Lets say you guys get a new gun and you pick a good starting point for charge amount for a selected projectile. If you go out and it doesnt group all that well, whats the first thing you adjust? Powder charge? Projectile? COAL?

I typically load like 10 at a certain charge, and go in increments of .5gr up a few spots. Once I dial one of those, then I may go up or down in .2's

Anyways I had a new gun today and didnt do that...I just loaded 20 up today at a central starting charge and it grouped decent...about 1-1.5" at 100yds.

Just curious on how you guys work your loads

thanks

From the thread below.

In your case:

Make sure your twist rate is suitable for your bullet weight.

Look at minimum and maximum charge for your bullet. I tend to write down maximum then work backward in .3 gr increments until I get halfway to minimum, and start shooting at the mode point. 3 shots can tell you a bad load, heck sometimes two can. 5 shots in a group will drive it home. If your barrel can tolerate it.

Pick the change that shot the best, and keep it. Then make groups playing with seating depth in .005" or .010" increments progressively increasing the bullet jump.

If none of that makes you happy, it may be time to change

A. The bullet

or

B. The powder

But only change one factor at a time, and start the whole process all over shooting groups testing varying powder charged, then picking a charge, then testing bullet jump if your heart desires.

May I ask, why do you ladder at 500?

Sine wave.

Every bullet going down a barrel causes the barrel to move in a sine wave. You want the bullet to leave the barrel when the muzzle (end of the sine wave) is in upward deflection, pause, bullet leaves, muzzle drops back down.

To find that barrel pause, you need to punch paper at distance, so that the results are easier to read, they spread out more as powder charge is increased. Until the node is found, the momentary pause from upward barrel deflection to downward. Like throwing a tennis ball straight up in the air. It will stop, briefly, at the top. When that happens in the barrel, not like powder charges will group together.

For instance, a 6.5 Creedmoor will group 42.1, 42.4, and 42.7 gr sub MOA. That's the node, and often the middle charge will be the "one".

Close to correct...but no bullseye.

Please enlighten us.

Done it before, only leads to scoffing. I'll point you back at the thread about the barrel tuner, though. That's where the water is, drink if you want and don't if you'd rather not.

Disagreement leads to educational discussion, as long as no one gets emotional about the disagreement.

Barrel tuner in lieu of load tweaking.

I speak of what I learned, I tried, and have had great results. None of my rifles have barrel tuners, because I am a hand loader.

Thanks FJG

JG, you made up your mind about it before you learned anything at all. I took the time to let the guy who set up Mike Stinnett's benchrest rifle (the one that set a new world record only a few years ago) explain it all to me. I know Ralph Stewart.

Have a nice day.

That said nothing about load development.

And not everyone wants to move around with a tuner attached to their barrel. Am I trying to compete with his results? Nope, I have no interest in bench rest.

The way I understand it, there are two ways to get to the finish line of a tight shooting load; a load tuned to the barrel, or a load almost tuned to the barrel, and a barrel tuner attached. Correct me if I'm wrong, if it's not too much of a bother for you. Unless you're going to choose to remain being, what ever you're being...

Yessir.

Maybe the benchrest community would benefit tremendously if you'd join them. They obviously are clueless when it comes to handloading.

*sarcasm off*
The reason they use tuners is to adjust to conditions changing hour-by-hour. They know how to handload...trust me on this. If you think you've got a handloading secret that will overcome changing conditions, then you should be shooting benchrest and cleaning up. Dang, I turned that sarcasm thing off and it came right back on all by itself.

Now, you're not interested in shooting benchrest, and that's fine. That does not mean that you can't learn things from the discipline---but that requires an open mind, now, doesn't it? Maybe that's just beyond your reach.


I don't know why I bother.

Wow!

What did I ever write to suggest I knew more than the BR community? Judd shoots bench rest, and I'll run things by him quite often, same as Chad. In fact, if I look at my text message list both of them were within the last two days.

You still have not addressed anything pertaining to the topic. Maybe you don't know, maybe you'd just rather be rude to me, because it gives you pleasure. You said "close, no bull's-eye" yet still have not said why that is.

Well done on typing a whole bunch of words get not contributing to the topic what so ever.

All because I did not have 100% faith in your computer program, that according to you I'm too dumb to understand, despite being responsible for lives, multi-million dollar equipment and can have a conversation with a cardiologist that the lay person standing by wouldn't understand the majority of it.

How's that chip on your shoulder and sarcasm working out?

O U C H !

Well , I appreciate all the info fireman thank you

Certainly. If there's anything else I can help with, send me a PM. Many THF members do, and I'll help if I can.

Evidently people place more value on a guy that sends bullets down range, actually testing, over punching numbers into a computer program.

The barrel tuner topic correctly and more deeply explains the vibration you mentioned in your first post in this thread. Your kneejerk reaction is to try and refute its relevance without knowing facts. You won't consider seeing how other information laid right in front of you relates to the question at hand. That's why I'll just point out a place to look...I'm not going to bother typing out a long explanation that you'll just refuse to ponder with an open mind.

Maybe I should just leave you on ignore.

I'll repeat myself, evidently you need it.

Tune the load to the barrel, or tune the barrel to the load. If that's wrong, explain it.

Maybe you should leave me on ignore. You're not helping anything, even though you possess the ability. I've got no time for little girl drama.

No one's talking about tuning. The subject at hand is vibration. Understanding how and why the tuner works helps to understand vibration. Can I make it any simpler?

You still have not explained a single thing to everyone else watching this thread. And you still have not provided a single thing to refute what I wrote.

You wrote nothing worth refutation. You've only demonstrated that you are closed-minded.

Now that I am tired of toying with you, I'll provide the short and sweet: you cannot load so that the bullet exits the muzzle at the apex of the barrel's vibration pattern consistently. What you want to accomplish is to have the bullet exit just as the muzzle is approaching the apex. A faster bullet exits the muzzle sooner, a slower bullet exits later. As long as there's not a lot of velocity variation, the timing of the bullets' exits will compensate for the resultant trajectory variations due to the velocity differences. That's because the faster bullet has a shorter time of flight and therefore less drop, but it exits a muzzle that is pointed slightly lower. A bullet of slightly less velocity has a bit more drop in its trajectory, but since is exits a little later in the vibration pattern it starts out on a slightly higher trajectory to begin with because the muzzle is slightly more elevated.

If the velocity varies enough that some bullets exit the muzzle after the muzzle reaches the apex of its vibration pattern, then those bullets will cause POI spread because not only is the trajectory going to be lower due to longer time of flight, but the muzzle will be pointed lower when these bullets exit the muzzle.

So, now I predict that you, JG, will once again say "I don't buy it." And my response again will be "whatever."

Blah blah blah! Man that wasn't worth reading!

I basically had the same problem this weekend. Loaded up 7 different types of 223 with 75gr amax and ramshot tac. Went from 23.2 to 25.0 in increments of 0.3gr. Loaded all them about 0.013-0.015" jump. These did horribly! The best was the lightest load at about 3.5" at 300yards, groups of 5. Got worse and worse the hotter the load. Hottest went about 15" group.

What should I take out of this session? Should I scrap the bullet or try another powder or give up and just throw away the rifle?
FYI, it was shot out of a 22" tikka varmint. I shot some freedom munitions 60gr Vmax at 400 yards and it was shooting good enough to easily hit the 6" steel the whole time.

KoreanRedneck, Try a 60 grain bullet, see how it does. Possibly the 75 grain bullet was too heavy to stabilize, what is your twist?