Rifle Nodes: How You’ve Been Wasting Your Time and Money on Load Development
- Thread starter CanMike
- Start date
I do think that the referenced Hornady podcast, along with some of Bryan Litz's books, will go down in history as the moment an entire community changed their opinions on and approach to load development.
This article adds substantial water to the tide of shifting opinions.
My one complaint with this article is that he used three poor-shooting rifles to do the testing. He mentions the possibility that if the old-school load development techniques were ever going to work, it would be on these poor-shooting rifles. And then he proves they don't work on these rifles: his 3 MOA rifle is still 3 MOA after his best efforts to find a special load.
However he really left uncharted the possibility that the techniques work on well-shooting rifles. It's very possible that any kind of load development classified as "fine-tuning" would require a fine-shooting rifle to expose the effect.
This article adds substantial water to the tide of shifting opinions.
My one complaint with this article is that he used three poor-shooting rifles to do the testing. He mentions the possibility that if the old-school load development techniques were ever going to work, it would be on these poor-shooting rifles. And then he proves they don't work on these rifles: his 3 MOA rifle is still 3 MOA after his best efforts to find a special load.
However he really left uncharted the possibility that the techniques work on well-shooting rifles. It's very possible that any kind of load development classified as "fine-tuning" would require a fine-shooting rifle to expose the effect.
Litz, Hornady, Tyler Freel and most of the rest are the biggest idiots I’ve seen in 55 years of shooting.
Litz has never posted impressive 100 yard groups and written how many books? Hornady is in the same boat and yap incessantly. If you suggest groups are too small you not recognizing what is causing the difference. Here we go.
They have no clue about maintaining a firm hold to simulate the effect of flat bottomed stocks to minimize POA change between trigger break and bullet exit. If you keep your eye open after the trigger breaks until muzzle flash you be able to recognize the shooter error on display as reticle movement/point of aim error, it happens fast, pay attention. The feel of recoil and torque must also be duplicated.
“MAINTAINING POINT OF AIM UNTIL BULLET EXIT IS THE FOUNDATION OF ACCURACY REGARDLESS OF EQUIPMENT AND AMMO QUALITY”
There’s a $5 Billion/year firearms accessory industry $selling accuracy remedies while ignoring point of aim control.
It’s so ####ed up.
POA control can be refined into the .1’s of moa with DIY premium prefits and sometimes a factory stock, most definitely available from your DIY mailbox stocks. No waiting on a smith or messing with bedding.
Factory barrels are impossible to truly tune or find a node (which means timing the bullet exit when the barrel is motionless) because the inconsistent barrrel diameter causes multiple vibrations and echoes of vibrations since steel vibrates at roughly 19,000fps.
Custom barrels like a starting point of bullets jammed in the rifling. How much you seat the bullet on bolt close is often the fine tune. Somewhere there will be a similarly accurate mag feedable jump point but it’s more work to find.
The 100 yard target below demonstrates what adjustments to powder charge accomplishes. I let the rear bag turn causing drift to the left. A clear 36x allowed me to see every impact.
Rounds16-27 in new a IBI prefit in 6BR. testing 29-29.6 grains. There is four bullets in the hole at the top causing tears in the paper when it was hitting the edge the previous impact. The gap at the bottom was from not properly packing the rear bag.
Climbing until it reached vertical overlap with two 29.4 shooting a fraction of a bullet lower than two 29.6. 29.8 would likely shoot the very same as 29.6 or slightly lower but pressure was too high, pressuring out is the term. 28.5 is working post barrel break-in.
Then cool mornings and warm afternoons will shoot very much the same.
Now rear bag position matters. Fore/aft bag placement error is sometimes not visible in the scope. After #2 noticed I had crept the gun foreward to aim lower because I didn’t pack the bag before I started, rear bag further back on the stock will reduce muzzle rise causing lower poi. Moved back to where I thought it was for 3. Decided to abandon this mess and go for two more after moving the bag back a full inch for 4,5 without moving the well packed bag between shots.
There was horizontal reticle movement from pulse as well. Strong muscles and tight hold reduces the effect. Measuring a group’s horizontal as gun or load dependant is dishonest unless you are high mileage on a flat bottom stock and $2000+ of front rest and rear bag. Adjust loads or test different factory ammo for vertical.
IME factory barrel 1.5 inch vertical at 100 is two feet at 1000. A custom 0.1’s at 100 stay under 2.0 at 1000.
Good enough for Bart Sauter to like the 12 shot and for Matt Kline to give rear bag advice on the 5. Both world record Benchrest shooters. The posers mentioned above will NEVER receive such praise, unless they get their #### together.
Now applied to the less stable standing BogDG. A little wind and I threw the last fkr way to the right. Tripod horizontal control is a dirty #####. After adding an inch of elevation for the drop two yards to the 4x8 that’s well under 3inches vertical at 1000.
Cold bore kneeling BogDG at the center six inch circle. Vertical zero within a hockey puck at 1000yds.
This is the realm of case design, hand lapped barrels, seating depth discerned to .001 inch, powder charge in vertical overlap(positive compensation), and POA control until bullet exit(long duration follow through).
And Zero fks given about ES or SD.
Litz has never posted impressive 100 yard groups and written how many books? Hornady is in the same boat and yap incessantly. If you suggest groups are too small you not recognizing what is causing the difference. Here we go.
They have no clue about maintaining a firm hold to simulate the effect of flat bottomed stocks to minimize POA change between trigger break and bullet exit. If you keep your eye open after the trigger breaks until muzzle flash you be able to recognize the shooter error on display as reticle movement/point of aim error, it happens fast, pay attention. The feel of recoil and torque must also be duplicated.
“MAINTAINING POINT OF AIM UNTIL BULLET EXIT IS THE FOUNDATION OF ACCURACY REGARDLESS OF EQUIPMENT AND AMMO QUALITY”
There’s a $5 Billion/year firearms accessory industry $selling accuracy remedies while ignoring point of aim control.
It’s so ####ed up.
POA control can be refined into the .1’s of moa with DIY premium prefits and sometimes a factory stock, most definitely available from your DIY mailbox stocks. No waiting on a smith or messing with bedding.
Factory barrels are impossible to truly tune or find a node (which means timing the bullet exit when the barrel is motionless) because the inconsistent barrrel diameter causes multiple vibrations and echoes of vibrations since steel vibrates at roughly 19,000fps.
Custom barrels like a starting point of bullets jammed in the rifling. How much you seat the bullet on bolt close is often the fine tune. Somewhere there will be a similarly accurate mag feedable jump point but it’s more work to find.
The 100 yard target below demonstrates what adjustments to powder charge accomplishes. I let the rear bag turn causing drift to the left. A clear 36x allowed me to see every impact.
Rounds16-27 in new a IBI prefit in 6BR. testing 29-29.6 grains. There is four bullets in the hole at the top causing tears in the paper when it was hitting the edge the previous impact. The gap at the bottom was from not properly packing the rear bag.
Climbing until it reached vertical overlap with two 29.4 shooting a fraction of a bullet lower than two 29.6. 29.8 would likely shoot the very same as 29.6 or slightly lower but pressure was too high, pressuring out is the term. 28.5 is working post barrel break-in.
Then cool mornings and warm afternoons will shoot very much the same.
Now rear bag position matters. Fore/aft bag placement error is sometimes not visible in the scope. After #2 noticed I had crept the gun foreward to aim lower because I didn’t pack the bag before I started, rear bag further back on the stock will reduce muzzle rise causing lower poi. Moved back to where I thought it was for 3. Decided to abandon this mess and go for two more after moving the bag back a full inch for 4,5 without moving the well packed bag between shots.
There was horizontal reticle movement from pulse as well. Strong muscles and tight hold reduces the effect. Measuring a group’s horizontal as gun or load dependant is dishonest unless you are high mileage on a flat bottom stock and $2000+ of front rest and rear bag. Adjust loads or test different factory ammo for vertical.
IME factory barrel 1.5 inch vertical at 100 is two feet at 1000. A custom 0.1’s at 100 stay under 2.0 at 1000.
Good enough for Bart Sauter to like the 12 shot and for Matt Kline to give rear bag advice on the 5. Both world record Benchrest shooters. The posers mentioned above will NEVER receive such praise, unless they get their #### together.
Now applied to the less stable standing BogDG. A little wind and I threw the last fkr way to the right. Tripod horizontal control is a dirty #####. After adding an inch of elevation for the drop two yards to the 4x8 that’s well under 3inches vertical at 1000.
Cold bore kneeling BogDG at the center six inch circle. Vertical zero within a hockey puck at 1000yds.
This is the realm of case design, hand lapped barrels, seating depth discerned to .001 inch, powder charge in vertical overlap(positive compensation), and POA control until bullet exit(long duration follow through).
And Zero fks given about ES or SD.
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Powder / Bullet relationship is a thing with regards to how the bullets disperse on target. H4350 may shoot tighter than IMR 4350 under ____ bullet in your particular rifle. Or vice versa
I've put about 5000 rounds downrange in the last year and a half, doing load development for about 2 dozen rifles and the nodes are gone when you do a 15 to 30 round sample of powder charge A vs B, seating depth A vs B
all I can say is, try doing some of these larger sample sized tests for yourself and let us know if the nodes go away
I've put about 5000 rounds downrange in the last year and a half, doing load development for about 2 dozen rifles and the nodes are gone when you do a 15 to 30 round sample of powder charge A vs B, seating depth A vs B
all I can say is, try doing some of these larger sample sized tests for yourself and let us know if the nodes go away
Hornady isn't lying about the dispersion factor, it exists, if they were, the benchresters would be able to shoot in the 1's all day long, every day. No matter how tight the gun will shoot consistently on a good day, it can shoot different 4 hrs later or a day later and different again a week later. Powders will usually produce the most variance, get the odd batch of bullets that does too, and some days the nut at the butt is at fault. Equipt is a factor, I would not expect most factory varmint gun or barrels to shoot with a built for comps gun. Not to mention that no matter how good it shoots, if you can't read wind, you can't shoot those tiny grps. I thought Little Crow did a pretty decent job of his 7mm comparison and the "reloading" vid after that with the 308 as far as powder selection, interpreting targets went, and dispelling some krap about ballistics. I don't see the node stuff being really reliable at less than about 25 shots to confirm, may take 50-75 shots to get to that point, by the time you go thru powder/pressure, finding powder chg or powder, seating depth. You can get to "good enough" quicker, but, that depends on your version of good enough some people's versions take more, some take less, some never really prove the load out all the way.
Properly tuned does not change but for condition. Alex Wheeler started new gun on a Thursday. A week later he shot five shot groups Sat, Sun of 1.5 inches and 1.6. Same load.
100/200 br shooters tune constantly to stay in the .0’s. As in 0.0xx inches plus wind. Getting it to “dot up” is the term. Bart says the 5 day shoots can average under 0.2 if it’s relatively calm. It’s never dead calm for 5 days.
Sam Hall tried 1000 with 300 WSM, he was raving about it because it had shot the SAME LOAD FOR THREE MONTHS when I read read his post on Accurate Shooter.com During that time his son “borrowed” it because the old man had it nailed down.
I haven’t changed this 6BR in years and if it’s over 3 inch vertical at 1000, #### by br standards, it’s the light, wind or me.
The nitwits don’t even mention how much difference in elevation when a cloud passes over or the sun starts to set because they are posers making up a story that misses the actual details. Mixing POI errors caused by conditions into data to prove their b u l l s h i t. Same as shooter related POA error they all ignore and call dispersion.
In the 70’s we had televangelists stealing from the ill informed.
100/200 br shooters tune constantly to stay in the .0’s. As in 0.0xx inches plus wind. Getting it to “dot up” is the term. Bart says the 5 day shoots can average under 0.2 if it’s relatively calm. It’s never dead calm for 5 days.
Sam Hall tried 1000 with 300 WSM, he was raving about it because it had shot the SAME LOAD FOR THREE MONTHS when I read read his post on Accurate Shooter.com During that time his son “borrowed” it because the old man had it nailed down.
I haven’t changed this 6BR in years and if it’s over 3 inch vertical at 1000, #### by br standards, it’s the light, wind or me.
The nitwits don’t even mention how much difference in elevation when a cloud passes over or the sun starts to set because they are posers making up a story that misses the actual details. Mixing POI errors caused by conditions into data to prove their b u l l s h i t. Same as shooter related POA error they all ignore and call dispersion.
In the 70’s we had televangelists stealing from the ill informed.
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Groups of 2 are statistically significant as far as I'm concerned. But... I'll digress and say it should be atleast 3...4 is better. 5 is better yet. 6...you get the point.
But if your rifle system is dialed right in and as an operator you know you're not shanking shots...And you shoot 1....and the second one is an inch off... you may as well quit there. But fire a third one just to make sure it wasnt you. If that's an inch off in the other direction, scratch that load combination off the list.
If youre loading for 1/4 minute and the 2nd shot is already outside of 1/4 minute... why keep shooting it. Maybe shoot #3.
If you want it 1/4 ALL day, and the 2nd shot is a half minute off... the deviation is already no good.
If you fire 2 through the same hole...you dont have a 1/4 minute load but you're helluva lot closer than if the 2nd shot doesnt go 1/4 minute. You fire a third one... it goes through the same hole. You have 3 shots in a 1/4 minute. That's good enough to make a note of the load. Youre as close as youve ever been. You fire a 4th one... 3/8 minute. So how good are you? Are you good enough to load identical rounds? Is your rifle system good enough to shoot 1/4 minute all day. Are you as an operator good enough to shoot 1/4 min all day. Lets say yes to all of the above. Fire a 5th one, youre at 1/4 again 4 out of 5 aint bad. But youve already seen the deviation of an 1/8th inch. If you know it wasnt you or the rifle system... it's gotta be the load not holding 1/4. Or, you saw the 10% error 4 shots in and the next 20 or so go into 1/4 moa.
Let's say you get to 10 in a row all at 1/4 minute...we can be pretty confident its certainly a fine load... but 10 rounds isnt all day yet. Hornady is suggesting 30 rounds is 90% all day. There's still room for it to go 5/16 of a minute by 33% or whatever it is.
Until you can fire the bullet 30 times into a 1/4 minute... it's not all day. Even if you can, it's only 90% all day. Statistically.
Let's say you load up 25 groups of 2 in .1 grain increments(or whatever is respectable for the case size and pressure/velocity window) and none of them are even close to a 1/4 minute group.... you can probably gather that something in the entire system isnt even capable of 1/4 minute. You dont need to shoot the load 30 times to figure that out.
Lets say 3 of the 25 groups are damn near 1/4..... focus on those parameters and shoot them more to determine the potential.
How is it even possible to shoot benchrest scores, f class scores, etc. If the bullet cant hold 1/4 minute all day. Something needs to be predictable.
Youre not winning a BR match or cleaning an F class target without a load that shoots 90% of the time smaller than the goal.
I think these guys are just saying if you shoot it 3 times and its 1/4 minute... you got lucky. If you want to see what it actually does 90% of the time... shoot it 30 times. But if after 5 or 7 or whatever shots if youre already off the map, try something else.
If your goal is 1/4 minute all day... youve got a lot of development to embrace. If your goal is 7/8 minute PRS...... just start loading powder with a dipper and call it a day.
But if your rifle system is dialed right in and as an operator you know you're not shanking shots...And you shoot 1....and the second one is an inch off... you may as well quit there. But fire a third one just to make sure it wasnt you. If that's an inch off in the other direction, scratch that load combination off the list.
If youre loading for 1/4 minute and the 2nd shot is already outside of 1/4 minute... why keep shooting it. Maybe shoot #3.
If you want it 1/4 ALL day, and the 2nd shot is a half minute off... the deviation is already no good.
If you fire 2 through the same hole...you dont have a 1/4 minute load but you're helluva lot closer than if the 2nd shot doesnt go 1/4 minute. You fire a third one... it goes through the same hole. You have 3 shots in a 1/4 minute. That's good enough to make a note of the load. Youre as close as youve ever been. You fire a 4th one... 3/8 minute. So how good are you? Are you good enough to load identical rounds? Is your rifle system good enough to shoot 1/4 minute all day. Are you as an operator good enough to shoot 1/4 min all day. Lets say yes to all of the above. Fire a 5th one, youre at 1/4 again 4 out of 5 aint bad. But youve already seen the deviation of an 1/8th inch. If you know it wasnt you or the rifle system... it's gotta be the load not holding 1/4. Or, you saw the 10% error 4 shots in and the next 20 or so go into 1/4 moa.
Let's say you get to 10 in a row all at 1/4 minute...we can be pretty confident its certainly a fine load... but 10 rounds isnt all day yet. Hornady is suggesting 30 rounds is 90% all day. There's still room for it to go 5/16 of a minute by 33% or whatever it is.
Until you can fire the bullet 30 times into a 1/4 minute... it's not all day. Even if you can, it's only 90% all day. Statistically.
Let's say you load up 25 groups of 2 in .1 grain increments(or whatever is respectable for the case size and pressure/velocity window) and none of them are even close to a 1/4 minute group.... you can probably gather that something in the entire system isnt even capable of 1/4 minute. You dont need to shoot the load 30 times to figure that out.
Lets say 3 of the 25 groups are damn near 1/4..... focus on those parameters and shoot them more to determine the potential.
How is it even possible to shoot benchrest scores, f class scores, etc. If the bullet cant hold 1/4 minute all day. Something needs to be predictable.
Youre not winning a BR match or cleaning an F class target without a load that shoots 90% of the time smaller than the goal.
I think these guys are just saying if you shoot it 3 times and its 1/4 minute... you got lucky. If you want to see what it actually does 90% of the time... shoot it 30 times. But if after 5 or 7 or whatever shots if youre already off the map, try something else.
If your goal is 1/4 minute all day... youve got a lot of development to embrace. If your goal is 7/8 minute PRS...... just start loading powder with a dipper and call it a day.
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If you use hand lapped custom barrels prefit or smithed, load development takes less than 30 rounds to make bullet holes darker not bigger at 100 because they like it jammin hard=seating the bullet .001-.007 inches on bolt close with a slightly reduced charge from manual max because reloading manuals don’t jam.
Folks with much more experience say there’s something wrong if it takes more than a couple dozen.
Then seat to mag length if necessary and add powder to get the pressure/velocity back up. Then test in steps of +-.005 on the initial search for duplication.
Hornady Custom and Forster dies for example provide enough neck tension to never pull a bullet opening the bolt on an unfired jammed round.
If memory serves Alex Wheeler made two trips to the range with his brand new BR gun plus the usual show up tune Friday. That’s 3 days of test/tune, 75 rds per day. Running 5x15 rds strings with 5 different loads. Resulting in: Saturday 1.5inch, Sunday 1.6inch. Five shot groups at 1000.
Learning to aim within the confines of the .25inch white centers of the small triangles on a Redfield target will shorten your load development massively regardless of equipment $$$$.
16x magnification works. 36x is easier.
.1MOA reticle dots are VERY beneficial in this application (and suck a little freehand).
Folks with much more experience say there’s something wrong if it takes more than a couple dozen.
Then seat to mag length if necessary and add powder to get the pressure/velocity back up. Then test in steps of +-.005 on the initial search for duplication.
Hornady Custom and Forster dies for example provide enough neck tension to never pull a bullet opening the bolt on an unfired jammed round.
If memory serves Alex Wheeler made two trips to the range with his brand new BR gun plus the usual show up tune Friday. That’s 3 days of test/tune, 75 rds per day. Running 5x15 rds strings with 5 different loads. Resulting in: Saturday 1.5inch, Sunday 1.6inch. Five shot groups at 1000.
Learning to aim within the confines of the .25inch white centers of the small triangles on a Redfield target will shorten your load development massively regardless of equipment $$$$.
16x magnification works. 36x is easier.
.1MOA reticle dots are VERY beneficial in this application (and suck a little freehand).
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