Sometimes we overthink it...

[Ridgerunner665]

Load development...I keep saying I'm gonna do a ladder or OCW test...but I never seem to actually do it.

I've been reloading for a while and have always been a long range shooter but I've rarely spent much time or effort to find a good load...blasphemy, right??? Not exactly...

I've never elaborated much on how I do it...I figured most would think I was a few eggs short of a dozen...My 280 Ackley load is a good example...I chose the components months before I ever even had the rifle in my hand...when I got the rifle, I found where the max load was at, backed off 1 grain of powder....and put them on target...sub-MOA, just like that....there is an explanation for it that I figured out only recently, and its linked to OBT...using the optimum bullet weight, with an optimum powder...it'll usually end up close to a node...maybe not right on it, but pretty close.

I stumbled across something written on LRH forum, written by Kirby Allen, of Allen Precision Rifles...but it perfectly describes how most of my load development goes also (as a good many of my past posts also illustrate)...very simple really, find the max load with a given set of components, then back off just enough to safely cover temperature extremes and such, and put them on a target...99% of the time it will be sub-MOA if the rifle is capable of such accuracy.

Kirby's write up on LRH...good reading...

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/ ... ods-42890/

 

[M7025-06]

Good read...thanks for posting.

I'm the poster child for "overthinking it". I've taken about a 2 month break from the reloading bench and just got back into this last week. My test method has always been to work up in 0.5 gr. increments...loading 3-5 rounds per charge looking for a tight group. This method tends to burn through a lot of components...plus I've got a "tinkering" problem, so it seems like I'm always trying to reinvent the wheel.

I've decided to start from scratch with my 25-06 and thought I'd give the ladder test method a run hoping I can find a sweet spot (or area) a little faster. I'm trying to keep it simple by loading 10 rounds of 1 powder in 0.5 gr increments and go from there.

 

[NWBlacktail]

A lot of times I'll do a ladder, maybe across 2 grains up to max. I sometimes over think how to find a charge and seating depth that works. Do a ladder charge first? Or find an optimum seating depth first?

I'll admit to being lazy on a couple occasions. I've been known to pick the "Most Accurate Load Tested" in the Nosler book, and try that. I've had some success with that as well (but it violates the rule of starting low, and working up).

 

[Dr. Vette]

I think that Kirby significantly benefits from quality machining, quality components, and attention to detail. As someone in the linked thread says, it would be hard to take one of his rifles and shoot more than 1 MOA. As a result, I suspect that his easy load development is the product of the build.

I do not think that the average sporter barrel factory rifle is anywhere near as easy to load for as his customs. We pay in time and components rather than in barrel & component price and gunsmithing fees.

Similar comments have been made about custom gunmakers such as McWhorter. If you use top drawer components with highly skilled assembly it's almost impossible to have a rifle that shoots poorly.

 

[Guy Miner]

I think a lot of shooters don't understand how many thousands of rounds outfits like Sierra and Nosler put into their accuracy testing...

Then, they list those accuracy loads - loads that usually prove accurate in many different rifles.

I work up towards those accuracy loads, or accurate loads noted by others, and go with it.

Must work, I did well in competition when I was shooting matches, and do well in the field.

Keeping it simple helps me. I like life that way.

Regards, Guy

 

[Ridgerunner665]

You know, I could and would really love my job if I could be the one doing that testing....

I'd work for free...but my wife might have something to say about that, lol.

 

[Elkman]

I hate "testing" with a passion. I want the first load to meet my expectations and be out the door. Fiddling is not my bag, hats off to those that do. Usually I can meet my expectations after 10 or so three shot groups. My method is similar, back off a couple of grains from max, prep and weight the cases, seat the bullet at maximum magazine length and come back 10 thousand at a time. My .308 did .700's with the first few loads with Varget, then into the .400's. I tried RL-15 and went to the high .100 and low .200, I am done I am happy.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

I enjoy fiddling with this stuff... I just don't have time for it I like I used to.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

I think that Kirby significantly benefits from quality machining, quality components, and attention to detail. As someone in the linked thread says, it would be hard to take one of his rifles and shoot more than 1 MOA. As a result, I suspect that his easy load development is the product of the build.

I do not think that the average sporter barrel factory rifle is anywhere near as easy to load for as his customs. We pay in time and components rather than in barrel & component price and gunsmithing fees.

Similar comments have been made about custom gunmakers such as McWhorter. If you use top drawer components with highly skilled assembly it's almost impossible to have a rifle that shoots poorly.

That's true... Build quality is important but today's rifles, even some of the cheap ones, are pretty darn dependable for at least MOA.

I've had 3 factory Winchesters that were/are sub-MOA right out of the gate... 2 of those were Ultimate Shadows, the budget model... The other is my wife's 270, a Featherweight Deluxe.... Thin barrel and all, it is sub-MOA after it gets a few rounds down it (its not so great clean and fresh)...

There are a lot of lemons in todays factory rifles... Sad but true.... But if you get a good one you can usually shoot right along with most customs for at least 3 rounds.... Which is enough for a hunting comparison.... And .5 MOA isn't really a stretch for even an over the counter rifle these days.

As he (Kirby) says down near the end.... It's not that fine tuning won't make them better, but if .5 MOA is good enough (and it is).... Why waste the effort?

 

[Vince]

Like Bill I'm not a fan of tinkering.
I start low and work up in three shot groups.
Most of my rifles get half MOA by the time I'm done if I select the right components.

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[DrMike]

Interesting thread. I'm an inveterate tinkerer. There, I said it. Though I usually deny it, I inevitably live by the philosophy, "If it ain't broke, keep at it 'til it is." Still, most of my rifles deliver better accuracy than needed in the field; and I am more of a hunter than a target shooter. It is true, however, that one MOA will deliver sufficient accuracy for most big game out to reasonably long distances. One-half MOA allows the shooter to tag out at amazingly long distances if he/she is capable of taking advantage of such shots.

 

[truck driver]

We all achieve or goals a little differently. Some use all the modern ballistics programs others just prod along taking advantage of what others have learned and discovered to be the best. When I started out all we had were the few manuals that were printed by Sierra,Hornaday,Speer, Nosler and Lyman plus what we could read in the gun rags. I still have my first manuals and look back at them occasionally and have Noslers volume #1.
We all had to tinker when we first started to learn how to make ammo by trying different things to see if they worked.
What I learned by trial and error has served me well over the years at least I haven't blown any guns or myself up so what I did must have been right or I was lucky. But what I did do was follow the manuals closely at first and then experiment with seating depth, crimp and powder charges once I found a load that was good with out the use of a chrony or computer because if they were available we couldn't afford them.
I still have my first press,dies, scale and an old antique oak wash stand I mounted the press on, Bolted half of an old kitchen table top to it to enlarge the working surface and it still sits in my man cave and has a tool chest and vice on it which I use for various tasks.
Sorry for the long post I had nostalgia kick in and stared reminiscing from days gone by.

 

[Elkman]

Truck driver, like you I still have my original press, and its still the one I use the most, but I do have a couple of others. Like mike, I go by the if it isn't broke, "don't touch it" my old press is slow but it gets the job done and sits on my dads bench that he made who knows when. The top is a section of a bowling ally with two by fours on its side laminated together. The lower shelf has sandbags, bags of shot, and a couple more spare press's for parts. It doesn't move even when full length re sizing. Just going in that room is a trip down memory lane.

 

[Guy Miner]

When I was a kid and Dad handed me a brand spanking new 6mm Remington for my High School graduation present - I had NO IDEA what loads to try... It was a foreign critter to me. Almost all of my handloading to that point had been with the .30-06, for a pair of rifles Dad had, and a .257 Weatherby that Grandpa shot time to time.

They had guided me with the .30-06 and .257 rifles. There was only one kind of powder, one bullet, one or two primers at the house.

I wanted to shoot varmints with the 6mm, varmints and coyotes. And deer. :grin: Haven't changed much 40+ years later...

That one, I did some tinkering with. Came up with a dandy varmint load, and a good deer load. Eventually was surprised to find out the deer ammo did well on varmints too. Interesting.

Since those days though - I haven't done as much tinkering. I'll think about the purpose of the load, then work towards it. If it's a longish range hunting load, say for mule deer in open country, I don't even mess around with the low-velocity loads in the manual. Look over the recommended "accuracy" loads and go straight for the top couple of loads, or see what powders are in the cabinet.

That's how I got my 115 gr/Retumbo load for the .25-06 a few years back. Wanted to bump up from the 110's to 115's and had some Retumbo sitting around from my .300 Rem Ultra Mag days... Hmmmm... Yup, that worked!

Have also simply borrowed loads from guys I respect, like gunwriter John Barsness... He was my source for my .375 H&H loads. Didn't hurt that I'd bought his rifle, that he used working up those loads... :grin:

Regards, Guy

 

[Guy Miner]

With the target rifle... I needed a .308 load that would duplicate the trajectory and accuracy of Federal Gold Medal match ammo - that I was using as a SWAT cop. Had to have the same point of impact and accuracy out to 300+ yards, hopefully to 600.

I did what I could to copy the components. Sierra 168 gr Matchking. Once-fired Federal brass from that same rifle. Federal match grade primer. And the powder... Messed with a couple of powders. Had good results. Wanted better. At matches I found that up and down the line, .308 shooters were using Varget. Var-What? Okay, I can find that. Yup. Tried it. Wow. That's all I shot for a couple of barrels. HPBT match bullets and Varget. I almost never strayed from that combo.

That's when I started really loading rifle ammo in volume too. 100 rounds used to seem like a lot of ammo to me. Nope, started thinking in terms of 500 - 1000 rounds. Buy lots of bullets, lots of primers and powder in 8 lb jugs. Got better loading dies. Learned from a fellow who has won the National Hunter Benchrest comp a couple of times... Picked up some tips.

Yeah... The .308 and shooting some competition, as well as practicing for SWAT, really got me going on the accuracy part - and mostly I was just copying what Federal was doing with their factory ammo, and emulating what other accuracy minded shooters were doing.

No need to re-invent the boat. Somebody has sailed it before.

Regards, Guy

 

[Thebear_78]

Federal gold metal match load data

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[longrangehunter]

Depending on the type of gun, and who built it, can make the time involved much less in most cases IMO.

I've done more then a few rifle in resent years with less then 10 rounds, but here's the reason. I picked something that had already worked for more then a few people, and/or written as "the most accurate load" in one of the manuals.

The other is bullets that tend to be easy to shoot well, knowing the distance from the lands, and watching for the velocity to taper off as the powder charge is increased. This is what I had always found to be the sweet spot, and looked for very low ES, and SD and a little COAL tweaking once I picked the spot that the velocity was flat. That's it.

My 6.5/300 WSM was done this way with two different bullets, same powder, only change was COAL and Charge. The 260 was easy since everyone uses H4350, same for the 6.5x47 and VarGet. The 338 Lapua was know different but I used three different powders until I tried RL-33, those would shoot the same velocity in some cases, or less then 10 FPS apart. My bolt action R5 223 was just as simple. But I've had some Factory guns that just wont shoot well, the custom ones were rather easy.

Fred Sinclair and made me a good reloader, Kenny Jarrett made me realize not to over think it. For Kenny it was the bullet and if the barrel liked it! Then the proper seating depth in the expected velocity range he was looking for, and he might switch a primer once he got close if it wouldn't come together. Pretty simple really.

I start close to the lands >.010"-.1750" if you're wondering about the range it's because I don't think every bullet would read the same distance off the lands only because I don't think you can measure them each that accurately? And if you're in the right spot, it should matter, just like the powder charge change shouldn't effect the velocity I think the seating depth works in the same way. A common average that's stabile to changes is what works the best IMO.

 

[pharmseller]

I seat as long as the mag will allow or just kissing the lands if the mag length will let me.

I load two at max charge and look for pressure signs. These two also go over a chrony to evaluate velocity. If no pressure signs and the velocity is close to book, I load 5 and look for accuracy. I reduce OAL by .040" until I find what I'm looking for.

It usually doesn't take long.

You get the idea.



P

 

[preacher]

I fill the case to overflowing, cram in a bullet of any weight, crimp it hard with a Lee FCD and shut my eyes when I pull the trigger! lol. Not really. But I do look around for the max loading, from several sources, for the powder/bullet combo I want, and back off some from it. I work up in 3 to 4 rd groups in .5 grain increments. I start out at least .020 off the lands unless its a Barnes, then its at least .050, usually .100 off the lands. I load for a reliable hunting load. Period. I don't have a rifle where I need to ream the necks,etc, but I will uniform primer pockets/flash holes and use the same brand of brass. I keep my C.O.L. consistent and go from there. That's just me. I've never blown a rifle, nor hurt myself or others, but man O man...have I killed some wonderful criiters in the last 40 years! :grin:

 

[Guy Miner]

Roger that "The Bear 78" - and I understand RL-15 has also been used in Federal factory match loads.

But, have gotten 2.5" groups at 600 yds, so... I'm happy. :grin:

And with the same zero as .308 Federal Gold Medal.

Don't need to do that anymore. Not a SWAT cop these days, so it doesn't really matter if I duplicate the ballistics & accuracy of that round. Did have my last Krieger reamed specifically for FGM 168 gr ammo. That may have helped.

Guy