A Different Approach Finding a Load

[Vern400]

I've been reloading quite a while, so I have some partial boxes of lots of different components.

I have a 223 varmint rifle, and the best shooting ammunition I have found is a 55 grain pointed soft point. For a while, I wasn't able to make any hand loads better than the store-bought stuff. And longer term, I wanted to use 62, 65, 69 grain range of bullets. 1/9 barrel.

Then I had a stupid idea. Why not let the RIFLE choose the bullet? I took 5 different bullets, made five cartridges each. I used primer/ powder and a midrange charge weight that is widely used successfully... One that comes up all the time in "my favorite load" discussions. And yeah, of course I did all the due diligence to make sure it wasn't near Max or something stupid.

I got groups of 1.75/1.45/1.20/0.62/0.49. I'm not going after my PhD, so I just cooked up 10 more cartridges each of the two best loads. It just so happened one was a PSPBT, and one OTM. I expected those two bullets to perform well, but not by that margin.

Then I punched two 10 shot groups with those cartridges and they were both less than 0.85 inch. And statistically a 10 shot group 1.5 times the size of a five shot group kind of makes a little sense So now I can play maybe a little with optimal charge weight and load length if I feel like it. I might be able to squeeze them down just a little bit.

I couldn't help but think how frustrating it could have been to just pick a bullet and try to make it work. I do have one or two other rifles that categorically refuse to shoot certain bullets well. I beat my head against the wall with some of them! Even bought new powder and primers! There are lots of good bullets out there now. Sometimes it pays to be at least somewhat bullet agnostic.

I ended up with a 65 grain expanding bullet at 3000 fps and a 69 grain match bullet at 2960. The trajectories basically match to 400 yards Same powder charge, same OAL, same primer same case.

Even a blind pig can occasionally find a peanut.

 

[49ereric]

Most of us learned to let the barrel decide what is likes at some point unless you had a mentor to explain things to you.
I didn’t.

 

[willfrye027]

I think it will be hard/maybe pointless to improve your group much beyond that…

But if you did, I think it would be from a different powder all together, and not incremental charge weights or seating depth.

 

[Harvey_NW]

Conversely, you could have tried a different powder with one of the other bullets that didn't group well originally and got better results. But yeah, much easier when you try different components and let the barrel speak to you. Nice work.

 

[Koda_]

That works if you dont care what bullet you want to use, and you can afford to buy several different bullets to try.

 

[Vern400]

Conversely, you could have tried a different powder with one of the other bullets that didn't group well originally and got better results. But yeah, much easier when you try different components and let the barrel speak to you. Nice work.

Already tried 2 other powders. Was getting frustrated so I tried the attack from a different direction

 

[Vern400]

That works if you dont care what bullet you want to use, and you can afford to buy several different bullets to try.

I care about the accuracy, energy, expansion and penetration very much. As for who makes it, really don't care.

I don't know a hand loader who hasn't had their wonderful idea fall flat on occasion and end up trying something different. - ya extra stuff laying around

Don't take offense- it's just another way of getting to the same place. And there are lots of good bullets now.

 

[Koda_]

I care about the accuracy, energy, expansion and penetration very much. As for who makes it, really don't care.

I don't know a hand loader who hasn't had their wonderful idea fall flat on occasion and end up trying something different. - ya extra stuff laying around

Don't take offense- it's just another way of getting to the same place. And there are lots of good bullets now.

No offense taken, I was just noting you let the rifle choose which bullet out of 5 to use. I guess if they are all high end performing bullets it doesn't matter which one is selected.

I cant afford to buy 5 boxes of bullets to find one bullet to use. But with the one box of bullets I buy Ive also tried a different approach for efficiency. Ive loaded a "pressure ladder " in .5gn increments and simply find my best safe velocity. From there I fine tune seating depth or finer charge weight or crimping to get accuracy and was done in two range sessions around 20rds total.

 

[Harvey_NW]

No offense taken, I was just noting you let the rifle choose which bullet out of 5 to use. I guess if they are all high end performing bullets it doesn't matter which one is selected.

I cant afford to buy 5 boxes of bullets to find one bullet to use. But with the one box of bullets I buy Ive also tried a different approach for efficiency. Ive loaded a "pressure ladder " in .5gn increments and simply find my best safe velocity. From there I fine tune seating depth or finer charge weight or crimping to get accuracy and was done in two range sessions around 20rds total.

I think the difference is some understand that you can't actually "tune" the accuracy of a load, either the barrel likes the combination or it doesn't. So he had to find a bullet that shot acceptably, because no amount of load "development" will make a load go from 1.75" in testing to .89" for 10 shots confirming by tweaking powder charge or seating depth. It's not budget friendly, but it's what has to be done to find the load that shoots in that barrel. People are just commonly mislead by small sample size variability.

 

[TaperPin]

I like it.

There are many biting their tongues, and while it’s not the traditional route, as long as you end up with a load that’s good enough, that’s all that matters.

 

[wyosam]

I pretty much just go down my list of preferred bullets- load a few at low/medium/high charge. If they aren’t shooting how I want, try another powder. If they’re really bad, just move to the next bullet. Honestly with most modern bullets in good barrels it’s rare they won’t shoot well.


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