First ladder test…… help

[DLT]

Not gonna advocate shooting too hot but I sure don't see anything about your brass that would slow me down.

Thank you for the help

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Thank you for the help

Good luck! At least the weather is a wee bit better than last week. Makes it a lot more fun figuring this stuff out

 

[DLT]

Good luck! At least the weather is a wee bit better than last week. Makes it a lot more fun figuring this stuff out

Most of the day today it was overcast, cool and zero wind. . I should have waited

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

7" horizontal spread@300 yards with factory savage 223. 1 gr spread of powder, no seating depth work, shooting "thru" the wind. If this was 3-5 mph(just feel it on your cheeks) 11-1 o'clock. You should shoot the same "test" with the wind from your 6, you could have a prairie dog load hiding in there, with some seating work. That rifle is a 1/9 twist, could be that bullet needs a little more spin(try a lighter bullet).

 

[Ned Ludd]

Did you do that on an iPhone ?

Not a phone, but a laptop. I grabbed the original target image, saved it to the desktop, opened it with Preview (Mac), and used the drawing tools. It took 5 or 10 minutes, tops. I could have done the same with PowerPoint or a dedicated drawing program. However, software that can open jpg/png/etc. files will usually have some simple drawing tools embedded. I'm certainly no computer expert, but this was pretty straightforward.

 

[dcali]

You need to note the velocity of each shot, not the charge weight. That will help clean things up. But honestly, I’m not sure that rifle is accurate enough to make use of a ladder test. If you can’t see any patterns, that’s a good indication that there aren’t any. Our brains love to find patterns. In general I would also try a wider velocity range. Maybe 2 grains or so.

 

[JFrank]

Did you do that on an iPhone ?

I used an I phone. Lol
Don’t let these guys mess with you too much about flags, when testing charges and seating etc. we don’t correct for wind nor do we adjust the scope, we note the direction and speed to interpret the target. Correcting comes later.. at least the cool guys do….

I would eliminate the lows and high charges from your test and break down the rest in .1 increments using four colors
22.8 -blue
22.9 - green
23.0- black
23.1- red

Re-shoot those over a flag at a smooth steady pace and I’ll bet your whole test looks much better .

 

[DLT]

7" horizontal spread@300 yards with factory savage 223. 1 gr spread of powder, no seating depth work, shooting "thru" the wind. If this was 3-5 mph(just feel it on your cheeks) 11-1 o'clock. You should shoot the same "test" with the wind from your 6, you could have a prairie dog load hiding in there, with some seating work. That rifle is a 1/9 twist, could be that bullet needs a little more spin(try a lighter bullet).

It was a 8 twist from urban, other than that it’s factory. The wind was at least 5mph probably more. It had 3” verticle dispersion. I didn’t think it was bad considering that’s really nine different 3 shot groups at 300. I should post the 23.6, 23.8, and 24.0 cluster. The wind kinda laid off late in the evening

 

[22BRGUY]

Alliant Powder - Reloader's Guide

www.alliantpowder.com

Thank You Sir!

 

[DLT]

It had 3” verticle dispersion. I didn’t think it was bad considering that’s really nine different 3 shot groups at 300. I should post the 23.6, 23.8, and 24.0 cluster. The wind kinda laid off late in the evening

You need to note the velocity of each shot, not the charge weight. That will help clean things up. But honestly, I’m not sure that rifle is accurate enough to make use of a ladder test. If you can’t see any patterns, that’s a good indication that there aren’t any. Our brains love to find patterns. In general I would also try a wider velocity range. Maybe 2 grains or so.

I have a magnetospeed that’s the only chrono I have access to. I left it off. It, like the 10 shot satterlee method has had me chase my tail a few times

 

[ngb1787]

Keep eyes open while squeezing trigger, lol.

 

[Doom]

You need to note the velocity of each shohttps://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/first-ladder-test-help.4082865/t, not the charge weight. That will help clean things up. But honestly, I’m not sure that rifle is accurate enough to make use of a ladder test. If you can’t see any patterns, that’s a good indication that there aren’t any. Our brains love to find patterns. In general I would also try a wider velocity range. Maybe 2 grains or

Its possible it's the rifle but it can also be the shooter or the scope. Running a single shot ladder test requires that the shooter be capable of putting rounds consistently to the same POI. Putting three rounds for each charge probably means getting off the rifle between shot strings and and being able to get back on with the same setup every time. Looking at the target I can see that this is possibly an issue.

Let me make a suggestion that might help. The OCW method fires 3 shots for each charge weight in a round robin fashion. Usually you stay on the rifle for each round then let the rifle cool which means you get off the rifle between rounds. If you do not get on the rifle consistently you will see the shift usually on the first shot. You stay on the rifle without changing things and hopefully all shots follow the same pattern. Since OCW is normally performed at 100yds it pretty much takes wind out of the picture. Since you are looking for consistency in POI between charge weight the shifts, if consistent don't affect the results.

 

[Webster]

I ran my first ever ladder this evening at 300yards. Wanting to see if your eyes see anything. Ask questions if you have any. Thanks gents View attachment 1396101
Starline once fired brass
Started at 22.4 stopped at 23.4, 3 shots each charge round robin
AR COMP
69 SMK
CCI 450
55 degrees
Swirling wind off and on mainly a head wind.
I transferred it straight from the target to the cardboard

If you shoot at 100 yrds. it will minimize spread from the wind. If it shoots small at 100 it will shoot small at 300. A ruler in the photo would be nice. 3" at 300 looks like 1 moa.

 

[Gargoyle]

If you shoot at 100 yrds. it will minimize spread from the wind. If it shoots small at 100 it will shoot small at 300. A ruler in the photo would be nice. 3" at 300 looks like 1 moa.

I would zero at 50yds after mounting a scope. Go back to the 100 to group and my 50 and 100 groups looked the same. I'd go back to the 50yd line, group, go back to the 100 and same size group. LOL. Did this enough times to trust it.

I got swiped up by a friend after I built my first ELR rig and only got to zero it at 50yds!!!! I hadn't shot over 1000 at that point. I made it print same hole .5" low at 50, to give me a theoretical 100yd zero. Soon as we show up to the ELR range, he's like, "Target is at 1662yds". F'n A hole!

I laid an MOA group on that target with 5 rounds. I was laughing so hard after the first hit I can't believe I laid the others in there too! Thank god for Hornady 4DOF app.

Then there is the phenomenon where I print better groups at distance than the 100yd. I know its the 6" between the ears thing.

"The bullets settle down in flight" I still can't come to grips with that statement when I hear it. If the bullet is wonky from the start, how does it correct itself back to the intended path?

 

[DLT]

Its possible it's the rifle but it can also be the shooter or the scope. Running a single shot ladder test requires that the shooter be capable of putting rounds consistently to the same POI. Putting three rounds for each charge probably means getting off the rifle between shot strings and and being able to get back on with the same setup every time. Looking at the target I can see that this is possibly an issue.

Let me make a suggestion that might help. The OCW method fires 3 shots for each charge weight in a round robin fashion. Usually you stay on the rifle for each round then let the rifle cool which means you get off the rifle between rounds. If you do not get on the rifle consistently you will see the shift usually on the first shot. You stay on the rifle without changing things and hopefully all shots follow the same pattern. Since OCW is normally performed at 100yds it pretty much takes wind out of the picture. Since you are looking for consistency in POI between charge weight the shifts, if consistent don't affect the results.

I did a ocw at 100. From 22.8 - 24.2. They all impacted the exact height above the target. Where I had my scope set so not to eat up aim point. Every charge 3 shot groups was identical. Some was a fuzz bigger or smaller than the others.

 

[Doom]

I did a ocw at 100. From 22.8 - 24.2. They all impacted the exact height above the target. Where I had my scope set so not to eat up aim point. Every charge 3 shot groups was identical. Some was a fuzz bigger or smaller than the others.

Can you post the target?

 

[Mike Lum]

For the most part I don’t think they are. Nor did I notice a hard bolt lift. It’s a savage model 12. Alliant claims 23.2gr as their max. Sierra is 21.6gr I don’t understand why their data is low. I messed up the other day at 100yds when it was 40 degrees outside and started with 24.0 grains but didn’t see anything hateful. So I went on up to 24.0 for the ladder just fired the rounds I thought could be hot which was from 23.6 to 24.0 above the group.
They go in order from left to right first row is sighters. Each column is a .2 increase

I would seriously consider trying to mildly crush those primers in to make sure that they are bottoming out 100%, it won't hurt, meanwhile primers that aren't completely seated will cause inconsistencies. Considering you said this is new brass, you may need to adjust your primer tool to make sure they are bottoming out correctly, especially if it is a different brand than you primed last.

CCI 450 are magnum primers.. have you found magnum primers necessary for this load? I am aware of the shortage but note that you may be increasing pressures unnecessarily.

22.9 would put you in the middle of the high node with your current primers, this would change with regular small rifle primers which I suspect are more suited to your application. I would work on ignition first. Second highest node is usually wider than the highest one, giving you better results with temperature and humidity changes. My experience with the magnetospeed is that it will shift your point of impact and barrel harmonics so leave it off when you are testing groups.

 

[DLT]

I would seriously consider trying to mildly crush those primers in to make sure that they are bottoming out 100%, it won't hurt, meanwhile primers that aren't completely seated will cause inconsistencies. Considering you said this is new brass, you may need to adjust your primer tool to make sure they are bottoming out correctly, especially if it is a different brand than you primed last.

CCI 450 are magnum primers.. have you found magnum primers necessary for this load? I am aware of the shortage but note that you may be increasing pressures unnecessarily.

22.9 would put you in the middle of the high node with your current primers, this would change with regular small rifle primers which I suspect are more suited to your application. I would work on ignition first. Second highest node is usually wider than the highest one, giving you better results with temperature and humidity changes. My experience with the magnetospeed is that it will shift your point of impact and barrel harmonics so leave it off when you are testing groups.

I’m pretty sure they are bottomed out. It’s the only primers I have and that’s why I don’t shoot for groups with it on. It’s a blessing sometimes and a curse sometimes.

 

[Mike Lum]

I’m pretty sure they are bottomed out. It’s the only primers I have and that’s why I don’t shoot for groups with it on. It’s a blessing sometimes and a curse sometimes.

I hear ya there bud. If you're using Gordons or quickload be sure to add another 1595 to your initial starting pressure. Keep safe!

 

[DLT]

I hear ya there bud. If you're using Gordons or quickload be sure to add another 1595 to your initial starting pressure. Keep safe!

I don’t use either. But I’m not against it. Brass was once fired too I meant to post earlier