Is there literature out that explains what your looking for when doing load development at the range for current condition? I assume your looking for small round groups at your POA.
In short range, (100-200-300yards), what we are looking for is what many of us call ”the agging capability” of a particular combination. In lay terms, that is the Rifles capability, (not yours), of putting five consecutive groups down range where the average of those five groups will be .200 or better.
This goes for both a Rifle dedicated to Group Shooting or one dedicated to Score Shooting.
I use the word “combination” because that encompasses the different items that can keep a bullet from taking the exact same pass as the one before.
Seating depth, neck tension, powder charge, and if you use one a tuner are the most common. Of course, I am assuming that the Rifle, including the barrel and bullets, are up to the task.
When loading at the range, you can immediately on the spot change any one thing to see the affect it has. Since you are shooting over flags, you can see how the conditions can affect any given combination. If a bullet does not go where you think it should have gone, you can immediately load another and see if it was you, the condition, or the load.
You are correct when you describe what I am looking for. Round groups Is one way to describe it, but most of all a load combination that handles conditions well.
You might have read where I describe a “horizontal tune”. That is a tune where you seem to get horizontal stringing where you cannot see by your flags what pushed the bullets in that direction. This is not a good thing. I see people at the “wailing wall“ looking at a group that is straight across and say, “well, I must have missed something because the tune is good”.
No, it’s not. If you can not see the condition that compels bullets to go straight to the left or right, then something is amiss with the tune. You need to get it shooting round groups as small as your components will allow.
Many shooters cure this with seating depth. Since I use a tuner, I have the option of kicking a little vertical in the tune. This is extremly important in score shooting.
Now, after looking at my range setup, you will ask….”how are you keeping your powder charges to the nearest .01 grn”. The answer is, I don’t. For 100/200/300 Group and Score shooting, the powder charge simply does not have to be that close. Heck, for decades, I threw charges out of a measure, which despite what you read, is only good for +- .2 grn. I now use a ChargeMaster Lite because it is accurate enough and reall pretty convenient. It has a great wind guard, and runs off of the battery pack you see in the picture.
If and when I try to get into longer range shooting, I might have to modify things to encompass the variables that long range presents, mainly in achieving extremly close velocity spreads. But for now, in the Matches I compete in, what I have laid out in this thread works fine.
By

the way, I am at the range now. Beautiful morning, 40 degrees and sunny. This I my 30BR setup.

Here is the last target I shot this morning.
