Load testing, what's your method ?

[JimSC]

My next load testing will be completely done by using the Erik Cortina method.

it is hard to argue with success, and he is definitely successful

 

[WEL]

Man I think some cats on here gonna burn the barrel out before they find a load lol. The last time components got scarce I started doing one shot ladders over the chrono to find the velocity nodes. You can also see it on the target you just have to do it at the right distance. For example moa accurate ar15 you can see it at 100 yds. Really accurate hunting rifle you need to back up to 300. You need a good rest. The shots in the node should group on the same elevation on the target. So in say 10 shots I’m going to find max pressure and likely a good node. Now I will load and shoot for groups around the node. Then do a seating depth test.

 

[LVLAaron]

Quick ladder followed by seating depth test

 

[Canuckenstein]

I have been meaning to try this strategy.

Take a fired (sorted) case shoulder bumped and full length (body only)but not deprimed. Or one could use the bushing bump die without the bushing. The case is wet tumbled with SS media.Weigh the case tare the scale fill with 99% isopropyl. Take the projectile biggest my twist rate will support. Put the place projectile in to the rough seating depth. Weigh the case and isopropyl get the volume.


Once you have the volume, .85xvol= x. Take x and hit the manuals and web to find powder that at its second lowest charge fills to x. This is your starting charge weight then go up Newberry fashishon .3% increments of charge weight. Till you hit max charge or compressed load. Shoot a 5 round OCW test Newberry style

Seat .020 off the lands for OCW test. Once OCW is established do the cortina style seating depth .020 from jam then -.003 -.003 ect . Pick the two smallest groups. Then subtract .001 from the one closest to the lands. Call it done. Make drop and wind charts.

Jon

 

[Canuckenstein]

Man I think some cats on here gonna burn the barrel out before they find a load lol. The last time components got scarce I started doing one shot ladders over the chrono to find the velocity nodes. You can also see it on the target you just have to do it at the right distance. For example moa accurate ar15 you can see it at 100 yds. Really accurate hunting rifle you need to back up to 300. You need a good rest. The shots in the node should group on the same elevation on the target. So in say 10 shots I’m going to find max pressure and likely a good node. Now I will load and shoot for groups around the node. Then do a seating depth test.

That’s why I stocked up when they became available again. Which was a year after the last federal election.

 

[JimSC]

Man I think some cats on here gonna burn the barrel out before they find a load lol.

That’s why I stocked up when they became available again. Which was a year after the last federal election.

ditto, just spun on a .260 Rem barrel so I can spread the wealth between large and small primers

 

[Bill Norris]

My initial load development with Eric's method has shown favorable so far with my 25-06 and .243. I believe he told the truth when he stated that even though a certain load may NOT be the best load that any load could be tuned with seating depth adjustments.

 

[teele1]

I like your load development chart.
Would you mind sharing it?
Thanks, Mike

its one from snipershide

 

[Mikemci]

its one from snipershide

Thank you, teele1 !!

 

[newbieshooter]

here are two additional layouts/options (x2 and x6)

 

[Chiquita]

I made a bench for my work van so I can do load development onsite. For me this should be much easier (I hope) and will be less wasteful. I will do all the brass prep at home and do the powder and bullet seating on site. This way I can load and test 5 rounds at a time instead of loading everything at home, drive out three hours come to find out the loads do not produce good results.

Today was a perfect windy day to try out the setup inside the work van and see how the scales would hold up. It worked perfect. The electronic FA worked great and so did the beam scale.

I am positive that it will work and I will have better results. I hope.

Link of the picture. Too large to attach the picture.

New photo · Sunday, Nov 8, 2020

Tap to view!

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[Canuckenstein]

Just for sh*ts and giggles I reloaded a Dan Newberry GMM clone recipe. Did a ten round group of it and GMM. Here’s the results the larger of the two is GMM. That’s a Rem 700 police still in its hogue stock, bushnell elite 6-24 g2dmr, Harris bipod. If I sent in pics of the reload 5 shot groups, you’d call it a sub-moa rifle. 5 shot groups easily .5 inches all day. Those targets are centimetres squares.

But I think dan Newberry was spot on with that data.

 

[miningshawn]

"Puts on flame-proof suit and sets his shoulders"

I just bought one of the last Remington 700 PCR's in .260. I have all of the tooling for truing a 700, and I have never owned a .260, it was on sale for $655, and I have almost a full 55 gallon drum of once-fired .308 FedGMM. I plunked a 5-25x56 Strike Eagle on it and I am curious what it will do. Enough said.

Since I have no background with the .260 I will do my own load test - which follows no conventional path.

I start by looking at the books and deciding what powder\primer\brass\bullet combo I am going with. I may also scour the internet to confirm or disprove my theory, but lately availability and in-stock have been determining a lot of the recipe. So I have a lot of H4350 and R16. I use H4350 on 3 other rifles and RL16 on one... RL16 it is. I have more CCI-BR2's than anything else, so they get the nod. I have 500+ .308 once-fired GMM, brass selected. I will be using the Berger 140 Hybrid, got a few hundred of those. Load parameters selected.

Now I begin by working on brass. I select 100 cases and start trying to reduce variables. They are all tumbled for a couple of hours and re-sized. Then I toss them in the sonic cleaner for 15 minutes. Scrub the primer pockets and measure length. I trim to ensure they are all plus\minus 0.002. I skim the necks to clean them up and try for plus\minus 0.001 neck diameter (settles in on 0.292"). I will micro-manage necks later, I just want them close now.

Looking at loads for .260 Remington in books I have:
- Hornady 38.1-45.1
- Nosler nothing
- Lyman nothing again
- Sierra 34.4-40.4
- Berger more nothing
- Alliant Website 38-42
- Internet says 42gr from looking at other people's load development

I also know that I will be seating long. I OAL check the barrel with a Berger 140 and get an overall length of 2.932 (typical Remington and their long throat). I am shooting from the magazine so I will load to 2.870, this gives me 0.015 forward to tune and possibly chase the lands later.

So I settle on a ladder of 38.0 38.3 38.6 38.9 40.2 40.5 40.8 41.1 41.4 41.7 42 42.3 42.5 twelve rounds to load. I will load two of these "ladders". Off to the range...

At the range I will set up a target for something to aim at; but, that isn't the goal. I hook on the Magnetospeed and shoot the ladder recording velocity. In this case I recorded:
2311 2316
2323 2330
2368 2372
2440 2442
2445 2444
2450 2448
2488 2492
2552 2549
2601 2597
2608 2611
2622 2608
2648 2657
2699 2705
Light pressure signs at 42.5. It is 20 degrees outside and I am at 6550 feet with an altitude\density of 6250. I graph this out on paper and find that 38.9 - 40.5 and 41.4 - 42 appear relatively insensitive. These are what I refer to as "velocity nodes". (Checks for gaps in the flame suit...) So far I am in 24 rounds. I go back to the loading room and start setting up an OCW test for the higher velocity (of course!).

I resize all 24 and load up 5 rounds each at 41.6 41.7 41.8 41.9 and 42. Back to the range! Shooting all 5 OCW groups I get this:
MOA = .455 (circular) .421 (slightly oval vertical) .333 (straight line horizontal) .339 (circular slightly horizontal) and .422 (slightly oval vertical). Not a bad first outing for OCW!!! Back to the loading bench!

I check the seating depth again and find that the lands are the same. Doing some simple subtraction I find that CBTO (jammed) to CBTO (2.870) is .062. I resize and load all 25 at 41.8gr and seat them to 2.870". I clean thoroughly with BoreTech C4 and Boretech Cu+. I load up 3 fouler rounds, (42gr R16, some loose Barnes 130's), I grab the seater die and my Lee Hand Press and go back to the range.

After shooting the foulers I shoot 4 at 2.870" (2.237" CBTO) and get a .299MOA group. I use the hand press to seat to 2.230" CBTO and send 4 more to get .247MOA. I seat 4 more at 2.225" CBTO and get .252MOA. Just to confirm I seat 4 more at 2.220" CBTO and I see .311MOA.

Looks like 2.230" CBTO (or 2.863" OAL) and 41.8 grains of RL16 over a CCI-BR2 using Federal GMM Brass set back 0.002" with a neck diameter of 0.292" is the load. I send the remaining 9 out with the Magnetospeed hung and get an overall .417MOA group at a half inch to the right and slightly higher. 9 rounds averaged velocity is 2655fps, it looks like the barrel is speeding up a little.

So there it is. From here I may tweak neck diameter or seating, but this load is as done as I need it to be. Shooting from a FACTORY (including the BS trigger) Remington using a mid-line Vortex I am pretty happy with this. All told it took me 74 rounds (plus 3 foulers and 10 barrel break-in rounds) to find a recipe using these components.

If H4350 ever gets back on the shelf I can do a more focused OCW\Seating to find an alternate recipe by using velocity as my base. I may also try 4831SC, which I have a bunch of.

Time to buy a trigger, bed the scope, and find a muzzle brake.

 

[Canuckenstein]

"Puts on flame-proof suit and sets his shoulders"

I just bought one of the last Remington 700 PCR's in .260. I have all of the tooling for truing a 700, and I have never owned a .260, it was on sale for $655, and I have almost a full 55 gallon drum of once-fired .308 FedGMM. I plunked a 5-25x56 Strike Eagle on it and I am curious what it will do. Enough said.

Since I have no background with the .260 I will do my own load test - which follows no conventional path.

I start by looking at the books and deciding what powder\primer\brass\bullet combo I am going with. I may also scour the internet to confirm or disprove my theory, but lately availability and in-stock have been determining a lot of the recipe. So I have a lot of H4350 and R16. I use H4350 on 3 other rifles and RL16 on one... RL16 it is. I have more CCI-BR2's than anything else, so they get the nod. I have 500+ .308 once-fired GMM, brass selected. I will be using the Berger 140 Hybrid, got a few hundred of those. Load parameters selected.

Now I begin by working on brass. I select 100 cases and start trying to reduce variables. They are all tumbled for a couple of hours and re-sized. Then I toss them in the sonic cleaner for 15 minutes. Scrub the primer pockets and measure length. I trim to ensure they are all plus\minus 0.002. I skim the necks to clean them up and try for plus\minus 0.001 neck diameter (settles in on 0.292"). I will micro-manage necks later, I just want them close now.

Looking at loads for .260 Remington in books I have:
- Hornady 38.1-45.1
- Nosler nothing
- Lyman nothing again
- Sierra 34.4-40.4
- Berger more nothing
- Alliant Website 38-42
- Internet says 42gr from looking at other people's load development

I also know that I will be seating long. I OAL check the barrel with a Berger 140 and get an overall length of 2.932 (typical Remington and their long throat). I am shooting from the magazine so I will load to 2.870, this gives me 0.015 forward to tune and possibly chase the lands later.

So I settle on a ladder of 38.0 38.3 38.6 38.9 40.2 40.5 40.8 41.1 41.4 41.7 42 42.3 42.5 twelve rounds to load. I will load two of these "ladders". Off to the range...

At the range I will set up a target for something to aim at; but, that isn't the goal. I hook on the Magnetospeed and shoot the ladder recording velocity. In this case I recorded:
2311 2316
2323 2330
2368 2372
2440 2442
2445 2444
2450 2448
2488 2492
2552 2549
2601 2597
2608 2611
2622 2608
2648 2657
2699 2705
Light pressure signs at 42.5. It is 20 degrees outside and I am at 6550 feet with an altitude\density of 6250. I graph this out on paper and find that 38.9 - 40.5 and 41.4 - 42 appear relatively insensitive. These are what I refer to as "velocity nodes". (Checks for gaps in the flame suit...) So far I am in 24 rounds. I go back to the loading room and start setting up an OCW test for the higher velocity (of course!).

I resize all 24 and load up 5 rounds each at 41.6 41.7 41.8 41.9 and 42. Back to the range! Shooting all 5 OCW groups I get this:
MOA = .455 (circular) .421 (slightly oval vertical) .333 (straight line horizontal) .339 (circular slightly horizontal) and .422 (slightly oval vertical). Not a bad first outing for OCW!!! Back to the loading bench!

I check the seating depth again and find that the lands are the same. Doing some simple subtraction I find that CBTO (jammed) to CBTO (2.870) is .062. I resize and load all 25 at 41.8gr and seat them to 2.870". I clean thoroughly with BoreTech C4 and Boretech Cu+. I load up 3 fouler rounds, (42gr R16, some loose Barnes 130's), I grab the seater die and my Lee Hand Press and go back to the range.

After shooting the foulers I shoot 4 at 2.870" (2.237" CBTO) and get a .299MOA group. I use the hand press to seat to 2.230" CBTO and send 4 more to get .247MOA. I seat 4 more at 2.225" CBTO and get .252MOA. Just to confirm I seat 4 more at 2.220" CBTO and I see .311MOA.

Looks like 2.230" CBTO (or 2.863" OAL) and 41.8 grains of RL16 over a CCI-BR2 using Federal GMM Brass set back 0.002" with a neck diameter of 0.292" is the load. I send the remaining 9 out with the Magnetospeed hung and get an overall .417MOA group at a half inch to the right and slightly higher. 9 rounds averaged velocity is 2655fps, it looks like the barrel is speeding up a little.

So there it is. From here I may tweak neck diameter or seating, but this load is as done as I need it to be. Shooting from a FACTORY (including the BS trigger) Remington using a mid-line Vortex I am pretty happy with this. All told it took me 74 rounds (plus 3 foulers and 10 barrel break-in rounds) to find a recipe using these components.

If H4350 ever gets back on the shelf I can do a more focused OCW\Seating to find an alternate recipe by using velocity as my base. I may also try 4831SC, which I have a bunch of.

Time to buy a trigger, bed the scope, and find a muzzle brake.

My buddy has a .260 Rem built by Keith Cunningham at MilCun. H4831 is his go to powder under a 142gr Berger VLD BR-2 primers. He came in second this year a sniper competition this summer.

Develop the load using this method

OCW instructions - Dan Newberry's OCW Load Development System

Dan Newberry OCW or Optimal Charge Weight Load Development method or system for handloading, reloading, bullets, brass, powder, primers, accurate handloads.

optimalchargeweight.embarqspace.com

Jam into the lands and back off .020 load all rounds with that depth. Once you figure out your OCW. Then load that charge seating further back from the lands .020 .023 .026 .029 .031 shoot those and look for 2 tight groups. Let’s say .023-.026 use .023 minus .001. That’s your seating depth. That’s what Erik Cortina suggests. Google his name watch his videos called stop chasing the lands part 1-2. I tried these two combined methods with good results in my 6.5x55 and 22-250.

For the love of god man get some Norma/Lapua 260 brass.

As for triggers check out a triggertech special or diamond.

 

[Texas10]

I recently tried a 9 shot preliminary load work up that performed absolutely brilliantly. This was for a RPR in 300 PRC. I knew approximately what the charge wt would be from testing another similar bullet so I boxed that charge weight to start with.

For seating depth for the Berger 220 gr, I started with a hard jam and then set back -.020, -.040, -.060.

The initial charges were 72,73,74 gns of RL 26 with one round of each charge loaded for each seat depth. Three targets were set up by seating depth, and the three rounds shot into each target. What I was looking for was a seating depth that was not sensitive to charge wt variances.

On the -.060 target, the 72, and 73 gn went into the same hole, and the 74 a half moa away at 3:00 at 200 yds. The 73 gr load made a nice triangle shaped group about 1/3 moa. The 74 gn load did the same but 3/4 moa.

Further testing showed the 73 gn at -.060 shot very well, under 1/4 moa at 300 yds. but this time using once fired brass.

I recently started using the hard jam method instead of measuring touch of lands as my starting point for load development. I'm quickly becoming a fan of the hard jam as a datum for measuring seat depth.

 

[JimSC]

Here is a example of what my testing has evolved into.

first I shot a series of 3 rounds per increment at .015 from touch over my ProChrono, imported the data into a spreadsheet, graphed it and looked for flat velocities. Next I loaded 75 rounds at the middle of the flat node, seated them at touch. I took a seating die mounted in a Lee press rigged to be portable along with my calipers to the range and shot a 5 round group over the Magnetospeed to verify the speed. I shot a five shot group at touch, followed by .029 off and .032 off. I was going to move to .035 off but had to leave the range at that point.