ladder?

[xdeano]

Ok just a stupid question.

What are you guys doing as far as cleaning over your shot string of say 20 rounds during your ladder test? Are you not cleaning tell you get done? Cleaning half way through
or what? This seems to be a good way to get inconclusive test to me. With the increased powder fowling, carbon and copper in the barrel by shot 20. If you were to clean half
way through it'll mess up the pattern also. Cleaning each round is to much work. Making up 2 load strings and shooting the rounds in opposite order sounds like a good way, but
kind of defeats the purpose of the bullet savings test.

What's the general consensus on this?

Thanks guys,
Deano

 

[Erik Cortina]

Shoot the 20 shots without cleaning. If your barrel won't shoot 20 without fouling you need a new barrel.

 

[Jay Christopherson]

+1 to what Erik said.

 

[xdeano]

It is a new barrel hence the reason why id even do a ladder test. All im asking about is carbon and copper fowling interfering with pressure giving a guy a velocity shift. But maybe people overlook the small things.
Xdeano

 

[BlackEagle]

I can't take credit for this idea but, shoot 2 ladders. A couple foulers then low charge to high charge. Then clean and a couple more foulers. Then high charge to low charge. Problem solved.

 

[xdeano]

Thanks Be. Thats what ill do. Sounds easy enough.
Xdeano

 

[Steve Blair]

There is a round robin method of shooting one round of each charge weight and then shooting the second round of each charge, etc. The method tends to "average" the amount of fouling for each charge weight.

However, I also agree with Erik. My load development is done over a chronograph, shot at 100 yards and candidate loads validated at 300. If you do not have a chronograph, ladder tests should produce similar results if the test is shot at long range in calm winds. Our conditions are pretty windy and I commonly have access to only 300 yards for testing. Given the constraints, ladder testing may produce inconclusive results.