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.
THIS is ESPECIALLY TRUE, if I am working out a load for another person, since I dont want repeated trips back and forth to the range, and telling them they owe me a bunch for gas money now too for so many trips to arrive at their perfect load. haha, that would look....I dunno,
like I was just having fun with their gun and then charged them for it.
So sometimes we have to call it good enough when it gets down below 3/4" and then tell them
I got ya close , the rest is up to you.
If I don't arrive at an acceptable load at approx 100 rounds...
....I consider barrel wear is now a factor, not to mention wearing half another person barrel out.
It is more courteous and professional to be able to preserve THEIR barrel life as well
As opposed to just having a bunch of fun shooting out someone elses gun.
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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 such as 50% planning and 50% load testing.
Yet we will all eventually arrive at a good known shooting load at the end
Just one method is more efficient with time and money.
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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