- Location
- Southwestern Ontario
Any questions?
Why I load pistol with SWF.
- Thread starter Chrossphyre
- Start date
- Location
- Southwestern Ontario
Yes - WSF by Winchester (Hodgdon). My bad on the title.
TED-Dent: A case could be made for that (this was freehand) but look at the group's placement. The WSF was right on POA.
TED-Dent: A case could be made for that (this was freehand) but look at the group's placement. The WSF was right on POA.
A change in bullet weight, bullet type (i.e. lead vs. jacketed), powder, charge weight or even case brand can change your POI. Doesn't mean one powder is better than another, just means you have to adjust your sights to match the load. Also, freehand shooting is probably the worst way to determine true accuracy level and POI. To get an true assessment of how accurate a particular load is you need to bench rest the gun. And unless it's a Ransom rest even this method has some possibility for error but it will still be better than freehand shooting. Not knocking your ability but I've seen many people complain that their gun is shooting left, right, up or down and when they give it to another shooter to try they will be dead on. All but the best shooters will typically have some flinches or twitches that will alter their POI.
- Location
- Southwestern Ontario
Sure, benchresting a firearm takes the human element out of the equation. However, I wanted to see how the loads perform the way I shoot - in other words, how do they work for the combination of myself and my firearm sighted as it is. With WSF, not only doe the group move to POA, but felt recoil is more "push" and less "flip". A bench test won't tell you that.
The "push" is telling you the velocity is much lower in the wsf loads.
The targets themselves don't really say anything. The WSF group has a lot of fliers and if you take them into account then the WSF group is probably not closer to POA. Of course since you are shooting offhand you don't actually know if the wide dispersion and fliers is the load or just you. Basically meaningless.
That's what other's are trying to tell you: you can't say that one load is more accurate or closer to POA than the other based on those targets alone.
You say "I wanted to see how the loads perform the way I shoot". Sounds like you might be falling into the trap of compensating for your personal shooting idiosyncrasies. Many times I have had people say to me something like "I shoot to the left so I moved my sights to adjust for it." The difficulty with that 'solution' is they're not solving the problem of why they shoot to the left. That's what has to be solved first before moving on to searching for the perfect component combination.
I'm not sure how proficient you want to become but the fact that you're looking at improving your accuracy by experimenting with different powders says you must want to be a better shot. Hence, the reason you bench rest the gun to see where it truly shoots with a given combination of powder, bullet, primer, etc., etc. When your off hand shooting matches the bench rest point of impact (within reason as we very seldom shoot as well freehand as we do bench rested) then you're good to go as far as experimenting with different components to see which gives you the best accuracy (and it will vary with as you change components) and you adjust from there.
If you prefer that the WSF has less 'snap' to it that may be the powder you want to go with but it may not give you the same accuracy you would get with a hotter Titegroup load. Also, read some reloading manuals and see how the loads you are using for the two powders match up as to pressure, velocity and, if possible, standard deviation. Hypothetically (and you won't know till you try) a lighter load of Titegroup might be just as pleasant to shoot as the WSF and give you better accuracy.
I know it sounds confusing and it probably is but that's why shooters with 50 years experience continue to experiment with their loads.
