jonbearman said:So what I get is when you use a chronograph it just confuses the issue by telling you which is the best ,most consistent load and actual speed is to plot trajectory. However the best load it shows you isnt necessarily the most accurate load. In fact it could give you a false sense of what you are trying to achieve.Now that I am completely confused and the op probably has taken the bridge,what next? Is it truly necessary to own one for the imfo it feeds us or not? Some years ago I shot my favorite most accurate woodchuck load I have shot,and it said the load was basically no good. We chrono'ed it several times and the extreme spread was way high and yet at 100 yds to 200 yds it would shoot dime size groups out of a remmy 788 in 22-250.Go figure.
What I see most shooters with chronographs do is merely shoot 10 shot strings. If using a Shooting Chrony that's the limit for a string before it rolls over and starts replacing the first shot with the data from the last one shot.
What I started to do about a year ago is to work up a load by loading and shooting 5 of each powder weight. When I decided on an accurate load bases on the results on the target, I then load a minimum of 25 and shoot them over the chronograph. My Chronograph lets me shoot strings with more than just 10 shots. It doesn't begin a new string until I tell it to. This gives me a much larger data sample for a more accurate set of calculations. All I'm really interested at this point is the average velocity so I can calculate bullet drops for varying ranges. That speed goes into my ballistics computer. As for the load accuracy, I let the target tell the story.
YMMV