Load Development

[Alex Wheeler]

I always find it interesting how people come up with the best load for their rifles. There are so many ways to skin a cat. If you would like to share your method, I would like to read it.

My method is pretty simple. Seat the bullet .010'' off, shoot 3 shot groups in .2-.3 gr increments. Then I work seating depth. Then I go back and work powder again at long range in small increments looking at vertical.
Thanks!
Alex

 

[omahaguy]

Zfast. I did a post about it check it out brother.
http://midwestguntech.blogspot.com/?m=0
Let me know what you think please.

 

[omahaguy]

Hey, i saw there's alot of f y'all clickn the link and coming to my blog, thank you for visiting and I hope the articles are helpful to some of you.

 

[savageshooter86]

there are a lot of articles on this site about this. Currently there is a 37 page thread on LR development. Dan Newberry OCW is another method. Ladder test is another

 

[stool]

i would vary the .2/.3 based on case capacity......1/100th of case capacity for steps..with .3 being the smallest step to start with from an unknown,.narrow only when something nice is found.

 

[BradY]

Having access to a range with electronic targets and a 900m firing mound not far from my house, I work with what the target tells me in combination of what a magnetospeed gives me in numbers. Load up a ladder test of 3 rounds each rising in 0.3gr increments from where I want to start to what Ive determined is maximum ie starting to see pressure signs and back off half a grain. Then shoot those 3 shots of each charge and write down the vertical placement of each shot from the center of the target. I do all this without the chronograph attached. After that full test is done I then repeat the entire test to confirm results. Conditions need to be favourable to do this and Im lucky enough that the range is in the sort of location that if I get there early enough, most days are fine for testing. When I get home I enter the results into a spreadsheet I made up which converts it all from millimeters to MOA for that range and plots the shots on a chart. Its easy then to see nodes where vertical tightens up then goes back out and tightens up again. From there I will work on seating depth to tune the groups at 300 meters. Once I have done that I use a friends magnetospeed to double check the spread and get an average velocity. Numbers are usually good with this method and my spread is around 20fps from 15 shots. Maybe they could be smaller but I get the comfort on knowing what the target tells me and at the end of the day, the target gives me my score or group size and not any chronograph or set of calipers. All the other data like ES and velocity backs up what the targets and my come ups tell me. Nothing like having 100% confidence in the load. I know its possible to do the reverse and develop good numbers at short range and have them work further out, but I might as well make use of the range I have and it works for me.

For my varmint guns, load work is easy. 5 shots at each charge usually 0.2 or 0.3gr increments and I shoot at 100m for group. If I cant find a group within 25 shots that suits then its time to change powder, primer or projectile. Once I get a group that Im happy with (generally has a good group either side of that charge too) I will re shoot a couple of times to prove it, then sight in the gun and go shooting. Its not rocket science for hunting guns!

 

[stool]

the whole idea of a LADDER is to look for nodes/sweet spots with SINGLE SHOTS IN 1/100 OF CASE VOL increments..10 increments. save bullets/ powder.
200 or 300 yds is better, but 100 will work.
look at shots
1/2
1/2/3
2/3/4
3/4/5
4/5/6
5/6/7
7/8/9
9/10.
look for round groups with little to no verticle....
now go back with that data and do some
3 shot tests then 5's and maybe 10's depending on the end plan.

 

[SS427]

I use the process outlined in Tony Boyer's book. That process alone is worth the cost of his book.

 

[BradY]

the whole idea of a LADDER is to look for nodes/sweet spots with SINGLE SHOTS IN 1/100 OF CASE VOL increments..10 increments. save bullets/ powder.
200 or 300 yds is better, but 100 will work.
look at shots
1/2
1/2/3
2/3/4
3/4/5
4/5/6
5/6/7
7/8/9
9/10.
look for round groups with little to no verticle....
now go back with that data and do some
3 shot tests then 5's and maybe 10's depending on the end plan.

Ladder tests at 100yds have never worked for me. Even 200 is marginal at best <> in my opinion.
+300yds and further is where vertical dispersion is predominate, especially with long, high BC bullets.

Just my 2-cents
Donovan

Exactly my experience. Especially if you are shooting something like a dasher, 6BR or 6.5x47L. The sheer accuracy of a quality rifle with one of these calibers makes 100yd groups hard to read. They are generally all one hole groups. Ok if you are only shooting varmints, but if your taking it to further back and competing against other shooters.... hmmm not my choice.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

there are a lot of articles on this site about this. Currently there is a 37 page thread on LR development. Dan Newberry OCW is another method. Ladder test is another

Thanks guys, very interesting. I am not looking for a new method, as I am satisfied with mine. I find load development the most interesting part of this whole game. I love reading others methods.

Otter, I have Tony's book. I like his method. The reason I have not used it is because I usually have no idea where the seating depth will be. He knows about where those ppcs want to be. If i have to pick 3 seating depths to try I feel like I could be missing it. How do you choose your seating depths?

 

[nosualc]

Start with fire-formed, prepped brass.

Run 2 side by side 10 shot ladder tests at 300+ yds.

Look for a 2-3 charge window in both ladders that agree.

Fine tune seating depth from there.

Gets you very close very fast as it eliminates a bunch of unproductive territory.

-nosualc

 

[stool]

i agree completely with a match quality rifle and chambering, but not everyone on here is shooting match stuff.
i'd say everything from milsurplus $100 rifles to 1000yd br rifles...
got to think outside your personal box.
the ten shot ladder is a quick inexpensive way to narrow in on a new rifle in a new chambering....

the whole idea of a LADDER is to look for nodes/sweet spots with SINGLE SHOTS IN 1/100 OF CASE VOL increments..10 increments. save bullets/ powder.
200 or 300 yds is better, but 100 will work.
look at shots
1/2
1/2/3
2/3/4
3/4/5
4/5/6
5/6/7
7/8/9
9/10.
look for round groups with little to no verticle....
now go back with that data and do some
3 shot tests then 5's and maybe 10's depending on the end plan.

Ladder tests at 100yds have never worked for me. Even 200 is marginal at best <> in my opinion.
+300yds and further is where vertical dispersion is predominate, especially with long, high BC bullets.

Just my 2-cents
Donovan

 

[broncman]

According to Bryan Litz in his book.... Epycyclic swerve is dampened out well under 100 yards....

Velocity deviations causing barrel exit time deviations and thus exiting the barrel at different points in its upward travel during its "whip" can cause elevation dispersion.

Trying to examine a group with a large extreme spread is futile in my mind.

And down the rabbit hole we go!

 

[stool]

donovan,
how much of your custom reloading is done for 100/200 yd shooting ?
while we see some guys shooting long distance, most seem limited by their range...100..200 very ocassionally a 300yd.
i currently shoot 100/200/1000yd, and soon to add 300/600....BUT
THE AVERAGE GUY on here is shooting 100/200...so i look at what works there...in my opinion.
yes i use my 35p when i do load development, so yes i have a ten shot target and chrono data....
based on questions asked, most do not have a known starting point, so the ladder gets them there quickly.
( my guess is that if you work up a load for someones 30'06 or 308 win, you have a plan to start with based on prior experience,
i do not think the average poster on here has that...in my opinion...again from the questions asked)

Stool,

To each our own.... if running Ladders at 100/200 works for you, more power to you !.!.!

At 100 the faster Mv impact some what lower, and are aggressively effected by the bullet epicyclic cycle and can still be in an aggressive state of pitching and yawing (especially long, boat-tail bullets).
At 200, depending on trajectory of the combo, the faster MV might impact low, in the middle, or high, and is the worse distance to ladder test in my opinion, due to ballistic arc.
At 300 and further, they begin to predominately stack up, slower's low to faster's high. The epicyclic motion is nil, and are easy to signify and plot vertical dispersion.

If using a chronograph with a good setup, with ability to very accurate velocity data, then it is possible to get a better perspective to a 100/200 ladder test from a velocity standpoint, but still very hard to plot true vertical dispersion, which is the basis to ladder testing, do to the lack of trajectory.

And yes, I am talking for any rifle, other then low velocity cartridges. I do a fair amount of custom load development each year (owner of "The Accuracy Shoppe") and cover a wide range of calibers and rifle types, and is where I conduct the bulk of my ladder testing each year.

Best of Luck
Donovan Moran

 

[omahaguy]

I didn't want to clutter this post with a long explanation of how I do mine, which is why I posted a link to my blog. But since others are I figure I would as well (lol), so I will post it the method I use, we all have little tweaks but this method has delivered excellent results... I will say this, for developing a LR load, 300yds or farther would be the best distance at 100yds the bullet could still be settling and the spaces between hits are tight. Ok here it is.


The quest for the perfect load.

Ok today I'm going to talk about how to find the perfect powder charge utilizing the ladder test method.
First start with published loads never use a load you find on the internet or a buddies load, it could be catastrophic in your particular rifle.
Ok so what we are looking for is a good node, an area in which a few bullets group well.
Here's how we do it, first find a load for your cartridge, for this example lets say 50gr of powder, what we will do is load cases with the particular bullet and primer you will be using, and set to saami coal specs, we will then charge bullets as follows.
48/48.5/49/49.5/50/50.5/51/51.5/52/52.5/53/53.5/54/54.5/55
You can start lower and go higher, but this is a good reference, as you start getting into higher powder charges remember to check for pressure signs. Now take some magic markers and paint the bullets because the paint will transfer to the target letting you know which bullet hit where on the target (log what charge with what color and keep it in proper order. Very important) for this many bullets I would use black, blue, purple, green, red, yellow.
Now there will be more than one bullet with the same color so we repeat the colors in order so if 48gr is black then 51gr will be black again, we need this space in powder loads so not to be confused later.
Ok now set a target preferably 18"+ in height no closer than 200yds, 300 is better, steady your gun in a shooting rest (this is important, it has to remain steady) center your scope on the target (I prefer a piece of cardboard 24-36" tall with a 1" black dot in the middle) load the bullets one a time allowing 15-30sec between shots. What will happen is the holes will form a vertical string (don't worry bout side to side as this is caused by the wind and is not important) what you will notice is gaps between the holes going up, but there will be a group of 2-3 holes very close together and perhaps more than one grouping. So now you say " well there is a black hole at the bottom but up here there is also a black hole next to blue and purple, what charge is it" as the powder increases the bullets climb, it's the second black hole so it is the second cartridge that had a black bullet (make sense?).
Ok so let's say charges of 53/53.5/54 grouped the tightest.
( I take it this far you may not, your decision if you want to break it down to .1gr increments) now do the same test again but this time break it down by .1gr increments, look for the tightest group. Let's say 53.4/53.5/53.6.
Then load up 3-5 rounds in each load and see which produces the best group, I'll take that load and move to the next stage.
Now you're wondering about seating depth, refer to an older post (budget oal gauge) I find the oal for my chamber and load 3-5 cartridges per oal using this method .020 short of oal (jumping.), exactly at oal (often called kissing) and .015 longer than oal (called jamming).
Then I see which group is tightest, let's say jumping had the best group then I will load 3-5 rounds at .025/.020/.015/.010 shorter than oal.
After that you should have the most accurate powder/primer/bullet/case combo for that rifle, if you change something, different brass, bullet, etc you will need to tune it again, but not as extensively.
It will take approximately 75 cartridges, but you will be producing excellent groups.
Comment with any questions you may have. Thank you.

 

[broncman]

Yes, I have saw that video before...but look closer and go back and reread his chapter on the explanation of epycyclic. It is pitch and yaw in radians of the nose/tail around the center of gravity. The bullet is not making that path....just the nose and tail till it stabilizes....

We have all seen a football spiral perfect and wobble. When it wobbles ..the center of gravity is not tracing a wobble path....but the nose and tail rotating around the cenyer of gravity in a cyclic swerve pattern.

He goes into good detail about epycyclic swerve NOT translating to group sizes "coning" to a smaller groups from 100 yards out etc.

Gr http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f19/epicyclic-motion-bullet-video-37345/ greart link to a discussiin with Bryan Litz doing some explaining on this

 

[LRPV]

Stool, you are fairly new here or at least your registration date shows that. The longer you stay on here the more you will notice that the "Average" person on THIS forum is quite different than on the other internet forums. After a while longer you may possibly meet some of the "Average" guys in person at a shoot here and there and figure out in a big hurry that they are anything but average. I'm not trying to start anything but grouping this community into a typical "Average joe shooter" stereotype is the wrong thing to do.
Jason

 

[stool]

THE COMMENT WAS BASED ON THE QUESTIONS ASKED AND THE SIZE OF RANGES LISTED IN COMMENTS.
each to their own......
i do find it strange that in one statement, someone down plays ladder and approves OCW...which is doing three ladders at one time.....ya all have fun.

Stool, you are fairly new here or at least your registration date shows that. The longer you stay on here the more you will notice that the "Average" person on THIS forum is quite different than on the other internet forums. After a while longer you may possibly meet some of the "Average" guys in person at a shoot here and there and figure out in a big hurry that they are anything but average. I'm not trying to start anything but grouping this community into a typical "Average joe shooter" stereotype is the wrong thing to do.
Jason

 

[LRPV]

I DIDN'T WANT TO MAKE YOU YELL, I WAS JUST TRYING TO SAY THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF SHOOTERS on here including short range BR to guys shooting at a mile or more and everything in between. What works for short range guys might not work for 1000yd guys. There are a few threads going on right now about how different guys go about developing loads and I'm interested in them all because I am not getting consistent results from one rifle/barrel to the next the way that I'm doing things. Please keep participating in the discussions and don't just take your ball and go home. Sorry for the interruption guys.

 

[NCVarhtr]

I have read all of the above with a great deal of interest. It is a fascinating subject and there are many variables that can effect exact bullet impact. I would appreciate any comments about bullets/cartridge concentricity and the effect it has on group size, especially when seating bullets off the lands. I certainty don't mean to hijack this great thread, but since we are concentrating on finding the very best load for a given rifle/cartridge/bullet combination, I can't help but feel that concentricity has some effect.....Thanks, George