Do what you can and don't look up to the abilities of others with disappointment in your own. That's the way I look at it. I count my blessings I wasn't born in Communist China and I can even participate is shooting hobbies.
Rome wasn't built in a day, we've all been there, I certainly was...now my cabinet has probably 50 different powders for 410 to 12g, from 9mil t0 ten mill from 556to300, 7mag..keep plugging away
.....in my 54 yrs. of reloading & longrange shooting, I notice nothing has changed - AT ALL - in finding the right load - except wording & graphing....which amounts to "nothing"....lol.....this should disgruntle some newbee-youngn's that know-it-all.....lol....truth be told....what we are all enjoying will be like muzzle-loader technology in another 25 yrs. give or take.....lol.....Thanks fer sharing your POV & experiences, I still enjoy watching & looking to learn something.
Thanks Keith, a video on the spreadsheet would be a great help to round out your load development method. I could replicate the loading a firing procedure but not the excel spreadsheet part without a demo.
Yes! People ask all the time what the best cartridge is, what the best scope is, what the best stock/chassis is, or what the best load is, but the real question is "what fits my needs best?" If you haven't defined your needs, you aren't prepared to determine what *thing* is best.
I've found 3 unicorns while using the lottery ticket in my pocket while throwing lawn darts with my best friend the Squatch during thunderstorms method. Don't knock til you try it!
This is a very helpful video on determining a good reload. I'm not shooting that competition thing. But the advice here is very useful to me. The strategies along the way. Thank you
Thanks for this and all of your videos Keith! I'm a hunter and I focus on traditional hunting rifles, and I try to get the best accuracy I can out of hunting rifles. I also try to help other hunters do the same. Now I don't need the level of precision you do but having a better understanding of what you do and why really helps me with how I think about my own load development process. It's also important for me, and all hunters, to understand what you F class guys are doing because you guys are on the cutting edge when it comes to precision and accuracy and a lot of hunters try to emulate what you guys are doing. Unfortunately, so many hunters try to emulate what you guys are doing but without really understanding it and it ends up creating a lot of confusion in the hunting community. And as a former quality engineer I really appreciate your understanding of probability and statistics and in your last video, Velocity Truths, you really helped clear up somethings that had just sort of filtered into the hunting community from the F class community. Concepts that even I had just accepted as correct because so many precisions shooters were promoting them even though they didn't match my own personal observations or my understanding of natural variation. All of the light bulbs went off for me after watching that video and the same goes for this one. Great work sir and thank you for sharing!
I've always thought that load development is 10% shooting at 90% thinking. It kind of blows my mind when people say "I want to shoot better than everyone else on the line... but I don't want to do math. If I just keep guessing at things, eventually I'll stumble upon the magic formula." Look around you... everything you have that is good exists because someone else was good at math.
I’ve been hand loading now for about 6 years. I’ve come to the conclusion that the vast majority of load development practices are an illusion of control of variables, and often a crutch that prevents us as shooters from working on the one constant in all of this, the shooter. Powder charge, seating depth, neck tension, annealing, neck trimming, bullet weight, primer pocket uniforming, shoulder bumping, bullet sorting, primer sorting, priming tool, barrel fouling, temperature, humidity, powder lot, 3 shot groups, 5 shot groups, hell, even 20 shot groups, etc. While we can control these things, I think we vastly underestimate our understanding of the result of modifying these variables. Being able to shoot the rifle and having a good barrel are far and away more important. I also generally find accuracy improves at higher velocities which I attribute to better bullet stability in flight. I no longer spend hours in the reloading room, I spend those hours on the range. My groups keep getting smaller! Love your videos. You got some nice toys :)
Excellent vid with good statistical theory and no woowoo! Loving this little series you're developing here. Another vote for "Please share/tell us more about that spreadsheet" please.
Excellent information that’s so hard to find Most reviews are like, it went boom 5 stars! Developing a load is lots of fun and time consuming Thanks for the update 😊
Very helpful! I started my handloading journey less than a year ago and have watched 100s of videos from you, Bolt Action Reloading, Erik Cortina, Primal Rights and others. This is the first time I've heard "don't seek the perfect load; find loads to avoid". Perhaps this is so obvious it's not worth saying, but I'm glad you said it! Keep up the great work :-)
Appreciate your content and no nonsense approach to load development. Similar approach to how I have been doing it with my PRS type rigs. Just stumbled upon your channel recently and am finding it very useful. Putting together a rifle on a panda action at the moment , barrels will be chambered in 284 so I am taking notes! Thank you for deciding to put your knowledge out there for others.
1. For those restricted to short ranges (100 yards), use horizontal targets and look for loads where the bullets impact the targets horizontally, not a round group. You're looking for a stable point of impact not one that shifts up and down. 2. If you have access to longer ranges, do ladder testing and repeat the ladder test using different targets for each ladder group. Repeat the ladder test at least 5 times. Shoot a ladder, let barrel cool, repeat. 3. Shoot each load low to high. (Surprised he didn't say L-H, H-L, L-H, H-L, L-H)
I have been reloading for 55 years and have witnessed the advances in projectiles and powder. I try to use only those powders that are temperature insensitive, such as Varget, cfe223, Vitah Vouri powders, and Norma powders. I have learned that a load developed in October with powders that are sensitive to temperature, may show pressure signs next July.
I have been reloading for 40 years. For the moment I am living in Switzerland. Components can be hard to find. They make gunpowder here. Reloader Swiss. Wanted to load 110 v max for my Blaser R8 308 win. Pick RS36 powder. RWS brass and Fiocchi primers. No load data to find so I started low. 33 grain in steps to 44,6 grain. All together 20 rounds. All 20 group with in 1,5" at 100 meter. In other words shooting at 100 meter/yards is only good for shooting at short range. Velocity does not matter at 100 meter. :)
Great video, more of this please. I'm from Germany, we don't have a 600 meter shooting range. We can apply that to 100 meters. Most (in Germany) see the speed on the loading ladder that has the sweet point (same speed). But it is good to see that you look at the hit picture where the hits are. Can you show more of it and possibly even more details so that I can learn from it. Thank you and greetings from Germany Excuse me for my poor English.
The problem is that the recommendations to use 1) what you can get, and 2) what the winners are using are often mutually exclusive. Ask anyone who has tried to source Varget or 115 DTACs or 105 Hybrids. As for "reliable" I think the key point here is not that it shoots particularly small, it's that it never shoots big.
Anything to save barrel life and reload- load development expenses. It's hard to save up or just put out the money all at once to buy a large quantity of the four mains, brass, bullets, powder and primers in large enough quantities to keep them all in their prospective production lots and sort them out for sub groups .For myself I have to do this in long stages just for good repeatable results in target and or friendly king of the range competition. The steady increase in components and other things is making the sport further out of reach for people now than ever before.
what i did was i use powder i got & in loads the bullet designer test data had start and max in middle or lower end the out side temperature has a lot where I start over 90 f aid to my problems ( some time it not the rifle or ammo that gets you it the over weight solar panels i blew out my bicep tendon in my right arm & its my trigger finger & old shoulder injury it really threw a wrench my way!i was doing stuff! )
I have found after 47 years of reloading that in most calibers I load to about 3/4 of maximum in fps, as starting point ! Bad news for y’all max loaders most accurate loads fall short of max fps
Been shooting since I was 10 been reloading since I was 12 and I’m 51. Just look at the groups. I look for the clover leaf group. I didn’t get a chrono till 3 months ago. I learned that my best loads “sort of “ had low es . But not all.
Man cascade is right down the street , I’ve been trying to get in there forever . If you ever wanna get together and coach a local let me know 😂 i usually shoot black diamond and i love your channel man !
Keith, would you consider doing a tutorial on Quickload (if this is a tool you use?). Curious how you interpret results, how to tune the inputs, mistakes to avoid, etc? Thanks for all the work on your videos I find them highly valuable.
I've spent hours and hours with QL and GRT, they're both very useful for finding out "will this kill me or damage my equipment". Lots of what I shoot is old milsurp stuff, so you can imagine that I'd like to try modern powders in them, QL/GRT are PERFECT for this. What they will not do for you is tell you if a particular combination will be accurate in your firearm. There are some indications you can look at that hint or tease one way or the other, and there are combinations you'll start to recognize as "desireable", but this is not reliable. You gotta shoot the things to find out. The other point about this software is that it is HIGHLY dependent on the information you feed it. Get your case capacity wrong? COAL? Seating depth? Barrel length? Boat tail length? Bullet length? Temperature? - I think you get my point.
Further, over time you'll start to see the software has a preference for certain things. As an example GRT thinks RL26 is god's own answer to "what is the best rifle powder" - and I'm very happy to inform you that is not, in fact, the truth.
I could use your opinion on my loads. I did a ladder test using sixteen shots. All varying .2 grains apart. 25.0 to 28.0. I don't have a chronograph. I wanted to see if the right load could be found this way since it's a bolt action .223, 55gr SBT, fed 205 match primer, Hogdon CFE223. CBTO is 1.8910 I wanted to save some money on components. I normally shoot 5 of all to figure it out. I'll send you a picture of the test if I can figure out how to... Thank you, Jeff D.
Dude, you just made me worry a lot less. I'm getting a 223 AI built as a first target rifle and was really worried about how I was going to find a load that would work for really good accuracy out to a few hundred. My one question is how would I know if I have a good load or not if my brass would be holding the loads back? Hearing a lot of what Erik Cortina says, your brass can be the difference between a same hole load vs your group opening up. I dont want to spend the money on Lapua brass right away until I would actually have experience reloading so I would likely be reloading Sig, Hornady and Berger brass first since that is what is available for box 223 ammo.
tbh, I thought load development is just making really consistent ammo. Same powder charge, same brass weight, same primer and depth, same trim length, same everything. Essentially have a consistent internal ballistics.
Great video. I’m curious as to what I should scale this to out of my 5.56 12.5 inch AR. I am thinking an inch or less at 100 yards using bulk 223 55 grain bullets and trying to get 2500 FPS. I load for bulk self defense training 1000 at a time. I will go through all those in a weekend. Then maybe for some 78 grain asking it to be temperature stable and group .75 or less for for longer range. Thanks for the info!
not to be “that guy” but…. a 12inch AR is exactly the wrong tool if you want 1 MOA groups. It’s not that you can’t do it, but why? Are you planning to benchrest your shorty? As soon as you shoot that rifle from a standing position, 1 MOA just went out the window. 4 MOA for a combat rifle has been the standard for 100 years. The average person can’t hold 6 MOA standing, with a full size rifle made for match shooting. I mean, do whatever you want. But my suggestion would be to go get some 77gr match ammo and see what you can do with it in that rifle before going down the rabbit hole of replicating the ammo.
I’m doing development on my hmr in 22-250 with a 1-9 twist. Currently using 53 gr vmax but people keep saying to shoot heavier pills. I don’t plan on shooting 1K yards. My thermal is going on to eradicate the local pasture poodles. I’m using 35.5 gr of varget and getting 3680 fps. People have me judging myself.
i lucked out with mine, i started my testing around the info i was able to find on a match factory load i liked in my 308, so i used that as the center point for load development and refined from there with the brass i intended to use, now im just trying to figure out if its me, or my loads causing a flier every so often breaking the sub .5 moa trend (pretty good for a factory rifle i think)
@winninginthewind I know it's an old video but saying your looking for 2" groups at 600 is a little misleading to some of the newer shooters. Instead of groups it should have been vertical disbursement of 2" as a windy day could give you more that a 2" group but still be under that 2" vertical. I have a local 1000 yrd range but still shoot at 600 looking for that 2" vertical disbursement 👍
I really like your channel and how you explain the processes. You give a lot of good information that works. I have a question if you don't mind. I shoot a fairly lightweight 300 wm. for hunting. I want to use it for competition also. Not allowed to have suppressors or muzzle brakes. How do I know I can trust my shooting? I get decent groups. .750 to 1" at 100 yds reloading. With the recoil, I worry about not being steady enough even on a bench. Don't want to buy another gun until I know I will like shooting in competition. I want it to be fun and not a chore or turn into a job. Thank you, Jeffrey
Thanks for your channel. It gives a lot to think about....😊 Don't you think that it would be more reliable to do load development in order from smallest to the largest charge and then from the largest to the smallest charge, and then again the same from the smallest to largest charge? Depends how many rounds you prepared for load development. The point is that the barrel heats up after all and we can't avoid this but results of this exercise are quite interesting. I use this method.
I've done it both ways when shooting ladders. I haven't seen any difference in the result doing it one way over the other, but I do shoot barrel warming shots before starting load development shooting.
Why not just use a powder charge just under the book max load and adjust seating depth up and down as long as the bullet ogive is 15 to 20 thousands back away from the lands.
@@winninginthewind Let me rephrase my question. If my goal is to validate and figure out if a load can hold an ES of 10 or better and SD under 5. How big of sample would you need shoot in order to remove the randomness and see a normal distribution around the mean?
🤣🤣 thanks for the info! Always wanted to get into f-class....But now I guess I'll stick with m1 garand/vintage match...🤣 not enough time or money for f-class. Money makes winners. Got 4 kids, they need a place to live and eat.
Im sure you know what you are doing but you shot 50 times just to find powder charge? I know more data means a more precise conclusion, with 223 ive gotten very lucky i guess. I load 3 sets of 3 (9 rounds) with a medium to medium high charge lol as exact as possible and fire from a lead sled. So far out of 3 different bullet loadings this has yielded 1/2 moa loads. only 9 shots for a particular load development using a 16" bull barrel ar15. Now trying this on 308 its worked once for a bolt gun and failed with 3 other bullets in an ar10 that shoots 3/8 moa with federal gold match. That is what i did starting out and im realizing its not a very good approach but i just am trying to load sub moa hunting rounds. I know the guns in question can perform by using factory loads for verification. Im kind of wishing i hadn't started reloading and just bought factory ammo, any recommendations would be good but im not prepared to shoot 99 rounds to have 1 left for use.
I'm not that into it. I just subtract the minimum load from the maximum load, divide the difference by 2 and add the answer to the minimum for a load that is exactly in the middle.
So @6:41 you say loads 8 and 9 are all close to the same vertical, so if those were 55.6grains and 55.8grains,you would then continue load development at 55.7 grains and split the difference?
"That is all there is" Me sitting here thinking I don't have enough money for all this BS 😂. I am lucky to be able to afford 1 powder right now.
Do what you can and don't look up to the abilities of others with disappointment in your own. That's the way I look at it. I count my blessings I wasn't born in Communist China and I can even participate is shooting hobbies.
You are listening to a word class shooter. Folks like him not only win matches, they also drive the firearm industry a higher standard.
Rome wasn't built in a day, we've all been there, I certainly was...now my cabinet has probably 50 different powders for 410 to 12g, from 9mil t0 ten mill from 556to300, 7mag..keep plugging away
@@coldandaloof7166 and if it makes u feel better last I baught was ar comp...about a hundred bucks to get it to me..
.....in my 54 yrs. of reloading & longrange shooting, I notice nothing has changed - AT ALL - in finding the right load - except wording & graphing....which amounts to "nothing"....lol.....this should disgruntle some newbee-youngn's that know-it-all.....lol....truth be told....what we are all enjoying will be like muzzle-loader technology in another 25 yrs. give or take.....lol.....Thanks fer sharing your POV & experiences, I still enjoy watching & looking to learn something.
Thanks Keith, a video on the spreadsheet would be a great help to round out your load development method. I could replicate the loading a firing procedure but not the excel spreadsheet part without a demo.
Yes! People ask all the time what the best cartridge is, what the best scope is, what the best stock/chassis is, or what the best load is, but the real question is "what fits my needs best?"
If you haven't defined your needs, you aren't prepared to determine what *thing* is best.
You sound just like Bryan Litz in his new book - he has a chapter on statistics and load development. This is great.
I've found 3 unicorns while using the lottery ticket in my pocket while throwing lawn darts with my best friend the Squatch during thunderstorms method. Don't knock til you try it!
As a novice reloader, this video cleared a lot of questions off of my list. Thank you for all the hard work!
This is a very helpful video on determining a good reload. I'm not shooting that competition thing. But the advice here is very useful to me. The strategies along the way. Thank you
Thanks for this and all of your videos Keith! I'm a hunter and I focus on traditional hunting rifles, and I try to get the best accuracy I can out of hunting rifles. I also try to help other hunters do the same. Now I don't need the level of precision you do but having a better understanding of what you do and why really helps me with how I think about my own load development process. It's also important for me, and all hunters, to understand what you F class guys are doing because you guys are on the cutting edge when it comes to precision and accuracy and a lot of hunters try to emulate what you guys are doing. Unfortunately, so many hunters try to emulate what you guys are doing but without really understanding it and it ends up creating a lot of confusion in the hunting community. And as a former quality engineer I really appreciate your understanding of probability and statistics and in your last video, Velocity Truths, you really helped clear up somethings that had just sort of filtered into the hunting community from the F class community. Concepts that even I had just accepted as correct because so many precisions shooters were promoting them even though they didn't match my own personal observations or my understanding of natural variation. All of the light bulbs went off for me after watching that video and the same goes for this one. Great work sir and thank you for sharing!
Love the videos Tom!
I've always thought that load development is 10% shooting at 90% thinking. It kind of blows my mind when people say "I want to shoot better than everyone else on the line... but I don't want to do math. If I just keep guessing at things, eventually I'll stumble upon the magic formula." Look around you... everything you have that is good exists because someone else was good at math.
Well thats why I went to Law school, because I hate and am realy terrible at math :D
I’ve been hand loading now for about 6 years. I’ve come to the conclusion that the vast majority of load development practices are an illusion of control of variables, and often a crutch that prevents us as shooters from working on the one constant in all of this, the shooter.
Powder charge, seating depth, neck tension, annealing, neck trimming, bullet weight, primer pocket uniforming, shoulder bumping, bullet sorting, primer sorting, priming tool, barrel fouling, temperature, humidity, powder lot, 3 shot groups, 5 shot groups, hell, even 20 shot groups, etc.
While we can control these things, I think we vastly underestimate our understanding of the result of modifying these variables. Being able to shoot the rifle and having a good barrel are far and away more important. I also generally find accuracy improves at higher velocities which I attribute to better bullet stability in flight.
I no longer spend hours in the reloading room, I spend those hours on the range. My groups keep getting smaller!
Love your videos. You got some nice toys :)
Excellent vid with good statistical theory and no woowoo! Loving this little series you're developing here.
Another vote for "Please share/tell us more about that spreadsheet" please.
Best hidden gem channel on reloading by far. Thanks for the info.
Excellent information that’s so hard to find
Most reviews are like, it went boom 5 stars!
Developing a load is lots of fun and time consuming
Thanks for the update 😊
Very helpful! I started my handloading journey less than a year ago and have watched 100s of videos from you, Bolt Action Reloading, Erik Cortina, Primal Rights and others. This is the first time I've heard "don't seek the perfect load; find loads to avoid". Perhaps this is so obvious it's not worth saying, but I'm glad you said it! Keep up the great work :-)
Appreciate your content and no nonsense approach to load development. Similar approach to how I have been doing it with my PRS type rigs. Just stumbled upon your channel recently and am finding it very useful. Putting together a rifle on a panda action at the moment , barrels will be chambered in 284 so I am taking notes! Thank you for deciding to put your knowledge out there for others.
1. For those restricted to short ranges (100 yards), use horizontal targets and look for loads where the bullets impact the targets horizontally, not a round group. You're looking for a stable point of impact not one that shifts up and down. 2. If you have access to longer ranges, do ladder testing and repeat the ladder test using different targets for each ladder group. Repeat the ladder test at least 5 times. Shoot a ladder, let barrel cool, repeat. 3. Shoot each load low to high. (Surprised he didn't say L-H, H-L, L-H, H-L, L-H)
Thanks for making it simple and breaking it down. Love your videos and appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
I have been reloading for 55 years and have witnessed the advances in projectiles and powder. I try to use only those powders that are temperature insensitive, such as Varget, cfe223, Vitah Vouri powders, and Norma powders. I have learned that a load developed in October with powders that are sensitive to temperature, may show pressure signs next July.
You need to write a book! Your videos are very helpful. Please keep them coming.
I have been reloading for 40 years. For the moment I am living in Switzerland. Components can be hard to find. They make gunpowder here. Reloader Swiss. Wanted to load 110 v max for my Blaser R8 308 win. Pick RS36 powder. RWS brass and Fiocchi primers. No load data to find so I started low. 33 grain in steps to 44,6 grain. All together 20 rounds. All 20 group with in 1,5" at 100 meter. In other words shooting at 100 meter/yards is only good for shooting at short range. Velocity does not matter at 100 meter. :)
Best, simple instructions for a new reloader. Many thanks
Great video, more of this please.
I'm from Germany, we don't have a 600 meter shooting range.
We can apply that to 100 meters. Most (in Germany) see the speed on the loading ladder that has the sweet point (same speed).
But it is good to see that you look at the hit picture where the hits are.
Can you show more of it and possibly even more details so that I can learn from it.
Thank you and greetings from Germany
Excuse me for my poor English.
Helumt Hartmann,
You English is above reproach. Well done. ...
You sure make it sound easy! Love your work and thank you
This video is just what you need to hear, this guy really knows how to present himself and his methods with distracting comments.
Good info. It took me a few years to figure out a lot of this information with my 300 wm
Thank you very much for taking the time to share your knowledge with many... This is tremendously helpful!
The problem is that the recommendations to use 1) what you can get, and 2) what the winners are using are often mutually exclusive. Ask anyone who has tried to source Varget or 115 DTACs or 105 Hybrids.
As for "reliable" I think the key point here is not that it shoots particularly small, it's that it never shoots big.
Thank you I was pondering this exact question today.
Anything to save barrel life and reload- load development expenses. It's hard to save up or just put out the money all at once to buy a large quantity of the four mains, brass, bullets, powder and primers in large enough quantities to keep them all in their prospective production lots and sort them out for sub groups .For myself I have to do this in long stages just for good repeatable results in target and or friendly king of the range competition. The steady increase in components and other things is making the sport further out of reach for people now than ever before.
Thanks for the statistical significant truth Keith....well done!!
This is one of the reasons i didn't get into long range shooting...couldn't afford the testing i would need to do for my chasing the numbers.
it's expensive yes and barrels wear out
I really needed to hear this, what a great approach!
Very good explanation Keith. Thanks very much for sharing.
This is actually a great explanation on load development. I don’t shoot F class, but I hear all sorts of nonsense in the PRS world 🤦🏻♂️
Great idea! I can do a video on PRS specific load development as soon as I get that rifle up and running.
3 shots? No of course not! Haha. Exactly the topic I'm working on today. Keep up the great work!
Thank you kindly for sharing this amazing data and process.
what i did was i use powder i got & in loads the bullet designer test data had start and max in middle or lower end the out side temperature has a lot where I start over 90 f aid to my problems ( some time it not the rifle or ammo that gets you it the over weight solar panels i blew out my bicep tendon in my right arm & its my trigger finger & old shoulder injury it really threw a wrench my way!i was doing stuff! )
Interesting method. Can you provide a little more detail on how you do your pressure testing? Thanks.
I have found after 47 years of reloading that in most calibers I load to about 3/4 of maximum in fps, as starting point ! Bad news for y’all max loaders most accurate loads fall short of max fps
BANG! Yes Sir!!
That’s fine and dandy, but these differences will show at a grand when wind is a factor.
Been shooting since I was 10 been reloading since I was 12 and I’m 51. Just look at the groups. I look for the clover leaf group. I didn’t get a chrono till 3 months ago. I learned that my best loads “sort of “ had low es . But not all.
Another informative video Keith. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.
Good video, you have put my mind to rest on some things, and saved me hrs, money, and seeds.
Man cascade is right down the street , I’ve been trying to get in there forever . If you ever wanna get together and coach a local let me know 😂 i usually shoot black diamond and i love your channel man !
Beautiful", beautiful; just wonderful!
"... and I only have three primers"
The shortage is REAL!!
Keith, would you consider doing a tutorial on Quickload (if this is a tool you use?). Curious how you interpret results, how to tune the inputs, mistakes to avoid, etc? Thanks for all the work on your videos I find them highly valuable.
I've spent hours and hours with QL and GRT, they're both very useful for finding out "will this kill me or damage my equipment". Lots of what I shoot is old milsurp stuff, so you can imagine that I'd like to try modern powders in them, QL/GRT are PERFECT for this. What they will not do for you is tell you if a particular combination will be accurate in your firearm. There are some indications you can look at that hint or tease one way or the other, and there are combinations you'll start to recognize as "desireable", but this is not reliable. You gotta shoot the things to find out. The other point about this software is that it is HIGHLY dependent on the information you feed it. Get your case capacity wrong? COAL? Seating depth? Barrel length? Boat tail length? Bullet length? Temperature? - I think you get my point.
Further, over time you'll start to see the software has a preference for certain things. As an example GRT thinks RL26 is god's own answer to "what is the best rifle powder" - and I'm very happy to inform you that is not, in fact, the truth.
I could use your opinion on my loads.
I did a ladder test using sixteen shots. All varying .2 grains apart. 25.0 to 28.0. I don't have a chronograph. I wanted to see if the right load could be found this way since it's a bolt action .223, 55gr SBT, fed 205 match primer, Hogdon CFE223. CBTO is 1.8910
I wanted to save some money on components. I normally shoot 5 of all to figure it out.
I'll send you a picture of the test if I can figure out how to...
Thank you,
Jeff D.
Dude, you just made me worry a lot less. I'm getting a 223 AI built as a first target rifle and was really worried about how I was going to find a load that would work for really good accuracy out to a few hundred. My one question is how would I know if I have a good load or not if my brass would be holding the loads back? Hearing a lot of what Erik Cortina says, your brass can be the difference between a same hole load vs your group opening up. I dont want to spend the money on Lapua brass right away until I would actually have experience reloading so I would likely be reloading Sig, Hornady and Berger brass first since that is what is available for box 223 ammo.
Hey ! Great video and stellar presentation 👌
Love the Reno May shirt!
tbh, I thought load development is just making really consistent ammo. Same powder charge, same brass weight, same primer and depth, same trim length, same everything. Essentially have a consistent internal ballistics.
outstanding video, thanks for sharing
Great video. I’m curious as to what I should scale this to out of my 5.56 12.5 inch AR. I am thinking an inch or less at 100 yards using bulk 223 55 grain bullets and trying to get 2500 FPS. I load for bulk self defense training 1000 at a time. I will go through all those in a weekend. Then maybe for some 78 grain asking it to be temperature stable and group .75 or less for for longer range. Thanks for the info!
an inch or less, with 10 round groups, is not going to be easy
not to be “that guy” but…. a 12inch AR is exactly the wrong tool if you want 1 MOA groups. It’s not that you can’t do it, but why? Are you planning to benchrest your shorty? As soon as you shoot that rifle from a standing position, 1 MOA just went out the window. 4 MOA for a combat rifle has been the standard for 100 years. The average person can’t hold 6 MOA standing, with a full size rifle made for match shooting. I mean, do whatever you want. But my suggestion would be to go get some 77gr match ammo and see what you can do with it in that rifle before going down the rabbit hole of replicating the ammo.
I’m doing development on my hmr in 22-250 with a 1-9 twist. Currently using 53 gr vmax but people keep saying to shoot heavier pills. I don’t plan on shooting 1K yards. My thermal is going on to eradicate the local pasture poodles. I’m using 35.5 gr of varget and getting 3680 fps. People have me judging myself.
Heavier pills are a double edged sword. Context and application counts for a lot.
@@winninginthewind Thanks for your reply! Really enjoy your videos
Densly packed info. Thank you.
Dziękuję, to była bardzo dobra lekcja.
i lucked out with mine, i started my testing around the info i was able to find on a match factory load i liked in my 308, so i used that as the center point for load development and refined from there with the brass i intended to use, now im just trying to figure out if its me, or my loads causing a flier every so often breaking the sub .5 moa trend (pretty good for a factory rifle i think)
Hahahhaha lawn darts with sasquache. Hahahah that cracked me up big time
@winninginthewind I know it's an old video but saying your looking for 2" groups at 600 is a little misleading to some of the newer shooters. Instead of groups it should have been vertical disbursement of 2" as a windy day could give you more that a 2" group but still be under that 2" vertical. I have a local 1000 yrd range but still shoot at 600 looking for that 2" vertical disbursement 👍
I really like your channel and how you explain the processes. You give a lot of good information that works.
I have a question if you don't mind.
I shoot a fairly lightweight 300 wm. for hunting. I want to use it for competition also. Not allowed to have suppressors or muzzle brakes. How do I know I can trust my shooting? I get decent groups. .750 to 1" at 100 yds reloading. With the recoil, I worry about not being steady enough even on a bench. Don't want to buy another gun until I know I will like shooting in competition. I want it to be fun and not a chore or turn into a job.
Thank you,
Jeffrey
My 3 favorite calibers #1 6.5 Remington magnum #2 300 win mag. #3 243 win cover’s all critters
Mushroom bullets and what speed you should be wondering abought. Does that matter for long range shooting and hunting.
Thanks for your channel. It gives a lot to think about....😊
Don't you think that it would be more reliable to do load development in order from smallest to the largest charge and then from the largest to the smallest charge, and then again the same from the smallest to largest charge? Depends how many rounds you prepared for load development. The point is that the barrel heats up after all and we can't avoid this but results of this exercise are quite interesting. I use this method.
I've done it both ways when shooting ladders. I haven't seen any difference in the result doing it one way over the other, but I do shoot barrel warming shots before starting load development shooting.
Why not just use a powder charge just under the book max load and adjust seating depth up and down as long as the bullet ogive is 15 to 20 thousands back away from the lands.
Okay now he's got me wanting a unicorn tag.
6 shot test loads using cases that weigh in the same and it’s only fair to each load is cool barrels that’s why I take several different guns
Entertaining, spot on, and with the dig at the Russian War machine!
Love it!
Why are you not worried about horizontal dispersions of your impacts?
How big of a sample size do you need in order to be statically significant?
What's the standard deviation on your sample set and what are you trying to do with that information?
^^^ this
@@winninginthewind Let me rephrase my question. If my goal is to validate and figure out if a load can hold an ES of 10 or better and SD under 5. How big of sample would you need shoot in order to remove the randomness and see a normal distribution around the mean?
@@Mud-LOL I'm would say 20-25 rounds should give you that number you're looking for.
How do you keep track of the shot number on your poi's?
On your item 4 criteria, did you intend to mention your cross wind value? I think I missed it but it was probably for a 10 MPH full value.
Thank Dino! Yes, 10 mph full-value at 1000 yards.
Very smart, very good points made, love it when I find another rabbit hole TH-cam channel to go down!
Nice graphics upgrades!
🤣🤣 thanks for the info! Always wanted to get into f-class....But now I guess I'll stick with m1 garand/vintage match...🤣 not enough time or money for f-class. Money makes winners. Got 4 kids, they need a place to live and eat.
Good video but I upvoted purely on the shirt
Lol, same.. love Reno he's great!
Im sure you know what you are doing but you shot 50 times just to find powder charge? I know more data means a more precise conclusion, with 223 ive gotten very lucky i guess. I load 3 sets of 3 (9 rounds) with a medium to medium high charge lol as exact as possible and fire from a lead sled. So far out of 3 different bullet loadings this has yielded 1/2 moa loads. only 9 shots for a particular load development using a 16" bull barrel ar15. Now trying this on 308 its worked once for a bolt gun and failed with 3 other bullets in an ar10 that shoots 3/8 moa with federal gold match. That is what i did starting out and im realizing its not a very good approach but i just am trying to load sub moa hunting rounds. I know the guns in question can perform by using factory loads for verification. Im kind of wishing i hadn't started reloading and just bought factory ammo, any recommendations would be good but im not prepared to shoot 99 rounds to have 1 left for use.
You need a intro like bill nye did back in the day
Would you mind sharing your excel spreadsheet for us illiterates?
Very helpful. Thanks.
You said your wind was set for an altitude and pressure, but what speed for wind are you doing calculations off of? Thanks for your time.
@8:28 groups 2 and 3 are similar vertical distances from the aim point, so you'd pick the charge weight between them?
Correct
I'm not that into it. I just subtract the minimum load from the maximum load, divide the difference by 2 and add the answer to the minimum for a load that is exactly in the middle.
How did you come up with 2 inches,?
Your best video ever!!
Experience. I've shot a lot of 1000 yard matches following testing. If it won't shoot inside 2" @ 600, a clean at 1k is hard to make happen.
Thank you for the video!
Great info. Thanks
Interesting, I assume you are using Shotmarker, how are you superimposing the multiple ladder tests?
Thanks great information!!
what percentage of barrel do you wear out durning load development? Maybe the better question is,, how many rounds does your load development take?
Good info thanks
Keith: I noticed about 2000 bullets sitting on your work bench. Who do you know to get them.
Thanks for the content
Iam local to wa state as well, do you do any coaching?
3005 McClure Curve
Legendary!
Love this video
At what point would you determine that the barrel is "seasoned'? Number of shots, patterns? Consistent velocity's?
Stable velocity.
Good information
How many rounds does this test usually use? Seems like a very long and costly process...
Keith have you ever run a DOE on load development?
So @6:41 you say loads 8 and 9 are all close to the same vertical, so if those were 55.6grains and 55.8grains,you would then continue load development at 55.7 grains and split the difference?
And you do this because load 10 wasn't (is the right word stable) stable? And sometimes the bullets would hit low compared to other load 10 shots?
Correct
Neat, I think I understand your video then. Lol