Interesting. Have you ever noticed when you bump into an issue at the range or you get stumped developing a load that when you bring it up in conversations everyone has a different "idea" to solve the problem.?? I'm new to reloading and I see that a lot. Hard to tell who's right sometimes.
WTT Mod.7 SS bolt .223 for .308 BF
I notice that too, and many peoples different idea is directly proportional to their own personal type of methods.
I have my personal favorite order of method
and it may be directly opposite in the order of things of another experienced persons methods.
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My method stems from time constraints
So I will try to "Outhink" my rifle 90%
then work on the load 10%
To make my time, useage of time, time availability, as valuable as possible
Such as, I make it my own goal to arrive at a load for a newly chambered rifle within 100 shots.
if I don't, I consider barrel wear is now a factor
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While another person may like to shoot alot, and may shoot 600 shots before finding his perfect load
so will work 90%, and think through what to do only 10%
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Or any variation in between
Yet we will both eventually arrive at a good known shooting load.
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Some people will only reference ONE reloading manual and go from there
Other people rely on what works for other shooters instead.
While I personally reference several load manuals, think through what load worked in the past
Look at Load data and targets over the years compiled.
Find a common ground between them.
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I do a lot of load "Planning" before I start loading
Thats nowaday, in the earlier days I just enjoyed shooting, so would buy a few pounds of different powders and go shoot and hope for the best, which is not really valuable load development.
I notice some people use the wrong burn rate of powder for their given bullet
I see this more like building an engine, all the components must work together to optimize performance
Everything must be built around the bullet., with an engine, everything must be built around the cam
or how the engine will breathe, what rpm will it be driven to (IE: what velocity)
Will it be used as a daily driver with low octane fuel?
Or all out high performance with Nitromethane?
etc etc
So if we look at it like building an engine
We plan every, single, little thing out First,
As opposed to just grabbing a bunch of components and slapping it together and hope it dont blow up