Quote:
Originally Posted by James 1
When developing rounds this way. What is your experience with how the rifles perform when complete?
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When I put together a load that has not been tested, it shoots ok groups out to 400 to 500M. At 600 and beyond, I start to see the 10 shoot groups opening up.
The first 2 times going to the 1 km range the bullets were all over the place. 24" spread give or take.
I knew something wasn't working,,, a heavy barrel rifle is normally pretty consistant, a full rifle inspection followed as I made sure the action was seated in the stock with proper torque on the bolts and bases, rings, scope.
Everything checked out and the next 1 km shoot wasn't any better.
After chatting with Franklin at the RMH Range,,, he asked if I did a ladder test.
This was the first time I really thought about buckling down to try a proper ladder.
What a disaster that was.
I shot lots of bullets with .5gr increases at 1 target.
After 50 shots at 100 meters, the target looked like a useless peace of paper with holes every where.
I Drew circles, boxes, triangles, octagons, and all kinds of patterns to distinguish the difference between the groups.
LOL. Total waist of time, nothing close to a ladder, just a big jumbo of nothing.
As I posted above, after trying the 3 shots,,, one at each target I started to at least see some signs of a so called ladder.
All 3 targets had bullet holes from 47.5gr to 57gr's doing the .5gr incress in powder charge.
Those three targets at 100 meters were easier to read, when the first 300M test happened,,, that's when I could really start to see the spread between the ladder rungs. Some were spread out, some were tight.
The best ladder happened at 600 meters on that calm day of no winds.
The minimum powder charge of 47.5gr's of H 4831 started things off.
48gr to 48.5gr, then 49gr as the bullets kept climbing.
50gr, 50.5gr, 51gr, 51.5 were grouped close.
Things started climbing from 52gr, 52.5, 53, 53.5, and 54 grains.
54.5gr, 55gr, 55.5gr were grouped tight with very little rise. ((( A guess only that this seemed to be the top Node.))) As I explain later.
The 30/06 charge was getting close to the max with that powder.
The ladder started to spread at 56,gr 56.5gr and 57gr.
57.5gr showed a bit of stiff bolt handle lift. 58gr was hot.
Super compressed powder charge,,, tall funnel to get the powder down into the case so I could seat the bullet.
Harvest season was closing in, the lower 50gr to 51.5gr load was working, but there was lots of bullet drop happening.
I knew I was onto something in the 54.5gr to 55.5gr category.
So I did the .3 grain node test from 54.5gr, 54.7gr, 55gr, 55.3gr, 55.6gr, 55.9gr, and 56.2 as the ladder started to climb. 600 meters as normal.
I shot 2 more test groups to settle on the 55.3gr for this powder, primer, case, and bullets of the same lot numbers.
I'm not good at long range shooting, nor will I ever be able to pull this off any time soon with a heavy barrel hunting rifle.
The day was calm with no winds, the best of light conditions, solid rest in the pron shooting format using the Remple F Class bypod rest, and 25 X zoom.
I was lucky, I mean lucky to pull off a 9" by 12" wide Five shot group at the 1 km mark.
I followed up with 2 more groups all with in a 12" group.
Lucky is a under statement.
This put total confidence in me, the rifle, and ammo for this harvest season.
I don't know if doing this ladder test helped, I only hope that it has.
Purhaps I can fine tune more from this point. I had to buckle down to do this, it was no walk in the park. I'm putting it all on the line here.
The most unlikely candidate of non-achievements, and this I share openly.
This is purhaps why this thread got underway.
Sorry to all for the long post, but I'm trying my best to express what has worked up to this point and hope to gain more info as I move forward on better / wizer load development.
PS:
Don't think for one second that I went out and started hitting the 1 km target just like that.
It took me many bullets and 100's of trips back and forth to slowly work my distance over the day.
1700+ rounds this year out of this rifle to get close to where its at, I only hope that I can do this same thing with my soon to be new rifle with 100 to 200 shots.
I hope for that is
Don