Steps for building a load?

[na1lb0hm]

I'm curious what order you guys go about building and fine tuning load for your rifle?
The order people choose to build a load has always been a puzzle to myself.
Am I far off with this?:
1) choose rifle and caliber
2) choose bullet weight and powder (s) .3 grain increments? .5?
3) primer
4) powder charge
5) seating length (?)
6) crimp (?)

 

[mmattockx]

A good article from Jerry Teo of Mystic Precision: http://www.mysticprecision.com/wp/1158/load-tuning-to-maximize-lr-accuracy/

As for your steps, these are my comments:

1) ---
2) I research both bullet weight and powders that others are having success with before just randomly picking either one.
3) I use CCI primers exclusively, so that is a foregone conclusion for me.
4) As with #2, research and checking what others are having success with. I will usually look at 4-5 sources of reloading data to get an average for max loads.
5) Measure your rifle and load to that, I usually start about 0.030" off the lands unless there are mag length considerations that limit me.
6) I never crimp anything aside from .44 Mag for my Redhawk and .375 Win for my Marlin M375.


Mark

 

[IMagius]

I don't pick a bulet. I let the gun pick it. I'll look at other's results, pick 3 of them most common performers, and grab 2 or 3 powders as well. From there, I'll start with the common "best loads" from various manuals, and load 5 of everything about 2 grains either way (without exceeding min/max loads) in .5 grain increments. Makes for a pile of 5 shot batches. (5 @ powder 1, x grains, bullet 1, 5@ powder 1, c grains, bullet 2, 5 @ powder 1, x grains bullet 3) - repeat for maybe 5or 6 powder weights per powder, for each bullet option. 3 powders, 3 bullets, 5 or 6 powder wieghts ... makes about 30 combinations for a 3 & 3 option ... 150 rounds total at 5 per option. Overkill? maybe ..

Then I wait for a nice calm day, take the gun out, and spend a few hours putting all the rounds down range. I take those targets home, and study them, and find the combination that seems to be pulling in the tightest before it starts opening again at the distance I am shooting, then I start working that bullet & powder combo from "close" to where it started openign up again in .2 grain increments.

Once I find the "best" I can get out of that, then I start tweaking OAL. During the preliminary testing, i try to stay around the 0.025 mark. At this point, I would now make 5 shot batches and movein 0.005 increments out to about 0.050 and as close as 0.010, while watching for pressure signs.

99% of what I do doesn't need a crimp, but if it did, I would toy with crimp pressure after toying with OAL.

Primers have never shown to make a difference to me, outside of some of my guns prefer a softer primer - my 22 hornet will occasionally give me issues with the harder primers. In theory, they will make a differnece, but in practice, I can take a known good load, and use any primer with it, and it will be just as accurate for my shooting abilities.

I've never had much time (or space) to work up any big bore (308 & up) long range loads ... mostly 243 & smaller stuff at 300 yards or less, but for serious longer ranges, I would be sorting cases by volume and working my loads up in an acceptable range of volumes (maybe a 2 to 5 grain of water spread over the cases used).

All that said, "minute of gopher" @ 200 yards is usually good enough unless a person gets a true sense of accomplishment watching their groups shrink on paper.

 

[Boomer]

Once I decide on the components I'll be using for a specific cartridge, I first work up to a maximum load with the bullet crimped if there is a cannelure, and with the bullet jammed in the rifling if I intend to monkey around with seating depth later on. I’ll tweak and weigh the brass and weigh the bullets so that when shooting over the chronograph, the readouts don’t muddy the relationship from one powder increment to the next. There are several things I watch for, which include a velocity plateau indicating you are near the maximum pressure, and an increase of .001” of the web of the case, is a good indicator not to proceed further. I choose not to use propellants which result in compressed charges.

Once the maximum load is determined, I'll back off a grain (which you will notice has a minimum impact on velocity if you’re shooting over a chronograph) and consider that my working load when maximum terminal performance is the intent of the exercise. If however I'm working towards the best accuracy, I will first shoot a group for accuracy, then drop a grain and see if the accuracy of the subsequent group improves or degrades. If it degrades, I'll go up half a grain and try again, thus bracketing my way towards the most accurate load.

Once I can no longer improve on accuracy by adjusting the load, I'll begin to adjust the seating depth of the bullet, if I believe that there is room for improvement. The key to this procedure is that once I have worked up to the maximum pressure, every step from there on reduces pressure.