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Barrel heat and ladder test

Can I chime in here and ask a couple questions? Are ladder testing and optimal charge weight testing accomplishing the same thing? I'm guessing with ocw testing you shoot over the chrony and look for the lowest variation in speed between 0.1 or so charge variation?

What do you guys think is the best way of going about finding a good load for a sporter weight, looking for cold bore accuracy. This rifle would shoot probably 3-6 shots a couple days a week for practice and then be used for hunting.

They are after the same end result. I have tried with and without the chrono. I will not be using the chrono from now on. The magnetospeed affects the accuracy of some rifles and the point of impact of most and I do not want to mess with it. Optical chronos are not consistent. I will get velocity data after the load is found. The OCW is strictly looking for a consistent point of impact. The ladder is looking for the load with the smallest vertical dispersion at distance. Some like to blame all horizontal at distance on wind but I have found seating depth to have a rather large impact on horizontal. In my opinion .1 is too small of a window. When I have found the load I proceed to cold bore mapping. Like I said before I have no desire to have a rifle I have to let cool between shots. I feel if that is necessary something is most likely wrong with the rifle. Obviously others have different opinions.
 
Neither testing method reaches best results without accounting for seating.
And there is as much horizontal information in ladders as vertical. All my ladders show this, and I've never seen a picture of one that didn't.
If you were to normalize the vertical, subtracting basic external ballistics that has higher impacts with higher MV, you might just as well find more horizontal than vertical in a tune. rfurman24 is all over it with seating.

Seating is a coarse adjustment. It is so large to results that you can find it (with full testing, Berger recommended) during fire-forming of your brass. Meaningful ladders were preceded by both.
Powder is your fine adjustment. It provides the tightest resolution and control of all adjustments, while causing the least overall affect to results.
With ANYTHING calibrated, you begin with coarse, and move to fine.
 
So could one follow the same premise in regards to seating depth where you would shoot at a target with a bullet set .005" off the lands, then a second target with a load .010 or .015 off and so on until you have a three shot group of each to determine which performs best? Once a depth is chosen you would then do the same with charge weights.
Secondly, does the optimal charge weight transfer from bullet to bullet in the same weight class or do you rerun the test each time the bullet changes? I'm wondering if I can use my 162 boat tail interlocks and then move over to the ELDs.
 
So could one follow the same premise in regards to seating depth where you would shoot at a target with a bullet set .005" off the lands, then a second target with a load .010 or .015 off and so on until you have a three shot group of each to determine which performs best? Once a depth is chosen you would then do the same with charge weights.
Secondly, does the optimal charge weight transfer from bullet to bullet in the same weight class or do you rerun the test each time the bullet changes? I'm wondering if I can use my 162 boat tail interlocks and then move over to the ELDs.

Yes with the seating depths and not usually on different bullets preferring the same powder charge. I would do a separate load test with each bullet/powder combination. You really should start another thread with these questions.
 
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