working up a load

[kent]

For those of you who are fairly new to reloading and maybe a few old hands who are maybee looking to add or subtract from thier established proceedures for reasons of economy or effeciency i thought it might be worth putting my own personal ways down. my own ways of course have changed over the years modified and adapted by experiance and the experiance of others passed on to me.

 

Firstly to mention pressure, there is only one true way to measure its level within the chamber and that is with the appropraite testing gear. All other ways of case reading etc are but indicators and it is not fair to say that lower fills are always better as too low and you risk the chamber pressure peaking too fast, the issue being that for 999 times you might get away with it but on that one occasion.............

So refer to a guide and never reduce start loads. Loading must be done at the users own risk as a balance of componants can redically change the safe balance of a load even tollerance of equipment used so do not start too high either

 

1. decide what you want to achieve before starting. Sounds simple but many seem to miss this stage out. When producing say a deer load for boiler room shots it simply dont matter a bit if it "only" shoots inside 2 moa, you aint ever going to miss because of the load provided you shoot within the normally exepted boundries and are a reasonably competant shot. Terminal performance of the bullet and its preffered impact speed are the important bits. For a long range crow round say then this sort of presision just wont cut it though just about any good body hit is going to be terminal and meat damage is not an issue, fast, flat tight shooting with good ability to buck the wind will be far more relivent. Starting to produce a round without a clear idea of what you want is lagely just a waste of money,time and componants.

2. Learn all the outward signs of pressure before you start. Primer reading is not the be all and end all i have had pressure signs before cratered or flattened primers, which in themselves might be quite close to disaster or just indicators of badly prepped or worn out cases over sizing the shoulder will produce extractor marks etc. but so will too much powder etc. so be sure everything is good to go first. Any change (increase) in bolt presure on extraction though and stop. It always best to start with new or newly harvested cases from factory rounds that have been fired only in your rifle. Space prevents a full illustation of pressure reading but again a loading guide is a good investment regardless of how much info is on the web, an experianced mate is great but be aware of the instant expert or the guy who has "done it for years" its easy to have 10x1yr experiance rather than say 10yrs experiance.

3. when i work up a load i personally preffer to do it on a hot day as developing a great load at 6 degrees is all well and good but it might be over the top on a good hot day. I start with just one round all constucted the same way with the same componants and a chronograph. the idea being i just litrally fire them off from start load to top load, recording the readings and watching (and stopping) if i see anything i dont like, i might exceed the book max as i have confidence in what i am doing and want to find how "within the safety zone" i might be i recomend others to stick to book max and no more though unless you feel you have the required experiance. If speed climes beyond desireable levels i stop it a sure sighn of pushing things too far. Its suprising how often speed fails to continually increasewith powder charge, remember certainly with rounds like the .243 ai you are generally going to need a longer than normal barrel to burn the extra powder. So if that extra 1 1/2 grains aint doing nowt why put it in ? What you are left with is hopefully some lower end start loads that you dont need to knock up into batches for testing and indicator of were any pressure might occur and the range of velocities you might expect.

4. Now out of those make up 9 of each level and test them at the furthest range you intend to shoot them on a good day when you have all the time in the world with no distactions. 100yds testing aint no good if you are producing a 300yd+ varmint round and the reverse might be said for a woodland stalking round were 100yds is often a long shot. This will give you three groups of three shots from which to work out an average group size. Heavy barreled varmint / target rifles i might step up to 3 sets of 5. Do not just look at the best single group as it could be fluke, do not discount fliers as these can indecate a poor round as much as poor shooting or a wind change. Select the best two loads or the best one if you intend to replace an existing load and batch up a goodly number for field testing one against the other side by side simultaniously. Normally i might just use up the rest of the box of bullets. Record all velocities when shooting your first batches of 3 or 5 etc and from this work out the standard deviation if its for a longer range round as it makes a big difference if you have consistant velocities within a low range band, in deed i might even select the lowest deviation over a slightly more accurate one in the batch accuraccy tests. This obviously pertains more to longer range ammo than the previously mentioned woodland deer round.

5. Terminal performance. having now produced what you see as a safe and accurate round you need to start testing on quarry. All hunting bulletrs behave differently at different impact speeds, does that deer round over fragment at high impact speeds? then reduce its speed. Does the varmint round behave like a penatrating round at increased ranges within your envolope or create splash wounds at shorter ranges / higher impact speeds. No point having the most accurate, safe and well constucted round in the world that doesn't behave itself as intended on quarry

[Redgum]

A very good idea to give a few basic steps kent, especially with a few worrying posts that have popped up over the last few months. I think if you take your time and follow these basic rules then the passage into successful reloading can be a safe and rewarding one. After a while, with enough reading and understanding of how your equipment works, I think you get a 'feel' for reloading ammunition. All the die manufacturers give pretty comprehensive instructions on how to use their equipment and there are some excellent tutorials on Youtube that experience reloaders have been kind enough to post. All my dies get stripped down and cleaned, not only does it keep them performing well but you get an understanding of how they work which helps when you have a problem.

There is very little experiment in my reloading now and load 85gr and 100gr sp in 243 and 150gr sp in 308, painfully consistant loads that save me a fortune. In the begining I would load lots of ammo and spend half a day zeroing, now its literally one shot zeroing to make sure the sight hasnt been knocked hard. When I put the cross hairs on an amimal I have complete confidence that the rifle will do its bit, this really adds to the quality of your hunting enjoyent.