I might be a barbarian. I pick a bullet that has a fighting chance of doing what I want when it gets there, or promises to get there in an expeditious fashion if thats the priority.
Then I find the length to lands, and load from bottom to top of the load manual one cartridge of each with a 1 grain spacing. Then walk out my shop with cartridges still in the loading block, plunk my butt down at the shooting bench, turn on the Garmin and shoot them all at the same target. This more or less just to find maximum and whether I can get the velocity with that powder, If I can swim faster I might just quit and try a different powder.
On the other hand; there is a target (130 yards, the distance from the door to the edge of my lawn) so I do watch the group form through the rifle scope and observe the point of impact as I go. Sometimes it changes midway through; but it isn’t that uncommon to stick the whole mess into an inch or a bit more. When you shoot good bullets through good barrels good things tend to happen. With maximum established wander back in the shop and load up 5 or six of them and see what I’ve got. If that bears out I’ll load about 10, then go to the benchs on the other side of the road and shoot them on steel at 600 yards. If it doesn’t bear out I can work down instead of up, are change bullets. I view that as the direct approach, rather than guess that a pile of shot up components and questionable analysis equals long range accuracy it is easier just to shoot it at the long range and know.
Target and varmint rifles are sort of done to a higher standard, but the initial stages are the same.
Like I said; barbarian.
Then I find the length to lands, and load from bottom to top of the load manual one cartridge of each with a 1 grain spacing. Then walk out my shop with cartridges still in the loading block, plunk my butt down at the shooting bench, turn on the Garmin and shoot them all at the same target. This more or less just to find maximum and whether I can get the velocity with that powder, If I can swim faster I might just quit and try a different powder.
On the other hand; there is a target (130 yards, the distance from the door to the edge of my lawn) so I do watch the group form through the rifle scope and observe the point of impact as I go. Sometimes it changes midway through; but it isn’t that uncommon to stick the whole mess into an inch or a bit more. When you shoot good bullets through good barrels good things tend to happen. With maximum established wander back in the shop and load up 5 or six of them and see what I’ve got. If that bears out I’ll load about 10, then go to the benchs on the other side of the road and shoot them on steel at 600 yards. If it doesn’t bear out I can work down instead of up, are change bullets. I view that as the direct approach, rather than guess that a pile of shot up components and questionable analysis equals long range accuracy it is easier just to shoot it at the long range and know.
Target and varmint rifles are sort of done to a higher standard, but the initial stages are the same.
Like I said; barbarian.
