I can't believe I got a Creedmore

Got Juice? said:
And that right there is why your advice to people who with listen and take the time to understand is worth it's weight.

BTW that 204 is shooting great to this day even with black eyed primers :)

Carry on!
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"spicy" is all fun and games until you run into excessive pressure issues when it rains or you get a dirty chamber, or when the temperature spikes.

More and more people are finding that running loads near pressure are not worth the slight increase in ballistics, and people are loading up ammo farther and farther away from pressure.

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to find a good shooting load that's below any pressure thresholds. I'm not going to say what's right for you, you do as you please, but myself and many others wouldn't recommend "spicy" for a lot of reasons - there's been lot's of unnecessarily induced issues experienced by shooters at matches by going with a "spicy" load, and the trade-offs are never worth it.

For those that never compete, never experience a big change in temperatures and atmospherics, never really expose their rifles to the elements and adverse conditions, don't care about brass or barrel life, you may not care if your load is "spicy" and it may never present you issues, that's your own call to make. But there is no reason that you shouldn't be able to get that rifle shooting well without experiencing pressure signs, if you were so inclined to do so.
 
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Never mind, apparently preserving ego is more important than pragmatic conversation and learning. Your 1400 yard target would confirm or deny the point as well, but I bet we will only see the 300 yard one. Continue with your sidetrack or tell us about what a great shooter you are. Ain’t coming back to this thread though.
 
cody c said:
Never mind, apparently preserving ego is more important than pragmatic conversation and learning. Your 1400 yard target would confirm or deny the point as well, but I bet we will only see the 300 yard one. Continue with your sidetrack or tell us about what a great shooter you are. Ain’t coming back to this thread though.
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Jerry shooting boulders at 1400 feet again?
 
I am glad to hear that the benefits of F class load tuning is filtering through more areas of shooting. All very positive. This process many shooters around the world have worked on to refine and improve. I would say the refined process has been in practise over a decade now.

Some are learning about it for the first time.... and are now coming to understand the process benefits and they will see big improvements too.

That is all good. Enjoy the journey, there is lots to learn....

Jerry
 
kthomas said:
"spicy" is all fun and games until you run into excessive pressure issues when it rains or you get a dirty chamber, or when the temperature spikes.

More and more people are finding that running loads near pressure are not worth the slight increase in ballistics, and people are loading up ammo farther and farther away from pressure.

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to find a good shooting load that's below any pressure thresholds. I'm not going to say what's right for you, you do as you please, but myself and many others wouldn't recommend "spicy" for a lot of reasons - there's been lot's of unnecessarily induced issues experienced by shooters at matches by going with a "spicy" load, and the trade-offs are never worth it.

For those that never compete, never experience a big change in temperatures and atmospherics, never really expose their rifles to the elements and adverse conditions, don't care about brass or barrel life, you may not care if your load is "spicy" and it may never present you issues, that's your own call to make. But there is no reason that you shouldn't be able to get that rifle shooting well without experiencing pressure signs, if you were so inclined to do so.
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With all due respect you are talking out your rear end here. Were you in on the many conversations I have had over the years with Jerry? Do you even know the load? the rifle? the situation that made me reach out?

Jerry, how long has it been 7 or 8 years since we have been at this one and discussing almost everything under the sun on it?

Kthomas, give it a rest. You have NOTHING to add to this conversation at all, and I have zero interest in bringing you up to speed on it.
 
Got Juice? said:
With all due respect you are talking out your rear end here. Were you in on the many conversations I have had over the years with Jerry? Do you even know the load? the rifle? the situation that made me reach out?

Jerry, how long has it been 7 or 8 years since we have been at this one and discussing almost everything under the sun on it?

Kthomas, give it a rest. You have NOTHING to add to this conversation at all, and I have zero interest in bringing you up to speed on it.
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I have zero interest in converting you. As I said in my post, you do you. I'm not telling anyone to do anything in this thread, except to listen to the podcasts I mentioned.

For the benefit of others, there's lots of reasons to avoid "spicy", and little to no benefits of going with a "spicy" load.

You're right in that I know nothing of your load or rifle, nor do I care. It's not my business, and you are obviously happy with it, which is all that matters. My only point, which again was for the benefit of others, is that there is no reason to be playing on the "spicy" side of things, which can only bring a lot of potential problems. There's no reason anyone can't find a precise load below "spicy". Arguably "spicy" loads have caused more issues for reloaders then anything else.

Enjoy your "spicy" load, and I'm happy that it's working for you.
 
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6MT said:
That's a pretty broad blanket statement there fella.

You do you....the rest of us will do what we do.
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It's certainly a broad statement, but I don't think it's unfair to state that more issues are created by being on the ragged edge of pressure, more then anything else. In disciplines where you shoot in a wide variety of temperature extremes and adverse conditions, high pressure loads have caused a LOT of issues with shooters. That's a fact, and it's also a fact that there's a growing majority of shooters that are loading ammo that is further and further away from pressure to avoid such issues.

It's also a pretty fair statement to say that you should be able to find a precise load below pressure, you don't have to be near pressure to find a precise load.

Again, I'm not telling anyone what to do, besides listen to the podcasts I've mentioned. I really don't care what anyone does, that's their prerogative and I'm not worried about what strangers from the internet are doing with their reloads. If what you are doing works for you, then that's really all that matters. I personally would never recommend running near pressure for a whole plethora of reasons, but it's up to the end user to decide what works for them and what doesn't.
 
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I dunno, my Creed is not at max, its working great, and my brass and barrel both like me.
My 270 I had it strung out before, it shot decent, but you could tell it was just unhappy. Now I have done a few things to it so am working on a new load for it, and not going to run it at max either, the next node lower is fine with me.

I can relate it to my sport bike that I sold a few years back, it would ride at 100 mph all day long and purr like a kitten, no major vibes, no drama, just smooth sailing, but start getting on the go juice and the bike would willingly do it, but you could tell it was now working for its keep. I bet that motor would run at 100mph for years and years and years.
 
I was listening to a podcast today, Just F'in Send It Episode 25 with Erik Cortina as a guest, and they talk about reloading and developing a load.

It's worth a listen, along with the AB podcasts I mentioned earlier. For those that don't know, Erik Cortina is Team USA F-class shooter, he's very accomplished in that discipline (some love talking about F-class here to put weight behind their statements).

There's more then a few nuggets in there. He basically states to get the ES/SD as low as you can, and then dial in precision with bullet seating depth. He states he wouldn't pick a load that shoots tight groups but with bad ES/SD, nor would he pick a load that has a tight ES/SD that shoots a bad group.

There's no reason why you can't get low ES/SD to shoot very well, you dial precision in with bullet seating depth. Erik Cortina has a few videos on YouTube and now Patreon. He dispels some myths on reloading, and he can tell you where to save time (for example, weight sorting brass and uniforming primer pockets is a giant waste of time).

Just some more good resources for those to that want to learn to dive into.
 
Erik Cortina isn't a bad guy, but there is much left off the table when he makes broad statements and casts them to apply to everyone else.

Erik Cortina says don't chase lands... well he doesn't keep a barrel long enough to need to.

Erik Cortina says 0.005" runout is fine... Fine for him because he seats his bullets out far enough from the neck that the tight freebore in his custom barrel aligns the bullet, so runout for him doesn't matter. Don't think it applies to your short SAAMI spec factory chamber.

Erik Cortina says to always full length resize... Again... custom chamber and more than likely a custom FL resizing die to suit his custom chamber... The reamer for his sizing die was probably ordered along with the barrel chambering reamer. If not, someone more than likely polished the FL die to minimize side wall resize. He has a lathe and probably did it himself.

We've all got to read between the lines and interpret where guys like Erik are coming from. I don't believe Erik is trying to mislead anyone, but what he says does not apply to every hand loader in every cartridge and chamber configuration. It applies mostly to guys with similar custom rigs and similar cartridges and bullet weights.... and don't forget he is not filling in the missing details.

My F Class and my PRS rig is very much like his, custom chambering reamer, custom FL sizing dies, tight freebore... long freebore, throat angle idealized for the specific bullet, barrel length and weight selected to achieve my target velocity... etc. Do I FL resize for F Class... ya.. but not with an over the counter die. That part Erik doesn't talk about.

Its very hard to put out videos on YouTube and speak to an audience that does not have similar knowledge and anticipate what gets lost in translation.
 
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He’s stated multiple times his dies are off the shelf.
He also laughs a lot at the people that will still argue with him, as if he’s trying to trick them or something.
You should listen to the podcasts, and or watch the videos.
A .284 Shehane isn’t a Saami cartridge, so there aren’t Saami reamers. His 6x47L reamer is the same one he’s used forever and he runs off the shelf 6.5x47L Redding Type S dies with a 6mm bushing.
Would you like to share any data that you’ve collected showing that bullet run out of .005” has an effect on paper?
To me, he lays it all out in black and white so DON’T have to read between the lines.
I’ve been having a great degree of personal success using his prescribed methods, with ammo shooting in the 0s and 1s out to 300 yards with a fair degree of consistency. I throw charges on a Chargemaster, I full length size every firing with a Redding body die and Competition bushing neck die with no expander. I’ve checked runout once and sold the gauge. I salt bath anneal every firing. And I use a .003” under sized mandrel. I don’t uniform primer pockets. I don’t even clean them. I don’t uniform flash holes. I don’t even have the tool. I don’t neck turn. I use a single stage press because it’s what I have. If I had a Dillon 650, you’re damn right I would load on it, as Erik does.
 
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He has a lot of videos for people to dive into. He's on that specific podcast I mentioned for ~5.5 hours (spread over two episodes), so they are deep dives, not just broad generalizations (I still need to finish the podcasts myself).

There's a lot of wisdom in there, he doesn't make reloading overcomplicated (such as weight sorting brass or uniforming primer pockets). There's a lot of unnecessary steps people take when they reload, and they don't really know why they are performing those steps, beyond someone saying "because that's how we have always done it in F-Class", or whatever.

I don't measure runout or chase lands either. Never found a need to. I don't weight sort brass or uniform primer pockets. Reloading can be really simple, and produce great results. There's a lot of myths that are perpetuated in reloading, a lot of them with no real basis in fact.

Between listening to Applied Ballistics and Erik Cortina, one could really whittle down their process to only steps that matter. I'm a big fan of how Applied Ballistics is taking the myths out of reloading, and I really appreciate the simplicity of Erik Cortina's process. More people need to keep it simple in the reloading room.
 
Tokay444 said:
He’s stated multiple times his dies are off the shelf.
He also laughs a lot at the people that will still argue with him, as if he’s trying to trick them or something.
You should listen to the podcasts, and or watch the videos.
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People are stuck in their ways and would rather believe in the myths then try for themselves the more simple processes that work.
 
Dogma. These old farts love their dogma. Both ingesting, and spewing it. They probably tell people about sleeping bullets anytime they get a chance.
Voluntary ignorance is defined as stupidity. When you can have proof right in front of your eyes that what you believed was wrong, and you CHOOSE to still believe it, you’re voluntarily ignorant.
 
Everyone has a right to do things how they want to and nobody needs anyone else's approval to do that.

The point I'm making that you guys seem to be missing is there is more than one thing that is the reason a rifle shoots well and it is just plain ignorant to over simplify that. Having said that, some people are not detail oriented, different people process information differently. Some people just need to avoid details, other need to understand every subtle thing in microscopic detail. I know lots of people in both groups.

I use a 3 decimal place (in grains) scale to weigh powder and every other darn thing. I'm sure someone out there is about to criticize that, but I don't care... I leave nothing to chance. Is it a waste of time? I don't care... I enjoy it.

I weigh my brass and it goes into lots that vary no more than 1/10th of a grain. I'll never change that... why should I? Because Erik says so... not.

Guys can be pleased with how their rifle shoots for the type of shooting they do, but when you start thinking about F Class with a 1/2 MOA V Bull at 1000 yards and consider that the circle is widest at the center... Suddenly you need to start processing how to hold 2 or 3 inches vertically at 1000 yards in order to maximize the width of the V bull. We dwell on little things like how many seconds a round will sit in the chamber to warm up before we fire it.

Once you start doing the math on that, a person of intelligence tries to reduce variability, not find excuses to justify maximizing it.

PRS guys are plate bangers and don't care if they can hold 3 vertical inches at 1000... Not that they don't care for accuracy, obviously we all do, but we do prioritize things differently and work to different levels of acceptability.

Erik plays both F Class and PRS, so it does surprise me to an extent that he promotes a lower bar, but I do believe what he talks about is just one thing that is resolved because of some other thing... We can agree to disagree on that.

Keep in mind Erik is also sponsored by Lapua and if he doesn't weigh his brass, it might have something to do with the ease with which consistent lots of brass is made available to him... If you are not sponsored by Lapua.... things might play out a little differently for you.

Another point is that Erik shoots F Class single string in the USA... not in a squaded 3 man relay like we do here in Canada... there's a big difference in the time between shots... So that's a thing. Its easier single string, a whole lot easier.

I have no problem with Erik, but I don't hold him in higher regard than a dozen guys I've shot with here in Ontario for 20 years. He's only been involved in F Class for about 5 years... He's a newby.... But a well funded newby.

Keep in mind that guys join the National team because they can afford (time and money) to be on the team, not always because they are the best shooter on the range. How many guys can burn $30,000 + a year for that and travel to god knows where, and not get divorced?
 
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You’d be better off sorting your brass by volume than by weight, if you’re that OCD that you’re sorting brass. The weight means a lot less than the internal volume. Most variances in brass weight from the same manufacturer are in the head and extractor groove, which have nothing to with internal ballistics. But you do you because you like redundant steps. ;)
 
Everyone is free to do as they please, I'm just offering up some resources.

As I said earlier, AB is testing and dispelling reloading myths, some of which are being propogated in this thread. Erik Cortina has simplified his reloading process, and he is still making records.

You can make the process as simple or complicated as you want. I'm not telling anyone what to do, but simply providing resources.
 
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