Are We Doing Load Development Wrong?

[Ccrider]

He does recommend to focus on practicing vs further load development after the load provides consistent 1/2 MOA groups. His point is that there is relatively little gained in hitting a 1 MOA target at 1000 yards by spending effort on getting less than 1/2 MOA load vs practicing with the same 1/2 MOA load.

This validates what I was thinking. Br shooters are not his intended target. I don’t know what I am doing and would not settle for 1/2 moa groups— not even in my hunting rifles.

I would not expect to be able to shoot 2 inches or better at 600 yards with a 1/2 moa gun.

 

[Bill Norris]

All of his ideas actually LEAN towards shooting more. It would be hard for bullet and barrel manufs. not to agree with him and like his way of thinking I'm sure.

 

[Leeinmichigan]

Sometimes the path to improvement requires trying unconventional techniques. The key is to learn from the failures that will likely be encountered. Doing the same thing as everyone else and expecting a better outcome is one definition of insanity!

The discussion on Tuners has been enlightening. I loaded with Gene Bukys at nearly all the big BR matches for the past 10 years, and had lengthy conversations about his Tuner, its design and its benefits. Looking for any advantage, I purchased a few from him and when my next barrel was ready to be screwed on I gave it a try. It happened to be on my HV rifle.

Gene’s technique for using it, was to tune your load with it off, and then load 5-7 three shot rounds with that load. Screw the tuner all the way on your muzzle, and mark the tuner with 8 clock markings. He would then shoot a three shot group starting at the first position. If that dotted, he was done (tighten it down). Otherwise, turn the tuner out to the next mark and shoot another 3-shot group (repeat until it dots). We agreed that it’s not really a tuner, but more of a dampener, that minimized the barrel’s harmonics.

I used a different technique, which was the same as Gene’s up to the 3-shot groups. I would shoot 2-shot groups, but shoot the second round after turning the tuner 180 degrees. I continued this process until the two shots dotted. It was at the Hog Roast, when I next used that rifle. I shot a 0.14xx agg at 100 yards. I went on to win the HV Grand and 2-Gun.

This past past year when changing out barrels, I just screwed on the tuner on a fresh barrels (about 7 full turns off the stop) and tuned for my best load. This method also worked well, since I did well at several matches including the IBS Nationals.

I guess I’m still trying to see what method works best, and learning at each point.

Great discussion.., keep it it up!

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

All of his ideas actually LEAN towards shooting more. It would be hard for bullet and barrel manufs. not to agree with him and like his way of thinking I'm sure.

I can agree with him on shooting more. Actually, I agree with him on almost everything I've seen of his work.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

The discussion on Tuners has been enlightening. I loaded with Gene Bukys at nearly all the big BR matches for the past 10 years, and had lengthy conversations about his Tuner, its design and its benefits. Looking for any advantage, I purchased a few from him and when my next barrel was ready to be screwed on I gave it a try. It happened to be on my HV rifle.
Gene’s technique for using it, was to tune your load with it off, and then load 5-7 three shot rounds with that load. Screw the tuner all the way on your muzzle, and mark the tuner with 8 clock markings. He would then shoot a three shot group starting at the first position. If that dotted, he was done (tighten it down). Otherwise, turn the tuner out to the next mark and shoot another 3-shot group (repeat until it dots). We agreed that it’s not really a tuner, but more of a dampener, that minimized the barrels harmonics.

I used a different technique, which was the same as Gene’s up to the 3- shot groups. I would shoot 2-shot groups, but shoot the second round after turning the tuner 180 degrees. I continued this process until the two shots dotted. It was at the Hog Roast, when I next used that rifle. I shot a 0.14xx agg at 100 yards. I when on to win the HV Grand and 2-Gun.

This past past year when changing out barrels, I just screwed on the tuner on a fresh barrels and tuned for my best load. This method also worked well, since I did well at several matches including the IBS Nationals.

I guess I’m still trying to see what method works best, and learning at each point.

Great discussion.., keep it it up!

There's certainly more than one way to utilize a tuner. But yes, if I'm being very honest, I'd like to see everyone on the same page. It causes just a bunch of confusion when people read and hear different methods of using a tool that is obviously controversial..but I wonder how much of the controversy is due to just that. Here's the thing, both ways work. Genes method still relies on being able to keep up with condition related tune changes by changing the load. He was one of the best at doing just that and tuners do broaden the node just a tiny bit, too. So, one of the best, just got better at it when using a tuner as Gene did. The biggest difference is do you want the ABILITY to move it or do you prefer to be locked into one spot and change the load. Yes, you could move his with tools or, several left it just loose enough to turn with resistance.

The other method works too, IME, just as well, and it gives you a tool at your fingertips that lets you tune the rifle. With this method, it's up to you if you move it or not and you can always go back where you were. Most tuners no longer require tools for this. You just reach up there and do what you need to. I'm not saying to only tune with it but rather, establish an optimal base load tune and maintain peak tune with the tuner rather than changing loads as conditions change. Either way, you still have broadened tune window. On that point...it's not a huge amount at all. Vibration analysis allowed me to quantify just how much that is and it will vary with bbl stiffness but say 3-7%, roughly. So yes, it's real but gets completely lost if you pull the trigger in a switch. A wider node is also nice at any time but the value of it is greatly diminished or becomes nil if you adjust the tuner WHEN the gun tells you to.

 

[Dave M.]

I reckon i do it this way. To long to read all of it.

I have enough fake fire retardant wood hanging around to make me think i know what I'm doing !

I follow this method too and it has served me very well. I’m looking for 2-3 groups in a row that share the same point of impact. Then most often I focus on the middle group and then further tune by seating depth and finally by tuner setting.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

A wider node is also nice at any time but the value of it is greatly diminished or becomes nil if you adjust the tuner WHEN the gun tells you to.

I put "WHEN" in caps on purpose. Tuning by powder requires us to load BEFORE we go to the line. A tuner is REAL time...fwiw.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

I follow this method too and it has served me very well. I’m looking for 2-3 groups in a row that share the same point of impact. Then most often I focus on the middle group and then further tune by seating depth and finally by tuner setting.

Changing two or more things at once? Again, there are different ways to do things. I don't look at tuners as a "fine tuning tool" any more than powder charge. I establish my optimal tune and maintain it with the tuner. Just my method.

 

[JFrank]

Changing two or more things at once? Again, there are different ways to do things. I don't look at tuners as a "fine tuning tool" any more than powder charge. I establish my optimal tune and maintain it with the tuner. Just my method.

I didn’t read that, I read that he’s doing powder , seating, then tuner.

 

[Hammer]

Are we doing load development wrong ?

I would have to say "yes".

Fifty years ago the Volunteer Rifle & Pistol Range was dominated by benchrest shooters. It held monthly matches that drew shooters from all over the South plus two big matches per year that had national attendance. I lived less than 2 miles away and I was at the range any time I could be. Learned a lot from a lot of good shooters.

Met Ferris Pindell when he was shooting at Volunteer. Ferris Pindell built me a rifle on one of the first left-hand Remington actions, used one of the earliest fiberglass stocks, and put a Leupold 24X scope on it.

These days I go to the Ben Avery Range and am learning from those great shooters. They're no longer using B&M powder measures. They ain't shooting the Triple Duece (222) or sleeved Remington actions. Obviously, they have improved.

Today, I shoot a benchrest rifle built by Lester Bruno. It has a BAT action, Krieger barrel, and a Leupold 45X scope. Change...

My guess is given another fifty years and we will look back at what we're doing today and wonder how we were so dumb.

 

[Dave M.]

Changing two or more things at once? Again, there are different ways to do things. I don't look at tuners as a "fine tuning tool" any more than powder charge. I establish my optimal tune and maintain it with the tuner. Just my method.

I never conduct any tests where more than one variable is changed at a time. Sorry if my text lead you to believe otherwise.

 

[David Milisock]

Just some thoughts, I went over the Hornady podcast with a fine tooth comb and gave it some thought, now my house smells! Bare with me it may seem that I'm going the long way around the barn when it fact I am going the long way around the barn. It will eventually get to bench rest shooting.

Much of what the Hornady technicians said has been born out in my many decades of loading and testing for field shooting. For example cold bore 3 shot game rifle grouping and zeroing. I have always shot three shot groups because the barrels never printed good 5 shot groups and I never considered needing more that 3 shots and in practice I rarely needed 2 shots. Like the podcast said test as you would use.

Shooting the same target 3 times at the same point of aim 5 times over an entire day produces a 15 shot group. Doing the same thing 4 times over a period of a month gives you a set of 4 targets with 60 shots.

The single 3 shot groups are never over an inch sometimes under an inch however the composite of 2 groups may be 1 3/4" and the composite of 5 groups of 3 shots each or more may be as much as 2 1/2". What also happens is that by examining the multiple 3 shot groups a natural center of the combined groups appears. By adjusting the zero to the combined natural combined zero of the targets the rifle will always produce a 3 shot group 1" or less in size, but you can increase the likelihood that the 3 shot 1" or less group will be closer to the point of aim by a factor of 5.

Now the very same process has been shown to be true with my 3 heavy barreled custom rifles. It just takes less time as they can shoot 5 shot groups without barrel heating issues. The difference being that the medium game rifles are test grouped at 100 yards shooting 1/2" to 1" groups and the custom rifles are tested at 300 yards shooting from 3/8" to 1 1/4" groups.

The result being that all rifles shoot the 1 or 2 shots needed to the statistically most likely point of aim for all ranges within the rifles accuracy potential.

All this assumes that all rifles have been loaded with loads that already produced a satisfactory accuracy. The medium game rifles accuracy was developed over many days using a 3 shot group and a cooling before the next 3 shot group with the best grouped load used. The custom rifles used 5 shot groups at 200 yards over a period of days with the best grouped load used.

How this applies to the bench rest concept is certainly more of a condrum however a few things stick out. I do field shoot so the previous discussion is not only relevant, it is how I've done it for decades, it just seemed logical. Unlike the previous discussion I have no dog in the bench rest hunt as I don't bench rest shoot.

The first obvious observation is the precision, I don't mean the shooting, I mean the rifle and load construction.

The Hornday technicians mentioned bench rest shooting but not that their loading techniques were tuned to those standards. However I see nothing that preludes their observations from being correct, only that the precision of the bench shooting process may reduce the spread of the errors indicated in the Hornady testing process not the sampling size needed to obtain the data.

Bench rest shooters point to the trophies as proof they do things correctly. As far as statistical data gathering, winning indicates a win on that day and that's it. None of the following concepts precludes that on the day of an event that the winner of that event was the best on the field that day, the trophy proves who was best that day. The following concepts only prove that the bench rest event event was not designed to collect load and ballistic data in a statisticallyuseful way.

The reasons that the win proves only that it was a one off situation are multiple, one reason is that the shooter does not win every time nor most of the time and in fact may not even place in the next event. Other indicators that the win is a one off situation is the multitude of uncontrollable variables between the rifle and point of impact, the small shot count sampling in the data and the fact that some shooters change the load between shots.

For the bench rest shooter to provide the statistical data that they did things correctly they would have to fire the same unchanged load producing a 30 to 60 shot sample providing the evidence.

For a data technician to demand that statistical proof would seem to me that the technician didn't understand the bench rest shooter. It's an art form!

For the bench rest shooter to discount the coincidental alignment of circumstances out of their control that provides the edge that took the day in my opinion is disingenuous.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Just some thoughts, I went over the Hornady podcast with a fine tooth comb and gave it some thought, now my house smells! Bare with me it may seem that I'm going the long way around the barn when it fact I am going the long way around the barn. It will eventually get to bench rest shooting.

Much of what the Hornady technicians said has been born out in my many decades of loading and testing. For example cold bore 3 shot game rifle grouping and zeroing. I have always shot three shot groups because the barrels never printed good 5 shot groups and I never considered needing more that 3 shots and in practice rarely needed 2 shots. Like the podcast said test as you would use.

Shooting the same target at the same point of am 5 times over an entire day produces a 15 shot group. Doing the same thing 4 times over a period of a month gives you a set of 4 targets with 60 shots.

The single 3 shot groups are never over an inch sometimes under an inch however the composite of 2 groups may be 1 3/4" and the composite of 5 groups of 3 shots each or more may be as much as 2 1/2". What also happens is that by examining the multiple 3 shot groups a natural center of the combined groups appears. By adjusting the zero to the combined natural combined zero the rifle will always produce a 3 shot group 1" or less in size but you increase the likelihood that the 3 shot 1" or less group will be closer to the point of aim by a factor of 5 in the case of using a composite groups of 5 groups of 3 shots each.

Now the very same process has been shown to be true with my 3 heavy barreled custom rifles. It just takes less time as they can shoot 5 shot groups without barrel heating issues. The difference being that the medium game rifles are test grouped at 100 yards shooting 1/2" to 1" groups and the custom rifles are tested at 300 yards shooting from 3/8" to 1 1/4" groups.

The result being that all rifles shoot the 1 or 2 shots needed to the statistically most likely point of aim for all ranges within the rifles accuracy potiential.

With wind flags, right? Hell, I can't always remember what the flags were doing a few seconds ago, much less a month between test groups. I'm sorry but I don't see how that relates to benchrest or anything else, really. I guess you're getting at statistical significance but it's not valid if shot in different conditions, imho. This is one aspect of the Litz test that shows my point about his lack of understanding of what tuners do...or even what tune is for that matter. Clearly, he is much better with external ballistics than with tuning, though. Lots of reasons why a gun won't shoot small every time but a tuner is a tool to help with that, not hurt it...just like tuning with powder. Either way has to be done properly. You won't have much luck randomly changing powder charges either..same with a tuner.

 

[David Milisock]

With wind flags, right? Hell, I can't always remember what the flags were doing a few seconds ago, much less a month between test groups. I'm sorry but I don't see how that relates to benchrest or anything else, really. I guess you're getting at statistical significance but it's not valid if shot in different conditions, imho. This is one aspect of the Litz test that shows my point about his lack of understanding of what tuners do...or even what tune is for that matter. Clearly, he is much better with external ballistics than with tuning, though. Lots of reasons why a gun won't shoot small every time but a tuner is a tool to help with that, not hurt it...just like tuning with powder. Either way has to be done properly. You won't have much luck randomly changing powder charges either..same with a tuner.

Many years ago I worked with an armorer shooting stuff he developed, he learned about building rifles and loads and I learned about humility. The wind will teach it to you or kill you, get as close as you can, ELIMINATE the wind as much as possible.

A true story from Christmas 2022, the storm was coming in so I ask my grandson to put 2 cinder blocks on the one trash can so it wouldn't end up in the jumpers on the left of the house. Looking at the house the wind was blowing from left to right straight into the cans and was going to blow harder so my grandson said PopPop you're nuts, the wind will blow the can against the house. I told him ok but tomorrow you go into the junipers and get that can.

The next day he went to the junipers, hot the can and putb2 cinder blocks on it. Then came the question how did that happen? The I explained eddy currents to him as well as the need for hyper velocity projectiles and getting as close as possible in varmint hunting.

 

[jackieschmidt]

Are we doing load development wrong ?

I would have to say "yes".

Fifty years ago the Volunteer Rifle & Pistol Range was dominated by benchrest shooters. It held monthly matches that drew shooters from all over the South plus two big matches per year that had national attendance. I lived less than 2 miles away and I was at the range any time I could be. Learned a lot from a lot of good shooters.

Met Ferris Pindell when he was shooting at Volunteer. Ferris Pindell built me a rifle on one of the first left-hand Remington actions, used one of the earliest fiberglass stocks, and put a Leupold 24X scope on it.

These days I go to the Ben Avery Range and am learning from those great shooters. They're no longer using B&M powder measures. They ain't shooting the Triple Duece (222) or sleeved Remington actions. Obviously, they have improved.

Today, I shoot a benchrest rifle built by Lester Bruno. It has a BAT action, Krieger barrel, and a Leupold 45X scope. Change...

My guess is given another fifty years and we will look back at what we're doing today and wonder how we were so dumb.

As long as bullets are fling through the air, we will never reach perfection.
Most of us who compete on a regular basis have shot groups, or a score target, that made us wonder….”how the heck did I do that”.
Especially when in the next relay, you do exactly the same thing only to shoot a “mid two” rather than a “mid Zero”.
What was the compelling factor that caused the bullets to take a different path than the one just before it.

I kinda made up a saying that goes…….”the definition of a well tuned combination is one where the only thing that keeps the next bullet from taking the exact same path as the one before is the conditions you are shooting in too.”
Think of everything involved in getting “the combination” (which includes the shooter), to that state of perfection.

Truth is, there are only a relative few things that can cause the next bullet to take the exact same path before, while there are uncountable things can cause it not too.

 

[4xforfun]

Not going to read all 12 pages of responses.....all I know is that a 5 shot group may not prove how SMALL that load will shoot, it will proove how BIG it will shoot. A load that produces a small group will get extensivly tested. A load that shoots a huge group will NEVER get a second look. OK...I'll say it.....IF I DO MY PART!!

 

[tom]

Not going to read all 12 pages of responses.....all I know is that a 5 shot group may not prove how SMALL that load will shoot, it will proove how BIG it will shoot. A load that produces a small group will get extensivly tested. A load that shoots a huge group will NEVER get a second look. OK...I'll say it.....IF I DO MY PART!!

Anything less than all 12 pages is an inadequate sample size though! Lol

Tom

 

[Bill Norris]

As long as bullets are fling through the air, we will never reach perfection.
Most of us who compete on a regular basis have shot groups, or a score target, that made us wonder….”how the heck did I do that”.
Especially when in the next relay, you do exactly the same thing only to shoot a “mid two” rather than a “mid Zero”.
What was the compelling factor that caused the bullets to take a different path than the one just before it.

I kinda made up a saying that goes…….”the definition of a well tuned combination is one where the only thing that keeps the next bullet from taking the exact same path as the one before is the conditions you are shooting in too.”
Think of everything involved in getting “the combination” (which includes the shooter), to that state of perfection.

Truth is, there are only a relative few things that can cause the next bullet to take the exact same path before, while there are uncountable things can cause it not too.

Lots of truth in this Jackie. And when we see our loads repeat accurately over and over I think that's reason enough to accept what we are seeing especially if we are using a tuner because in most cases a small adjustment there will bring the load back into tune if the conditions warrant.

 

[Webster]

As some who works with statistics, I’m shocked at all the hate (lol). I think the issue with OCW and ladder testing with 3 (or even less) shot groups is that often the true variation in the group is not seen with the few shots used and wrong inferences are made - a load is selected or rejected based on random variation… this does not mean that load development can’t be done with few shots, especially with known combinations of components… or if results are repeated (which is more shots)…. However, think of statistical analysis as signal to noise ratio… if there is a lot of noise it will take more data to make meaningful inferences… similarly, if the differences are minor, it will take more data.

Statistics ignore the human factor and we tend to think it's just the cartridge. Many of us don't have a rifle that's good enough to test loads and many of us will never have the skills or bench setup to shoot consistent small groups. Sounds like a lot of guys on this website buy a rifle and beat it to death trying to make it shoot. Someone on this website bought all of Tony Boyers equipment for $40,000 when he retired. He had 168 barrels looking for a great one. I shoot what I call small groups with my varmint rifles. My competition is finding fields with ground hogs.

I just saw someone post targets on this website and ask for help picking a load. I thought all the groups were terrible and a waste of a lot of ammo.

 

[Park ranger]

I get it. Once I seated my bullets (155 hybrids) .030” deeper than my original load. Shot a Palma match and my scores and x count was within my average. I’m not the best Palma shooter, so it didn’t matter in my case. I’m Still a 3 moa shooter with wind and iron sights off a sling.