk refers to handloading, a process of loading firearm cartridges or shells by assembling the individual components (brass/shotshell, primer, powder, and bullet/shot), rather than obtaining completely assembled, factory-loaded cartridges.
 * .45 Super cartridges produce significantly higher pressures than standard .45 ACP rounds. Weapons designed to fire a normal .45 ACP round often cannot handle the pressure generated by modern nitrocellulose powder. Weapons, most notably the M1911 pistol must be modified before they can safely fire the .45 Super[]

Bugs

 * Due to a misplaced condition, .44 Semi-Wadcutter rounds cannot be made at a reloading bench unless the player has both the Hand Loader perk and has received the schematics from Jules. (Verified on PC with patch 1.01) This was fixed in patch 1.3.0.452, where the .44 SWC rounds can now be made after either taking the perk or receiving the schematics.