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I know, I know another load development question...Saterlee test

Just reading the target I would load between shots 10-11 but for your purposes ( super slow) you may look at shots 1-2
I have my slow load that while it works very well there is times its not to be relied on that's why I'm seeking faster loads now that will also hold accurate. It's like my adventure to make just one brand of powder work,... it will if you only have one caliber of gun. One gun like this powder but the other gun likes that brand of powder. I have one rifle now in 6.5 Grendel and it will only shoot Hornady bullets but everything else I own shoots awesome with Sierra's, will drive you nuts....
 
No shortcuts to developing your baseline best starting load. I doubt you could get any useful data from a test like this
You've not used these tests before?

Recent 6xc load test.
1 round a piece, locate the powder node, proof node with 15rds as fast as you can feed them in the chamber, then work on seating depth. The target is a 450yd group.

You can't build a house without a foundation and expect it to weather a storm. Constancy on the reloading bench first, develop powder node, proof node, work on seating depth at distance. You can't use a virgin barrel or brass, as the results will change as your barrel hardens and your brass gets carbon. A chronograph is an absolute must here.

123_21.png 123_1.jpg 92594F8E-1.jpg
 
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I think I agree but please explain why...
I have tried many methods trying to find a way to lock in an accurate load with no "reliable" results because of my range limitations.
Just shoot one, take that reading, go home and load up 10 as close as you can get then shoot those 10 and see if the fps avg is the same. Just for fun mark those 10 and do it again next time you go to the range. It would be way more valuable to practice with wind flags and no chrono if youre limited on range time. Let the wind change and see where it goes
 
You've not used these tests before?

Recent 6xc load test.
1 round a piece, locate the powder node, proof node with 15rds as fast as you can feed them in the chamber, then work on seating depth. The target is a 450yd group.

You can't build a house without a foundation and expect it to weather a storm. Constancy on the reloading bench first, develop powder node, proof node, work on seating depth at distance. You can't use a virgin barrel or brass, as the results will change as your barrel hardens and your brass gets carbon. A chronograph is an absolute must here.

View attachment 1182653 View attachment 1182654 View attachment 1182656
Thats pretty amazing for 15 shots at 450yds
 
I have my slow load that while it works very well there is times its not to be relied on that's why I'm seeking faster loads now that will also hold accurate. It's like my adventure to make just one brand of powder work,... it will if you only have one caliber of gun. One gun like this powder but the other gun likes that brand of powder. I have one rifle now in 6.5 Grendel and it will only shoot Hornady bullets but everything else I own shoots awesome with Sierra's, will drive you nuts....
Just for comparison my best Varget load with 107 was 30.1 running around 2840
 

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Just for comparison my best Varget load with 107 was 30.1 running around 2840
Probably in Lapua brass, I'm using Norma and it has slightly less capacity so I run into pressure issues at a lower charge weight. 30.0gr of Reloder 15 will produce 2870 in my rifle but no short range accuracy.
You've not used these tests before?

Recent 6xc load test.
1 round a piece, locate the powder node, proof node with 15rds as fast as you can feed them in the chamber, then work on seating depth. The target is a 450yd group.

You can't build a house without a foundation and expect it to weather a storm. Constancy on the reloading bench first, develop powder node, proof node, work on seating depth at distance. You can't use a virgin barrel or brass, as the results will change as your barrel hardens and your brass gets carbon. A chronograph is an absolute must here.

View attachment 1182653 View attachment 1182654 View attachment 1182656
What program did you use to graph your results??
 
I know people have had success with this method, I just have a hard time basing a load on a sampling of 1 shot per charge weight. As everyone who shoots knows, you have extreme spread within a charge weight. What's to say for the one round of a particular charge weight that it may be the high end of the spread whereas the next charge weigh may be the low end of its spread. This might give the appearance of a flat spot and have nothing to do with the actual node.

I’ve had very good success finding a load with Dan Newberry’s OCW method. I do not use a chronograph until I’ve chosen a load based on the results on the target and am fine tuning for maximum accuracy. I know shooters who use chronos when testing but it’s my belief that too many shooters try to find the results their looking for rather than understand the results they get...
 
This type of method is junk. Try it a few more times and you'll see different "flat spots" or none a tall. It's just random variation. Show me a test where the flat spot is significant statistically, and I'll eat my hat. Charge weight vs velocity is linear for our purposes.

There is only so much information contained in one shot. If you're smart about it you can develop a load efficiently, but you still need to shoot.

I believe these methods come about because people are misunderstanding ladder tests, which are legitimate. Plotting velocity vs vertical impact will show you something if you do it over wide enough of a charge range. But that's got nothing to do with velocity flat spots. It's *vertical* flat spots we're looking for. Even then, it's easy to look at the data and see something that's not there.

A real example of how we lie to ourselves. For kicks, I thought I'd do a ladder within a very tight charge range. A one grain range in .1 grain increments. All charges were weighed with an FX-120i, and shot through my F Class rifle at 600 yards. Bullets were my customs, and sorted. Cases were sorted by weight. Velocity was measured with a Labradar. Impact height was measured by a ShotMarker. I did 4 separate tests and wind was not much of a factor, as it was pretty calm. Seating depth was at a known good spot from a previous load. Velocity variation for a single load yielded SDs between 3 and 10, although with only 4 shots each, so lots of variation would be expected. If I had to eyeball a guess as to the overall SD I'd say it was about 6. I didn't bother figuring that out.

So lets look at the charge weight vs impact height. Looks like a step-like shape and that there are three nodes, right? Pretty cool. That's what a ladder is supposed to look like.

Screen Shot 2020-06-02 at 9.46.42 AM.png

Now lets plot that same data as velocity vs impact height. Still see a step pattern? I don't. Turns out that using charge weight as a proxy for velocity happened to show me something that looks like what I expected to see, but was in fact a mirage. There is no meaningful "node" within the charge range that I tested. I suspect I'd see one if I kept going lower, but that in itself is dangerous. Let the numbers talk - don't tell them what to say.

Screen Shot 2020-06-02 at 9.47.01 AM.png

Be careful - preconcieved ideas about what you should see can be deceiving when you don't have much data.
 
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Heres just a small sample of five shot groups I've shot from 3 different rifles using the 10 shot velocity ladders to develope my loads for them.. seems to work ok for me.. its all i use any more.. i use to do a ocw test along side the ladder test but have gotten away from the ocw method..
 

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Heres just a small sample of five shot groups I've shot from 3 different rifles using the 10 shot velocity ladders to develope my loads for them.. seems to work ok for me.. its all i use any more.. i use to do a ocw test along side the ladder test but have gotten away from the ocw method..
Yup, that'll do!
 
I have used this method, on several rifles in three calibers ( .308, .260 Rem Match, and 6.5x55). It pointed me to a certain range, quickly. I posted an example of this today loading for a CG-63 Mauser.

I would test the upper node, 3 rounds each. One of the things that Satterlee recommends is to load 'in the middle' of a node, i.e if your test shows that the jump from 38.4 to 38.6 gr. of a powder charge has the smallest velocity jump, then he would recommend testing 38.5 gr. and see what you come up with.

I understand his logic, but so far, that has not worked for me personally. I found a load that had the smallest jump from 49.4 to 49.6 gr.; when I went back and tried 49.5 (during similar weather conditions) it didn't perform as well.

I checked this method against two of my service rifle M1A loads, one with H4895, the other with IMR 3031. The IMR-3031 had the lowest fps jump between the 2 charges (just 4 fps), and finished with a SD of 8.4 fps. The H4895 load had greater jump between charges ( 8 fps) a larger SD of 9.7 fps, and a larger group size to go with it. I did not attempt to adjust the sights for score, just looking for consistency. Shot No. 15 is a result of my poor bench technique. Shot No. 18 is inexplicably low. Those velocities are @ 200 yards, fired on a SOLO target.

M14_2.jpg

Satterlee also notes that the seating depths should still be fine tuned, and adds that occasionally, even though you find a low spread between two charges, it still may not group well enough to be considered a winner. In that case, you only have somewhere around 15 bullets, primers, and a small amount of powder and time tied up in testing this combination of components - ample time to consider other load combinations.

I've used the method on three rifles, against three known loads, and used it to find two new loads for two rifles. I will use it again to explore a load for a Tikka T3 Standard Rifle next month.

It has worked for me so far. YMMV

-tc
 
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This type of method is junk. Try it a few more times and you'll see different "flat spots" or none a tall. It's just random variation. Show me a test where the flat spot is significant statistically, and I'll eat my hat. Charge weight vs velocity is linear for our purposes.

There is only so much information contained in one shot. If you're smart about it you can develop a load efficiently, but you still need to shoot.

I believe these methods come about because people are misunderstanding ladder tests, which are legitimate. Plotting velocity vs vertical impact will show you something if you do it over wide enough of a charge range. But that's got nothing to do with velocity flat spots. It's *vertical* flat spots we're looking for. Even then, it's easy to look at the data and see something that's not there.

A real example of how we lie to ourselves. For kicks, I thought I'd do a ladder within a very tight charge range. A one grain range in .1 grain increments. All charges were weighed with an FX-120i, and shot through my F Class rifle at 600 yards. Bullets were my customs, and sorted. Cases were sorted by weight. Velocity was measured with a Labradar. Impact height was measured by a ShotMarker. I did 4 separate tests and wind was not much of a factor, as it was pretty calm. Seating depth was at a known good spot from a previous load. Velocity variation for a single load yielded SDs between 3 and 10, although with only 4 shots each, so lots of variation would be expected. If I had to eyeball a guess as to the overall SD I'd say it was about 6. I didn't bother figuring that out.

So lets look at the charge weight vs impact height. Looks like a step-like shape and that there are three nodes, right? Pretty cool. That's what a ladder is supposed to look like.

View attachment 1182860

Now lets plot that same data as velocity vs impact height. Still see a step pattern? I don't. Turns out that using charge weight as a proxy for velocity happened to show me something that looks like what I expected to see, but was in fact a mirage. There is no meaningful "node" within the charge range that I tested. I suspect I'd see one if I kept going lower, but that in itself is dangerous. Let the numbers talk - don't tell them what to say.

View attachment 1182861

Be careful - preconcieved ideas about what you should see can be deceiving when you don't have much data.
Thats all fine and dandy but you also have access to long range shooting to get those results. Shooting a ladder at 200 yards is useless as the impact points all cluster together and become a tangled mess of useless data. You guys that have the availability to access a long shooting range should thank your lucky stars you have it. I have 5 ranges within 1 hour of me and our club is the longest at 300 yards BUT the 300 yard line is only available one day a week (thursday) from 4pm till dark, the other ranges are all 100 yards. I will and am trying any test that I think will give me useful data to find a load that will work, I have to work from 200 yards and have everything tested and reloaded for thursday and hope they shoot at 300 yards because its a week to try again. I wont knock anybodys method of testing, do what works for you I'm just trying anything that will work for me and accepting all advice to try and see if it helps.
 
This type of method is junk. Try it a few more times and you'll see different "flat spots" or none a tall. It's just random variation. Show me a test where the flat spot is significant statistically, and I'll eat my hat. Charge weight vs velocity is linear for our purposes.

There is only so much information contained in one shot. If you're smart about it you can develop a load efficiently, but you still need to shoot.

I believe these methods come about because people are misunderstanding ladder tests, which are legitimate. Plotting velocity vs vertical impact will show you something if you do it over wide enough of a charge range. But that's got nothing to do with velocity flat spots. It's *vertical* flat spots we're looking for. Even then, it's easy to look at the data and see something that's not there.

A real example of how we lie to ourselves. For kicks, I thought I'd do a ladder within a very tight charge range. A one grain range in .1 grain increments. All charges were weighed with an FX-120i, and shot through my F Class rifle at 600 yards. Bullets were my customs, and sorted. Cases were sorted by weight. Velocity was measured with a Labradar. Impact height was measured by a ShotMarker. I did 4 separate tests and wind was not much of a factor, as it was pretty calm. Seating depth was at a known good spot from a previous load. Velocity variation for a single load yielded SDs between 3 and 10, although with only 4 shots each, so lots of variation would be expected. If I had to eyeball a guess as to the overall SD I'd say it was about 6. I didn't bother figuring that out.

So lets look at the charge weight vs impact height. Looks like a step-like shape and that there are three nodes, right? Pretty cool. That's what a ladder is supposed to look like.

View attachment 1182860

Now lets plot that same data as velocity vs impact height. Still see a step pattern? I don't. Turns out that using charge weight as a proxy for velocity happened to show me something that looks like what I expected to see, but was in fact a mirage. There is no meaningful "node" within the charge range that I tested. I suspect I'd see one if I kept going lower, but that in itself is dangerous. Let the numbers talk - don't tell them what to say.

View attachment 1182861

Be careful - preconcieved ideas about what you should see can be deceiving when you don't have much data.

I must have just been lucky over the last couple hundred barrels.
 
Are we talking about the same ladder tests? The ladder test I'm familiar with is 5 shots at charges that are ~ 1% charge weight different. The objective is to look for the best groups and pick a charge weight that is between groups that are nearly as good.
At the same time, I've seen several people successfully do OCW tests at 100 yards. The POI changes far well enough.
 
I’ve tried a few different styles in my brief Benchrest career. I’m certainly not as experienced as y’all BUT the single shot ladder is a very quick and easy way for me to find an area or flat to work with that hadn’t failed me, I’ve also had good luck with coloring three to five rounds of each power charge then shoot them at the same point of aim.
I really don’t believe in only one way of accomplishing the goal nor would I discount another way or style.

J
 
First, full disclosure. I shoot only 'across the course' - i.e., have essentially no experience in benchrest. My bench technique is bad enough that I shoot from prone [with a sling] to test loads.
That said, on the one shot per load 'ladder'. With just one shot per charge weight and given the spread in velocities that are inherent with loads, how do you know the data from just one shot is actually representative of that charge weight?
 

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