you're on the right track, post #18 is how's done with a tuner I guess since I'm not a big fan of tuners for various reasons, I believe I can tune up my rifle with powder charge, primer, seating depth and neck tension and don't have to guess if things go sideways in the middle of a match.
On seating depth testing I’ve always run 3shot groups, starting at .005” jump and increasing by .003” until I get to roughly .060” jump. Should I be doing it differently?
Not necessarily, Many people are loading out to max magazine length and seat deeper from that, but I start .008" to .010" into the lands. Not a hard jam, just in. Then I move away in .003" increments. Most nodes tend to pop up about every .006".
Regarding charge weight - for a few years I’ve been doing standard 10shot ladder tests to find velocity nodes. Last year I started doing the same ladder but with 10shots per charge weight shooting round-robin style, and the results were very different than the one shot per charge. I did find a consistent flat spot around 2910. This was a 6GT with Berger Hybrid 105’s. I’ve switched to a 6BRA for PRS and want to make sure I’m doing things right.
Try doing a seating depth first with a middle charge weight or safe, known accurate charge. Then once a good seating depth is established do a charge test in 3-5 round groups on a horizontal target, look for the groups at the top of the swing and they should coincide with best groups. Take 10 of those to long range for validation and chronograph it then. If ES and SD are wildly off, or you just can't get it to shoot, then switch powders.
I don't use tuners either, at least on center fire. I do use them on rimfire and they are very good in that situation, once you have some understanding of what to do to keep it tight.
10 shots per charge will eat a barrel quickly.
Yep This!!
