Load Development Increments

np307

np307

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I'm curious as to everyone else's strategies for load development. I don't have a chrono (maybe one day), so my loads get tested simply according to accuracy at 100yd. Today I went and tested some 30-06 loads with Barnes 168 gr TTSX and IMR 4064. I loaded up several samples from the minimum to the maximum in .5 grain increments.

For pistol rounds, I tend to use .3 grain or even smaller increments due to how small the spread between maximum and minimum is.
 
I only load rifle and do .5gr increases until I get to where I need to increase at a smaller rate


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I’ll generally do .4gr increments in 5.56 and if I find a node, I’ll work around it up and down to see what works
 
11B CIB said:
I’ll generally do .4gr increments in 5.56 and if I find a node, I’ll work around it up and down to see what works
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Pretty much this. I never go tighter than .2gr in rifle.

Pistol I have gone .1gr chasing power factor which is so slight it probably doesn't matter.

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Beef15 said:
Pretty much this. I never go tighter than .2gr in rifle.

Pistol I have gone .1gr chasing power factor which is so slight it probably doesn't matter.

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I’ve gone .1gr in my pistol trying to find the lightest possible load for my G19 + suppressor that would function reliably
 
With pistol I always used .2 grain increments until I reached 100% reliability, I usually not accurate enough with a handgun to notice any major difference there. With rifle I like .5 increments then will work around the sweet spot to reach the load I like.
 
For rifle I typically do a pseudo OCW method.

I typically load up 3 rounds of each charge. I always shoot them as a group instead of doing the round-robin method in OCW, as it is easier for me to keep the chrono data together. Once I have narrowed the range down, I will load up 5 rounds of each charge to zero in on a good node.

For pistol, it depends on the charge amount. I like to have no more than 5 levels of charge, so about 2-3% step sizes.
 
@BurnedOutGeek Have you found the OCW data on that site to be reliable? Say I wanted to just start at what he lists OCW for .308 with 178 gr bullets, should I try charges around that, do the test myself, or just go straight into playing with COAL? Obviously, if it was a max charge I would work up to it for safety reasons.
 
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RockRiver said:
@BurnedOutGeek Have you found the OCW data on that site to be reliable? Say I wanted to just start at what he lists OCW for .308 with 178 gr bullets, should I try charges around that, do the test myself, or just go straight into playing with COAL? Obviously, if it was a max charge I would work up to it for safety reasons.
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Honestly I have no idea. I shoot some oddball stuff that usually doesn't have a lot (or even any) premade data when I get it.
 
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