OCW method-help

[Potashminer]

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Potashminer (and everyone else),

What is the prescribed way for doing this? I've typically shot 5 shot groups of the same charge before moving on to the next one; it never occurred to me to fire these round robin as the OP did. In a way, it makes sense to me though.

The other thing I've always wondered is that after so many rounds with a couple minute break in between each, how certain can one be other factors such as barrel heat, potential copper-fouling, etc. are not affecting the ultimate outcome of these results? Over the course of time it takes to fire that many shots, where I shoot anyway, the wind always invariably shifts or changes during the day as well.

Elsewhere in one of these posts, it is mentioned to google up Dan Newberry's writing about how to do OCW testing. The idea of round robin is to take away some variables. For example, shooting groups of 5, increasing load by 1/2 grain, and you see the grouping moving right and up over the series - was that the charge change? Your barrel fouling increasing? Your barrel getting warmer? The wind changing? Now do it in round robin fashion, and you are much more likely to be seeing the actual change due to the charge, since the other variables are tending to be "evenly spread". Not the only way to do this - for example, some shooters are very very good at using / reading wind flags to eliminate wind variables.