Velocity is one thing I'm not hung up on. I do use a chrony in load development, but the ES and SD across more than three or five shot groups mean more to me than average velocity. I do want to know my average velocity when punching numbers into my ballistics programe while assembling a drop chart, but thats just another number to calculate along with others.

I always felt for a new reloader their time is best spent learning proper case prep work than simply dumping powder, squishing a bullet over top of it, and going to the range to find anything meaningful in total velocity while shooting over a chrony. Its fun and new I'll admite it. We were all there when we started.

I now have tools on my bench that I scoffed at starting out more than 20 years ago. Concintricity gages, 1 inch spline mics, mics to check case neck wall thickness, good hand priming tools. Primer pocket uniforming tools, deburr tools for flash holes, more dies than you could ever make use of in a life time. I guess what I'm driving at is we accumilate all these gadgets for one goal. Accurracy. Not velocity but accurracy.

If you are getting into the longrange game, accurracy is your friend. All the velocity in the world cant bring you accurracy, it just brings you a faster miss. Once you get beyond 500 yards a fast non accurat round is a cold hearted pita. I can adjust my drop chart for a slower round, but i cant do that for an inaccurate one.

If you want a faster bullet shoot a faster caliber but still make accurracy your goal. Load the most accurrate round in a faster caliber you can find and live with the velocity you end up with.

Often a few buddies of mine shoot for fun. Winner doesnt have to buy the beer at the end of the day. Some of them shoot 300 winnys, 7mm mags. Even one shooting a 300 rum. I shoot a custome 30-06. 168 gn berger VLD .005 into the lands in lapua brass, 57.3 gns of IMR4350 lit with fed match primer. Average velocity is around 2800 FPS Best group to date .376 with that load, but averages closer to 1/2 at 100. And I was laughed at when i first brought it out. I wack steel plates all day long out to 500 more accuratly than their factory jobs that they never load for.

If I really want to scare them, I take the 6mmBR. That sucker is so accurrate its almost boring to shoot. It really is like cheating with that thing.

Just my two cents.




Last edited by BriGuy; 08/13/16.