How much time and effort do you give a bullet, powder.

[338 dude]

View attachment 144421 View attachment 144419 The problem I've read about with the MagnetoSpeed chrono is that it can sense the combustion gases, which are considerably higher than the velocity of the bullet. It has to be precisely mounted, or you may get that problem.

I'm cheap, so I use the ProChrono and have it precisely aligned so I do not hit it with a bullet. I put 5/32" O-rings on the uprights, put little binder clips on them so I can see them from 15 feet, put clips on the skyscreens and use a golf shaft to aim the chrono at the target. I align everything and once that's all done, I very rarely ever fail to capture a shot. The clips are placed high enough up the uprights to allow for plenty of space for the bullet to pass over the body of the instrument. The bullet's path is represented as the blue line. Works 99.99% of the time...

To keep too much sunlight from blinding the sensors if I'm still shooting when the sun gets close to directly overhead, I cut a piece of smoked Plexiglas to serve as sunglasses for them. That also works to near a 100% success rate.

I have used the magneto speed v3 and sporter never had a problem with any kind of gas giving me false readings but of course everyone says about point of impact shift because it attaches to the barrel this is true each rifle will vary depending on the stiffness of your barrel your load etc. but I have found this alternative which is fairly cheap from wiser precision

 

[Guitarjab]

Just wondering what you require of a particular load before you will continue to work with it? If you see a charge weight that shoots 1.5 moa do you continue to work with it or would you just stop, pull the bullets and try something new? Do you guys see a charge weight shoot that bad and then see another charge weight shoot .5moa or would I just be wasting my time and components? Gun in question is a R700 300 win mag with a new bartlein barrel 9 twist. I had it throated for the 215 Berger and it's shooting them pretty poor like 1-1.5moa where the factory barrel shot them better. The 212eldx seems like it may shoot better but I need to do more testing.

I would play with your seating depth. I just got my 300 win mag shooting well by going up on my charge a full grain and by finding out how far my lands were from the bullet using a Hornady LnL length guage and calipers with a comparator. Seating depth and charge weight are key. I see what you're saying though, if it shoots really bad should I just stop? It'll be a while because the mosquitoes and heat are so bad but I could answer that in the future. The 185 VLD didn't shoot as well and as my 210 VLD. However, I still wanna try to make the 185's shoot. Same deal in my 308, I have some Sierra game changers that shot horribly last year and I didn't mess with them again because I was in the middle of hunting season and I didn't use them for time's sake but I believe they just need to tweaked a little bit

 

[J E Custom]

With all this talk about bullets, powder, primers & SD's to find the best load, what about brass prep? I realize most new brass needs to be sized and maybe trimmed to begin with but I'm curious about sorting the brass, neck turning, annealing, etc. Is every bit of that brass prep absolutely necessary to do before the first shot is fired? Or is that recommended to do after your on to a good load?

I prep all of my brass before I fire form it. this way I start with consistent cases and volumes before I load it. I try/recommend
eliminating every variable I can before I start working up loads so I am not second guessing my self and wondering if I should have done this or that.

If the SDs are low and the brass is consistent I have a good starting point.

Some don't feel that this is necessary and just jump in and start loading. That's ok if you are lucky and just happen to hit on a good load early on, but many times it takes many shots/loads to find the one, and sometimes if you miss a step you may find a good load that suits you, but you never find the load that the rifle is capable of because of one variable.

J E CUSTOM

 

[nvschütze]

I forgot to include that the crosshairs of the scope are put onto the clips. This will have the bullet crossing the chrono about two inches below the clips, as is represented by the blue line.

 

[wv270wsm]

Whatever you decide to start changing only make one adjustment at a time . Or you'll be chasing your tail .

I've always looked at several different load manuals with whatever weight bullet I'm wanting to try and see if there is one powder that seems to appear throughout different manufacturers. As a starting point . Definitely use whatever bullet manufacturers manual but most of the time with the five different manuals I have one or two powders will almost always be listed in 3-4 of the five for the same weight bullet . And that's what I'll start with . So far it's worked good all but one time . Go figure I have the only 7 mm-08 that does not digest varget well. Lol

 

[Joefrazell]

So ive loaded up some to test. Looking back on a ladder test I decided to go with 75.4 gr of h1000 cci250 primers. This is all in new brass that's been neck sized. I am doing a seating depth test. .010, .040 and .080. Loading up 4 of each and will start here. Using the 215 Berger still. Velocity should be around 2920. We will see when I get time to shoot.

 

[just country]

morning, ALOT of time, that's why the procedure is called
handloading. this procedure takes yrs. of experience,
patiences, reading and conversing with other
handloaders. never ending learning process.
justme gbot tum

 

[Greyfox]

I start by doing a search for the bullet and powder for existing successful loads/specs used by other shooters to get an idea of a good starting point. This is a valuable step,IMO.. I generally run a powder charge 100 yard ladder of 5-10 rounds in .3-.5gr increments. ...starting at .020" off the lands. I look for a vertical cluster of .5MOA or less at 100 yards. If one exists Ill load a few 5 round sets around the sweet spot and test ES and group size. At this point, depending on the group/ES, I'll fine tune seating depth. In the case the initial charge weight ladder does not conform to expectations, I may revert to a seating depth check with the most favorable charge weight.
A recent load development with the Berger 156 EOL. Shown: Ladder, Final load at 200 yards. About 40 rounds used to finalize the load.

 

[Mike AVM]

Remember that the newer VLD designs will be farther from the lands if you stick with mag length. I'm a hunter so I stick with more traditional designs as I have to seat VLD's too long for the mag and I'm not going to load for non-mag length. That's just me.

I have a 270 that will shoot VLD's seated way out there but I have no follow up round. I shoot Barnes TTSX or TSX's and I'm golden at 0.5 MOA or sometimes less. Sometimes you need the next round

 

[Stgraves260]

Just wondering what you require of a particular load before you will continue to work with it? If you see a charge weight that shoots 1.5 moa do you continue to work with it or would you just stop, pull the bullets and try something new? Do you guys see a charge weight shoot that bad and then see another charge weight shoot .5moa or would I just be wasting my time and components? Gun in question is a R700 300 win mag with a new bartlein barrel 9 twist. I had it throated for the 215 Berger and it's shooting them pretty poor like 1-1.5moa where the factory barrel shot them better. The 212eldx seems like it may shoot better but I need to do more testing.

Well This is what I do and it has all ways worked on my hunting guns. I set all my bullets 10 thousands off the lands. Yes thats every gun I have. 22-250, 223, 243, 260, 7 mag even a 308. The reason is if I can't chamber the round through my gun and it doesn't feed well out in the field than to me it's not a good hunting load or gun. Who would want to feed a hunting rifle 1 bullet at a time? I set a target 400 yards away. Shoot a couple rounds down range till I hit the bull. Now that my barrel is fowled I use my hand loads to get my powder charge data. Let say in your reloading Manuel it say starting charge is 40 grains. This it how it should look. 40, 40.5, 41, 41.5, 42, 42.5 43, 43.5. Do like 10 rounds like this. After each shot go down to your target and wright the powder charge next to the bullet hole. After a few round you will have some bullet hole that are very close in elevation. It will prob be 2 or 3 rounds. Don't worry about wind hold off. DO NOT ADJUST you scope while doing this. Now take those 2 or 3 bullet charges and load 5 rounds each. Have you a big target that's easy to see and set it back 400 yards. Remember your scope settings. Don't change them. Now shoot your groups and you will find your load. You can do this at 100 yards also if your more comfortable. I just prefer the longer distances. Hope this helps.

 

[Stgraves260]

Well This is what I do and it has all ways worked on my hunting guns. I set all my bullets 10 thousands off the lands. Yes thats every gun I have. 22-250, 223, 243, 260, 7 mag even a 308. The reason is if I can't chamber the round through my gun and it doesn't feed well out in the field than to me it's not a good hunting load or gun. Who would want to feed a hunting rifle 1 bullet at a time? I set a target 400 yards away. Shoot a couple rounds down range till I hit the bull. Now that my barrel is fowled I use my hand loads to get my powder charge data. Let say in your reloading Manuel it say starting charge is 40 grains. This it how it should look. 40, 40.5, 41, 41.5, 42, 42.5 43, 43.5. Do like 10 rounds like this. After each shot go down to your target and wright the powder charge next to the bullet hole. After a few round you will have some bullet hole that are very close in elevation. It will prob be 2 or 3 rounds. Don't worry about wind hold off. DO NOT ADJUST you scope while doing this. Now take those 2 or 3 bullet charges and load 5 rounds each. Have you a big target that's easy to see and set it back 400 yards. Remember your scope settings. Don't change them. Now shoot your groups and you will find your load. You can do this at 100 yards also if your more comfortable. I just prefer the longer distances. Hope this helps.

this is one I did at 300 yards a while back. That's a 1" orange circle to help clarify the target. So any one of those loads that that are in that 1 7/8" group I have marked would be a 1/2 moa load. 1 moa at 300 yards is 3"s. These rounds are way under that.

 

[Stgraves260]

See if this helps. I was just haven fun and testing my idea. Just remember those 5 shot groups are at 300 yards and 100. All those groups are 1/2" groups at 300 yards. So that like 1/8 moa groups I thank. I just know this method works on all my guns.

 

[Dirtrax]

View attachment 144421 View attachment 144419 The problem I've read about with the MagnetoSpeed chrono is that it can sense the combustion gases, which are considerably higher than the velocity of the bullet. It has to be precisely mounted, or you may get that problem.

I'm cheap, so I use the ProChrono and have it precisely aligned so I do not hit it with a bullet. I put 5/32" O-rings on the uprights, put little binder clips on them so I can see them from 15 feet, put clips on the skyscreens and use a golf shaft to aim the chrono at the target. I align everything and once that's all done, I very rarely ever fail to capture a shot. The clips are placed high enough up the uprights to allow for plenty of space for the bullet to pass over the body of the instrument. The bullet's path is represented as the blue line. Works 99.99% of the time...

To keep too much sunlight from blinding the sensors if I'm still shooting when the sun gets close to directly overhead, I cut a piece of smoked Plexiglas to serve as sunglasses for them. That also works to near a 100% success rate.

I use a similar setup including a full length and width opaque shield on top. I also have side shields. On the metal uprights I use flat paint to avoid any reflections that could confuse the optical sensors.
I ran a string line from the back of my bench down to my target (100yds) for alignment. Everything is permanently marked. For height consistency I leave a tripod in place 10' ahead of a standard, marked, muzzle location. Bullets pass at a consistent 4" above the sensors. This has worked well for me so far.

 

[Joefrazell]

Ok so I went back out and I did a seating depth test yesterday. Here's the results

215 Berger
75.4 gr. H1000
Cci250
Win brass (new/neck sized)

4 shot groups at 100 yards

0.010"- 1.833"
0.030"- 1.11"
0.060"- 1.487"

So with this info I loaded up a ocw and shot it this morning at 100 yards. Here's the results

215 Berger
H1000
Cci250
Win brass ( fire formed/neck sized only)
.030 of lands

74 gr. 1.030"
74.5 gr. 1.096"
75 gr. 1.531"
75.4 gr. Shot the day before 1.11"
76 gr. .98"
76.5 gr. 2.282"
77 gr. 2" only 2 shots pressure signs. Had plunger marks.

So that's where I'm at. I'm about out of these 215's and don't think I'll be buying anymore. I really wanted this bullet to shoot but it's not looking very promising at least with h1000. Im not going to lie I expected a lot more from this bartlein barrel and all the Smith work I've had done. But I'll keep trying. I bought a box of 200 gr eldx's. I'm thinking of trying these with h4831sc. I think I'm going to do a seating depth test then an ocw just like I did with the 215. Really hoping this thing will turn up a decent 1/2" load before half my barrel life is gone. Anyone shoot the 200 eldx?